While they were resting, Forester paddled them about.  The boys asked him when he was going to let them row, and Forester told them that perhaps they had had drilling enough for one day, and if they chose he would not require any thing more of them, but would paddle them about and let them amuse themselves.  But they were all eager to learn to row.  So Forester consented.

He taught them the use of the oar, in the same slow and cautious manner by which his preceding instructions had been characterized.  He made one learn at a time, explaining to him minutely every motion.  As each one, in turn, practiced these instructions, the rest looked on, observing every thing very attentively, so as to be ready when their turn should come.  At length, when they had rowed separately, he tried first two, and then four, and then six together, and finally got them so trained that they could keep the stroke very well.  While they were pulling in this manner, the boat would shoot ahead very rapidly.  When he wanted them to stop, he would call out, “Oars.”  This was the order for them to stop rowing, after they had finished the stroke which they had commenced, and to hold the oars in a horizontal position, with the blades just above the water, ready to begin again whenever he should give the command.

At first the boys were inclined to stop immediately, even if they were in the middle of a stroke, if they heard the command, oars.  But Marco said that this was wrong; they must finish the stroke, he said, if they had commenced it, and then all take the oars out of the water regularly together.  Forester was careful too to give the order always between the middle and the end of a stroke, so that the obeying of the order came immediately after the issuing of it.

By this means Forester could stop them in a moment, when any thing went wrong.  He would order, “Give way,” and then the boys would all begin to pull their oars.  As soon as any of them lost the stroke, or whenever any oars began to interfere, or any other difficulty or accident occurred, he would immediately give the order, “Oars.”  This would instantly arrest the rowing, before the difficulty became serious.  Then, after a moment’s pause he would say, “Give way,” again, when they would once more begin rowing all together.  All this time, he sat in the stern and steered the boat wherever they wanted to go.

[Illustration:  GOOD ROWING.]

Marco wished to have Forester teach the boys how to back water, and to trail oars, and to put the oars apeak, and to perform various other evolutions.  But Forester was very slow in going on to new manoeuvers before the old ones were made perfectly familiar.  He accordingly spent nearly an hour in rowing about the pond, up and down, to make the boys familiar with the stroke.  He found, as is, in fact, universally the case with beginners in the art of rowing, that they were very prone to row faster and faster, that