"Down at the Dinghy" is a short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by J. D. Salinger

J. D. Salinger

Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980....

, originally published in Harper's

Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

in April 1949, and included in the compilation, Nine Stories

Nine Stories (Salinger)

Nine Stories is a collection of short stories by American fiction writer J. D. Salinger released in May 1953. It includes two of his most famous short stories, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "For Esmé – with Love and Squalor". Nine Stories (1953) is a collection of short stories by American...

. It is arguably the least dramatic story in the Glass family

Glass family

The Glass family is a group of fictional characters that have been featured in a number of J. D. Salinger's short stories. All but one of the Glass family stories were first published in The New Yorker; several of them have been collected and published in the compilations Nine Stories, Raise High...

 saga. It is told in two distinct segments, the first being a discussion between two house servants about a little boy who is trying to run away, and the second being the mother's intervention.

Plot summary

It features the first daughter of the Glass Family, Beatrice "Boo Boo" Glass. The story opens with the two house servants, Mrs. Snell and Sandra, discussing Boo Boo's young son, Lionel. Sandra is also very worried that Lionel will tell Boo Boo something that she said. The reader finds Lionel has a penchant for running away. When Boo Boo returns she chats with the servants for a while and then goes down to the pier. She finds Lionel in a dinghy preparing to cast off. Boo Boo pretends to be admiral of the imaginary ship in order to win Lionel over and discover why he is trying to run away. He resists, even going so far as to throw his uncle Seymour's old goggles into the lake.

Lionel tells Boo Boo that Sandra called his father a "big sloppy kike". While he doesn't know what this ethnic slur means, defining it as a kite when asked the meaning of the word from his mother, he picks up on its derogatory nature. Boo Boo attempts to comfort him. At the end of the story, they race across the beach toward home, and Lionel wins.

Characters

• Boo Boo: Many allusions are made to Boo Boo throughout the Glass saga, although she is rarely encountered in any of the other stories, such as Franny and Zooey
  Franny and Zooey
  Franny and Zooey is a book by American author J.D. Salinger which comprises his short story, "Franny", and novella, Zooey. The two works were published together as a book in 1961; the two stories originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1955 and 1957, respectively...
  
  , or Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
  Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
  Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction is a single volume featuring two novellas by J. D. Salinger, which were previously published in The New Yorker: Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction . Little, Brown republished them in this anthology in...
  
  . She is referred to as the perpetual matron of the family, and this story brings this to the forefront.

• Lionel: This is the only story in which Lionel appears or is even mentioned.

• Uncle Webb: Referred to by Boo Boo when Lionel kicked goggles into the lake. Boo Boo told Lionel, her son, that the goggles belong to his Uncle Webb and that they once belonged to his Uncle Seymour. Salinger's Uncle Webb reference is odd because in _Franny and Zooey_ Salinger defines the seven Glass siblings as Seymour, Buddy, Boo Boo, Walt, Walker, Zooey, and Franny.

Related works

Other Glass Family stories include:

• Franny and Zooey
  Franny and Zooey
  Franny and Zooey is a book by American author J.D. Salinger which comprises his short story, "Franny", and novella, Zooey. The two works were published together as a book in 1961; the two stories originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1955 and 1957, respectively...
  
  ,
• Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
  Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
  Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction is a single volume featuring two novellas by J. D. Salinger, which were previously published in The New Yorker: Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction . Little, Brown republished them in this anthology in...
  
  , and
• Hapworth 16, 1924
  Hapworth 16, 1924
  "Hapworth 16, 1924" is the "youngest" of J. D. Salinger's Glass family stories, in the sense that the narrated events happen chronologically before those in the rest of the great "Glass series". It appeared in the June 19, 1965 edition of The New Yorker, and has never been reprinted...
  
  .