“T. TUCKER, PROP.”
The wonderful idea he explained to Arnold as, half an hour later, they
started off in the _Frolic_ for Riverport.
“What he said about the ferry put it in my head,” said Toby. “There
used to be a ferry across to Johnstown five or six years ago. I guess
there weren’t many passengers then, but it must have paid or else old
Captain Gould wouldn’t have run it so long. And it seems to me there’d
be more folks wanting to get across now than there was then. Why, six
years ago there wasn’t a half dozen summer cottages around Greenhaven.
And the hotel at Johnstown wasn’t built, either. I guess if folks knew
there was a regular ferry across they’d use it. Don’t it seem so to
you, Arn?”
“Sure! But would the _Turnover_ be big enough, Toby?”
“She’ll hold eight without crowding, and I guess if I ever get eight
folks at once I’ll be pretty lucky.”
“How much would you charge?”
“Fifty cents,” replied Toby promptly. “Do you think that’s too much? I
could make a round trip rate of seventy-five, maybe.”
“No, fifty cents isn’t much for a three-mile trip. How often would you
make it?”
“Four times a day, twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon.
I could leave here at nine, say, and come back at ten. Then I could
go over again at eleven, two, and four. Even if I carried only four
passengers a day it would be two dollars, and that would make twelve
dollars a week. And there’s twelve weeks yet, and that would be a
hundred and forty-four dollars!”
“You’ve got to think about gas and oil, though, Toby.”
“That’s so! Well, gas would cost me about twenty cents a day, and
oil――say, five, although it wouldn’t come to so much. That would make
it a dollar and seventy-five cents instead of two, wouldn’t it? How
much would I have at the end of the summer?”
Arnold did some mental arithmetic and announced the result as a
hundred and twenty-six dollars. “But you’d ought to get more than four
passengers a day, Toby, after folks heard about it. You could put up
notices, couldn’t you?”
“Yes, and I’d have a sign on the landing, and――――” he paused and
frowned. “I wonder if they’d make me pay for using the town landing.
They might, you know.”
“I don’t see why. It would be a――a public accommodation!”
“I can find out. Anyway, they couldn’t ask much, I guess.”
“If I were you I’d change the name of your launch, though,” Arnold
advised. “Ladies might feel sort of――of nervous about going in a boat
with a name like that.”
“What would you call her?” asked Toby, dubiously. “Changing the name
might change the luck, and my luck’s been pretty good lately.”
“I don’t know. You could find another name all right. Say, Toby, why
couldn’t I come in on it? I wouldn’t want any of the money, of course,
but we could use the _Frolic_ any time we had a lot of passengers.
Would you mind if I helped?”
“No, I’d be awfully glad to have you, only――do you think your father
would want you to?”
“He wouldn’t mind. I’ll ask him tonight. I could bring this boat over
in the morning and then we could use whichever one we wanted to. Maybe
if there were ladies going over they’d rather go in the _Frolic_.”
“I guess maybe they would,” laughed Toby. “But there wouldn’t be many
ladies, probably. I suppose if I took other folks over to Johnstown for
fifty cents I couldn’t ask Mr. Whitney to pay any more, could I?”
“Why not? He made a bargain with you, didn’t he? If you got a dollar
and a half from him, besides what you made from other people――――”
But Toby shook his head. “It wouldn’t be fair. I’d ask him the same
as the rest. Only, maybe there won’t be any rest. It wouldn’t do any
harm to try it for a couple of weeks, though, eh? And it might turn out
fine!”
“It will! I’ll bet there’s lots of folks over at the Head who’d be
mighty glad to get over to Johnstown if they didn’t have to go all
around by road. Why, it must be ten or twelve miles by the road!”
All the way up the river to the landing at Riverport, all the way to
the freight house, all the way back, laden with a forty-pound box
of yacht hardware, and all the way home again they talked over the
ferry scheme, Arnold becoming even more enthusiastic than Toby. They
developed the plan until, in their imaginations, they could see a whole
flotilla of ferryboats crossing the bay to Johnstown and Riverport
and around to Shinnecock and even as far as Mattituck! And real
ferryboats, too; fine white and gold cabin launches holding as many as
thirty persons! And Toby was to stand at the wheel and navigate while
Arnold, in a resplendent white duck suit and cap with crossed anchors
on it was to collect the fares!
The only thing that worried Arnold was that he would be so busy helping
Toby operate the ferry line that he wouldn’t have time to use the new
knockabout. But Toby brought partial consolation by pointing out that
there’d be time, between trips, maybe, and that, anyway, they’d have
the evenings. Even baseball went to the discard for the rest of that
week, so busy were they planning and perfecting the new ferry service.
Frank Lamson, whose one desire just then was to wreak vengeance on the
town ball team, threatened mutiny, declaring that if Arnold didn’t call
practice and attend it he and the other members of the Spanish Head
team would take affairs into their own hands and elect a new captain.
Arnold managed to put him off until Monday, however, and by that time
“Tucker’s Ferry Line” was about ready for business. Toby had decided to
wait until Thursday before starting the service in order to play that
ball game on Wednesday. Arnold would have canceled it willingly, but
Toby declared that it wouldn’t be fair to the fellows who had joined
his team, and practiced more or less faithfully, to disband without at
least one more game.
“After Wednesday I’ll tell them I can’t play any more and then they can
choose another captain and keep on if they want to. Maybe if the ferry
doesn’t succeed we can have some more games. It wouldn’t interfere
with your playing, Arn, because we wouldn’t both have to attend to the
ferry.”
But Arnold denied that vigorously. “I’m going to do my full share of
the work,” he declared. “Besides, I can play baseball most any time.
Those fellows can find a new captain, if they like, and go on playing.
I guess Frank will be glad to take the job. He doesn’t much like the
way I’m doing it, anyway,” he concluded with a laugh.
On Friday, Long Tim, painter as well as carpenter, planed down a
four-foot pine plank after hours, sandpapered it, braided a small
half-round along the edges, and covered the whole with a priming coat
of white paint. And then, the following evening, while Toby and Arnold
stood over him, breathless and admiring, he traced out the inscription
“Johnstown Ferry,” filled in the letters with black, put another coat
of white on the remainder of the surface, and finally finished up by
placing a black border around all. The boys viewed the result with
enthusiastic approval and sighed with regret when Long Tim turned it to
the wall to dry. They found a new name for the _Turnover_ that evening
by the simple expedient of chopping off the first and last letters, and
the launch became, for the summer at least, the _Urnove_.
On Monday morning Toby parted with two dollars and a half of that
precious five in exchange for fifty cardboard placards which announced
startlingly:
GREENHAVEN-JOHNSTOWN FERRY
Commencing Thursday, July 17, launches _Frolic_ and _Urnove_
will leave the town landing for Johnstown daily except Sunday
at 9 and 11 A. M. and 2 and 4 P. M. Returning, leave Johnstown
one-half hour later. Fare, one way, 50 cents. Round trip, 75
cents.
T. TUCKER, PROP.
Armed with the placards, Toby and Arnold made the round of the
principal stores in Greenhaven and Johnstown and saw them obligingly
placed in the windows. The hotel at Johnstown was similarly honored, as
was the postoffice there and in their own town. And after that they
tacked the notices wherever they thought they would attract attention
without entailing a penalty. The final placard――no, not the final one,
either, for Arnold kept that to go up in his room at school, but the
next to the last one was tacked to the side of Hawkins’ leather store
at the corner of the alley that led to the landing, and, lest some one
might be in doubt as to the location of the town landing, Arnold added
a hand, which pointed quite dramatically down the little lane.
Long Tim put the sign in place that evening. Mr. Hawkins was very
complaisant, perhaps thinking that some of the patrons of the ferry
might be attracted to his stock, and gave ready permission to attach
the sign to the alley side of the store so that it jutted out well over
the sidewalk and was visible a block away. The boys were certain of
that, because they hurried along the street to a position in front of
the postoffice and looked! They spent most a quarter of an hour viewing
Long Tim’s handiwork from various places at various angles, and would
have stayed longer if it hadn’t got dark.
The question of paying for the privilege of using the landing was still
unsettled. It had been left to Mr. Tucker, who was himself one of
the selectmen, and Mr. Tucker reported that the other members of the
board were unable to reach any conclusion in the matter and proposed
postponing a decision until the next town meeting, which was scheduled
for November. Meanwhile he advised Toby to go ahead as long as no one
interfered with him, which Toby did.
Mr. Tucker, rather to Toby’s surprise, approved of the ferry enterprise
warmly. “Likely,” he said, “you won’t make a pile of money, Toby, but
it’ll keep you out of mischief and give you something to do. And I’m
not saying it won’t pay, either. I guess there’s folks that’ll be glad
to run over to Johnstown that way instead of driving to the Port and
taking the train. What you going to do with all your wealth, Toby,
anyhow? Maybe you’d like to buy into the business, eh?”
Toby hesitated a minute, but it seemed a very good opportunity to
tell his father of his ambition to go to Yardley Hall School, and he
did so. Mr. Tucker listened without comment until Toby had somewhat
breathlessly finished. Then he did what was very characteristic. He
pushed back an imaginary hat――the conversation took place in the
cottage one evening just before bedtime――and scratched his head
thoughtfully. At last:
“That’s a pile of money, son, to spend for a year’s schooling. What are
you going to get out of it that you can’t get over at Johnstown? Do they
teach you more things at this school you’re telling of?”
“N-no, sir, not more, exactly. Maybe they do, though, too. But it’s
being at a place like that that’s the fun, Dad.”
“Fun, eh? Sure it isn’t just the fun you’re thinking of? Three or four
hundred dollars is a sight of money to spend for fun!”
“I’m not thinking of only that, Dad. I――I guess I can’t explain very
well, but it’s meeting other fellows and――and making friendships and
learning how to――to look after myself that I’m thinking of.”
“Seems to me you could do all that at high school, Toby. And high
school won’t cost more’n a fifth as much, fares and all. It’s your
money and I suppose you ought to have the spending of it, so long’s
you don’t spend it plumb foolishly. But what occurs to me is that this
Yardley Hall place is a mighty poor place for a boy who hasn’t plenty
of money. Mostly rich boys, ain’t they; those that go to it?”
“No, sir, Arnold says there are lots of fellows who aren’t rich;
fellows about like me, Dad.”
“H’m, well, I don’t know. We’ll think it over. What you going to do
next year for money? One year won’t do you much good, I guess.”
“I don’t know. Only, somehow, I’ve got a hunch that if I can get
through the first year I’ll manage the others, Dad.”
Mr. Tucker shook his head. “I wouldn’t put too much faith on ‘hunches,’
as you call ’em, Toby. I’ll talk to Arnold about this school some day.
If it’s going to give you something the high school can’t give you,
son, and you’ve got the money to pay for it, why, I don’t know as I’m
going to interfere none. But you’ll have to get your ma’s consent.”
Toby agreed, feeling fairly certain that he could obtain that without
much difficulty, although he knew that his mother would view his
absence from home with alarm and sorrow. When Phebe was told of the
plan she disappointed Toby by her lack of enthusiasm at first.
“You mean that you’ll be away from home for months at a time?” she
asked dolorously. “Won’t you be coming home ever, Toby?”
“Maybe, but I guess I couldn’t afford to come home very often even if
they’d let me. Of course, I’d be home at Christmas and――and Easter.”
“Christmas is a long time from September. I suppose it’ll be perfectly
dandy for you, Toby, but――but I’ll be awfully lonesome!”
“You wouldn’t be after awhile. I guess I’d be, too, at first. But we
don’t have to worry about that, because maybe there won’t anything come
of it.”
But Phebe refused to be consoled so easily. She assured him that she
“just felt that he would go!”
And Toby, although pretending to have no faith in her premonition,
secretly hoped it would prove correct.