MR. TUCKER CONSENTS
Their troubles were soon over, and, seated in front of a fine, big fire
in the Deerings’ living room, they recounted their adventures while
they sipped from steaming cups of beef tea and voraciously devoured
bread and butter sandwiches. Later the car was brought around and Toby
and Phebe, warm and sleepy, were whisked away to the little house in
Harbor Street, to the accompaniment of incessant shrill warnings,
which, in their somnolent state, became confused with fog-horns. After
that came slumber, deep and undisturbed.
The fog vanished in the morning, and shortly before noon the two boys
stretched a line from the _Frolic_ to the _Aydee_ and pulled the latter
easily enough into deep water. Then Toby produced a chart, and they
tried to trace their wanderings of the evening before. The knockabout
had, it appeared, covered some three and a half miles with the tide and
what little breeze had aided, and, instead of grounding on the outer
shore of the Head, had drifted around the point, and then, by some
freak of the currents, turned into Nobbs’ Bay and settled her nose in
the sand a half-mile beyond the Deerings’ landing. She must have passed
within a hundred feet of the Trainors’ houseboat, they concluded, on
the way. Arnold somewhat triumphantly pointed out that he had, after
all, been right as to direction, and that if they had set off along
the shore as he had advised they’d have reached home much sooner and
without struggling through thickets and briers. All of which Toby was
forced to acknowledge.
“I thought we were along here somewhere,” he defended, putting a finger
on the outer shore. “And if we’d gone to the right we’d have traveled
toward Shinnecock. How that boat ever got around the point and turned
in here I can’t see!”
“Huh!” returned Arnold in superior tones. “That boat knows enough to go
home, Toby. I’ve got it trained!”
Arnold spent most of that afternoon stocking the yacht with things
which, he predicted, would make shipwreck a positive pleasure! He
replaced the lost oar, tucked two suits of oilskins into a cubby,
invested in a square of canvas which, if necessity required, could be
pulled across the cockpit, and would, doubtless have installed that
heating system had it been in any way possible. The compass, a very
elaborate one in a mahogany box, arrived that day from New York, and
was put in place. And then Arnold set out to find a tender.
“If we’d had a tender,” he explained, “we could have dropped anchor
most anywhere and rowed ourselves ashore. Besides, every yacht ought to
have a tender.”
They looked at three or four the next morning, but none was in good
enough condition to please Arnold. “I want a tender,” he said, “but I
don’t want it so tender it’ll fall to pieces!” In the end Mr. Tucker
was commissioned to build one, a tiny cedar affair that would barely
hold four persons without sinking. When it was finished, which was not
until the middle of August, since Mr. Tucker was busy on another order,
Arnold viewed it delightedly. “That’s fine,” he declared. “In the
winter we can bring it into the house and put it on the mantel for an
ornament!”
There were no more shipwrecks, now that the _Aydee_ was prepared for
them, and I think that her skipper was slightly disappointed. But the
knockabout provided a lot of fun and by the time the summer was nearing
its end Arnold had become quite a proficient navigator and had acquired
a coat of tan that was the envy of his friends at the Head. Toby said
it was more than a coat, it was a regular ulster! The _Aydee_ sailed in
two races in August, one a handicap affair in which her time allowance
of a minute and forty seconds enabled her to almost but not quite win,
and the other a contest for twenty-one-footers in which she was badly
outdistanced. Perhaps the fact that Toby sailed the _Aydee_ in the
first race and that Arnold and Frank Lamson manned her in the second
may have had something to do with the results. Once imbued with the
racing mania, Arnold liked nothing better than putting out into the
bay and trying conclusions with any sailing craft that hove in sight.
He didn’t much care how big the opponent might be or how much sail she
carried. He was always ready and eager for a brush. Usually he was
outsailed or outmaneuvered, but now and then he came home victor and
was extremely proud until some craft unkindly beat him the next day.
But life wasn’t all racing, for the _Aydee_ was frequently put to more
humdrum uses, as when, one fine day toward the last of the month,
Arnold, Toby, Frank and Phebe embarked with many baskets and bundles
and sailed away to a pleasant spot far down on the south shore of
the bay and picnicked. Confidentially, both Toby and Frank favored
using the _Frolic_ for the expedition, but Arnold nowadays considered
motorboating poor sport and wouldn’t listen to any such proposal.
Fortunately, they had a good breeze all day and the _Aydee_ performed
beautifully. The boys took bathing suits along and as soon as the
anchor was dropped they rowed ashore, converted a clump of bushes into
a bath-house, and got ready for the water. Then they returned to the
yacht and dived off the deck to their hearts’ content, while Phebe,
more practical, placed the baskets in the tender and went ashore to
“set the table.” They lunched on a grassy knoll between the bay and a
winding inlet. Every one had provided a share of the provender and,
while there was some duplication, the result included a marvelous
variety of viands. Frank pretended to think picnics a great bore, but
it was observed by the others that he did his full share of eating. On
the whole, Frank was fairly good company that day, and Toby and Phebe
liked him better than they ever had before. Possibly Arnold, whose
guest he was, had cautioned him to make himself agreeable.
They tried bathing in the inlet after their repast, but voted the water
too warm, and so went for a long walk up the shore, in the course of
which Arnold managed to cut his foot rather deeply on a shell. Phebe
applied first-aid by sacrificing a handkerchief and they returned to
the scene of the luncheon, packed up and embarked once more. They
sailed home with the sun slanting at them across the quiet water and
reached harbor just as twilight was stealing down through the little
village. They all voted the excursion a huge success and promised
themselves another, but it didn’t take place that summer for the season
was fast nearing its close and there were so many, many other things to
be done.
About that time Toby balanced his books, so to speak, and found himself
in possession of a sum of money slightly in excess of two hundred
and seventy-five dollars, or, to be more exact, in possession of a
bank book crediting him with that amount. He could reckon on another
three weeks or so of ferrying, and that, he believed ought to add some
forty-five dollars more to his fund, leaving him with a final grand
total of three hundred and twenty dollars. He and Arnold had figured
that three hundred and fifty would see him through the first year at
Yardley Hall School, but Toby realized that an expenditure of something
like forty dollars would be necessary for clothes. What he had was all
well enough for Greenhaven, but not quite good enough for Yardley. A
new suit of clothes would cost him twenty-five dollars, he supposed,
leaving fifteen for other supplies. Consequently, he would be about
seventy dollars shy of the required sum by the middle of September, and
where to get that seventy dollars worried Toby considerably.
Of course it wasn’t absolutely settled that he was to go to Yardley,
even if he found the necessary amount of money, but he was pretty sure
that his father meant to consent finally, and as for his mother, why
she had already promised her support, although that was still a secret
between her and the boy. It was time, Toby told himself, to have the
question settled, and so that evening he broached the matter again to
his father, with the result that the next evening Arnold was on hand
with the school catalogue and a large fund of enthusiasm, both of which
doubtless influenced Mr. Tucker in his ultimate decision. The catalogue
was gone through very thoroughly, Arnold explaining. The pictures were
viewed, the study courses discussed, and the matter of expense gravely
considered. Toby let his father and Arnold do the talking, maintaining
for the most part a discreet and anxious silence.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Mr. Tucker at last. “I suppose if Toby wants
to try it for a year there’s no harm done except the spending of a
considerable amount of money. You say he’s got to go there three years
anyway, and maybe four, to finish up, eh?”
“Probably four, sir,” answered Arnold. “He might get into the fourth
class, but I guess it would be the third. Of course, some fellows do
the four years in three, and maybe Toby could.”
“H’m. Well, Toby, one year will use all your money up. What’ll you do
next year?”
“I’ll make more before that,” replied Toby with a fine assurance.
“There’s the ferry, dad, you know. I ought to do better with that next
summer, don’t you think?”
“Likely you ought. But where do you expect to get the seventy dollars
you need for this year, son? If you’re counting on me――!” Mr. Tucker
shook his head. “I might be able to help you a little: say twenty-five
or thirty; but seventy’s too much for me.”
“If you’ll let me have twenty-five I’ll get hold of the rest somewhere,
sir. You see I don’t have to pay it all now. I can pay it in three lots
if I like, fifty dollars now, fifty dollars in January and twenty-five
in April. Arnold doesn’t seem to think there’d be much chance of
earning a little at school, but you――you read about fellows doing it.”
“I guess you read a lot in stories that ain’t just so,” replied his
father, dryly. “Well, all right, son. It’s your money. If you want
to spend it this way I’m willing. I hope you’ll get enough learning
to come out even, though. If I was you I’d make up my mind to get my
money’s worth, I think. Money ain’t so easy come by these days!”
“Hooray!” shouted Arnold. “That’s fine, Mr. Tucker! Toby, you sit down
there this minute and write your application!”
“What application?” asked Toby.
“Why, you’ve got to apply for admission, of course! And the sooner you
do it the better chance you’ll have. For all we know the enrollment may
be already filled for this fall.”
“Oh!” said Toby blankly. “I didn’t know that. I thought all I had to do
was just――just go! Suppose they’ve got all they want! Wouldn’t that be
the dickens? Here, where’s the pen and ink, sis? Why didn’t you tell me
about this application business, Arn? I’d have done it two months ago!”
“Goodness me,” sighed Mrs. Tucker, “I do hope you ain’t too late, Toby!
That would be an awful disappointment, now, wouldn’t it? You don’t
think he is, do you, Arnold?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t think so. Lots of fellows have joined school just
before it has opened. But I guess it’ll be safer to write now.”
“What’ll I say?” demanded Toby. “Who do I write to? Hadn’t dad ought to
do it instead of me?”
“Just as you like, Toby. I guess it doesn’t matter who writes it.
You’ll have to give your parents’ names and the names of two other
residents of your town. It’s a good idea to have one of them your
minister. They like that,” added Arnold, wisely.
That application was posted inside of an hour, Toby dropping it into
the box at the postoffice after saying good-night to Arnold at the
landing, and for the next week he was on tenter-hooks of anxiety. But
the answer came in due time, and Toby slit the envelope with trembling
fingers.
The school secretary acknowledged the receipt of Mr. Tobias Tucker’s
letter, enclosed a form for him to fill out and sign and instructed him
to mail form and remittance for fifty-five dollars before the beginning
of the Fall Term. Toby clapped his cap on his head and tore out of the
house in search of Arnold.