My Stomach in a Great Burst of Generosity
August 30
My stomach, in a great burst of generosity, gave up its morning exercise and I woke up feeling wonderful. Not ill, not pregnant. And what a day! The end of summer and the whole world singing, the river burbling down below the house, a nice warm breeze trickling down the back of my neck, and a simply gorgeous breakfast of hot cakes on the terrace overlooking the river. And much gay laughter with our week-end guests. They are old friends and among the very, very few left who know nothing of my spilled secret. (They live in Washington, D. c., and, with all the secrets there, why should they worry about mine?)
Some other dear friends-more than dear friends since they chartered a forty-foot yacht for the season-called us right after breakfast and invited us for a cruise. They don’t know about the little mother to be, either; they’ve been living at sea. I wore my most fetching shorts, and I’m sure no one suspected as I held my breath and my stomach in and stood poised at the prow, the wind blowing back my hair just like in the movies. Guest AI, who considers himself quite a sailor, and Captain Bill, and Pat, who early perfected a neat system of doing darn little while appearing to do much, got us out.
Once free from the marker buoys in the harbor channel, AI, the old salt, with a nonchalant “I’ll take over, Skipper,” headed our good ship across the Sound. With a fine wind we were running smoothly, I and my stomach at peace with the world.
Suddenly there was a terrifying scraping and crunching underneath us and we lurched drunkenly to port.
“We’ve hit something!” I said, clearing up the case neatly.
The ship had stopped dead, still lurched, and the boys got the sails down. AI, very red and silent, climbed out into Long Island Sound. We were miles from shore but there was AI, walking about in an ocean that only came up to his waist. Man overboard! It seems we had run aground on a pile of rocks. They were marked plainly enough on the chart but Al is more accustomed to road maps and the State Highway Department hadn’t got around to putting up a “Dangerous Grade” sign.
Our crew tried a “sea anchor” (correct me if I’m wrong) but that didn’t do any good. They would have tried the motor and backed up, if the reverse gear had been working that weekend. The tide was falling fast, and the more it fell the more the ship lurched, and the less I liked the idea of Jake and me swimming back home to dear old Connecticut.
The day got later, and the crew got hungrier and hungrier. So did the passengers, including Jake.
“Oh, well,” said AI, making the best of it, “the tide will turn about six and if we don’t capsize by then, it’ll float us off.”
Came four o’clock and that familiar emptiness, that well-known galloping stomach feeling,’ but there was nothing to drown the horrid sounds. Water, water everywhere, but not a shower in sight! Glamorous shorts and all, over I went and swam out into the chilly distance. Then, far, far away, treading water like mad, I preserved my secret.
Came six o’clock, and everything got black and I was sprawled out like a starfish with tons of sea water cascading over my head. A real “faint” at last …. Oh, well, who cares about a secret, anyway?
At II P.M. the tide had risen sufficiently to float us. With Captain Bill at the helm we made for shore, all of us hanging over the prow searching with flashlights for the channel buoys. The boat and I were slightly the worse for wear, but the hamburgers at the diner were manna from heaven.