isa-normaladvance-1913-00177

Description:	THE NORMAL ADVANCE177his highness more thoroughly and securely tothe wharf, and then we put him through all hispaces. There was certainly some noise madearound that vicinity for a couple of days. Boneexplained that we had changed the exhaust togo direct through the side. Hence no silentunder-water exhaust, but according to Bonemuch more speed.AVe experimented under the protection of thesolid dock for a couple of days. At the closeof the second day we remounted the propellerand decided upon a voyage for the ensuingmorning. Of course I wanted to go awfullybad, but that intervening night passed dreadfully fast.I climbed into the chair behind the steeringwheel, and prepared for the worst. Bone clambered into the space in front of the enginepreparatory to starting it. He was the onlyone thin enough to get there with any comfort.It was only with great difficulty that I was ableto squeeze into the space at all, and then to beso close to that sputtering, exploding engine,was more than I cared for anyway.With a roar and a jerk we started. I grittedmy teeth and steered up stream, keeping asclose to the bank as possble. How that waterflew past! Then suddenly there was a slightgrating and we stopped with a jerk. It wasBones turn to be indignant now.AVhy dont you watch where youre going?he screeched. Do you expect this boat to goover a sandbar?Why dont you shut off the engine? Wellplow a furrow clear through it if you dont,We worked the rest of the day in disentangling tli£ Pirate from that sandbar, and in cleaning the sand from the pump.During the ensuing weeks we made manymore up-stream voyages. I am positive thatwe had some hair-raising event happen on eachone. ■One time the Pirate balked right over a spotwhere dynamite was about to blow up a snag,and after drifting out of the danger zonestarted again almost in time to run into it forthe explosion. At another time we ran into abarely submerged snag and came near capsizing. On another instance, the timer went ona strike and wTe floated on the nice, warm surface of the AVabash for about three hours beforewe could come to terms with it. One afternoonBone negligently forgot the monkey wrenchand, of course, on that afternoon of all afternoons, the shaft came loose from the engine,and we had to be towed in by a friendly launchthat happened along. Yet another time wewere caught in a storm. As was usual at suchtimes, the Pirate balked. AVe thought the stormand rain were awful, but we recalled the nextday, that the fisherman who pulled us into theshore in his john-boat, stopped and lit his pipewhile doing so. Still another eventful day,when the Pirate had just finished one of hisrobust capers and was then pouting becauseBone and I did not seem to appreciate it, Bonewho was sitting in the stern, sighted a riverfreighter coming down the river, at the samemoment that I sighted one coming around thebend in our rear. It took no expert to see thatthese monsters would pass, and that when theypassed we and the Pirate would be betweenthem.I did riot stop to wait for Bone, but jumpedover in front of the engine. To make sure, Iprimed it, and then began throwing over thewheel. I threw over that slippery, contrarywTheel thirty-one times. (My previous recordwas seventeen.) Then, just as my backbonewas coming unraveled, the engine gave a hollowchug, a reproving tut tut, coughed a pint ofwarm gasoline in my face, and died as dead asan Egyptian mummy. I was just recoveringfrom this when several gallons of nice, muddyWabash river water rolled over the side of thePirate and gave other thoughts to occupy mymind. The river freighters had passed. Itwas discovered later by Bone that I had forgotten to replace the spark plug after primingthe engine.Such were a few of the experiences we wentthrough during the first two months of our vacation. One month remained, and now came anevent that, although long in coming, was
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/34622
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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