INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 37 



grounds some time before, and I urged upon her 

 that we really needed a boat, and I showed clearly 

 also at least it was clear to my boyish mind 

 that it would be a paying investment because I 

 could hire it out to people who lived back from 

 the Lake and who frequently came down to fish. 

 When I had persuaded her to give me $15 out 

 of her savings I bought " The Oregon," a trim 

 little craft about fourteen feet long and narrow 

 on the keel. I was not long in discovering that 

 the little sail boats on the Lake could pass me and 

 that rowing, while it might be a manly exercise, 

 was laborious. Thus, although I got my boat and 

 it did prove a p-aying investment, the money re- 

 ceived for its hire never found its way back into 

 the savings fund. For it went to pay for sail 

 cloth, ropes and pulleys and in the loft of the old 

 wagon-house all secretly, I cut and sewed some 

 sails. I did not fully trust my own seamanship, 

 though I was accustomed to the Lake in its variable 

 moods, so I induced my elder brother to strip and 

 go in swimming with me. Then I bantered him 

 to go with me out into water beyond our depth, 

 upset the skiff and see if both of us could hold to 

 it and ride on that narrow keel. Having done 

 this successfully, we tried to see how far we could 



