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

around as best could be. Some part of them had even to be locked up over night in one of the barns.

The Kinzers, for generations, had been a trifle weak about furniture; and that was one of the reasons why there had been so little room for human beings in their house. The little parlor, indeed, had been filled until it put one in mind of a small furniture-store, with not room enough to show the stock on hand; and some of the other parts of the house required knowledge and care to walk about in them. It was bad for a small house, truly, but not so much so when the same articles were given a fair chance to spread themselves.

It was a treat to Dab to watch while the new carpets were put down, and see how much more at home and comfortable all that furniture looked, after it was moved into its new quarters. He remarked to Keziah,—

"It won't be of any use for anybody to try to sit on that sofa and play the piano. They'll have to get up and come over."

Mrs. Kinzer took good care that the house she left should speak well of her to the eyes of Mrs. Foster, when that lady came to superintend the arrival of her own household goods.

The character of these, by the way, at once convinced the village gossips that "lawyer Foster must be a good deal forehanded in money matters." And so he was, even more so than his furniture indicated.

Ford had a wonderful deal to do with the settlement of his family in their new home; and it was not until nearly the close of the week that he found time for more than an occasional glance over the north fence, although he and Dab had several times exchanged a word or two when they met each other on the road.

"Take the two farms together," his father had said to him, "and they make a really fine estate. I learn, too, that the Kinzers have other property. Your young acquaintance is likely to have a very good start in the world."

Ford had found out very nearly as much as that on his own account; but he had long since learned the uselessness of trying to teach his father any thing, however well he might succeed with ordinary people, and so he said nothing.

"Dabney," said Mrs. Kinzer, that Friday evening, "you've been a great help all the week. Suppose you take the ponies to-morrow morning, and ask young Foster out for a drive."

"Mother," exclaimed Samantha, "I shall want the ponies myself. I've some calls to make, and some shopping. Dabney will have to drive."

"No, Sam," said Dabney: "if you go out with the ponies to-morrow, you'll have my old clothes to drive you. I'll go and speak to them about it."

"What do you mean?" asked Samantha.

"I mean, with Dick Lee in them."

"That would be just as well," said Mrs. Kinzer. "The ponies are gentle enough, and Dick drives well. He'll be glad enough to go."

"Dick Lee, indeed!" began Samantha.

"A fine boy," interrupted Dab. "And he's beginning to dress well. His new clothes fit him beautifully. All he really needs is a shirt, and I'll give him one. Mine are getting too small."

Samantha's fingers fidgeted a little with the tidy they were holding; but Mrs. Kinzer said composedly,—

"Well, Dabney, I've been thinking about it. You ought not to be tied down all the while. Suppose you take next week pretty much to yourself: Samantha won't want the ponies every day. The other horses have all got to work, or I'd let you have one of them."

Dabney got up, for want of a better answer, and walked over to where his mother was sitting, and gave the thoughtful matron a good sounding kiss.

At the same time he could not help thinking,—

"This comes of Ham Morris and my new rig."

"There, Dabney, that'll do," said his mother; "but how'll you spend
Saturday?"

"Guess I'll take Ford Foster out in the bay, a-crabbing, if he'll go," replied Dabney. "I'll run over and ask him."

It was not too late, and he was out of the house before there was any chance for further remarks from the girls.

"Now," he muttered, as he walked along, "I'll have to see old lawyer Foster, and Mrs. Foster, and I don't know who all besides. I don't like that."

Just as he came to the north fence, however, he was hailed by a clear, wide-awake voice,—

"Dab Kinzer, is that you?"

"Guess so," said Dab: "is that you, Ford?"

"I was just going over to your house," said Ford.

"Well, so was I just coming over to see you. I've been too busy all the week, but they've let up on me at last."

"I've got our family nearly settled," replied Ford; "and I thought I'd ask if you wouldn't like to go out on the bay with me to-morrow. Teach you to catch crabs."

Dabney drew a long, astonished sort of whistle; but he finished it with,—

"That's about what I was thinking of. There's plenty of crabs, and I've got a tip-top boat. We won't want a heavy one for just us two."

"All right, then. We'll begin on crabs, but some other day we'll go for bigger fish. What are you going to do next week?"

"Got it all to myself," said Dab. "We can have all sorts of a good time.
We can have the ponies, too, when we want them."

"That's about as good as it knows how to be," responded the young gentleman from the city. "I'd like to explore the country. You're going to have a nice place of it, over there, before you get through. Only, if I'd had the planning of that house, I'd have set it back farther. Too much room all round it. Not enough trees either."

Dab came stoutly to the defence of not only that house, but of Long-Island architecture generally, and was fairly overwhelmed, for the first time in his life, by a flood of big words from a boy of his own age.

He could have eaten up Ford Foster, if properly cooked. He felt sure of that. But he was no match for him on the building question. On his way back to his new home, however, after the discussion had lasted long enough, he found himself inquiring,—

"That's all very nice, but what can he teach me about crabs? We'll see about that to-morrow."

Beyond a doubt, the crab question was of special importance; but one of far greater consequence to Dab Kinzer's future was undergoing discussion, at that very hour, hundreds of miles away.

Quite a little knot of people there was, in a hotel parlor; and while the blooming Miranda, now Mrs. Morris, was taking her share of talk very well with the ladies, Ham was every bit as busy with a couple of elderly gentlemen.

"It's just as I say, Mr. Morris," said one of the latter, with a superfluous show of energy: "there's no better institution of its kind in the country than Grantley Academy. I send my own boys there; and I've just written about it to my brother-in-law, Foster, the New-York lawyer. He'll have his boy there this fall. No better place in the country, sir."

"But how about the expenses, Mr. Hart?" asked Ham.

"Fees are just what I told you, sir, a mere nothing. As for board, all I pay for my boys is three dollars a week. All they want to eat, sir, and good accommodations. Happy as larks, sir, all the time. Cheap, sir, cheap."

If Ham Morris had the slightest idea of going to school at a New-England academy, Miranda's place in the improved house was likely to wait for her; for he had a look on his face of being very nearly convinced.

She did not seem at all disturbed, however; and probably she knew that her husband was not taking up the school question on his own account.

Nevertheless, that was the reason why it might have been interesting for Dab Kinzer, and even for his knowing neighbor, to have added themselves to the company Ham and Miranda had fallen in with on their wedding-tour.

Both of the boys had a different kind of thinking on hand; and that night Dab dreamed that a gigantic crab was trying to pull Ford Foster out of the boat, while the latter calmly remarked to him,—

"There, my young friend, did you ever see anything just like that before?"

CHAPTER VI. CRABS, BOYS, AND A BOAT-WRECK.

That Saturday morning was a sad one for poor Dick Lee.

His mother, the previous night, carefully locked up his elegant apparel, the gift of Mr. Dabney Kinzer. It was done after Dick was in bed; and, when daylight came again, he found only his old clothes by the bedside.

It was a hard thing to bear, no doubt; but Dick had been a bad boy on Friday. He had sold his fish instead of bringing them home, and then had gone and squandered the money on a brilliant new red necktie.

"Dat's good 'nuff for me to wear to meetin'," said Mrs. Lee, when her eyes fell upon the gorgeous bit of cheap silk. "Reckon it won't be wasted on any good-for-nuffin boy. I'll show ye wot to do wid yer fish. You' a-gettin' too mighty fine, anyhow."

Dick was disconsolate for a while; but his humility took the form of a determination to go for crabs that day, mainly because his mother had long since set her face against that tribe of animals.

"Dey's a wasteful, 'stravagant sort ob fish," remarked Mrs. Lee, in frequent explanation of her dislike. "Dey's all clo'es and no body, like some w'ite folks I know on. I don't mean de Kinzers. Dey's all got body nuff."

And yet that inlet had a name and reputation of its own for crabs. There was a wide reach of shallow water, inside the southerly point at the mouth, where, over several hundred acres of muddy flats, the depth varied from three and a half to eight feet, with the ebb and flow of the tides. That was a sort of perpetual crab-pasture; and there it was that Dick Lee determined to expend his energies that Saturday.

Very likely there would be other crabbers on the flats; but Dick was not the boy to object to that, provided none of them should notice the change in his raiment. At an early hour, therefore, Dab and Ford were preceded by their young colored friend, they themselves waiting for later breakfasts than Mrs. Lee was in the habit of preparing.

Dick's ill fortune did not leave him when he got out of sight of his mother. It followed him down to the shore of the inlet, and compelled him to give up, for that day, all idea of borrowing a respectable boat.

There were several, belonging to the neighbors, from among which Dick was accustomed to take his pick, in return for errands run and other services rendered to their owners; but on this particular morning not one of them all was available. Some were fastened with ugly chains and padlocks. Two were hauled away above even high-water mark, and so Dick could not have got either of them into the water even if he had dared to try; and as for the rest, as Dick said,—

"Guess dar owners must hab come and borrered 'em."

The consequence was, that the dark-skinned young fisherman was for once compelled to put up with his own boat, or rather his father's.

The three wise men of Gotham were not much worse off when they went to sea in a bowl than was Dick Lee in that rickety little old flat-bottomed punt.

Did it leak?

Well, not so very much, with no heavier weight than Dick's; but there was reason in his remark that,—

"Dis yer's a mean boat to frow down a fish in, when you cotch 'im. He's done suah to git drownded."

Yes, and the crabs would get their feet wet, and so would Dick; but he resigned himself to his circumstances, and pushed away. To tell the truth, he had not been able to free himself from a lingering fear lest his mother might come after him, before he could get afloat, with orders for some duty or other on shore; and that would have been worse than going to sea in the little old