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

Fuz ain't comfortable they ate too many roasted clams and a good deal too much lobster."

There was a certain degree of consolation to be had from such a fact as that.

CHAPTER XXII. THE REAL MISSION OF THE JUG.

Ham Morris ate well, when he once got at it; but he did not linger long at the dinner-table, for his heart was in "The Swallow." Dab would have given more than ever for the privilege of going with him. Not that he felt so dreadfully charitable, but that he did not care to prolong his stay at Mrs. Foster's, as "cook" or otherwise. He had not by any means lost his appetite,—although he seemed disposed to neglect the lobsters; and when he had taken proper care of it he hurried away "on an errand for his mother," in the direction of the village. Nearly everybody he met had some question or other to ask him about the wreck, and it was not to have been expected that Jenny Walters would let her old acquaintance pass her without a word or so.

Dab answered as well as he could, considering the disturbed state of his mind; but he wound up with,—

"Jenny, I wish you'd come over to our house by and by."

"What for?"

"Oh! I've got something to show you—something you never saw before."

"Do you mean your new baby? the one you found on the bar?"

"Yes, but that baby, Jenny!"

"What's wonderful about it?"

"Why, it's only two years old, and it can squall in two languages.
That's a good deal more than you can do."

"They say your friend, Miss. Foster, speaks French," retorted Jenny.
"Was she ever shipwrecked?"

"In French? May be so; but not in German."

"Well, Dabney, I don't propose to squall in any thing. Are your folks going to burn any more of their barns this year?"

"Not unless Samantha gets married. Jenny, do you know what's the latest fashion in lobsters?"

"Changeable green, I suppose."

"No: I mean after they're boiled. It's to have 'em come on the table in cuffs and collars. Lace around their necks, you know."

"And gloves?"

"No, not any gloves. We had lobsters to-day, at Mrs. Foster's, and you ought to have seen 'em."

"Dabney Kinzer, it's time you went to school again."

"I'm going, in a few days."

"Going? Do you mean you're going away somewhere?"

"Ever so far; and Dick Lee's going with me."

"I heard about him, but I didn't know he meant to take you along. That's very kind of Dick. I s'pose you won't speak to common people when you get back."

"Now, Jenny"—

"Good-afternoon, Dabney. Perhaps I'll come over before you go, if it's only to take a look at that shipwrecked baby."

A good many of Mrs. Kinzer's lady friends, young and old, deemed it their duty to come and do that very thing within the next few days. Then the sewing-circle took the matter up, and both the baby and its mother were provided for as they never had been before. It would have taken more languages than two, to fairly express the gratitude of the poor Alsatians. As for the rest of them, out there on the bar, they were speedily taken off, and carried to "the city," none of them being seriously the worse for their sufferings, after all. Ham Morris declared that the family he had brought ashore "came just in time to help him out with his fall work, and he didn't see any charity in it."

Good for Ham!

It was the right way to feel about it, but Dab Kinzer thought he could see something in it that looked like "charity" when he met his tired-out brother-in-law on his late return from that second trip across the bay.

Real charity never cares to make an exhibition of itself.

They were pretty thoroughly worn out, both of them; but they carefully moored "The Swallow" in her usual berth before they left her.

She had effectually "discharged her cargo," over on the sand-island; but they Had enough of a load to carry home, in the shape of empty baskets and things of that sort.

"Is every thing out of the locker, Dab?" inquired Ham.

"All but the jug. I say, did you know it was nearly half full? Would it do any hurt to leave it here?"

"The jug? No, not if you just pour out the rest of the apple-jack over the side."

"Make the fish drunk."

"Well, it sha'n't do that for anybody else, if I can help it."

"Well, if it's good for water-soaked people, I guess it can't hurt the fish."

"Empty it, Dab. Empty it, and come along. The doctor wasn't so far wrong, and I was glad to have it with me. Seemed to do some of 'em a power of good. But medicine's medicine, and I only wish some people I know of would remember it."

"Some of 'em do a good deal of that kind of doctoring."

The condemned liquor was already gurgling from the mouth of the demijohn into the salt water, and neither fish nor eel came forward to get a share of it. They were probably all feeling pretty well that night. When the demijohn was empty and the cork replaced, it was set down again in the "cabin;" and that was left unlocked, for there was no more danger in it for anybody. Dab and Ham were altogether too tired to take any pains there was no call for.

Dab's mind must have been tired, as well as his body; for he decided to postpone until the morrow the report he had to make about the tramp. He was strongly of the opinion that the latter had not seen him to recognize him; and, at all events, the matter could wait.

So it came to pass that all the shore, and the road that led away from it, and the village the road led into, were deserted and silent, an hour or so later, when a stoutly-built "cat-boat," with her one sail lowered, was quietly sculled up the inlet.

There were two men on board, a tall one and a shorter one; and they ran their boat right alongside "The Swallow," as if that were the precise thing they had come to do.

"Burgin," remarked the tall man, "wot ef we don't find any thin', arter all this sailin' and rowin' and scullin'? Most likely he's kerried it to the house. In course he has."

The keenly watchful eyes of Burgin had noted the arrival of that apple-jack at the island; and they had closely followed its fortunes, from first to last. He had more than half tried, indeed, to work himself in among the crowd, as one of the "sufferers," but with no manner of success.

The officers of the ship knew every face that had any right to a spoonful, and Burgin's failed to pass him. He had not failed, however, to note that his coveted "medicine" was by no means exhausted, and to see Ham stow the demijohn carefully away, at last, under the half-deck of "The Swallow." That information had given all the inducement required to get old Peter and his boat across the bay; and the ancient "wrecker" was as anxious about the result as the tramp himself could be. It was hard to say, now, which of them was the first on board "The Swallow."

"It ain't locked!"

"Then the jug ain't thar."

"Wall, it is," exclaimed Burgin triumphantly, as he pulled it out; but his under jaw dropped a little when he felt "how light it lifted."

"Reckon they helped themselves on thar way hum."

It was a good deal worse than that; and an angry and disappointed pair were they when the cork and the truth came out.

"Thar's jest a good smell!"

That was old Peter's remark; and it sounded as if words failed him to add to it, but Burgin's wrath exploded in a torrent of bitter abuse of the man or men who had emptied that demijohn. He gave old Peter a capital chance to turn upon him morosely with,—

"Look a-yer, my chap, is this 'ere your boat?"

"No: I didn't say it was, did I?"

"Is that there your jug? I don't know if I keer to sit and hear one of my neighbors—and he's a good feller too, he is—abused all night, jest bekase I've been and let an entire stranger make a fool of me."

"Do you mean me?"

"Well, ef I didn't I wouldn't say it. Don't you git mad, now. It won't pay ye. Jest let's take a turn 'round the village."

"You kin go ef you want ter. I'll wait for ye. 'Pears like I didn't feel much like doin' any trampin' 'round."

"Stay thar, then. But mind you don't try on any runnin' away with my boat."

"If I want a boat, old man, there's plenty here that's better worth stealin' than yourn."

"That's so. I didn't know you'd been makin' any kalkilation on it. I won't be gone any great while."

He was gone some time, however, whatever may have been his errand. Old Peter was not the man to be at a loss for one, of some sort, even at that hour of the night; and his present business, perhaps, did not particularly require company.

When he returned at last, he found his own boat safe enough, and he really could not tell if any of the others had walked away; but he looked around in vain for any signs of his late comrade. Not that he spent much time or wasted any great pains in searching for him; and he muttered to himself, as he gave it up,—

"Gone, has he? Well, then, it's a good riddance to bad rubbidge. I ain't no aingil, but that feller's a long ways wuss'n I am."

Whether or not old Peter was right in his estimate of himself or of Burgin, in a few moments more he was all alone in his "cat-boat," and was sculling it rapidly out of the crooked inlet.

His search for Burgin had been a careless one, for he had but glanced over the gunwale of "The Swallow." A second look might have shown him the form of the tramp, half covered by a loose flap of the sail, deeply and heavily sleeping on the bottom of the boat. It was every bit as comfortable a bed as he had been used to; and there he was still lying, long after the sun had looked in upon him, the next morning.

Other eyes than the sun's were to look in upon him before he awakened from that untimely and imprudent nap.

It was not so very early when Ham Morris and Dabney Kinzer were stirring again; but they had both arisen with a strong desire for a "talk," and Ham made an opportunity for one by saying,—

"Come on, Dab. Let's go down and have a look at 'The Swallow.'"

Ham had meant to talk about school and kindred matters, but Dab's first words about the tramp cut off all other subjects.

"You ought to have told me," he said. "I'd have had him tied up in a minute."

Dab explained as well as he could; but, before he had finished, Ham suddenly exclaimed,—

"There's Dick Lee, on board 'The Swallow!' What on earth's he there for?"

"Dick!" shouted Dabney.

"Cap'n Dab, did yo' set this yer boat to trap somebody?"

"No. Why?"

"'Cause you's done gone an' cotched 'im. Jes' you come an' see."

The sound of Dick's voice, so near them, reached the dull ears of the slumbering tramp; and as Ham and Dabney sprang into a yawl, and pushed along-side the yacht, his unpleasant face was slowly and sleepily lifted above the rail.

"It's the very man!" excitedly shouted Dabney.

"The tramp?"

"Yes,—the tramp!"

No one would have suspected Ham Morris of so much agility, although his broad and well-knit frame promised abundant strength; but he was on board "The Swallow" like a flash, and Burgin was "pinned" by his iron grasp before he could so much as guess what was coming.

"Le' go o' me!"

"I've got you!"

It was too late for any such thing as resistance; and the captive settled at once into a sullen, dogged silence, after the ordinary custom of his kind when they find themselves cornered. It is a species of dull, brute instinct, more than cunning, seemingly; but not a word more did Ham and Dab obtain