Yes, no doubt Prudy would have liked it if her mother had approved; for then she could have gone with a clear conscience, and also without fear. But Prudy had suffered in her short life a great deal of what we call "discipline," and had learned pretty thoroughly the lesson of obedience. She knew it is never of the least use for little girls, or any one else, to expect to be happy in the wrong way.

This means, when put into child's English, that if we try above everything else to have a good time, we never have it; but if we try first of all to do right, then the good time will come of itself. Dotty certainly had not tried to do right: now we will see if that beautiful "curved line" of happiness followed her.

She was very young, or she would have known better than to trust herself on the ocean with a little boy like Solly Rosenberg, even if her mother had not forbidden it: but Dotty was rash; her bold spirit never feared danger.

If she, or any of the rest of the party, had only looked at the sky! But if they had, I dare say they would have made nothing of it. There were clouds scudding about up there like shadowy sail-boats, and the sun had to fight his way through them, till by and by he gave it up entirely, and never so much as peeped out. By that time it was decidedly bad weather; the light had to be sifted through heavy gray curtains.

This made such a difference with the appearance of everything! The world, which had looked, an hour ago, so gay and light-hearted, was now rather gloomy. The waves, instead of sparkling, only foamed and bubbled; indeed they grew larger every moment, for the wind was blowing a gale. The white sea-gulls hovered over the bay, flapping their wings; and Dotty had never liked sea-gulls. She began to grow a very little uneasy.

"It was naughty for us to come," thought she, anxious to divide the sin with her companions; "we ought to have minded our mothers."

If the sky had continued fair, it may be Dotty would not have felt so guilty, though you and I know the weather had nothing to do with the sin; disobedience is disobedience always, whether it rains or shines.

The little Jewess grew very pale, said she was dizzy, and wished to change places with Dotty.

"Keep still, can't you, girls?" cried Johnny; "if you fuss round so the boat'll be sure to upset."

Johnny looked as dignified as if he had navigated ships across the Atlantic Ocean over and over again; but then, alas! his arms were so little! I suppose his paddle had nearly as much effect as if it had been an iron spoon; and he probably knew as much about boating as he did about the dead languages. Solly and Freddy were several years older, and considerably wiser; but the wisdom of all these five children, if it had been compounded together, would not have amounted to the wisdom of the three wise men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl.

"O, dear!" screamed Dotty.

"O, dear! dear! dear!" cried Lina; "the water rolls in over the top!"

"Can't you steer for the shore, Solly Rosenbug?" said Dotty.

"You hadn't oughter made us come," sobbed Lina.

Johnny joined the mournful chorus.

"There goes my hat! You were in pretty business knocking it off my head, Dot Dimple!"

"I never; and I didn't mean to," replied Dotty, too much subdued to retort with her usual spirit.

"Fish it out with the paddle," remarked Solly, coolly.

This was intended as a joke, for the hat was already bounding far, far away over the waste of waters. Dotty knew she should always be accused of losing it, though in her secret soul she was sure the wind had blown it off. But a new hat, as we all know, is a mere trifle when we have gone to sea in a bowl! The first thing we think of is how to get home.

"Ahem!" ejaculated Solly, at last, "if you are really afraid, Lina, I suppose we'd better go ashore!"

Lina clapped her hands. "O, do! do! do!"

"Yes, indeed," said Dotty; "and, Solly, don't you bump too hard against the shore, 'cause 'twould spill us out."

It was very easy to talk about touching the shore: all the difficulty lay in being able to do it. Not that it was so very distant; indeed, it was in full sight, "so near, and yet so far!" If the wind had only been quiet, instead of "cracking its cheeks!" But, as it was, the boat rocked fearfully, and seemed to be blowing directly away from the land.

Solly and the deaf and dumb boy looked at each other with eyes which seemed to say,—

"The thing is coming to a pretty pass! Only you and I to manage this craft, and we neither of us know what we are about! But we'll keep a stiff upper lip, and make believe we do!"

"Why, Solly Rosenbug!" said Dotty, catching her breath, "you're going just the other way!"

"O, Solly Rosenberg," echoed Lina, "you're going the wrong way! There's the shore, off there!"

"Well, well," said Solly, his "stiff upper lip" very white, "we're coming round to it after a while: you just sit still."

"Yes," said Johnny, puffing very hard, and churning the foam with his paddle, as if he were whipping eggs with a beater, "yes, girls, we shall row round to it after a while, if you'll only keep still!"

I dare say Johnny thought the most of this commotion was made by his paddle. He was quite as consequential, in his way, as the fly who sat on a wagon-wheel, and said to the wagon, as it rattled down hill, "What a noise we make!"

"We wouldn't put for the shore at all," continued Johnny, "if it wasn't for you girls."

At that moment a remarkably high wave leaped over the side of the boat, and wet Johnny to the skin.

"Just enough wind to make it pleasant!" gasped the little fellow.

"O, dear! O, dear!" sighed the girls, in despair.

"Ugh! how my arms ache!" groaned Johnny, stopping to rub them. "Guess I wouldn't say much if I was nothing but a girl, and didn't have to paddle!"

"O, you needn't fuss with that paddle any longer, Johnny Eastman," said Solly, who had hitherto paid no heed to the little boy's vigorous but useless struggles; "you just drop it; it doesn't amount to anything."

"What! what!" cried Johnny, looking very much insulted. "How are you ever going to get ashore without ME, I'd like to know?"

All this while the boys were growing crimson in the face from the gigantic efforts they made, and the girls very pale with fright. Solly kept repeating,—

"Don't you be afraid, girls!" but his voice faltered as he said it; and as for Freddy Jackson, the trembling of his mute lips was as eloquent as speech. The two boys might put on what blustering airs they pleased—it all amounted to nothing; there was more power in the wind than in the muscles of their small arms. The boat would not go near the shore: anywhere else but there. The sky grew more and more threatening, and the wind increased in force.

"We're going to be drow—drow—drownded!" screamed Dotty; "and I told you so: I knew it before! O, if Susy was here with a shingle!"

"We're going to be drownded!" cried Lina; "and, Solly Rosenberg, you hadn't oughter made me come!"

"And you told an awful, wicked story," struck in Dotty, "for, Solly Rosenberg, you said you's old enough to row, and you're nowhere near old enough; and, O! O! O! you don't know how. And I'll tell my father! And he'll never know where I am! And my mother's gone away to aunt Maria Clifford's, and I'm going to be dead when she gets back! And you won't try to row! Susy could row if she was here, and had a shingle. But Susy isn't here, and hasn't any shingle! O! O!"

All these sentences Dotty thrust out, one after another, having little idea what she said, only conscious of an overwhelming terror and an impulse to keep talking.

Suddenly poor Solly Rosenberg dropped his oar, exclaiming,—

"There, it's of no use; my arms are giving out!"

Freddy Jackson held out a few moments longer, then dropped his oar also, with a look of utter hopelessness.

"Why don't you keep a pullin', boys?" said Johnny, dipping in his useless little paddle.

The boat whirled about like an egg-shell, completely at the mercy of the waves. If your papa and mamma had seen it, they would have said there was the last of Dotty Dimple. But, on second thought, you may be sure it was not the last of her; for if she was going to be drowned in the sixth chapter, I should never have written this book.

It was a wonderful mercy that the five rash children were spared; but life is full of just such mercies; and of course I knew all the while what was coming, or I could not have written so cheerfully.

What was coming?

"I see something," shouted Dotty, "ever so far off! It isn't a gull!"

"It's a sail! a sail!" cried Solly, and took to his oars again.

"A sail! a sail!" thought Freddy Jackson, though he could not say it; and he steered once more, with courage renewed; though, as to that matter, it would have been just as well if they had kept still.

By the time the sail-boat came up to the wherry, the children were thoroughly drenched and sobered. A more subdued set of little sailors the captain had never seen.

"Well, now," said he, patting the little girls on the head, "I had a fine lecture made up for you crazy chickens; but you are all so meek, that I reckon I'll just take you on board, and not scold you till I get you ashore."

It was the narrowest escape! and they all knew it. The "foolish chickens" hid their heads, and made mental resolves that they would never, never venture out of sight of land again without some older person to take care of them.

"Don't you tell my father, now," said Johnny to Dotty, as they went home, dripping like a pair of sea-bathers.

"Nor don't you tell mine, nor Susy, nor Prudy, neither."

"We shall have to make up some kind of a story," added Johnny, reflectively. "I don't know but we reached over too far after sea-shells, didn't we, and fell into the bay? You did (say), and I got in after you, and pulled you out by your hair."

"Why, Johnny!"

"Well, then, you didn't; I fell in, and you pulled me out—by the boots; only my boots would have come off, though, they're so big!"

"O, Johnny Eastman!"

Dotty had stopped short in the road, and was looking at her cousin with an expression of mingled pity and scorn.

"Then make up something better to suit yourself."

"I don't make up stories, I just hope I don't," returned Dotty, squeezing the skirt of her dress indignantly.

"But," said Johnny, "they'll know it wasn't all rain-water."

"Then I shall tell the whole, whole truth," exclaimed Miss Dimple, setting her feet down so firmly that the water made a gurgling noise in her boots. "I'll tell how you boys teased us girls to go."

"O, ho, Dot Dimple! that's as much of a story as pulling out by the hair! I didn't want you to go. I tried to stop it."

"Yes, I know it, and that was why I went," said Dotty, gravely! "I wasn't going to have you say I mus'n't! If you'd been willing, I shouldn't have gone a step."

By this time they had reached Mr. Eastman's gate.

"You tell if you dare!" said Johnny. And, after that, Dotty never thought any longer of trying to conceal a single item of their remarkable adventure. Since Johnny had dared her, she would certainly tell.