By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 11, 1942.
“If that darn supply boat doesn’t come in today,” declared Jimmie Frise, “we’re in a fix.”
“This is three days they’ve given us the go-by,” I stated.
They’ve got us at their mercy this year,” said Jim. “They know we haven’t got the gas for our boats to run up to the Landing and shop.”
“We’re out of bread at my cottage,” I announced: “We have no bacon, three eggs, one pound of butter. And no milk.”
“Everybody in the community is running short,” said Jim. “We went around last night to three or four of the neighbors to try and borrow a few things.”
“Well, it’s only six miles up to the Landing,” I reassured. “After all, we’re not in danger of starvation.”
“Twelve miles there and back,” estimated Jimmie, “is one gallon of gas. And I’ve only got 14 gallons for the whole summer.”
“It’s a wonder some of the people with big launches,” I submitted, “don’t undertake to run up to the Landing and shop for the whole community. I’ve been watching for one of them to start out, and I’m all ready to signal them.”
“If you see anybody start out,” requested Jim, “be sure and get me in on it. I want three loaves of bread, four ham steaks, about half an inch thick. Butter, eggs, bacon. Four quarts of milk. Some canned soup, some oranges…”
“You’ve got a good order there,” I admitted.
“I hinted pretty broadly to the Millers last night,” said Jim. “They’ve got that fast boat and I bet Miller has plenty of gas in his ration book for his boat.”
“He didn’t take the hint?” I inquired.
“No, he hinted back that somebody in the community with a small outboard ought to volunteer to make the trip for the gang of us,” said Jim, “because an outboard uses so little gas compared with a launch.”
“I suppose he’s right,” I muttered. “After all, the idea is to conserve gas.”
“If the supply boat doesn’t come in by 3 o’clock this afternoon,” said Jim, “I think I’ll go around and suggest to the different cottages that we draw lots to see who will run up to the Landing on a shopping expedition for the whole Point.”
“The simplest thing,” I suggested, “would be for one of us to take our boat to shore and get one of the farmers to drive us to the Landing by road.”
“It’s 18 miles by road,” countered Jim. “Thirty-six miles there and back.”
“Well, let’s wait and see,” I subsided. “Somebody is sure to break under the strain. Here’s the whole Point, all sitting watching one another, waiting to see who’ll start for the Landing first. I bet every family in the community has somebody posted to watch all the rest of the cottages.”
Two Kinds of Rowing
“I bet Mr. Cottrelle1, the oil controller, would know the answer to this,” said Jimmie. “He’d say, ‘Row, you lazy slobs.””
“Row 12 miles?” I protested. “We’d have a heart attack.”
“We rowed 12 miles yesterday,” declared Jim. “All of it. After those three measly bass.”
“Ah, but that’s a different kind of rowing,” I pointed out. “Rowing while fishing is pleasure. Rowing for supplies is labor. I’m going to give that Loony Lake supply boat a piece of my mind when they do turn up.”
“We’ve done little else for 15 years,” sighed Jim. “They’ve got us where they want us this year. In the past, any time we felt like a little spin on the lake we’d run up to the Landing and do most of our shopping at Billy Smith’s. He’s the opposition to the Loony Lake supply boat. We never think of going into their store when we go down to the Landing. We always shop at Billy’s.”
“Well, it’s kind of nice to see some other display of merchandise, besides the same old line they’ve got in the supply boat,” I explained. “It’s a wonder Billy Smith doesn’t operate a supply boat this year, with everybody rationed like this.”
“Billy’s got too much sense,” said Jim. “There’s nothing but grief in the supply boat business. Goods spoiling, bread going mouldy, things getting bent and bust in the cramped quarters, so that they are shopworn and people won’t take them…”
“Well, they can’t neglect us like this,” I declared. “Three days and not a sign of them.”
“Maybe their engine broke,” suggested Jim. “It’s getting to be an old boat. Or maybe the boys have joined up…”
“Hey, look,” I interrupted sharply. “There’s the Millers all running down to their wharf!”
We watched the Millers. The whole family came running down the path from their cottage towards the wharf where their smart 30- footer was moored.
“Quick!” cried Jim, leaping up. And we rushed down to our own wharf, leaped into Jim’s square-stern skiff, and Jim had the pull rope on in a jiffy2, and at first jerk his engine spun to life.
As we veered away from Jim’s dock, we saw people running from all the cottages, helter skelter, leaping into their skiffs, rowboats, canoes and launches, and heading for the Millers’.
And as we neared the Miller wharf, there were all the Millers sitting as easy as you please on their dock, in summery attitudes of relaxation. None of them was in their launch. None of them appeared even to be getting into the launch. There were seven boats of various kinds on the water all at the one time. Some of them pretended they just happened to be on the water and steered around the bay aimlessly. But two others besides Jimmie and me went straight to the Millers’ wharf.
“We thought you were starting out for the Landing,” Jim hailed, as we drew alongside.
“Oh, no,” said Miller, lying back on the planks. “We just thought we’d get a little sun.”
“Look,” said Jim, “if that supply boat doesn’t come by 3 o’clock, how about drawing lots among the lot of us on the Point to see who will go up to the Landing for the whole lot?”
“What’s the fuss?” demanded Miller. “The supply boat will be in all right. Don’t fret. They know we haven’t any milk, for one thing. And bread. They’re probably far more worried than we are. It’s probably engine trouble. If they can’t get here by tonight, I bet they hire some other boat and come down.”
The Other Fellow’s Boat
“Well, we’re right down to last year’s canned stuff at my cottage,” asserted Jim. “If it doesn’t come by tonight…”
“You should always keep a little emergency shelf of provisions,” said Miller easily, from his recumbent position.
“You haven’t anything to spare?” I inquired.
“I’m afraid not,” said Miller. “I can hold out until tomorrow, by which time I am sure…”
The two other boats that had drawn near the Millers’ wharf now sheered off and went slowly home. The other boats around the bay returned to their various docks.
“Well,” said Jim, with sudden resolution, “I’m not going to starve on my holidays, for one. I’m going to the Landing.”
Miller sat up.
“It would consume three times the gas in my boat,” he said. “I don’t see why some of you people with outboards don’t make the trip.”
Jim shoved off and spun the rope on the outboard. He had forgotten to shut off the gas and air and it took half a dozen yanks at the rope before it started; during which time Miller was reciting off what supplies he needed.
“Four loaves of bread, three pounds of butter, some sugar, and here’s our ration cards….”
He had them in his pocket all ready. I caught them.
“And six cans of vegetable soup, six quarts of milk, two dozen oranges, two bunches of beets, two heads of lettuce…”
Jim’s engine whammed into life.
“Okay, okay,” we yelled above the din, while Miller excitedly bellowed some further orders which we failed to hear.
A Handsome Order
Our voices had penetrated the full extent of the bay and now, once again, from all directions boats started for us. We returned to our dock, for Jim to make a list of what he required. And while he made out his list and I made out mine, nine boats arrived at Jim’s dock, all with lists already written out.
“I have the feeling,” muttered Jim, when I followed him into his boathouse to get the gas can with his two rationed gallons in it, “that the whole community was waiting for us. And they knew it would be us.”
Some of them had the money with them. Others said to shop at the Loon Lake supply boat store and charge it to their account.
And in 10 minutes we were off up the lake.
Jim’s square stern goes nine miles an hour, but it takes us the full hour to go the six miles to the Landing. This may be on account of the fact that the Landing is up the lake from our place. Probably coming down the lake the boat makes the nine miles an hour. I never checked.
It was a fine sail up the lake, with freshening breeze. We enjoyed the scenery along the shoreline, which was new to us this year, since we had not made the almost daily trips on the lake as in former years. We arrived at the Landing in five minutes less than the hour, and were welcomed very heartily by Billy Smith. In fact, after discussing the question, we decided to do all our shopping at Billy’s not merely to save time and trouble, but just to indicate, in a quiet way the whole village would understand, that the cottagers up at the Point were not to be trifled with in the matter of supply boats.
Besides, it was a very handsome order when you wrote it all down, and Billy was delighted with it. The biggest order of the season so far, he said. And it would be bound to be talked about around the Landing.
So Billy got busy with his boys and filled the cartons and wrapped the stuff up and carted it down to our skiff.
“Anyway,” said Jim, “it’s a 200-yard walk with all this stuff from the other store.”
Inquiries about the supply boat indicated that there had, indeed, been engine trouble. They had had to send all the way to Toronto for spare parts and that had been the cause of the holdup. Billy thought, from what he’d heard, that it might be another two or three days before the boat was got going.
“Why the Sam Hill,” cried Jim, “don’t they rent or borrow another boat? I’ve a good mind…”
“Aw, this will give them a lesson,” assured Billy, his arms filled with cartons, as he headed for our skiff.
“Sure, sure,” I said, “what’s the use of making a row with people you’ve got to deal with all summer…? Anyway, that wind’s getting up.”
So we shoved off, our little skiff laden with enough supplies to feed a lumber camp. Jim yanked and the engine purred and away we went.
“We won’t make nine miles an hour with all this load,” shouted Jim as we steered down the lake for home. “We’re too deep in the water.”
The engine hummed and snarled and gurgled as outboards do. It shoved us manfully, but obviously at less speed than with just the two of us in her.
About two miles down the lake, just as we got comfortable amongst all the freight, the engine began to make funny sounds. It would go slow, then fast. Jimmie began fiddling anxiously with the gadgets, the timing handle and the little gas jigger.
“Leave it alone,” I warned shoutingly.
But in true outboard driver fashion, Jim continued to fiddle, while the engine got steadily worse. It nearly died. Then it started up with a roar. Then it died completely.
“Just a minute,” said Jim, kneeling up over it.
But it was not a minute. It was 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour. I had to take the oars and row, to keep us from drifting out right across the lake.
“I wish we’d brought some canvas or something to cover this stuff,” said Jim during one of his rests from yanking the rope. “It’s going to get splashed.”
The wind was really frisky.
Jim yanked, yanked, yanked. He cussed, got red, got white, got weary. I took a few yanks, but they lacked even Jim’s limited authority over the silly engine. Nothing looks sillier than an outboard that won’t respond. Jim took out the spark-plugs and cleaned them. He drained the carbureter and took the screen out…
The little screen slipped from his, fingers and fell into the lake.
“That cooks it,” he said. “Now we HAVE to row.”
We had drifted about half a mile, which made it four and a half miles down the lake we had to row. Jim took the bow oar and I the stern, in separate seats, so as to balance the skiff a little head-down into the wind.
We rowed cheerfully at first. Then not so cheerfully. Rowing is not one of the better sports, when you have to do it. As pleasure, it is exhilarating. It stretches your muscles, expands your back, makes you feel wide and deep inside. But as work it has nothing to redeem it.
Besides, after the first half hour, in which we seemed to be still opposite the same boathouses we had started in front of, we began to lose our timing…
“It’s your job,” I informed Jim hotly, after we had got into still another series of chopping strokes with Jim half a stroke behind me; “it’s your job, as bow oar, to match your stroke to mine.”
“How can I take little, stubby jabs like you’re taking?” retorted Jimmie angrily.
It Wasn’t Much Fun
So it wasn’t much fun, and the hour and a half we took to reach the Point was as long a one as I recall. The wind, especially after we rounded the Point for the stretch, was lively and the waves splashed spray all over our supplies. We stopped frequently to shift things around so that the bread, sugar, fancy biscuits, and so forth were protected from the spray. But it seeped down anyway.
“I hope our kind neighbors,” I said over my shoulder, “will appreciate this little service we’re doing them.”
“Let’s not hurry along here,” replied Jim. “Let’s take our time so they can see us.”
“They’ll all be watching for us, anxiously,” I agreed. “So let’s make them appreciate the fact that this has been no picnic.”
We labored, therefore, a little harder at the oars. We sagged in our seats, humped our backs, dug the oars deep and leaned far back on the pull. We got into several mix-ups as to timing, because nothing gives the impression of desperate struggle so much as two men floundering around with their oars.
“I bet Miller is feeling his neck3,” I said. “Sitting there on his veranda, with that fast little power boat tied to the wharf. He could have made this trip in fifteen minutes.”
“Well, we have one satisfaction,” declared Jimmie. “Our reputation as public-spirited citizens can’t be challenged after this.”
And then we heard a familiar toot from a boat klaxon and there, steaming out from the bay, was the Loony Lake supply boat, as large as life.
“They’ve been in to the Point,” I cried.
So now we rowed a little harder. And the cargo seemed suddenly to grow heavier. Especially all those items for which we had paid our cash instead of charging at the other store at the Landing.
The end of the story is briefly told. Everybody, including our families, had stocked up. Not even our families had made any allowance for what we had been asked to bring.
Why,” said Miller, “I took it for granted you’d see the boat passing on your way up.”
“It must have been in at some cottage,” was all we could reply.
Miller was willing to take the oranges, the canned goods and even the beets and lettuce, but he said the bread, sugar and other things were of no use to him in their wet condition.
“They’re ruined,” he said. “Why didn’t you take a canvas to cover them?”
All the others were the same way.
“After all,” they said, “you could hardly expect us to take bread saturated with water and soggy boxes of fancy biscuits…”
So in Jim’s boathouse we figured out the loss. And we were about $44 out, counting our own stuff that our wives wouldn’t take.
“Some men are so impatient,” our wives explained. “They ought to know the supply boat will be in sooner or later.”
So the gulls got it. And Jim and I went back to High Rock, back of my place, where we have two cedar chairs; and we watched the stars come out and talked about how essentially heartless humanity is.
Editor’s Notes:
- George Cottrelle was a banker by profession and was appointed Oil Controller for Canada on June 29, 1940 by the wartime government. Note there was gasoline rationing at the time, hence the concern over being careful with their allotment. ↩︎
- On old outboard motors, the pull rope was separate and had to be wound on for each pull. ↩︎
- “Feeling your neck” would mean “being anxious”. ↩︎
- $4 in 1942 would be $73 in 2024. ↩︎
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