The Log of the Snark #220099

It was all due to Captain Joshua Slocum and his Spray, plus our own wayward tendencies. We read him aloud to the 1905 camp children at Wake Robin Lodge, in the Val ley of the Moon, as we sat in the hot sun resting between water fights and games of tag in the deep swimming pool. Sading Alone Around the World was the name of the book, and when Jack closed the cover on the last chapter, there was a new idea looking out of his eyes. Joshua Slocum did it all alone, in a thirty-seven-foot sloop. Why could not we do it, in a somewhat larger boat, with a little more sociable crew? Jack and I loved the water, and a long voyage was our dream. He and Roscoe fell at once to discussing the scheme, the rest of us listening fascinated. This was a few months before we were married. Say we start five years from now, figured Jack, who always seems to be making plans for a tangible eternity. We'll build our house on the ranch and get the place started with orchard and vines and livestock, at the same time going ahead with boat-drawings and building a yacht to suit. Five years will not be too much time. Then, privily, he asked what I thought of it. Too good to be true, was what I thought; but why wait so long? We'd never be younger than we were, and, besides, what was the good of putting up a home and leaving it for seven years 7 — eeven years being the time roughly calculated to carry out our far-reaching plan. I won the day.