



Produced by Susan L. Farley





THE CRUISE OF THE DOLPHIN

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich




     (An episode from The Story of a Bad Boy, the narrator being
     Tom Bailey, the hero of the tale.)


Every Rivermouth boy looks upon the sea as being in some way mixed up
with his destiny. While he is yet a baby lying in his cradle, he hears
the dull, far-off boom of the breakers; when he is older, he wanders by
the sandy shore, watching the waves that come plunging up the beach
like white-maned sea-horses, as Thoreau calls them; his eye follows the
lessening sail as it fades into the blue horizon, and he burns for the
time when he shall stand on the quarter-deck of his own ship, and go
sailing proudly across that mysterious waste of waters.

Then the town itself is full of hints and flavors of the sea. The gables
and roofs of the houses facing eastward are covered with red rust, like
the flukes of old anchors; a salty smell pervades the air, and dense
gray fogs, the very breath of Ocean, periodically creep up into the
quiet streets and envelop everything. The terrific storms that lash
the coast; the kelp and spars, and sometimes the bodies of drowned men,
tossed on shore by the scornful waves; the shipyards, the wharves, and
the tawny fleet of fishing-smacks yearly fitted out at Rivermouth--these
things, and a hundred other, feed the imagination and fill the brain of
every healthy boy with dreams of adventure. He learns to swim almost
as soon as he can walk; he draws in with his mother's milk the art of
handling an oar: he is born a sailor, whatever he may turn out to be
afterwards.

To own the whole or a portion of a rowboat is his earliest ambition. No
wonder that I, born to this life, and coming back to it with freshest
sympathies, should have caught the prevailing infection. No wonder I
longed to buy a part of the trim little sailboat Dolphin, which chanced
just then to be in the market. This was in the latter part of May.

Three shares, at five or six dollars each, I forget which, had already
been taken by Phil Adams, Fred Langdon, and Binny Wallace. The fourth
and remaining share hung fire. Unless a purchaser could be found for
this, the bargain was to fall through.

I am afraid I required but slight urging to join in the investment.
I had four dollars and fifty cents on hand, and the treasurer of the
Centipedes (a secret society, composed of twelve boys of the Temple
Grammar School, Rivermouth) advanced me the balance, receiving my silver
pencil-case as ample security. It was a proud moment when I stood on the
wharf with my partners, inspecting the Dolphin, moored at the foot of a
very slippery flight of steps. She was painted white with a green stripe
outside, and on the stern a yellow dolphin, with its scarlet mouth wide
open, stared with a surprised expression at its own reflection in the
water. The boat was a great bargain.

I whirled my cap in the air, and ran to the stairs leading down from the
wharf, when a hand was laid gently on my shoulder. I turned, and faced
Captain <DW42> (2 Tom Bailey's grandfather.) I never saw such an old
sharp-eye as he was in those days.

I knew he would not be angry with me for buying a rowboat; but I also
knew that the little bowsprit suggesting a jib and the tapering mast
ready for its few square feet of canvas were trifles not likely to meet
his approval. As far as rowing on the river, among the wharves, was
concerned, the Captain had long since withdrawn his decided objections,
having convinced himself, by going out with me several times, that I
could manage a pair of sculls as well as anybody.

I was right in my surmises. He commanded me, in the most emphatic
terms, never to go out in the Dolphin without leaving the mast in the
boat-house. This curtailed my anticipated sport, but the pleasure of
having a pull whenever I wanted it remained. I never disobeyed the
Captain's orders touching the sail, though I sometimes extended my row
beyond the points he has indicated.

The river was dangerous for sailboats. Squalls, without the slightest
warning, were of frequent occurrence; scarcely a year passed that three
or four persons were not drowned under the very windows of the town,
and these, oddly enough, were generally sea-captains, who either did not
understand the river, or lacked the skill to handle a small craft.

A knowledge of such disasters, one of which I witnessed, consoled me
somewhat when I saw Phil Adams skimming over the water in a spanking
breeze with every stitch of canvas set. There were few better yachtsmen
than Phil Adams. He usually went sailing alone, for both Langdon and
Binny Wallace were under the same restrictions I was.

Not long after the purchase of the boat, we planned an excursion to
Sandpe