Later on in the day the Meadow-Brook Girls went
aboard the sloop with their guardian, principally for the reason that
Harriet wished to take further lessons in seamanship. She had learned
her compass card well and earned the praise of the grizzled old
skipper, but she was ambitious to accomplish greater things.
Several days passed, during which the drizzle scarcely ceased for a
moment. But during all this time the young woman was not idle, so far
as her new interests were concerned. She had asked questions,
inquiring the names of things and their uses until she knew them
intimately. The ropes and stays, from a mass of complex, meaningless
cordage, had resolved themselves into individual units, each of which
had its use and its purpose; the compass was no longer a mystery, and,
during a lull in the drizzle, when the sun had come out on the fifth
day, Harriet was permitted to take an observation with the sextant,
the instrument with which mariners take sights to determine their
positions at sea.
Harriet was instructed to catch the sun at its zenith, which she did,
noting the figures on the scale of the sextant and from which, under
the instruction of the captain, she figured out the latitude of the
sloop. He allowed her to do all the figuring herself.
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