930 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June ii, 1910. 
We had come to the place three weeks be¬ 
fore, feeling well equipped with a skiff and a 
canoe, till some one dropped the motor boat 
germ in the Boy's brain. It lodged and multi¬ 
plied to such purpose that all his former diplo¬ 
matic achievements faded into insignificance, 
and I never knew Pater to come around more 
speedily or handsomely. Indeed, I rather 
missed the preliminary skirmishes, and the ex¬ 
planations which always accompany his sur¬ 
render. But that very day the Boy departed 
on his quest, and came proudly home the next 
morning with the boat bobbing along behind. 
The boat we later named “What’s-the-matter.” 
Thereupon there opened to us not only a new 
heaven and a new earth, but, much more to our 
profit, new waters. Distance, our former foe, 
became a friend and benefactor. Seated leisure¬ 
ly in the launch, islands which had mocked us 
from afar slipped past like beads on a string. 
Down-the-river cottages became neighbors. 
Swimming pools, whose virtues we had known 
by rumor only, now daily clasped our forms. 
Blueberries, hitherto inaccessible, rattled mer¬ 
rily into our tin pails. Fish which had flirted 
their saucy tails in deeps unknown to rod and 
reel, sizzled in our skillet. The fly-catching 
orchid, winning scant livelihood in a remote 
and lonely swamp, now did a flourishing busi¬ 
ness, and waxed fat, in our front window. We 
wandered into wilds where we heard the call 
of the moose, and once a bear lumbered across 
our path, to our mutual consternation. The 
skiff and canoe, in jealous desolation, ground 
their sides against the rocks, while the oars 
narrowly escaped becoming kindling wood at 
Annie’s hands. I even went so far as to sug¬ 
gest returning the skiff. “We won’t use it any 
more,” I said disdainfully, “so why pay for it?” 
But Pater, whose judgment I secretly respect, 
said, “No, better let it stay.” 
When I think of the times in after days that 
that faithful little friend bore us safely to and 
fro when “What’s-the-matter” would have seen 
us drown or starve, I blush for shame! But at 
the time the motor boat seemed the perfection 
of craft, and the crowning joy of life on the 
French. 
For one whole rosy week this delusion lasted, 
then the imp of the perverse, whose permanent 
abiding place is the gas engine, aroused from 
his slumbers and took a hand in our affairs. 
As we were cruising about one afternoon our 
speed gradually lessened, and “What’s-the-mat¬ 
ter?” we called in concert, as we came to a full 
stop. The Boy admitted that he did not know 
exactly, but after some manipulations on his 
part, we were able to reach home. He fixed 
the boat and started gaily off again, bounding 
over the foam, as the poets say, only to come 
limping home an hour later on one leg, or, in 
mechanical terms, one cylinder. Agqin the-;bo£it 
was fixed, and not till Sunday did our dawning 
suspicions regarding the imp become a con¬ 
viction. Cheerfully had I fished out my con¬ 
ventional clothes, seated myself in the boat, and 
started for service in a cottage down the river, 
and told the Boy, who could not run the boat 
in his church clothes, nor go to church in his 
boating clothes, to call for me at twelve o’clock. 
At peace with the world, I listened to a per¬ 
fectly grand sermon, and afterward enjoyed a 
neighborly chat, pleasantly supplemented by 
visions of stuffed bass and huckleberry pie. At 
half-past twelve I stood, a solitary figure, look¬ 
ing out over a waste of water and wailing, like 
Mariana of the Moated Grange, “He cometh 
not!” 
At one o’clock mine host insisted on taking 
me home in his own new motor boat, relieving 
my embarrassment by declaring that he was 
glad of an excuse to get out- on Sunday. Ac¬ 
cordingly we all got in, his family and I, and 
with an air that was childlike and bland, he took 
the wheel. 
Now, the way you start a motor boat is this: 
You pour some gasolene into two tiny cups 
beside a wheel sunk in the floor, and give the 
wheel a turn. Something goes “choo!” If this 
“choo” had just the right sound you know that 
“it” has “sparked”; then you do something to 
some levers and things, give the wheel another 
turn, and away you go—or you sit still as the 
imp wills. 
We sat still. It was a warm day, mine host 
was a large man, and he worked at that wheel 
till the floor was damp from perspiration, but 
the rocks beside us were not more motionless 
than we. Feeling like a villain to have caused 
all this trouble, I begged him to desist and 
leave me to my fate, but he refused and toiled 
on, another Ixion at his wheel. One of the 
girls came forward to help and mingled her 
perspiration with his—and we sat on, immov¬ 
able as fate. 
Some one remarked that the boat evidently 
objected to going on Sunday, if its owner did 
not, but no one smiled—we did not dare. All 
at once, just as I had decided to leap overboard 
there was a loud “choo,” and we started off 
gaily—backward! 
“Well, go, then,” ejaculated mine host, mop¬ 
ping his brow, “any way you please! 
But the pilotess appeared to have difficulty 
in steering at the wrong end, so after we had en¬ 
graved several handsome designs on the water, 
beside describing the figure 8, narrowly escaping 
the rocks, he reluctantly stopped it, and tried 
again, while we all held our breath and sat 
light. This time we started ahead, and in ten 
minutes I was at home. 
About four o’clock the Boy, tired and hungry, 
came paddling up the river in a borrowed canoe. 
The boat was towed home the next day, and the 
fixing operations began, during which the Boy 
and Pater spent so much time on their heads 
that I feared they would never walk upright 
again; and every sojourner along the French 
who came within hailing distance, called out 
“What’s-the-matter?” So associated in my 
mind is that phrase with that boat that never 
again can I hear it without a vision coming be¬ 
fore me of a sun-browned, hatless boy, with 
sleeves rolled up, bending with puzzled brow 
over a motionless wheel, and never afterward 
did we allude to the boat by any other name. 
At last, resolved to send a cry to Macedonia 
to come over and help us, I took the skiff 
and started out, intending to appeal to a certain 
kind, good, generous neighbor, who knew all 
about motor boats, as well as everything else 
under the sun. But as I approached his de¬ 
mesne my hopes vanished, for there he was in 
his motor boat, presenting to my view that 
same familiar rear section which was all I had 
seen of my own family for days. And it was 
borne in on me, then and there, that the name 
we had given our boat was not a specific, but 
a generic term. Sadly I turned about and 
rowed home, having achieved only this bit of 
wisdom, which I pass on for the benefit of fel¬ 
low sufferers: Never look for help to fix a 
motor boat. One who can is always busy fix¬ 
ing his own—when he is not riding in it. 
When the professional, summoned at last, ap¬ 
peared and took the wheel, that pesky boat 
started off at once and ran for miles without 
a murmur. I have known a sewing machine to 
do the same thing. 
In an article in the Atlantic Monthly some 
time ago, the writer says, “A sailboat is 
romantic and graceful, and beautiful to look at, 
but if you want to go any place, take a motor 
boat.” I would supplement his advice by add¬ 
ing, “and once in a while you will get there.” 
For, after this, when we started out, we never 
knew how or when we would reach home, but 
as Pater said, we were on our vacation anyway, 
and it did not really matter in what particular 
spot \ve were; so, equipped with lunch, books, 
raincoats and the skiff in tow, we defied the 
imp and loafed about the river all day and often 
half the night. 
One night will live long in our memory. The 
Boy had taken some callers home in the boat, 
towing their canoe, and as the evening wore 
on and he did not return, we began to wonder. 
As he could swim like a fish, we had never 
worried about him, for if “What’s-the-matter” 
had taken a sudden notion to dive downward 
and play the torpedo boat awhile which was 
about the only unexpected thing she had never 
done—the Boy would have risen calmly to the 
surface and struck out for home. But after an¬ 
other hour had passed we began to feel uneasy. 
It was a gloomy, depressing night, dark as 
Egypt, with the wind rising higher and higher, 
and a cold drizzling rain beginning to fall. 
Pater paced up and down until he could stand 
it no longer, then took a lantern and the skiff 
and started out. As Annie had retired and Bob 
was with the Boy, I waited with no company 
but the howling wind and the frolicsome Can¬ 
adian mice, which stand in not the slightest awe 
of even a man. At last I heard a welcome 
shout, and flew out to meet the Boy. He had 
run on to the reefs coming home and jumping 
in water up to his chin, had finally succeeded 
in working the boat loose. 
“But where’s your father?” I called. 
“Dad? I don’t know. Isn’t he here?” 
“He went to hunt you,” I explained, “down 
the back channel.” 
“Well, I came up the front. It’s too dark to 
see, and too windy to hear, but I’ll go back and 
try to find him.” And he disappeared again 
into the night. 
After another bad quarter of an hour Pater 
reappeared, and again I ran out in the rain. 
“I can’t find him any place,” he called, now 
thoroughly alarmed. “I can’t imagine! 
“Well, he’s been here,” I announced, “and 
gone off again after you.” 
“Oh,” he said, greatly relieved; “which way? 
Perhaps I’d better-” 
“Now, see here,” I put in, with my teeth 
chattering, “if you two are going to play hare 
and hounds around this river all night, I’ll take 
the canoe and join you, but I’ll not stay here 
alone another minute! Go in and take off your 
wet coat; he’ll be back before long.” And he 
was. 
