“I really can’t eat another mouthful!” exclaimed Tommy.  “I gueth I’ll go up on deck and walk thome.”

“And I guess you will stay right here and wash the dishes with me,” commanded Margery Brown.  “Do you think I am going to wash them alone, while you promenade on deck?  Not I!”

“I had forgotten about the dithheth.  But I’ve got a plan about that.  You jutht put the dithheth in a bag and thouthe them up and down in the lake.  Then you put them on deck till they dry off.  Now, ithn’t that a plan?  That ith a better plan than Harriet thaid jutht now.”

“I feel sorry for your house if you ever own one,” laughed Harriet, beginning to clear off the table.

“Yeth tho do I. But I feel more thorry for the folkth who have to live with me.”

“I propose that we all take a hand in doing the work,” suggested Harriet.  “The evening is so fine that we should enjoy it together.  I’ll clear off the table.”

“And I’ll brush it,” offered Jane.  “Then I’ll sweep the floor.  Say, this is fine.  All one has to do with the rubbish is just to drop it overboard.  The fishes will come and clean it up.  It’s easy to keep house on a houseboat.  We’re going to have a fine time this summer.  I feel it in my bones.”

The supper work was cleared away quickly.  Jane filled the hanging lamps, while Harriet trimmed and filled the lantern that was to be put out as a night light so that other craft should not run into them during the night.

“All hands on deck!” commanded Harriet, after the last of the work had been finished.

“That reminds me.  We must elect our officers,” said Miss Elting, after the girls had climbed to the pleasant upper deck.  “Whom shall we have for our captain?”

“I gueth Harriet will make a good captain,” suggested Tommy.

The girls agreed to this.

“I suggest then, that Jane McCarthy be chief officer—­that is, the next in line to the captain—­with Margery as purser, Hazel as third officer, and Tommy, what would you like to be?” asked Miss Elting.

“I gueth I’ll be the pathenger,” decided little Tommy wisely.

There was a chorus of protests at this.

“You and I will be the fourth and fifth officers respectively,” announced the guardian.

“What doeth the fourth offither do?”

“Not much of anything.”

Tommy nodded approvingly.

“Then I am that,” she announced.  “Harriet ith a good captain.  Harriet knowth thomething about everything.”

Harriet shook her head.  She protested that she knew nothing at all about any boat larger than a rowboat.  To be the captain of a scow, was something of a responsibility.  She knew that she would have to be captain in fact as well as in name, and that the navigation and protection of the craft would be on the shoulders of Jane McCarthy and herself.

“There is one thing I do not know, Tommy,” answered Harriet.  “I don’t know how this captain is ever going to get along with the crew she has.  I fear she will have to ship a new crew.  Perhaps you’ll be glad of that, eh, dears?”