BUYING AN ICE-YACHT
“An ice-yacht,” observed Carl learnedly, “is the nearest approach at
the present age to a flying-machine.”
“And I never cared a bit about flying,” answered Dick, without
enthusiasm.
The two, with Trevor and Stewart Earle, were gathered close about the
fireplace in Number 16 Masters. Two good hickory logs were crackling
merrily, and, although owing to the fact that the steam-heating
apparatus was evidently on a strike and their backs were constantly
caressed by shivers, their knees and faces were radiantly warm; and
that was sufficient comfort. A huge paper bag was perched on the table,
and the quartet were busily munching big, rosy apples, while close to
the ashes four more were sizzling and sputtering in the heat. They had
started out with the intention of having a feast of roasted apples, but
had found that the roasting process was too slow to meet the demands of
their appetites, and so were keeping down the pangs of starvation in
the interims by consuming the fruit as Nature had meant they should.
“An ice-yacht,” continued Carl, undismayed, “can be put together very
easily and cheaply. All you have to have is four pieces of timber
and----”
“Look here, Carl,” interrupted Dick impolitely, “the last thing you
made was a toboggan, and it cost about nine dollars before you were
through with it, and you could have bought a _good_ one for five.”
Stewart giggled and Carl grinned good-naturedly.
“Well, let’s buy one, then,” he replied. “Let’s go down to Euston Point
and see the one this fellow advertises.”
“How much do they cost?” asked Trevor.
“Oh, we could get a second-hand one for fifteen dollars, easy; maybe
less. That would be only four dollars apiece, if we all went in. And we
could have the biggest kind of fun! Why, some ice-yachts go as fast as
ninety miles an hour!”
“Oh, get out!”
“They do; don’t they, Stew?”
“Easy,” answered Stewart gravely. “I’ve seen lots of them do it. I
owned one myself once that could go a hundred and thirty-seven miles
in----”
“Shut up, you idiot!” growled Carl. “What do you say, fellows; shall
we see if we can get the boat? Think how jolly grouchy the other chaps
would be to see us skipping around and----”
“And breaking our necks,” suggested Trevor.
“Nothing of the sort! Why, it’s not dangerous at all; any one that
knows anything about sailing a yacht can manage an ice-boat.”
“Well, who knows anything about sailing among this crowd? Do you,
Trevor?”
Trevor shook his head.
“Not a thing.”
“_I_ do, of course,” interrupted Carl.
“Well,” said Stewart, “as far as I’m concerned I think I’d rather have
some one else than you do it, Carl.”
“Oh, quit fooling; I’m in earnest. Suppose we go to Euston Point next
Saturday and see what’s doing?”
“But, look here,” said Dick, “how do you know Faculty will let us sail
the thing if we get it?”
“Why shouldn’t they? They allow skating; ice-yachting’s just
skating--with a difference. Besides, as long as there’s no rule against
it we have a right to do it.”
This argument was incontrovertible, and it was agreed that the four
should journey to the near-by village of Euston Point the following
Saturday morning. And then Stewart suddenly discovered that the apples
on the hearth had been done for some time, and in the business that
followed the subject of ice-yachting was forgotten.
When Dick and Trevor returned from supper that evening they found a
fresh, inky-smelling number of The Hilltonian awaiting them in the
letter-box. Dick hurried to the room with it and spread it out under
the light on the table. Yes, Singer had been as good as his word; the
leading editorial was headed The Rowing Situation, and was quite in
Singer’s best style.
“My!” ejaculated Trevor, who had been reading the article over Dick’s
shoulder, “that’s spiffin!”
“It sounds rather well, doesn’t it?” asked Dick, highly gratified by
the effusion. “And you’d think it would bring some of the fellows
round, eh?”
“Bound to; you’ll find slathers of them in the gym to-morrow
afternoon,” replied Trevor confidently. “Read it out loud, Hope.”
And Dick did so and Trevor listened admiringly and interpolated an
applauding “Hear, hear!” at intervals, and Dick went to bed very
hopeful of the morrow.
But when at three o’clock the following afternoon he repaired to
the rowing-room his heart sank. Aside from the original nineteen
candidates, but the veriest handful were present. Dick counted them
grimly; there were fourteen of them, and for the most part they not
only looked but really were sadly out of their element. A small junior
of perhaps fourteen tried to hide himself in a corner, but Dick routed
him out mercilessly and asked him cruelly if he was a candidate for
coxswain.
“Yes--no--that is, I don’t know,” was the breathless reply. Dick turned
away and encountered the mocking gaze of Taylor, who, when Dick’s eyes
were turned upon him, smoothed his features into an expression of
respectful concern and walked forward.
“What an outfit, eh?” he asked softly. But Dick was resolved that the
other should not have the satisfaction of knowing his disappointment.
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled carelessly.
“Well, they don’t look brilliant; a bit light on an average; but I
dare say we’ll be able to find some good material in the lot.” At that
moment Professor Beck entered. After a slow and careful glance up and
down the long room he looked fleetingly at Dick, frowned, and turned
away. But he made no remarks upon the showing of candidates save once.
“Mr. Kirk will coach the crews again this year,” he announced, “and
will be with you every Saturday afternoon until the river opens, when,
as last year, he will come up to Hillton and stay with you until the
race. I expect he will make his first visit a week from next Saturday,
and I’m sure”--he glanced blandly over the audience--“I’m sure he will
be greatly pleased with the material he will find.”
Something approaching a shudder passed over the throng, and Dick turned
aside to hide a grim smile. Then the first batch of candidates trooped
off to the locker room to don gymnasium attire, and the new recruits
were registered, instructed to report for examination the following
afternoon, and dismissed looking heartily relieved. When the last one
had gone Professor Beck heaved a sigh and turned to Dick.
“Hope, are you certain there was no mistake made? You’re sure you
didn’t issue a call for candidates for a tiddledy-winks team?” Dick
smiled dismally.
“No, there’s no such luck. We’ve got thirty-four fellows, of which a
possible two dozen are rowing material.”
“Hum; I think we shall be able to turn out an excellent second eight,
but as for a varsity crew--do you happen to have an idea as to where we
are going to get that, Hope?”
“No, sir, I haven’t,” replied Dick miserably. Professor Beck polished
his glasses thoughtfully for a minute and studied the wintry landscape
through the high window. Then he smiled, settled the shining lenses
again on his nose, and turned toward the door.
“We’ll have to use our wits, Hope. Above all, don’t allow yourself
to become discouraged. We still have a couple of weeks before us,
and--well, I guess we can accomplish something in that time. Are you
ready?”
Together they passed out onto the floor and in a few minutes the first
squad of crew candidates had begun their training. Of the twenty,
two had rowed in the varsity boat of the preceding year, four had
rowed with the second eight, three had trained as substitutes, and
the balance, eleven candidates, represented new and inexperienced
material as far as shell-rowing was concerned. Well-nigh all were what
Trevor would have termed “wetbobs,” and had paddled about in tubs or
perhaps rowed now and then in a pair-oar. Professor Beck and Dick were
busy for the half hour that constituted the first day’s exercising.
Generally speaking, each candidate required a different work from his
neighbors. In Brown the forearm muscles were undeveloped; in Smith the
chest muscles had been neglected; in Jones the back was as unbending
as a two-inch plank, while Robinson, perchance, was in a state of
general flabbiness. The professor viewed attentively the work of
each boy, altered the exercise here, stopped it there, increased it
elsewhere, while Dick stood beside him, listening to his instructions
and memorizing, as pointed out to him, the needs of the different
ones. After awhile the fellows were sent to the track for the briefest
of trots, and so, having stood for an instant under a shower-bath,
dressed, and went their ways full-fledged crew candidates, with an
inalienable right to look down condescendingly upon their schoolmates,
to cut Friday night lectures, and comport themselves generally in the
manner of coming heroes.
And Dick, with Trevor at his side, went back to his room for an hour
of study before supper, not overjoyful, but yet somewhat comforted by
the professor’s hopefulness and by the fact that real work had at last
commenced.
On Friday night Professor Beck announced to Dick that the fourteen
newer candidates had been examined, and in five instances found
wanting. “Of those that remain,” said the professor, “two look like
good men; as for the rest----” He shrugged his shoulders eloquently.
“But we can tell better in a week or two. Meanwhile, we must keep up
the recruiting. I have my eye on an upper middle boy, and I think I’ll
have him hooked in a day or two. If we can secure say another half
dozen good men I think we can pull out all right.”
The next morning--it being a bright and sunny Saturday toward the last
of January--Dick, Trevor, Carl, and Stewart boarded the train and
traveled to Euston Point, but a few miles distant, where they called
on the man whose advertisement Carl had read in a local paper, and by
him were conducted to a loft by the river, where a dilapidated-looking
triangle of timbers and bolts--which its owner declared loudly was
the fastest cat-rigged yacht on the Hudson--was shown to them. The
bargain was soon closed, Carl conducting the negotiations and talking
learnedly of runner planks, center timbers, and stays. The boat was to
be supplied with a new rudder-post, a new sail and rigging, the runners
were to be reground, and the whole was to be delivered at the boat
landing at Hillton Academy four days from that date for the munificent
sum of seventeen dollars and seventy-five cents. Carl was elated.
“We’ve saved two dollars and a quarter,” he declared.
“I don’t see how,” objected Dick. “You told us last week that we could
get the thing for fifteen dollars.”
“I know I did; that’s what I thought. But you heard him ask twenty
at first, didn’t you? Well, and I jewed him down to seventeen
seventy-five. Isn’t that two and a quarter saved?”
Dick had to acknowledge that it was, and Carl insisted on celebrating
his successful financiering by treating to very nasty hot soda at the
town’s only drug store. And so to Carl’s business acumen may be traced
the series of events that led shortly to Trevor’s disgrace.
Their way to the station took them past the open door of a livery
stable. When they were abreast of it something round and white shot
out, rolled over and over down the little incline, and brought up at
Trevor’s feet. It proved to be a young puppy, which, when it stopped
rolling, found its four unsteady feet, barked joyously, and tried to
gnaw the buttons from Trevor’s trouser cuffs. But he was instantly
seized upon and elevated in Trevor’s arms for the inspection of the
others.
“Isn’t he a little beauty?” cried Trevor.
“Yes; what is he, a fox terrier?” asked Stewart, allowing the squirming
and delighted puppy to chew his gloved fingers to its heart’s content.
“Fox terrier!” replied Trevor scathingly. “Of course not; it’s a bull.
Look at that nose!”
“I am looking at it,” answered Dick. “Nice and ugly, isn’t it? What
makes it so pink?”
“That’s the way it ought to be,” answered Trevor with fine disdain for
his friend’s ignorance. “I wonder who it belongs to?”
“Belongs right here, sir!” The boys glanced around and found a colored
stableman observing them smilingly from the doorway. Trevor placed the
puppy upon the ground, where it at once relapsed into a state of loud
and poignant grief, leaping with snowy feet against his stockings, and
crying vehemently to be again taken up. Trevor patted it, whereupon its
grief gave place to uncontrollable delight; it stood on its hind legs,
buried its short nose in a small snow-bank, and attempted to take the
boy’s entire hand into its pink mouth, and all within the instant.
“It’s the liveliest pup I ever saw,” said Carl.
“That’s a fine dog, sir,” said the owner. “His mother took a first and
two second prizes at the dog show last week, and his father’s got lots
of ’em. Yes, siree, he’s a mighty fine dog, he is.”
“Come on,” said Dick, “we’ll lose the train if we’re not careful.”
But Trevor paid no heed. He was looking intently at the puppy, which,
with the boy’s left thumb between his teeth, was radiantly happy.
“He’s got a pedigree as long as yer arm,” continued the stableman.
“Has he?” muttered Trevor.
“He can be registered ter-morrer, he can; he’s blue-blooded right
through, he is.”
“Is he?” said Trevor. The puppy was now on its back, legs limply aloft,
and Trevor was thoughtfully rubbing a pink-and-white stomach.
“Was you wanting to buy a dog, sir?”
“N-no, I think not,” answered Trevor.
“Say, come on, Nesbitt, or we’ll be late,” cried Carl.
The stableman glanced over his shoulder. “Lots of time, gentlemen;
train ain’t due for twelve minutes yet.” Then, addressing Trevor, “I
had four of them and sold ’em all ’cept this one; an’ he’s the best of
the lot; an’ cheap, too--dirt cheap.”
“How much?” asked Trevor with elaborate carelessness.
“You can have him for five dollars.”
“Phew!” said Stewart.
“Give you fifty cents,” said Carl. The stableman turned indignantly.
“I reckon you don’t know much about what bulldogs is worth,” he said.
“This gentleman here knows that that ain’t too much for a puppy as fine
as that one; don’t you, sir?”
“I dare say he’s worth that much,” answered Trevor, “but I couldn’t pay
it.”
“What would you do with it if you had it?” asked Dick.
“Now, look here; I’ll tell you what I’ll do, sir,” said the stableman.
“You can have him for three dollars and a half. And that’s mighty
cheap, that is.”
Trevor looked longingly at the puppy, who was now for the moment
quiescent, and who was gazing up into Trevor’s face as though
breathlessly awaiting his verdict.
“I--I’ll give you a dollar to-day and pay you the rest next Saturday,”
he said finally.
“You one of the Hillton young gentlemen?” asked the stableman.
“Yes.”
“Well, you can take him along. What’s your name?”
Trevor gave it amid the expostulations of his friends, who asked
wonderingly where he expected to keep his new possession, how long he
thought Faculty would let him have it, and how he was going to get it
home. To all of which Trevor made no reply. Paying the man the first
instalment of the money, he seized upon the delighted puppy and strode
off, fearful lest the former owner should regret the bargain and change
his mind.
“Well, of all things!” ejaculated Dick. “Where in thunder will you keep
him?”
“Don’t you worry,” answered Trevor. “I’ll find a place.”
“What’s troubling me,” complained Carl, “is how you’re going to pay
your four dollars and forty-four cents toward the yacht and the three
dollars and a half for the pup.”
Trevor looked blank.
“I’d forgotten about the yacht,” he muttered.
“Forgotten about it!” cried Carl. “Why, man alive, we just bought it
ten minutes ago!”
“I know. But--I tell you--I’ll write to the pater; I fancy he’ll send
me money enough for the puppy; he always gives me any money I may need
for useful things.”
The others exploded into violent laughter.
“Call that useful?” gurgled Dick, holding his sides and pointing
derisively at the puppy, which lay limp but blissful with half-closed
eyes in Trevor’s arms. A warning whistle made unnecessary any reply,
and the four boys hurried toward the station.
“You’d better hide him under your coat, or else they’ll make you
ride in the baggage car with him,” cautioned Dick. And so Trevor
boarded the train with a suspicious portliness, happily unobserved
of the conductor, and, when they had yielded their tickets, drew the
uncomplaining puppy from under his sweater.
“I’ll say one thing for it,” remarked Carl grudgingly, “it behaves
mighty well, considering that it has just been torn from home and
parents.” He held out a hand and the puppy went into spasms of delight
over the evidence of friendship and licked the fingers deliriously.
“Funny little beggar! How old is it, Trevor?”
“About ten weeks, I fancy.”
“What are you going to call him?” asked Stewart.
Trevor shook his head thoughtfully.
“I don’t know yet. I shall wait until I find something appropriate.”
“Talking about names,” said Carl, “let’s find one for the boat. That
fellow said she was the Lucy G., but that’s silly and doesn’t mean
anything.”
“Ought to be something wintry,” suggested Stewart.
“Something like Blizzard, or Snowflake, or Ice King,” added Dick.
“It can’t be any of those,” objected Carl, “because there are heaps of
Blizzards and the other things you said. How would The Polar Bear do?”
Every one sniffed derisively.
“Well,” said Trevor, “if it must be something wintry, what’s the matter
with The Ulster or The Cough Drop?”
“Or The Chilblain?” laughed Dick.
“I think a good name would be The Sleet,” Stewart struck in. “That’s
wintry enough.”
A vote was taken, and The Sleet carried.
“We can have a sail next Saturday,” suggested Carl.
“So soon?” groaned Dick. “Carl, we’re so young to die!”
“That’s all right, my funny friend, but just you wait until I get to
sailing that thing; you’ll see!”
And Carl’s prediction, though vague, proved in a measure correct.