Dab Kinzer: A Story of a Growing Boy by William O. Stoddard (good books to read for women TXT) 📗

board "The Swallow" as a passenger, the anchor was lifted, and the gay little craft spread her white sails, and slipped lightly away from the neighborhood of the forlorn-looking, stranded steamer.

"They'll have her out of that in less'n a week," said Ford to Frank. "My father'll know just what to do about your baggage, and so forth."

There were endless questions to be asked and answered on both sides; but at last Dab yawned a very sleepy yawn, and said, "Ford, you've had your nap. Wake up Dick, there, and let him take his turn at the tiller. The sea's as smooth as a lake, and I believe I'll go to sleep for an hour or so. You and Frank can keep watch while Dick steers: he's a good steerer."

Whatever Dab said was "orders" now on board "The Swallow;" and Ford's only reply was,—

"If you haven't earned a good nap, then nobody has."

Dick, too, responded promptly and cheerfully; and in five minutes more the patient and skilful young "captain" was sleeping like a top.

"Look at him," said Ford Foster to Frank Harley. "I don't know what he's made of. He's been at that tiller for twenty-three hours by the watch, in all sorts of weather, and never budged."

"They don't make that kind of boy in India," replied Frank.

"He's de bes' feller you ebber seen," added Dick Lee. "I's jes' proud ob him, I is!"

Smoothly and swiftly and safely "The Swallow" was bearing her precious cargo across the summer sea; but the morning had brought no comfort to the two homes at the head of the inlet, or the humble cabin in the village. Old Bill Lee was out in the best boat he could borrow, by early daylight; and more than one of his sympathizing neighbors followed him a little later. There was no doubt at all that a thorough search would be made of the bay and the island, and so Mr. Foster wisely remained at home to comfort his wife and daughter.

"That sort of boy," mourned Annie, "is always getting into some kind of mischief."

"Annie!" exclaimed her mother indignantly, "Ford is a good boy, and he does not run into mischief."

"I didn't mean Ford: I meant that Dabney Kinzer. I wish we'd never seen him, or his sailboat either."

"Annie," remarked her father a little reprovingly, "if we live by the water, Ford will go out on it, and he had better do so in good company. Wait a while."

Annie was silenced, but it was only too clear that she was not entirely convinced. Her brother's absence and all their anxiety were positively due to Dab Kinzer, and his wicked, dangerous little yacht; and he must be to blame somehow.

She could not help "waiting a while," as her father bade her; but her eyes already told that she had been doing more than wait.

Summer days are long; but some of them are a good deal longer than others, and that was one of the longest any of those people had ever known.

For once, even dinner was more than half neglected in the Kinzer family circle. At the Fosters' it was forgotten almost altogether. Long as the day was, and so dreary, in spite of all the bright, warm sunshine, there was no help for it: the hours would not hurry, and the wanderers would not return. Tea-time came at last; and with it the Fosters all came over to Mrs. Kinzer's again, to take tea, and tell her of several fishermen who had returned from the bay without having discovered a sign of "The Swallow" or its crew.

Stout-hearted Mrs. Kinzer talked bravely and encouragingly, nevertheless, and did not seem to abate an ounce of her confidence in her son. It seemed as if, in leaving off his roundabouts, particularly considering the way in which he had left them off, Dabney must have suddenly grown a great many "sizes" in his mother's estimation. Perhaps, too, that was because he had not left them off any too soon.

There they sat around the tea-table, the two mothers and all the rest of them, looking gloomy enough; while over there in her bit of a brown house, in the village, sat Mrs. Lee in very much the same frame of mind, trying to relieve her feelings by smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of her boy's best clothes, and planning for him any number of bright red neckties, if he would only come back to wear them.

The neighbors were becoming more than a little interested, and even excited about the matter; but what was there to be done?

Telegrams had been sent to other points on the coast, and all the fishermen notified. It was really one of those puzzling cases, where even the most neighborly can do no better than "wait a while."

Still, there were more than a dozen people, of all sorts, including Bill Lee, lingering around the "landing" as late as eight o'clock that evening.

Suddenly one of them exclaimed,—

"There's a light coming in!"

Others followed with,—

"There's a boat under it!"

"Ham's boat carried a light."

"I'll bet it's her!"

"No, it isn't"—

"Hold on and see."

There was not long to "hold on;" for in three minutes more "The Swallow" swept gracefully in with the tide, and the voice of Dab Kinzer shouted merrily,—

"Home again! Here we are!"

Such a ringing volley of cheers answered him!

It was heard and understood away there in the parlor of the Morris house, and brought every soul of that anxious circle right up standing.

"Must be it's Dab!" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer.

"O mother!" said Annie, "is Ford safe?"

"They wouldn't cheer like that, my dear, if any thing had happened," remarked Mr. Foster; but, in spite of his coolness, the city lawyer forgot to put his hat on, as he dashed out of the front gate and down the road towards the landing.

Then came one of those times that it takes a whole orchestra and a gallery of paintings to tell any thing about: for Mrs. Lee as well as her husband was on the beach; and within a minute after "Captain Kinzer" and his crew had landed, poor Dick was being hugged and scolded within an inch of his life, and the two other boys found themselves in the midst of a perfect tumult of embraces and cheers.

Frank Harley's turn came soon, moreover; for Ford Foster found his balance, and introduced the "passenger from India" to his father.

"Frank Harley!" exclaimed Mr. Foster. "I've heard of you, certainly; but how did you—boys, I don't understand"—

"Oh! father, it's all right. We took Frank off the French steamer, after she ran ashore."

"Ran ashore?"

"Yes. Down the Jersey coast. We got in company with her in the fog, after the storm. That was yesterday evening."

"Down the Jersey coast? Do you mean you've been out at sea?"

"Yes, father; and I'd go again, with Dab Kinzer for captain. Do you know, father, he never left the rudder of 'The Swallow' from the moment we started until seven o'clock this morning."

"You owe him your lives!" almost shouted Mr. Foster; and Ford added emphatically, "Indeed we do!"

It was Dab's own mother's arms that had been around him from the instant he had stepped ashore, and Samantha and Keziah and Pamela had had to content themselves with a kiss or so apiece; but dear, good Mrs. Foster stopped smoothing Ford's hair and forehead just then, and came and gave Dab a right motherly hug, as if she could not express her feelings in any other way.

As for Annie Foster, her face was suspiciously red at the moment; but she walked right up to Dab after her mother released him, and said,—

"Captain Kinzer, I've been saying dreadful things about you, but I beg pardon."

"I'll be entirely satisfied, Miss Foster," said Dabney, "if you'll only ask somebody to get us something to eat."

"Eat!" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer. "Why, the poor fellows! Of course they're hungry."

"Cap'n Kinzer allers does know jes' de right t'ing to do," mumbled Dick in a half-smothered voice; and his mother let go of him, with—

"Law, suz! So dey be!"

Hungry enough they all were, indeed; and the supper-table, moreover, was the best place in the world for the further particulars of their wonderful cruise to be told and heard.

Dick Lee was led home in triumph to a capital supper of his own; and as soon as that was over he was rigged out in his Sunday clothes,—red silk necktie and all,—and invited to tell the story of his adventures to a roomful of admiring neighbors. He told it well, modestly ascribing every thing to Dab Kinzer; but there was no good reason, in any thing he said, for one of his father's friends to inquire next morning,—

"Bill Lee, does you mean for to say as dem boys run down de French steamah in dat ar' boat?"

"Not dat. Not zackly."

"'Cause, ef you does, I jes' want to say I's been down a-lookin' at her, and she ain't even snubbed her bowsprit."

CHAPTER XIV. A GREAT MANY THINGS GETTING READY TO COME!

The newspapers from the city brought full accounts of the stranding of the "Prudhomme," and of the safety of her passengers and cargo.

The several editors seemed to differ widely in their opinions relating to the whole affair; but there must have been some twist in the mind of the one who excused everybody on the ground that "no pilot, however skilful, could work his compass correctly in so dense a fog as that."

None of them had any thing whatever to say of the performances of "The Swallow." The yacht had been every bit as well handled as the great steamship; but then, she had reached her port in safety, and she was such a little thing, after all.

Whatever excitement there had been in the village died out as soon as it was known that the boys were safe; and a good many people began to wonder why they had been so much upset about it, anyhow.

Mrs. Lee herself, the very next morning, so far recovered her peace of mind as to "wonder wot Dab Kinzer's goin' to do wid all de money he got for dem bluefish."

"I isn't goin' to ask him," said Dick. "He's capt'in."

As for Dab himself, he did an immense amount of useful sleeping, that first night; but when he awoke in the morning he shortly made a discovery, and the other boys soon made another. Dab's was, that all the long hours of daylight and darkness, while he held the tiller of "The Swallow," he had been thinking as well as steering. He had therefore been growing very fast, and would be sure to show it, sooner or later.

Ford and Frank found that Dab had forgotten nothing he had said about learning how to box, and how to talk French; but he did not say a word to them about another important thing. He talked enough, to be sure; but a great, original idea was beginning to take form in his mind, and he was not quite ready yet to mention it to any one.

"I guess," he muttered more than once, "I'd better wait till Ham comes home, and talk to him about it."

As for Frank Harley, Mr. Foster had readily volunteered to visit the steamship-office in the city, with him, that next day, and see that every thing necessary was done with reference to the safe delivery of his baggage. At the same time, of course, Mrs. Foster wrote to her sister Mrs. Hart, giving a full account of all that had happened, but saying that she meant to keep Frank as her own guest for a while, if Mrs. Hart did not seriously object.

That letter made something of a sensation in the Hart family. Neither Mrs. Hart nor her husband thought of making any objection; for, to tell the truth, it came to them as a welcome relief.

"It's just the best arrangement that could have been made, Maria, all around," said he. "Write at once, and tell her she may keep him as long as she pleases."

That was very well for them, but the boys hardly felt the same way about it. They had been planning to have "all sorts of fun with that young missionary," in their own house. He was, as Fuz expressed it, to be "put through a regular course of sprouts, and take the Hindu all out of