A SHARPER OUTWITTED
Bar and Val had a splendid time at the seashore. Never before had the
former passed a week of such thoroughgoing enjoyment.
It was grand fun to catch fish; the very sailing and rowing were a kind
of new life; every crab and clam they laid their hands on was a sort of
new wonder. Still, if Bar had tried to analyze his feelings he would
have found that, after all, the secret of his happiness was the fact
that his “new time” was daily becoming more and more of a clear and
clean and beautiful reality.
Val Manning was capital company, and they made more than one trip to
the quiet and pleasant little home of Mrs. Brayton and Sibyl. The
widow, for such she was, seemed always glad to see them, and Sibyl was
sure to have something more to tell them about “George,” who seemed,
indeed, to be a sort of human idol in the mind of his very pretty
sister.
That sort of thing, nice as it was, had an end at last, and Bar
experienced a halfway gloomy sensation at finding himself once more on
his way to the great city.
Their stay there was to be brief, as previously decided, but Bar had
one more good, long talk with the judge and the doctor.
“I wish,” said the former, “that you could open your valise now, but
that’s impossible. I wouldn’t have you break your word for anything.
I’ll tell you, however, one thing I wish you’d do. Every time you
recall, or think you do, anything that happened away back, before you
began to live with Major Montague, I wish you would write it down.”
“Has he been to see you while I was gone?” asked Bar.
“I think he was in my office once while I was out,” replied the judge;
“but he must have seen something or somebody there he didn’t like, for
he hasn’t turned up since.”
“He’s not a man to give up anything,” said Bar; “but he can hardly find
me as far away as Ogleport.”
“Hardly,” said the doctor; “and now, Barnaby, we both hope you will
give a good account of yourself at the Academy. You will have to study
pretty hard at first.”
“I suppose so,” said Bar. “Val knows a great many things that I have
never heard of.”
“Keep your courage up, though,” said Judge Danvers. “I mean to make a
lawyer of you one of these days. You’re just built for one.”
Kind friends they were, and Bar felt a curious glow at his heart twenty
times before he and Val got away, as he found how well and thoughtfully
his various wants had been foreseen and provided for.
“He’ll spend the whole of that thousand dollars,” said Bar to himself,
“before he gets through with me. Well, I’ll pay him, somehow, some day.
Meantime I’ll be a right good friend to Val. He’s a tip-top sort of a
fellow, too.”
As for Val, that young gentleman could hardly find words to tell his
mother all his satisfaction with his wonderful new chum.
“He knows everything but books, mother,” he said, “and you couldn’t get
him to do a mean thing. I’m ever so glad he’s going with me.”
Then there came a leave-taking, which made Bar sick with the thought
of what a wonderful thing it is to have a live father and mother. Then
there followed an all-night ride, by rail, then a morning change of
cars, and then a stage that took the two schoolboys to Ogleport from a
direction opposite to that by which George Brayton had reached the same
destination.
The “stage” was a long-bodied, flat-topped, four seated vehicle, that,
in that warm weather, was left open to the dust and surrounding scenery
on all sides. The boys had the back seat, wide enough for three, and
immediately in front of them was a pair of decently well-dressed,
middle-aged men, who got in at one of the villages through which they
passed.
Neither of these gentry seemed to need more than a glance at Bar and
Val to fix their identity as “Academy boys,” and they talked away
unreservedly.
“No,” said one, the sharper and harder-faced of the two, “I ain’t goin’
straight through. Got to stop at Ogleport and make sure of Puff Evans’s
boat.”
“What do you want of a boat?” asked his companion.
“Why, you know I bought in the Peters’s place, up at the Rodney end of
the lake, and I’m going to move in this week. There’s a good boat-house
but no boat. Ain’t any good one around, that I know of, except Puff’s,
so I laid for that.”
“I know, but then he wouldn’t sell it for any money. Made it himself,
and it’s worth fifty or sixty.”
“Guess likely, but it won’t cost me that. You see, Puff goes on sprees
every few months, and he’s awful kerless about his tavern bills. So
I found one up in Rodney, bought it for most nothing, sued and got
judgment on it, and levied on the boat.”
“What’s the judgment?”
“Costs and all, fifteen dollars. Cost me about five, and I’m willing to
go five more. That’ll make the boat net me ten dollars.”
“Cheap enough. But s’pose Puff pays up?”
“Nobody’ll trust him with that much money. Besides, I can get another
squeeze on him, if he should. I’m bound to have that boat. The stage’ll
get in just about half an hour before the time. It’ll be down at
Runner’s tavern and I can catch a ride home, or go up on the night
stage.”
It all sounded very businesslike and matter-of-course, but Bar looked
at Val with his finger on his lip. Pretty much the same idea was
passing through both their busy heads.
They had not intended to do any eaves-dropping, but they could scarcely
have helped overhearing what they had, and, when their luggage was
discharged at the Widow Wood’s, they astonished that good old lady by
clearing out, within two minutes, on the plea of an important errand in
the village.
Runner’s tavern was away down at the northern end of the main
street, and was a curiously dilapidated kind of a country hostelry.
It had been, however, time out of mind, the place appointed for the
performance of petty “constables’ sales,” and on this day, at noon,
quite a little crowd had assembled in front of it, less with any idea
of “bidding” than with a mild curiosity to see what would become of
Puff Evans’s boat.
Puff himself had been on hand half the morning, and had, with wonderful
self-control for him, kept rigidly away from the door of the tavern
bar-room.
Tall, lank, red-headed, weak-faced, with a strong tendency to wear his
hands in his pockets and to blow out his irresolute cheeks in the style
which had gained him his nickname, but for all that Puff Evans had not
a single personal enemy in either Ogleport or Rodney.
Indeed, he received an abundance of sympathy over the admitted hardness
of his case, especially from the boys.
Thus far, however, Puff had been utterly unable to crystallize that
sympathy into anything that resembled coin or bank-notes, and he was
now standing with his shoeless feet wide apart, mournfully gazing at
the “notice of sale” which his moderate learning did not enable him to
read.
Zeb Fuller was on hand as a matter of course, and well backed up, too,
so far as numbers went, but Zeb’s pocket was only a very little better
off, in that emergency, than Puff’s own, though with fewer holes in it.
“This is mighty hard on Puff, isn’t it, Gershom?” said Zeb to the fat
old miller, as the latter waddled dignifiedly past the crowd.
“What is it, Zeb? Come here,” replied the miller. “Do you want to buy?”
“Only to keep Puff Evans from drowning himself,” said Zeb. “It’s only
fifteen dollars, and the boat’s worth four times that much. I’ve got
three.”
“I’ll lend you the other twelve!” exclaimed Gershom Todderley, pulling
out his wallet, “and you and I can own the boat together till you can
pay me. We can let Puff use it, can’t we?”
“The very thing!” exclaimed Zeb. “You’re an honor to Ogleport, Brother
Todderley.”
Gershom looked at the incorrigible youngster with a very dignified sort
of wheeze, but Zeb went back to the crowd feeling like a Rothschild.
In a moment more the customary and monotonous, “How much’m I offered,”
was responded to by a bid of five dollars from the Rodney attorney, who
had “come for that boat.”
“Five, goin’ at five--five--do I hear any more?”
“Ten,” responded Zeb.
The Rodney man started and looked hard at Zeb.
“No bids from boys,” he began, but the auctioneer promptly responded:
“If Zeb Fuller’s a boy, whar’d General Jackson git his army. Ten,
ten--going at ten--do I hear any more?”
“Eleven!”
“Twelve!” shouted Zeb, and then he added, “Won’t do, Skinner, my boy;
I’d never forgive myself if I let you go a boating and get drowned.”
“Thirteen!” exclaimed Skinner.
“Fourteen!” from Zeb.
“Fourteen, goin’ at fourteen----”
“Fourteen and a ’alf!” from Skinner.
“Fifteen!” said Zeb, quickly, but with a shivery sort of feeling that
he had got to the end of his rope.
The Rodney attorney was inclined to dally a little, and the auctioneer
came very near knocking down the prize to Zeb before that fatal “’alf”
was added that carried him out of his depth.
If he had only had time to call for a collection of quarters from among
the boys, or to make another pull on old Gershom Todderley.
Nobody else looked as if they intended to dispute the matter, and
lawyer Skinner began to think he would get his boat cheap enough, when
a clear, strong, though somewhat boyish voice, capped the last bid
with: “Sixteen!”
And all eyes were turned towards the newcomer, while Skinner growled:
“More boys? Come, now, this won’t do, Mr. What’s-your-name?”
“My name’s Cash,” quietly responded Bar Vernon, as the auctioneer went
on with:
“Sixteen, sixteen! do I hear any more?”
“Seventeen!” said Skinner, raspishly.
“Twenty,” responded Bar; “let’s make it interesting.”
“Twenty-one,” shouted the now exasperated Skinner.
“Twenty-two!” said Bar, and even Zeb Fuller gave a shout of exultation
and remarked:
“Skinner, my son, you’ve got to give full value for that ark if you get
it. You ain’t so much in danger of drowning as you was.”
But the Rodney lawyer had no idea of any such wickedness as paying full
value for that or any other thing, and the auctioneer hammered away in
vain.
“Come,” said Zeb, encouragingly--“come, Skinner, my dear fellow, if
a man’s drowned he’ll never be hung. It’s your best chance. Try him
again. Say three, now.”
But Skinner was getting sulky over his defeat, and, before he could
quite make up his mind to raise the bid, the hammer fell.
“What name?” said the auctioneer.
“Cash,” said Barnaby, and the “best boat on the lake” was all his own.
That is, he and Val Manning owned it between them, for they had decided
to “go halves” on the purchase-money.
As for Lawyer Skinner, that gentleman somewhat rapidly withdrew himself
from the gaze of the crowd of boys and the tantalizing remarks of Zeb
Fuller.
“Well, Mr. Cash,” said Zeb to our hero, “you’ve got the boat, but who’s
to pay Puff Evans’s funeral expenses, I’d like to know?”
“Which one is he?” asked Bar.
“The gentleman yonder that reminds you of Daniel Webster,” said Zeb,
pointing at the half-stunned and altogether bewildered builder of the
boat. “I’ve some business to attend to over at the mill, but I’ll call
for the coroner on my way back.”
So saying he was off, without waiting for Bar’s reply, for his
disappointment with reference to that boat had been the severest blow
Zeb had received for many a day. Besides, he was really anxious to
return the miller’s money with as little delay as might be.
“Puff,” said Bar, as he walked up to that worthy, “where’s the boat?”
“Down t’ the lake. Right by my house,” replied Puff, vacantly. “She’s a
beauty, but all the money I had in the world was ten dollars. Skinner’s
as mean as pusley, but I don’t know as I blame you. Going to bring her
over to town and put her in Todderley’s pond?”
“Not so bad as that,” said Bar. “Do you suppose you know enough to take
good care of her?”
“Why,” said Puff, “I built her myself, and she’s just the neatest
little thing. Mast and sail, too. Runs as if she was greased.”
“Well,” said Bar, “what’ll you charge me to keep her for me? You to
use her all the time, same as if you owned her, and I to have her once
in awhile to go fishing in.”
“Charge?” exclaimed Puff, opening his eyes. “Charge? You git eout.”
“Well, then,” said Bar, “you go back home and look sharp after that
boat. One of these days I’ll come over and take a look at her.”
“I say, mister!” exclaimed Puff, as the advantages of Bar’s proposition
slowly dawned on him, “won’t ye come in and take suthin’?”
“Not a drop,” said Bar; “nor you won’t, either. That’s the way you lost
your boat.”
“Fact, mister,” said Puff, “but I tell ye what. I’d like to have a
sheer in that boat. Won’t ye let me?”
“Of course,” said Bar, “if you’ll keep dark about it. If lawyer Skinner
knew it he’d be after it again.”
“Say ten dollars’ wuth, then,” said Puff. “’Pears like I couldn’t ketch
no fish in another man’s boat.”
“All right,” said Bar. “Call it ten dollars’ worth, if that’ll do you
any good.”
“Wall, then,” said Puff, drawing himself up straighter than he had
done before during that day, “there’s the money, cash down.”
“Oh, never mind that,” said Bar; “pay when you get ready.”
“No, ye don’t,” said Puff. “Take that, or I shan’t feel honest. There’s
somethin’ comin’ to me from the sale over’n above the jedgment. I
shan’t go home empty. I ain’t sure but what it’s a pooty good job for
me, anyhow, and old Skinner’s beat, too; I’m right down glad o’ that.”
Bar consented to take the money, and he and Val returned to Mrs.
Wood’s, congratulating themselves on the splendid beginning they had
made for their fun at Ogleport.
“We can fish pretty much all the time till school opens,” said Val,
“and then there’s evenings and Saturdays after that.”
“We won’t want to fish all our spare time,” said Bar. “There must be
piles and piles of things to make fun out of around such a place as
this is.”
“So there are,” said Val, “but we mustn’t be careless of our money.
I’m glad we’ve beaten that rascally lawyer as cheaply as we have. I
mean to write my father all about it.”
“He’d have done it himself, I know,” said Bar.
There could be small doubt of that.