TOBY MAKES UP HIS MIND
“We’ll play you again next Wednesday,” said Arnold as the two nines,
victor and vanquished, trailed back to the village.
“Yes, and beat you, too,” growled Frank Lamson. “You fellows had all
the luck today and most of the decisions!”
“We may have had some luck,” responded Toby, “but you can’t say Mr.
Trainor didn’t umpire fairly. And I guess our fellows will be all ready
for you any time you say. If you want to play again Wednesday――――”
“Make it a week from Wednesday,” advised George Dodson, nursing a hurt
finger solicitously. “We need more practice than we’ve had, Deering.”
“A week from Wednesday, then,” agreed Toby. “We’re always glad to show
you chaps how to play.” And he smiled provokingly at Frank. Frank only
growled.
Arnold was on hand bright and early Monday morning to watch the
interesting operation of fixing the ribs to the curving keel of the new
knockabout. It was all Toby could do to persuade him to leave the shed
and go fishing, and when Arnold did finally allow himself to be dragged
away he was so full of his sailboat that he fell over every obstacle in
the yard and talked incessantly about it until the _Turnover_ was well
out of the harbor. They chugged across to the flats above Johnstown and
cast their lines over. It was a good day for fishing, with a cloudy sky
and a favorable tide, but for some reason doubtless known only to them
the fish refused the invitations extended. Arnold didn’t mind much, for
he preferred talking to fishing today. With the launch tugging at her
anchor they whiled away the most of the forenoon, Arnold at last fairly
talking himself out on the subject of the knockabout.
“What would you name her?” he asked. “How do you like _Sea Swallow_ or
_Sea Lark_?”
“I like _Sea Cow_ better,” replied Toby, pulling up his line to look
disgustedly at the untouched bait. “Get something with more zip to it.
Like _Dart_ or _Scud_――or――or _Slap-Bang_. _Slap-Bang_ would be a good
name for a knockabout, for that’s just the way they go, slapping the
water and banging down on the waves.”
But Arnold wasn’t very enthusiastic about that suggestion. He said
something “more――more romantic” would be better, and Toby, anxious to
oblige, suggested in rapid succession _Polly_, _Mary_, _Moonlight_,
_Lillian_, _Corsair_, _Pirate_, and _Mayflower_. But Arnold was hard to
please, and turned up his nose at all of those. After that the subject
was momentarily abandoned and Arnold reverted to the question of Toby’s
expenditure of that one hundred and fifty dollars. It seemed to hurt
Arnold to think of that magnificent sum lying idle in the bank, and he
was all for action. He had more schemes for getting rid of it than Toby
could remember.
“How much did you say it would take to go to Yardley Hall for a year?”
Toby asked finally, putting fresh bait on his hook and absent-mindedly
wiping his hands on his trousers.
“Yardley? I don’t remember what we figured it. Why?”
“I was just thinking,” murmured Toby. “Seems to me we said it would be
about three hundred and fifty dollars for everything.”
“I guess so. Let’s see. A hundred and fifty for tuition, say two
hundred for room and board, and about ten or fifteen for other things.
How much is that?”
“Three hundred and sixty-five,” replied Toby promptly. “I’d have to
have two hundred and fifteen more, wouldn’t I?”
“Say!” Arnold sat up very suddenly. “You’re not thinking of――of――――”
Toby nodded. “Yes, I am thinking of it, but I guess it won’t get
beyond the thinking, Arn. Where’d I get two hundred and fifteen
more? Maybe dad could spare me fifty; say twenty-five at first and
another twenty-five in the winter, but that would leave a hundred and
sixty-five to be got somewhere. I don’t suppose a fellow could――could
earn anything there, could he?”
“I don’t believe so,” answered Arnold dejectedly.
“I didn’t know. You read about fellows at college cutting grass and
shoveling snow and――and things like that, you know, and helping
themselves a whole lot. I thought maybe a fellow could do something of
that sort at Yardley.”
“Well, maybe he could,” said Arnold cautiously. “I wouldn’t say he
couldn’t, Toby. Wouldn’t your father come across with more than fifty?”
“I don’t say he’d come across with any,” answered Toby. “He isn’t
making much money nowadays, although things look better this summer.
He’s got four orders so far, counting yours, and one of them’s a
pretty big one. But I wouldn’t want to ask him to let me have more than
fifty, anyhow. If there was only some way to earn some money around
here!” Toby gazed thoughtfully across at the near-by shore. “Running
errands doesn’t get you much. I’ve thought of about everything.
Sometimes you can do pretty well fishing and selling to the summer
folks, but when the fish don’t bite any better than they’re biting
today――――”
His voice dwindled away into silence and for a minute only the lap-lap
of the water was heard. Then it was Arnold who began again, prefacing
his remark with a long sigh. “Gee, Toby, it would certainly be great
if you could come to Yardley,” he said wistfully. “Think of the dandy
times we could have! And playing ball like you did Saturday, I wouldn’t
be surprised if you’d make your class team right off! And then there’s
football and hockey――――!”
Toby nodded agreement. “I’d sure like it,” he muttered.
“Isn’t there any way to earn that much?” pursued Arnold. “Look here,
couldn’t you do anything with this launch? Couldn’t you sell her for
something?”
Toby looked startled. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said slowly. “She
wouldn’t fetch much, though. Besides, you can buy plenty of second-hand
launches around here. They are as thick as blackberries. Maybe――maybe
I’ll think of some way, though. I――I’ve sort of made up my mind to go
to that Yardley Hall place, Arn, and when I make up my mind I most
always get what I’m after. It’s funny, but that’s the way it is.”
“Well, then, you make up your mind hard!” laughed Arnold. “And I’ll
make up mine hard, too. And――and maybe it’ll really happen!”
“Maybe. Sometimes it seems to me as if when you want a thing you’ve
just got to set your mind on it and――and steer right straight for it,
and you’ll get it. I don’t suppose it always happens like that, but
pretty often it does. You’ve got to sort of concentrate, Arn; forget
other things and pick up your marks and――and keep your course mighty
steady.” Toby drew up his empty hook and began reeling the line.
“Anyway, I’m going to try it.”
For the next several days Toby had queer periods of thoughtfulness,
going off into trances without warning and quite alarming Arnold, who
feared, or professed to fear, that his chum’s mind was giving way.
“It’s having all that money to think about,” declared Arnold. “If you’d
only spend it for something it wouldn’t worry you.”
“As long as that bank doesn’t bust,” answered the other, “I’m not
troubling about the money. Your father said it was a very safe bank,
didn’t he?”
“Safe as any of them,” teased Arnold, “but, of course, you never can
tell when the cashier or――or some one will take it into his head to
start off to Canada!”
“Huh! They fetch ’em back now,” said Toby. “That doesn’t scare me. Dad
says I might have put it in the postoffice, though.”
“Buy stamps with it?” asked Arnold in a puzzled voice.
“No, put it in the Postal Savings Bank. The government looks after it
for you then, and I guess the government would be pretty safe, eh?”
“So’s that bank you’ve got it in. If it wasn’t safe do you suppose
father would keep money in it?”
“N-no, I guess not. I wouldn’t want to lose that hundred and fifty
though. I――I’ve got a use for that!”
“Have you asked your father about Yardley yet?”
Toby shook his head. “I thought I’d better wait until I had some more.
Only thing is”――he frowned deeply――“I don’t know how to get any more!
I’ve been thinking and thinking!”
“Oh, well, there’s lots of time yet. Come on down to the shed and see
how the boat’s getting along.”
The knockabout was coming fast and Arnold never tired of watching Mr.
Tucker and “Long Tim” and “Shorty” at work. Long Tim’s full name was
Timothy Tenney. He stood fully six feet three inches tall when he
straightened up, but that was seldom since the bending over to his work
for some forty-odd years had put a perceptible stoop to his shoulders.
Long Tim was thin and angular and weather beaten, with a fringe of
grizzled whiskers from ear to ear, and very little in the way of hair
above the whiskers. He loved to talk, and was a mine of strange, even
unbelievable information which he was quite ready to impart in his
nasal drawl. “Shorty” was Joe Cross, a small, square chunk of a man who
had come ashore years before from a Newfoundland lumber schooner and
had forgotten to return until the schooner had sailed again. Shorty
had a family somewhere in Canada, and was forever threatening to go
back to it, but never got further than New York. Long Tim came from a
family of boat-builders, but Shorty had learned the trade under Mr.
Tucker. Both were capable workmen, although Long Tim looked on Shorty
as still merely an apprentice, and shook his head dolefully when he was
entrusted with any more particular task than driving a nail.
If Arnold could have had his way he would have spent most of his waking
hours sitting in the boat shed with his feet in sawdust and shavings
and auger chips watching the knockabout grow and listening to the
ceaseless drawling of Long Tim. But Toby wasn’t satisfied to dawdle
like that and hailed Arnold off to various more lively occupations.
Several afternoons during the next ten days were spent by Arnold, none
too enthusiastically, in practicing ball with the Spanish Head team in
preparation for that approaching game.
Toby, too, put in a little time in a similar way, but the trouble with
Toby’s team was that it was impossible to get all the fellows together
at the same time. Usually they were shy from one to four players and
were forced to fill up the ranks with such volunteers as were on
hand. Arnold brought stirring tales of practice over at the Head and
predicted overwhelming victory for his nine. But Toby refused to become
alarmed. The Towners had won once, and he believed they could do it
again. Even if they couldn’t there was still no harm done. Baseball
was only baseball and some one had to lose!
It was on a Wednesday, just a week after that first contest, that Toby
stood on the town landing float and waited for Arnold to come over from
the Head in the _Frolic_. At low tide it was finicky work getting up
to the boat-yard pier, and Arnold tied up at the town float instead.
The hour was still early, for in the Tucker cottage breakfast was
at six-thirty in summer, and Toby had cleaned the spark-plug on the
_Turnover_, mended a window screen, walked to the grocery store and
back on an errand, and reached the landing, and, behind him, the clock
in the church tower showed the time to be still well short of eight.
Arnold had promised to come across early, however, since they had
planned to run up to Riverport and get some hardware for the knockabout
which was waiting for them at the freight depot. Save that Toby was
seated across the bow of a dory instead of on a box, he presented
much the same appearance as at our first meeting with him. Perhaps
his skin was a little deeper brown, and perhaps, as he gazed again
across the harbor and bay, his face was a trifle more thoughtful――or
his thoughtfulness a bit more earnest. And he was whistling a new
tune under his breath, something that Phebe had of late been playing
incessantly on the old-fashioned square piano in the cottage parlor.
The harbor was quiet and almost deserted. On a black sloop, moored well
off the landing, a man was busy with pail and swab, but, excepting
for the gulls, he was the only moving thing in sight until footsteps
sounded on the pier above and a man descended the gangplank.
He was a middle-aged man in a suit of blue serge and square-toed shoes,
and he carried a brown leather satchel. He looked like a person in a
hurry, Toby concluded, although there was no apparent reason for his
hurry. He looked impatiently about the float and then at Toby.
“Isn’t there a ferry here?” he demanded.
“No, sir. Where do you want to go?”
“Johnstown. I thought there was a ferry over there. I was told there
was.” He viewed Toby accusingly.
Toby shook his head. “There used to be, sir, about six years ago, but
the man who ran it died, and――――”
“Great Scott! Do you mean to tell me that I’ve got to go way around by
Riverport? Why, that’ll take me two hours! And I’ve got an appointment
there at nine! What sort of a place is this, anyway? No ferry! No place
to get any breakfast! No――no――――!” he sputtered angrily.
“I guess it’ll take most of two hours by carriage,” agreed Toby, “but I
can put you over there by eight-thirty, sir.”
“You’ve got a boat?”
“Yes, sir, but――――”
“Where is it?” The stranger’s gaze swept over the bobbing craft. “I
suppose it’s a sailboat and we’ll drift around out there half the
morning. Well, I’ll try it. Good gracious, only seventy miles from
the city and no――no accommodations of any sort! No place to eat, no
ferry――――”
“Yes, sir, we’re sort of slow around here,” agreed Toby, calmly.
“Slow! I should say you were slow! Well, where’s the boat? Bring it
along! There’s no time to waste, young fellow!”
“Well, if you don’t have to be there before nine”――Toby looked over his
shoulder at the church clock――“you’ve got plenty of time to have some
breakfast before we start. It’s only three miles across and I’ve got a
launch that’ll do it in twenty minutes easy.”
“Launch, eh? That’s better! Show me where I can get a cup of coffee
then. I haven’t had anything to eat since last night. I left
Southampton at six and there wasn’t time. Got a restaurant here
somewhere, have you?”
“Not exactly a restaurant,” replied Toby, “but if you’ll come with me
I’ll show you where you can get some coffee and bread and butter. The
launch is over there, anyway, so it won’t take much longer.”
“Look ahead, then,” said the man. “I’ll go most anywhere for a cup
of coffee!” The prospect of food seemed to better his humor, for all
the way up the landing and around the road to the cottage he asked
questions and conversed quite jovially. When, however, he discovered
that the boy had led him to his home he was all for backing down.
“It’s very kind of you,” he said, “but I wouldn’t want to bother any
one to make coffee for me. I’ll wait till I get to Johnstown.”
“It won’t be any trouble, sir, and my mother will be glad to do it.
Gee, she’d like it if I’d bring some one around to be fed every day!
Please, come right in, sir, and sit down, and mother’ll have something
ready for you in no time.”
Hesitatingly, the stranger allowed himself to be conducted up the steps
and into the sitting room, and Toby went to the kitchen and acquainted
his mother with the needs of the occasion, producing in Mrs. Tucker
a fine flurry of excitement and an enthusiastic delight. Ten minutes
later, refreshed and grateful, the stranger――he had introduced himself
as Mr. Whitney of New York――followed Toby through the yard, down the
slippery ladder, and into the _Turnover_. If he felt dubious about
trusting himself to that craft and to Toby’s seamanship, he made no
sign. Toby cast off and then faced his passenger.
“I guess,” he announced, “we’d ought to agree on a price before we
start, sir.”
“Eh? Oh, yes! Well, you’ve got me where I can’t say much, young fellow.
Just be easy and there won’t be any kick from me. What’s the damage
going to be?”
“Well, sir, it’s three miles over there, and gasoline’s worth
twenty-three cents this week, and――――”
“Don’t frighten me to death!” laughed the man. “Will five dollars do
the trick?”
“Five dollars!” Toby gasped.
“Not enough? Call it seven-fifty then.”
“It’s too much! Why, a dollar――or maybe, a dollar and a half――――”
The stranger laughed loudly. “Go ahead, then! But you’ll never be a
millionaire if you do business that way. When any one offers you five
dollars, young fellow, it’s poor business to take less.”
Toby smiled as he put the handle in the fly-wheel. “Seems to me, sir,”
he said, “it’s just as poor business to offer five dollars when the
job’s only worth a dollar and a half!”
“Well, that’s right, too!” The man chuckled. “Maybe that’s why I’m not
a millionaire yet. Want me to do anything in the way of steering?”
“No, sir, thanks. I’ll steer from here.”
The _Turnover_ backed away from the pier, turned and crept out of the
narrow channel, across the cove and into the harbor. Half-way to the
entrance they passed a surprised Arnold at the wheel of the _Frolic_
and Toby called across to him that he would be back about a quarter
past nine. Arnold nodded and waved and the white launch and the gray
swept past each other. The passenger came forward and made himself
comfortable opposite Toby as the _Turnover_ pointed her nose across the
bay. In the course of the conversation that ensued above the clatter of
the little engine Toby learned that Mr. Whitney was a contractor and
that he was going to Johnstown to consult with a man about building a
cottage there.
“I’m doing some work at Southampton,” he explained, “and it’s going
to be awkward for a while getting from one place to the other. Guess
I’ll have to buy me one of these things, eh? Unless――look here, want
to arrange to take me back and forth now and then? I’ll pay you three
dollars the round trip.”
“Yes, sir, I’d be glad to,” agreed Toby eagerly. “When would you want
to go again?”
“I don’t know that yet. This little tub seems pretty seaworthy. Run her
a good deal, have you?”
“Yes, sir, and others before her. She isn’t much to look at, but she’s
a good boat.”
“What do you call her?”
“The _Turnover_.”
“The which?”
“_Turnover_, sir,” repeated Toby, smiling.
“Well, that’s a pleasant, reassuring sort of name for a launch! Does
she――does she do it――often?”
“No, sir, she’s never done it yet,” laughed Toby. “You can’t tell much
by names, Mr. Whitney.”
“H’m; well, I’m glad to hear it. I was thinking that maybe we’d better
call that bargain off! Is that the landing ahead there?”
“Yes, sir. We’ll be in in a minute or two.”
“I suppose you get mail in Greenhaven? Well, I’ll drop you a line some
day soon and tell you when I’ll be along next. Let me see, what’s your
name?”
“Tucker, sir; T. Tucker.”
“T? For Thomas?”
“N-no, sir; for Tobias; Toby for short.”
“I see! Toby Tucker, Greenhaven, Long Island.” Mr. Whitney set the
address down in a memorandum book. “All right, Toby, you’ll hear from
me.” He replaced the little book in a vest pocket and pulled out a
wallet. “Now, we’ll settle up for the present trip and start fair the
next time.” He took a five-dollar bill from the purse and handed it
across.
“I――I can’t change that, sir,” said Toby. “You can let it go until next
time.”
“I don’t want you to change it, Toby. I guess five isn’t too much for
that breakfast and this trip. It’s worth it to me, anyway.”
“There isn’t any charge for breakfast,” Toby protested.
“Well, then, we’ll call it a bonus on the contract. Stick it in your
pocket, young fellow, and don’t look as if it was poison.”
“But it’s a lot more than it ought to be,” stammered Toby.
“Don’t you worry about that,” laughed the man. “It’s worth ten times
five dollars to me to get here on time. Here we are! Much obliged to
you, Tobias. See you again. Good-by!”
Mr. Whitney, bag in hand, jumped nimbly to the float, waved a hand, and
hurried away, leaving Toby the happy possessor of the magnificent sum
of five dollars, a beatific prospect of more, and a wonderful idea!