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Reel up, Harve, an' we'll pull back."

They were to windward of the schooner, just ready to flirt the
dory over the still sea, when sounds of woe half a mile off led
them to Penn, who was careering around a fixed point, for all the
world like a gigantic water-bug. The little man backed away and
came down again with enormous energy, but at the end of each
manoeuvre his dory swung round and snubbed herself on her rope.

"We'll hey to help him, else he'll root an' seed here," said Dan.

"What's the matter?" said Harvey. This was a new world, where he
could not lay down the law to his elders, but had to ask questions
humbly. And the sea was horribly big and unexcited.

"Anchor's fouled. Penn's always losing 'em. Lost two this trip
a'ready, - on sandy bottom, too, - an' dad says next one he loses,
sure's fish-in', he'll give him the kelleg. That 'u'd break Penn's
heart."

"What's a 'kelleg'?" said Harvey, who had a vague idea it might be
some kind of marine torture, like keel-hauling in the story-books.

"Big stone instid of an anchor. You kin see a kelleg ridin' in the
bows fur's you can see a dory, an' all the fleet knows what it
means. They'd guy him dreadful. Penn couldn't stand that no more'n
a dog with a dipper to his tail.
He's so everlastin' sensitive. Hello, Penn! Stuck again? Don't try
any more o' your patents. Come up on her, and keep your rodin'
straight up an' down."

"It doesn't move," said the little man, panting. "It doesn't move
at all, and indeed I tried everything."
"What's all this hurrah's-nest for'ard?" said Dan, pointing to a
wild tangle of spare oars and dory-roding, all matted together by
the hand of inexperience.

"Oh, that," said Penn, proudly, "is a Spanish windlass. Mr.
Salters showed me how to make it; but even that doesn't move her."

Dan bent low over the gunwale to hide a smile, twitched once or
twice on the roding, and, behold, the anchor drew at once.

"Haul up, Penn," he said, laughing, "er she 'll git stuck again."

They left him regarding the weed-hung flukes of the little anchor
with big, pathetic blue eyes, and thanking them profusely.

"Oh, say, while I think of it, Harve," said Dan, when they were
out of ear-shot, "Penn ain't quite all caulked. He ain't nowise
dangerous, but his mind's give out. See?"

"Is that so, or is it one of your father's judgments?" Harvey
asked, as he bent to his oars. He felt he was learning to handle
them more easily.

"Dad ain't mistook this time. Penn's a sure'nuff loony. No, he
ain't thet, exactly, so much ez a harmless ijjit. It was this way
(you're rowin' quite so, Harve), an' I tell you 'cause it's right
you orter know. He was a Moravian preacher once. Jacob Boller wuz
his name, dad told me, an' he lived with his wife an' four
children somewheres out Pennsylvania way. Well, Penn he took his
folks along to a Moravian meetin', - camp-meetin', most like, -
an' they stayed over jest one night in Johnstown.

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