Priscilla Buckley cruises along the Oxford Canal Books

It’s the narrow boat Forget Me Not, 70 feet long, 7 feet 6 inches wide, a vision in black and red, with roses, red, yellow, and pink, on its shutters, a gaily painted rudder, its brasses gleaming in the muted British sun, inching its way along the Oxford Canal behind a certain sainted junior senator and a buxom,

lighthearted, irrepressible 21-year-old English schoolteacher, Jennie. The bowline stretches taut across their shoulders. Striding ahead, with giant steps, is George Stone, genial head of the math department at Hotchkiss School, a round white sailing hat nesting in his reddish hair about six and a half feet up. Following in close order, their short legs working pistonlike to keep up, are two of the sainted senator’s sainted sisters, junior and senior. Together they and George go to prepare the way for Forget Me Not which is just now about to crash into the lock gates, sainted junior senator and cohort having woefully underestimated the inertial force they had set into motion. But the day is saved. Priscilla and Jane rush ahead, lean their [not inconsiderable—Ed.] weights against the big black-and-white balance beam, and the gates swing open. The other Jane, at the tiller seventy feet back, skillfully straightens her out, and FMN slips in with three inches to spare on either side. Back go the gates and the narrow boat is now as neatly packaged in its cage of wood and stone as a bronco in a rodeo chute. It’s George’s moment.

It’s the narrow boat Forget Me Not, 70 feet long, 7 feet 6 inches wide, a vision in black and red, with roses, red, yellow, and pink, on its shutters, a gaily painted rudder, its brasses gleaming in the muted British sun, inching its way along the Oxford Canal behind a certain sainted junior senator and a buxom,

lighthearted, irrepressible 21-year-old English schoolteacher, Jennie. The bowline stretches taut across their shoulders. Striding ahead, with giant steps, is George Stone, genial head of the math department at Hotchkiss School, a round white sailing hat nesting in his reddish hair about six and a half feet up. Following in close order, their short legs working pistonlike to keep up, are two of the sainted senator’s sainted sisters, junior and senior. Together they and George go to prepare the way for Forget Me Not which is just now about to crash into the lock gates, sainted junior senator and cohort having woefully underestimated the inertial force they had set into motion. But the day is saved. Priscilla and Jane rush ahead, lean their [not inconsiderable—Ed.] weights against the big black-and-white balance beam, and the gates swing open. The other Jane, at the tiller seventy feet back, skillfully straightens her out, and FMN slips in with three inches to spare on either side. Back go the gates and the narrow boat is now as neatly packaged in its cage of wood and stone as a bronco in a rodeo chute. It’s George’s moment.