"It"s a good thing for you," he said to Frank, "that the steamer didn"t go ash.o.r.e anywhere near their house. They"re a pair of born young wreckers. Just think of the tricks they played on my sister Annie!"
They were all related in Ford"s most graphic style, with comments to suit from his audience. After that conversation, however, it was remarkable what good attention Dab Kinzer and Frank Harley paid to their sparring-lessons. It even exceeded the pluck and perseverance with which Dab worked at his French; and Ford was compelled to admit, to him in particular, "You ought to have a grown-up teacher,--somebody you won"t kill if you make out to get in a hit on him. You"re too long in the reach for me, and your arms are too hard."
What between the boxing-gloves and the boat, there could be no question but what Frank Harley had landed at the right place to get strong in.
There was plenty of fishing, bathing, riding, boating, boxing: if they had worked day and night, they could not have used it all up. Three boys together can find so much more to do than one can, all alone; and they made it four as often as they could, for d.i.c.k Lee had proved himself the best kind of company. Frank Harley"s East-Indian experience had made him indifferent to the mere question of color, and Ford Foster was too much of a "man" to forget that long night of gale and fog and danger on board "The Swallow."
It was only a day or two after that perilous "cruise," that Dab Kinzer met his old playmate, Jenny Walters, just in the edge of the village.
"How well you look, Dabney!" remarked the sharp-tongued little lady.
"Drowning must agree with you."
"Yes," said Dab, "I like it."
"Do you know what a fuss they made over you, when you were gone? I s"pose they"d nothing else to do."
"Jenny," said Dab suddenly, holding out his hand, "you mustn"t quarrel with me any more. Bill Lee told me about your coming down to the landing. You may say any thing to me you want to."
Jenny colored, and bit her lip; and she would have given her bonnet to know if Bill Lee had told Dab how very red her eyes were, as she looked down the inlet for some sign of "The Swallow." Something had to be said, however; and she said it almost spitefully.
"I don"t care, Dabney Kinzer: it did seem dreadful to think of you three boys being drowned, and you, too, with your new clothes on.
Good-morning, Dab."
"She"s a right good-hearted girl, if she"d only show it," muttered Dab, as Jenny tripped away; "but she isn"t a bit like Annie Foster."
His thoughts must have been on something else than his young-lady acquaintances, nevertheless; for his next words were, "How I do wish Ham Morris would come home!"
There was time enough for that, and Ham was hardly likely to be in a hurry. The days were well employed in his absence; and, as they went by, the Morris homestead went steadily on looking less and less like its old self, and more and more like a house made for people to live and be happy in. Mrs. Kinzer and her daughters had now settled down in their new quarters as completely as if they had never known any others; and it seemed to Dab, now and then, as if they had taken almost too complete possession. His mother had her room, of course; and a big one it was.
There could be no objection to that. Then another big one, of the very best, had to be set apart and fitted up for Ham and Miranda on their return home; and Dab had taken great delight in doing all in his power to make that room all it could be made. But then Samantha had insisted upon having a separate domain, and Keziah and Pamela had imitated their elder sister to a fraction.
The "guest-chamber" had to be provided as well, or what would become of the good old Long Island notions of hospitality?
Dab said nothing while the part.i.tion was under discussion, nor for a while afterwards; but one day at dinner, just after the coming of a letter from Miranda, announcing the speedy arrival of herself and her husband, he quietly remarked,--
"Now I can"t sleep in Ham"s room any longer, I suppose I"ll have to go out on the roof. I won"t sleep in the garret or in the cellar."
"That will be a good deal as Mrs. Morris says, when she comes," calmly responded his mother.
"As Miranda says!" said Dab, with a long breath.
"Miranda?" gasped Samantha and her sisters in chorus.
"Yes, my dears, certainly," said their mother. "This is Mrs. Morris"s house,--or her husband"s,--not mine. All the arrangements I have made are only temporary. She and Ham both have ideas and wills of their own.
I"ve only done the best I could for the time being."
The girls looked at one another in blank amazement, over the idea of Mrs. Kinzer being any thing less than the mistress of any house she might happen to be in; but Dabney laid down his knife and fork, with--
"It"s all right, then. If Ham and Miranda are to settle it, I think I"ll take the room Sam has now. You needn"t take away your books, Sam: I may want to read some of them, or lend them to Annie. You and Kezi and Mele had better take that upper room back. The smell of the paint"s all gone now, and there"s three kinds of carpet on the floor."
"Dabney!" exclaimed Samantha, reproachfully, and with an appealing look at her mother, who, however, said nothing on either side, and was a woman of too much good sense to take any other view of the matter than that she had announced.
Things were again all running on smoothly and pleasantly, before dinner was over; but Dab"s ideas of how the house should be divided were likely to result in some changes,--perhaps not precisely the ones he indicated, but such as would give him something better than a choice between the garret, the cellar, and the roof. At all events, only three days would now intervene before the arrival of the two travellers, and any thing in the way of further discussion of the room question was manifestly out of order.
Every thing required for the coming reception was pushed forward by Mrs.
Kinzer with all the energy she could bring to bear; and Dab felt called upon to remark to Pamela,--
"Isn"t it wonderful, Mele, how many things she finds to do after every thing"s done?"
The widow had promised her son-in-law that his house should be "ready"
for him, and it was likely to be a good deal more ready than either he or his wife had expected.
CHAPTER XV.
DABNEY KINZER TO THE RESCUE.
One of the most troublesome of the annoyances which come nowadays to dwellers in the country, within easy reach of any great city, is the bad kind of strolling beggar known as "the tramp." He is of all sorts and sizes; and he goes everywhere, asking for any thing he wants, very much as if it belonged to him and he had come for his own--so long as he can do his asking of a woman or a sickly-looking man. There had been very few of these gentry seen in that vicinity, that summer, for a wonder; and those who had made their appearance had been reasonably well behaved. Probably because there had been so many healthy-looking men around, as a general thing. But it come to pa.s.s, on the very day in which Ham and Miranda were expected to arrive by the last of the evening trains, just as Dab Kinzer was turning away from the landing, where he had been for a look at "The Swallow" and to make sure she was all right for her owner"s eyes, that a very disreputable specimen of a worthless man stopped at Mrs. Kinzer"s to beg something to eat, and then sauntered away down the road. It was a little past the middle of the afternoon; and even so mean-looking, dirty a tramp as that had a perfect right to be walking along then and there. The sunshine, and the fresh salt air from the bay, were as much his as anybody"s, and so was the water in the bay; and no one in all that region of country stood more in need of plenty of water than he.
The vagabond took his right to the road, as he had taken his other right to beg his dinner, until, half-way down to the landing, he was met by an opportunity to do a little more begging.
"Give a poor feller suthin"?" he impudently drawled, as he stared straight into the sweet fresh face of Annie Foster.
Annie had been out for only a short walk; but she happened to have her pocket-book with her, and she thoughtlessly drew it out, meaning to give the scamp a trifle, if only to get rid of him.
"Only a dime, miss?" whined the tramp, as he shut his dirty hand over Annie"s gift. "Come, now, make it a dollar, my beauty. I"ll call it all square for a dollar."
The whine grew louder as he spoke; and the wheedling grin on his disgusting face changed into an expression so menacing that Annie drew back with a shudder, and was about returning her little portemonnaie to her pocket.
"No, you don"t, honey!"
The words were uttered in a hoa.r.s.e and husky voice, and were accompanied by a sudden grip of poor Annie"s arm with one hand, while with the other he s.n.a.t.c.hed greedily at the morocco case.
Did she scream?
How could she help it? Or what else could she have done, under the circ.u.mstances?
She screamed vigorously, whether she would or no, and at the same moment dropped her pocket-book in the gra.s.s beside the path, so that it momentarily escaped the vagabond"s clutches.
"Shut up, will you!"
Other angry and evil words, accompanied by more than one vicious threat, followed thick and fast, as Annie struggled to free herself, while her a.s.sailant peered hungrily around after the missing prize.
It is not at all likely he would have attempted any thing so bold as that, in broad daylight, if he had not been drinking too freely; and the very evil "spirit" which had prompted him to his rash rascality unfitted him for its immediate consequences.
These latter, in the shape of Dab Kinzer and the lower joint of a stout fishing-rod, had been bounding along up the road from the landing, at a tremendous rate, for nearly half a minute.