In the midst of my gazing there came a shock that knocked the tiller out of my hand.  Euphemia sprang to her feet and screamed; there were screams and shouts on the other side of the sail, which seemed to be wrapping itself about some object I could not see.  In an instant another mast beside our own appeared above the main-sail, and then a man with a red face jumped on the forward deck.  With a quick, determined air, and without saying a word, or seeming to care for my permission, he proceeded to lower our sail; then he stepped up on top of the cabin, and looking down at me, inquired what in thunder I was trying to do.

I made no answer, but looked steadily before me.  Now that the sail was down, I could see what had happened.  I had collided with a yacht which we had seen before.  It was larger than ours, and contained a grandfather and a grandmother, a father and a mother, several aunts, and a great many children.  They had started on the river the same day as ourselves, but did not intend to take so extended a trip as ours was to be.  The whole party was now in the greatest confusion.  I did not understand what they said, nor did I attend to it.  I was endeavoring, for myself, to grasp the situation.  Euphemia was calling to me from the cabin, into which she had retreated; the man was still talking to me from the cabin roof, and the people in the other boat were vociferating and screaming; but I paid no attention to any one until I had satisfied myself that nothing serious had happened.  I had not run into them head on, but had come up diagonally, and the side of our bow had struck the side of their stern.  The collision, as I afterward learned, had happened in this wise:  I had not seen the other boat because, lying back as I had been, the sail concealed her from me, and they had not seen us because their boatman was in the forward part of their cabin, collecting materials for breakfast, and the tiller was left in charge of one of the boys, who, like all the rest of his party who sat outside, had discreetly turned his back to the sun.

The grandfather stood up in the stern.  He wore a black silk hat, and carried a heavy grape-vine cane.  Unsteadily balancing himself on his legs, and shaking his cane at me, he cried:—­

“What is the meaning of this, sir?  Are you trying to drown a whole family, sir?”

“If he’d run his bowsprit in among you,” said the boatman from the cabin roof, “he’d ‘a’ killed a lot of you before you’d been drowned.”

Euphemia screamed to me to come to her; the father was standing on his cabin roof, shouting something to me; the women in the other boat were violently talking among themselves; some of the little children were crying; the girls were hanging to the ladies, and all the boys were clambering on board our boat.  It was a time of great excitement, and something must be instantly said by me.  My decision was quick.

“Have you any tea?” I said, addressing the old gentleman.