A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST
As the three boys hurried to the river, Dave Porter felt that all his
anticipated sport for that afternoon had been spoiled. He had been
brought face to face once more with the one dark spot in his history,
and his heart was filled with a bitterness which his two loyal chums
could scarcely comprehend.
Dave was indeed a poorhouse boy, and of unknown parentage. When but a
few years of age, he had been found one evening in the summer wandering
close to the railroad tracks just outside of the village of Crumville.
How he was found by some farm hands and taken to a house and fed and
cared for otherwise, has already been related in the first volume of
this series, entitled "Dave Porter at Oak Hall."
At first, every effort to learn his identity was made, but, this
failing, he was turned over to the poorhouse authorities. He said his
name was Dave, or Davy, and sometimes added Porter, and then Dun-Dun,
and from this he was called Dave Porter--a name which suited him very
well.
Dave remained at the poorhouse until he was about nine years old, when
he was taken out of that institution by a broken-down college professor
named Caspar Potts, who had turned farmer. He remained with the old
professor for several years, and a warm friendship sprang up between the
pair. Caspar Potts gave Dave a fair education, and, in return, the boy
did all he could for the old man, who was not in the best of health, and
rather eccentric at times.
Unfortunately for Professor Potts, there was in the neighborhood a
hard-hearted money-lender named Aaron Poole, who had a mortgage on the
old educator's farm. The money-lender had a son named Nat, who was a
flippant youth, and this boy had trouble with Dave. Then the
money-lender would have sold out the old professor, had not aid come
opportunely from a most unexpected quarter.
In this volume it is unnecessary to go into the details of how Dave
became acquainted with Mr. Oliver Wadsworth, a rich manufacturer of the
neighborhood, and how the boy saved Jessie Wadsworth from being burned
to death when the gasoline tank of an automobile exploded and enveloped
the young miss in flames. For this service the Wadsworths were all more
than grateful, and when Dave told his story Oliver Wadsworth made the
discovery that Caspar Potts was one of the professors under whom he had
studied in his college days.
"I must meet him and talk this over," said the rich manufacturer, and
the upshot of the matter was that the professor and Dave were invited to
dine at the Wadsworth mansion.
This dinner proved a turning point in the life of the poorhouse youth.
Mr. Wadsworth had lost a son by death, and Dave reminded him strongly of
his boy. It was arranged that Caspar Potts should come to live at the
Wadsworth mansion, and that Dave should be sent to some first-class
boarding school, the manufacturer agreeing to pay all bills, because of
the boy's bravery in behalf of Jessie.
Oak Hall was the school selected, a fine institution, located not far
from the village of Oakdale. The school was surrounded by oaks, which
partly shaded a beautiful campus, and the grounds, which were on a
slight hill, sloped down in the rear to the Leming River.
Dave's heart beat high when he started off for Oak Hall, and he had a
curious experience before he reached that institution. The house of a
Senator Morr was robbed, and the boy met the robber on the train, and,
after a good deal of trouble, managed to recover a valise containing a
large share of the stolen goods. This threw Dave into the company of
Roger Morr, the senator's son, and the two became warm friends. Roger
was on his way to Oak Hall, and it was through him that Dave became
acquainted with Phil Lawrence--reckoned by many the leader of the
academy; Maurice Hamilton, generally called Shadow; Sam Day, Joseph
Beggs,--who always went by the name of Buster, because he was so
fat,--and a number of others. In Crumville Dave had had one boy friend,
Ben Basswood, and Ben also came to Oak Hall, and so did Nat Poole, as
flippant and loud-mouthed as ever.
But Dave soon found out that Nat Poole was not half so hard to get along
with as was Gus Plum, the big bully of the Hall. There was a difference
of opinion almost from the start, and Plum did all he could to annoy
Dave and his friends. Plum wanted to be a leader in baseball and in
athletics generally, and when he found himself outclassed, he was
savagely bitter.
"I'll get square!" he told his toady, Chip Macklin, more than once; but
his plans to injure Dave and his chums fell through, and, in the end,
Macklin became disgusted with the bully and left him. Most of the boys
wanted nothing to do with the boy who had been the bully's toady, but
Dave put in a good word for him, and, in the end, Macklin was voted a
pretty fair fellow, after all.
With the toady gone, Gus Plum and Nat Poole became very thick, and Poole
lost no opportunity of telling how Dave had been raised at the
poorhouse. Gus Plum took the matter up, and for a while poor Dave was
made miserable by those who turned their backs on him. But Doctor Clay,
who presided over the academy, sided with Dave, and so did all of the
better class of students, and soon the affair blew over, at least for
the time being. But now the bully was agitating it again, as we have
just seen.
During the winter term at Oak Hall one thing of importance had occurred,
of which some particulars must be given, for it has much to do with our
present tale. Some of the boys, including Dave, had skated up the river
to what was locally called the old castle--a deserted stone dwelling
standing in a wilderness of trees. They had arrived at this structure
just in time to view a quarrel between two men--one a sleek-looking
fellow and the other an elderly man, dressed in the garb of a sailor.
The sleek-looking individual was the man who had robbed Senator Morr's
house, and just as he knocked the old sailor senseless to the ground,
the boys rushed in and made him a prisoner.
When the old sailor came to his senses, he stared at Dave as if the boy
were a ghost. He said his name was Billy Dill and that he had sailed the
South Seas and many other portions of the briny deep. He insisted that
he knew Dave well, and wanted to know why the youth had shaved off his
mustache. The boys imagined that the tar was out of his head, and he
was removed to a hospital. Later on, as Dave was so interested in the
man, Mr. Wadsworth had him taken to a private sanitarium. Here he
lingered for awhile between life and death, but at last grew better
physically, although his mind was sadly unbalanced, and he could recall
the past only in a hazy way.
Yet he insisted upon it, over and over again, that he had met Dave
before, or, if not the youth, then somebody who looked exactly like him,
although older. Pressed to tell his story, he said he had met this man
on Cavasa Island, in the South Seas. He also mentioned a crazy nurse and
a lost child, but could give no details, going off immediately into a
wild flight about the roaring of the sea in his ears and the dancing of
the lighthouse beacon in his eyes.
"He must know something of my past," Dave said, when he came away from
visiting the old tar. "Oh, if only his mind were perfectly clear!"
"We must wait," answered Oliver Wadsworth, who was along. "I think his
mind will clear after awhile. It is certainly clearer now than it was
some months ago."
"The man he knows may be my father, or some close relative."
"That may be true, Dave. But don't raise any false hopes. I should not
like to see you disappointed for the world."
Dave knew that Phil Lawrence's father was a shipping merchant of
considerable standing, owning an interest in a great number of vessels.
He went to Phil and learned that the boy was going to take a trip to the
South Seas that very summer, and was going to stop at Cavasa Island.
"I am going on business for my father," explained Phil. "It is something
special, of which he wishes the supercargo to know nothing." And then he
told Dave all he knew of Cavasa Island and its two towns and their
inhabitants. After that, Dave sent a letter to both of the towns, asking
if there were any persons there by the name of Porter, or if any
English-speaking person had lost a child years ago, but so far no answer
had been received.
Of course, Phil wanted to know why Dave was so anxious to learn about
his proposed trip, and, in the end, the poorhouse boy told his story, to
which his chum listened with interest.
"Phil, what would you say if I wanted to go with you on that trip to
Cavasa Island?" Dave had said, after his story was finished.
"Do you really mean it, Dave?" had been the return question, and Phil's
face had shown his astonishment.
"I do--if matters turn out as I think they may."
"That is, if that old sailor gets around so that he can tell a pretty
straight story?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'd like your company, first-rate. But--" Phil drew a deep
breath--"I'd hate to see you go on a wild-goose chase. Think of
traveling thousands of miles and then being disappointed at the end of
the trip. That old sailor may simply be crazy."
"I don't think so. Why should he mention a lost child--a boy?"
"Well, that is the only thing that makes it look as if there was
something in the story. But couldn't I do the looking for you?"
"No, I'd prefer to do that myself. Besides, you must remember, that
sailor did not come directly from Cavasa Island to this country. So,
whoever was on the island--I mean the person I may be interested in--may
have gone elsewhere--in which case I should want to follow him."
"I see. Well, Dave, do what you think is best, and may good luck go with
you!" Phil had said; and there the conversation on the subject had come
to a close.
It was not until a week later that Dave had called on Billy Dill
again--to find the old tar sitting on a porch of the sanitarium, smoking
his pipe contentedly.
"On deck again, my hearty!" had been the greeting. "Give us your
flipper," and a warm handshake had followed.
But the visit had been productive of little good. Billy Dill could
remember nothing clearly, excepting that he knew a man who looked very
much like Dave, and that that man had been his friend while he was
stranded on Cavasa Island and looking for a chance to ship. He said he
could recall a bark named the _Mary Sacord_ and a crazy nurse called
Polly, but that was all.
"I had a picter o' that man once--the feller that looks like you," he
said. "But I dunno what's become o' it," and then he had scratched his
head and gone off into a rambling mumble that meant nothing at all. And
Dave had gone back to Oak Hall more mystified than ever.