Chapter 41

SCOOTERS.

"Hello, Dutchy! What in thunder have you got there?"

It was Bill who spoke. We were on our way home for the winter holidays, and had been held up at Millville by Reddy Schreiner, who had informed us that Dutchy was down by the river with the boat to give us a sail up to Lamington.

A vision of a fleet ice boat skimming up the river at express train speed swam before our eyes. But the next moment, as we turned the corner into River Street, we were surprised by the sight of our old scow just off the pier at anchor, and in open water. It was rigged up with a jib and mainsail, which were flapping idly in the wind. It had also been altered by decking over the top, with the exception of a small cockpit, evidently for the purpose of keeping out the water when she heeled over under the wind. We were disappointed and quite annoyed at not finding the ice boat on hand; furthermore, our annoyance was considerably heightened by Dutchy's broad grin of evident delight at our discomfiture. "The river wasn't all frozen over," he explained, "and we couldn't bring the ice boat down, so we rigged up the scow and she came down splendidly."

A SAIL IN THE SCOW.

There was nothing to do but to jump in, though I, for one, would have taken the train in preference had there been one inside of two hours. Dutchy, however, seemed to be in a surprisingly good humor, and kept up a lively chatter about things that the club had made in our absence. The skis, which have already been described on page 42, had been built under Reddy's guidance, and they had already used them on Willard's Hill, coasting down like a streak and shooting way up into the air off a hump at the bottom. Then there was the toboggan slide down Randall's Hill, and way across the river on the ice.

OUR CRAFT STRIKES THE ICE.

Dutchy talked so incessantly that we hadn't noticed the field of ice which we were nearing. Just at this point Bill turned around with an exclamation.

"Here, Dutchy, you crazy fellow, where are you going to? Hard to port, man--hard aport--or you will crash into the ice!"

But Dutchy only grinned nervously.

"I tell you, you will smash the boat!" Bill cried again, making a dive for the steering oar; but just then the boat struck the ice, and both Bill and I were thrown backward into the bottom of the boat. But the boat didn't smash.

There was a momentary grinding and crunching noise, and, much to my surprise, I found that the old scow had lifted itself clean out of the water, and was skating right along on the ice. Then Dutchy could control himself no longer. He laughed, and laughed, as if he never would stop. He laughed until the steering oar dropped from his hands, and the old scow, with the head free, swung around and plunged off the ice ledge with a heavy splash into the open water again. Then Reddy, who was almost equally convulsed, came to his senses. "Now you've done it, Dutchy; you're a fine skipper, you are! How do you expect to get us back to shore again?" The steering oar was left behind us on the ice, and there we were drifting on the open water, with no rudder and no oar to bring us back.

THE SCOOTER SCOW.

The only thing we could do was to wait until the wind or current carried us to the ice or land. In the meantime Dutchy, who had suddenly sobered down when we took our water plunge, explained how he had rigged up the scow to travel both on ice and on water. He called the rig a sled boat, but the name by which such a rig is now known is a "scooter." It was Dutchy's idea primarily, but Reddy had engineered the work. Along the bottom of the scow two strips of hickory had been nailed to serve as runners. The hickory strips had been bent up at the forward end, as shown in Fig. 191. Each runner was shod with a strip of brass, fastened on with flathead screws, which were countersunk, so that the heads should not project below the brass. This virtually made a sledge out of the old scow, and didn't spoil it for use on the water.

A SPRIT SAIL.

A sprit sail and jib were rigged up. The dimensions of these sails, which were taken from a book in Mr. Van Syckel's library, are given in the illustrations. A sheet of heavy muslin was made to measure 7 feet square, as indicated by dotted lines in the drawing; then the corners were cut off along the full lines shown in the illustration. The edges were now hemmed all around, and the lower edge of the sail was lashed to a boom, 7 feet 6 inches long. To the luff were attached a number of mast rings, which were slipped over a stout mast projecting about 5 feet 6 inches above the deck of the boat. The peak of the sail was held up by a spar called a sprit. The sprit was sharpened at each end, and the point at the upper end was inserted in a loop of heavy cord fastened to the peak of the sail, while the lower point of the sprit rested in the loop of a rope on the mast, called a "snotter." The snotter was a short piece of rope with a loop at each end. It was wrapped around the mast, as shown in the drawing, with one loop holding it in place, like a slip knot, and the other supporting the end of the sprit. A single halyard was used to raise this sail. It was attached to the boat and passed over a block in the mast. When raising the sail it was first partly hoisted, then the sprit was hooked in the loop and the snotter, after which the throat halyard was drawn taut. Then the snotter was pulled up the mast as far as it would go, flattening out the sail. The jib-sail was made out of the large corner piece left when cutting the mainsail. The dimensions of the jib-sail are given in Fig. 194. It was such a small sail that no boom was used with it. In place of a rudder the steering oar had to be used. This was made of a rake handle with a large trowel blade fastened to the end of it. The sharp blade cut into the ice, and so steered the scow when it was running as an ice boat, and in the water the blade offered sufficient resistance to act as a rudder.

SCOOTER SAILING.

But to return to our sail home to Lamington, we were not out on the open water long before the current carried us back to the ice ledge. Reddy jumped off and soon returned with the steering oar; then we proceeded on our way homeward, now in the water and now on ice. Once or twice the scow was unable to climb out of the water, because she had not sufficient headway, and was clumsy and heavy with four boys aboard. Then we had to push off until we could get a sufficient start. It struck me that while Dutchy was quite clever to think of such a rig, yet it was very clumsy and capable of much improvement. Bill wasn't saying very much all this time, and I could see he was doing a lot of thinking. Evidently he was planning some improvement, but Bill was a very considerate fellow, and did not want to spoil Dutchy's pleasure just then by telling him how much better a scooter he might have built. It wasn't until after supper, when a meeting of the S. S. I. E. E. of W. C. I. was called, that Bill came out with his scheme.

A MEETING OF THE SOCIETY.

"Why not mount the sailing canoe on runners, instead of the scow? You would have a very light rig then, and it would sail like a streak."

"Mr. President," said Reddy, "your plan sounds first-rate, but how are you going to fasten runners onto the canoe?"

"I've thought all that out," replied Bill. "If we can only get hold of a pair of sleigh runners it won't take long to rig up the sled boat."

Dutchy, who had looked rather crestfallen at a suggestion of an improvement on his pet invention, now suddenly brightened up.

"I know where we can get the sleigh runners!" he exclaimed. "Dad has an old ramshackle sleigh in the barn that is just falling to pieces with dry rot. I'll ask him for it to-night."

"Do you think you can get it?" inquired Bill.

"I guess so," Dutchy answered, rather doubtfully. "But say, suppose we send a delegation to see him about it?"

AN INTERVIEW WITH MR. VAN SYCKEL.

This was agreed upon, and in the morning, as soon as breakfast had been downed, the entire society marched in a body into Mr. Van Syckel's library. I was appointed spokesman, with Bill to back me, while the rest of the party were strung out behind, with Dutchy bringing up the rear. Mr. Van Syckel was not the man to take much interest in boys' work, but we happened to strike him at the right moment, and before our interview was over we had told him all our experiences of the summer before and all our plans for the future. Then we did a good turn for Dutchy, too. Mr. Van Syckel had always considered his boy a "know-nothing," and was very much surprised to find that he had invented the scooter scow. Why, he actually seemed proud of his son, much to Dutchy's embarrassment. After that there was no trouble about getting the sleigh runners, and Mr. Van Syckel forgot the objections he had offered at first.

THE SCOOTER CANOE.

Naturally we were very much elated at our success, and straightway made for the barn, where we began operations on the scooter canoe. The sleigh was an old-fashioned affair, with rather broad wooden runners. First we removed the body of the sleigh, and then the runners were cut down to a height of about 15 inches. We spaced them apart about 28 inches, and connected them with four crosspieces at the top. The runners were now placed over our larger canoe, with forward ends about on a line with the mast, and the crosspieces were fastened with screws to the gunwales. As an additional security, a pair of crosspieces were now run under the canoe at each end and fastened with screws to the keel. At the bow the keel was shod with a strip of brass. The rudder was taken off the boat, and an oar lock was fastened to the stern to hold the steering oar. In place of lee boards we nailed a couple of thin boards over each runner, as shown in the drawing. We were in a hurry to finish this, as our vacation was short, so we used on the scooter canoe the sails that we had made for our ice boat. This required a bowsprit, but as we had little time to spare we used the jib-boom of the ice boat, nailing it to the deck beam of the canoe. We decided that the jib-sail could be used without a boom, as we had done with the scow. The mast was braced by stays attached to the ends of the runners and bowsprit. This spread of canvas was far greater than that originally provided for sailing the canoe, but the heavy runners on each side helped to keep the boat on even keel, and then to further balance the sail a board was nailed across the aft end of the boat. This overhung the runners about 18 inches each side, and in a strong wind we could sit out on the windward end of this board, thus preventing the scooter from heeling over too far.