A GREAT MANY THINGS GETTING READY TO COME!
The newspapers from the city brought full accounts of the stranding of
the "Prudhomme," and of the safety of her passengers and cargo.
The several editors seemed to differ widely in their opinions relating
to the whole affair; but there must have been some twist in the mind of
the one who excused everybody on the ground that "no pilot, however
skilful, could work his compass correctly in so dense a fog as that."
None of them had any thing whatever to say of the performances of "The
Swallow." The yacht had been every bit as well handled as the great
steamship; but then, she had reached her port in safety, and she was
such a little thing, after all.
Whatever excitement there had been in the village died out as soon as it
was known that the boys were safe; and a good many people began to
wonder why they had been so much upset about it, anyhow.
Mrs. Lee herself, the very next morning, so far recovered her peace of
mind as to "wonder wot Dab Kinzer's goin' to do wid all de money he got
for dem bluefish."
"I isn't goin' to ask him," said Dick. "He's capt'in."
As for Dab himself, he did an immense amount of useful sleeping, that
first night; but when he awoke in the morning he shortly made a
discovery, and the other boys soon made another. Dab's was, that all the
long hours of daylight and darkness, while he held the tiller of "The
Swallow," he had been thinking as well as steering. He had therefore
been growing very fast, and would be sure to show it, sooner or later.
Ford and Frank found that Dab had forgotten nothing he had said about
learning how to box, and how to talk French; but he did not say a word
to them about another important thing. He talked enough, to be sure; but
a great, original idea was beginning to take form in his mind, and he
was not quite ready yet to mention it to any one.
"I guess," he muttered more than once, "I'd better wait till Ham comes
home, and talk to him about it."
As for Frank Harley, Mr. Foster had readily volunteered to visit the
steamship-office in the city, with him, that next day, and see that
every thing necessary was done with reference to the safe delivery of
his baggage. At the same time, of course, Mrs. Foster wrote to her
sister Mrs. Hart, giving a full account of all that had happened, but
saying that she meant to keep Frank as her own guest for a while, if
Mrs. Hart did not seriously object.
That letter made something of a sensation in the Hart family. Neither
Mrs. Hart nor her husband thought of making any objection; for, to tell
the truth, it came to them as a welcome relief.
"It's just the best arrangement that could have been made, Maria, all
around," said he. "Write at once, and tell her she may keep him as long
as she pleases."
That was very well for them, but the boys hardly felt the same way about
it. They had been planning to have "all sorts of fun with that young
missionary," in their own house. He was, as Fuz expressed it, to be "put
through a regular course of sprouts, and take the Hindu all out of him."
"Never mind, though," said Joe, after the letter came, and the decision
of their parents was declared: "we'll serve him out after we get to
Grantley. There won't be anybody to interfere with the fun."
"Well, yes," replied Fuz, "and I'd just as lief not see too much of him
before that. He won't have any special claim on us, neither, if he
doesn't go there from our house."
That was a queer sort of calculation, but it was only a beginning. They
had other talks on the same subject, and the tone of them all had in it
a promise of lively times at Grantley for the friendless young stranger
from India.
Others, however, were thinking of the future, as well as themselves; and
Joe and Fuz furnished the subject for more than one animated discussion
among the boys down there by the Long Island shore. Ford Foster gave his
two friends the full benefit of all he knew concerning his cousins.
"It's a good thing for you," he said to Frank, "that the steamer didn't
go ashore anywhere near their house. They're a pair of born young
wreckers. Just think of the tricks they played on my sister Annie!"
They were all related in Ford's most graphic style, with comments to
suit from his audience. After that conversation, however, it was
remarkable what good attention Dab Kinzer and Frank Harley paid to their
sparring-lessons. It even exceeded the pluck and perseverance with which
Dab worked at his French; and Ford was compelled to admit, to him in
particular, "You ought to have a grown-up teacher,--somebody you won't
kill if you make out to get in a hit on him. You're too long in the
reach for me, and your arms are too hard."
What between the boxing-gloves and the boat, there could be no question
but what Frank Harley had landed at the right place to get strong in.
There was plenty of fishing, bathing, riding, boating, boxing: if they
had worked day and night, they could not have used it all up. Three boys
together can find so much more to do than one can, all alone; and they
made it four as often as they could, for Dick Lee had proved himself the
best kind of company. Frank Harley's East-Indian experience had made him
indifferent to the mere question of color, and Ford Foster was too much
of a "man" to forget that long night of gale and fog and danger on board
"The Swallow."
It was only a day or two after that perilous "cruise," that Dab Kinzer
met his old playmate, Jenny Walters, just in the edge of the village.
"How well you look, Dabney!" remarked the sharp-tongued little lady.
"Drowning must agree with you."
"Yes," said Dab, "I like it."
"Do you know what a fuss they made over you, when you were gone? I
s'pose they'd nothing else to do."
"Jenny," said Dab suddenly, holding out his hand, "you mustn't quarrel
with me any more. Bill Lee told me about your coming down to the
landing. You may say any thing to me you want to."
Jenny colored, and bit her lip; and she would have given her bonnet to
know if Bill Lee had told Dab how very red her eyes were, as she looked
down the inlet for some sign of "The Swallow." Something had to be said,
however; and she said it almost spitefully.
"I don't care, Dabney Kinzer: it did seem dreadful to think of you three
boys being drowned, and you, too, with your new clothes on.
Good-morning, Dab."
"She's a right good-hearted girl, if she'd only show it," muttered Dab,
as Jenny tripped away; "but she isn't a bit like Annie Foster."
His thoughts must have been on something else than his young-lady
acquaintances, nevertheless; for his next words were, "How I do wish Ham
Morris would come home!"
There was time enough for that, and Ham was hardly likely to be in a
hurry. The days were well employed in his absence; and, as they went by,
the Morris homestead went steadily on looking less and less like its old
self, and more and more like a house made for people to live and be
happy in. Mrs. Kinzer and her daughters had now settled down in their
new quarters as completely as if they had never known any others; and it
seemed to Dab, now and then, as if they had taken almost too complete
possession. His mother had her room, of course; and a big one it was.
There could be no objection to that. Then another big one, of the very
best, had to be set apart and fitted up for Ham and Miranda on their
return home; and Dab had taken great delight in doing all in his power
to make that room all it could be made. But then Samantha had insisted
upon having a separate domain, and Keziah and Pamela had imitated their
elder sister to a fraction.
The "guest-chamber" had to be provided as well, or what would become of
the good old Long Island notions of hospitality?
Dab said nothing while the partition was under discussion, nor for a
while afterwards; but one day at dinner, just after the coming of a
letter from Miranda, announcing the speedy arrival of herself and her
husband, he quietly remarked,--
"Now I can't sleep in Ham's room any longer, I suppose I'll have to go
out on the roof. I won't sleep in the garret or in the cellar."
"That will be a good deal as Mrs. Morris says, when she comes," calmly
responded his mother.
"As Miranda says!" said Dab, with a long breath.
"Miranda?" gasped Samantha and her sisters in chorus.
"Yes, my dears, certainly," said their mother. "This is Mrs. Morris's
house,--or her husband's,--not mine. All the arrangements I have made
are only temporary. She and Ham both have ideas and wills of their own.
I've only done the best I could for the time being."
The girls looked at one another in blank amazement, over the idea of
Mrs. Kinzer being any thing less than the mistress of any house she
might happen to be in; but Dabney laid down his knife and fork, with--
"It's all right, then. If Ham and Miranda are to settle it, I think I'll
take the room Sam has now. You needn't take away your books, Sam: I may
want to read some of them, or lend them to Annie. You and Kezi and Mele
had better take that upper room back. The smell of the paint's all gone
now, and there's three kinds of carpet on the floor."
"Dabney!" exclaimed Samantha, reproachfully, and with an appealing look
at her mother, who, however, said nothing on either side, and was a
woman of too much good sense to take any other view of the matter than
that she had announced.
Things were again all running on smoothly and pleasantly, before dinner
was over; but Dab's ideas of how the house should be divided were likely
to result in some changes,--perhaps not precisely the ones he indicated,
but such as would give him something better than a choice between the
garret, the cellar, and the roof. At all events, only three days would
now intervene before the arrival of the two travellers, and any thing in
the way of further discussion of the room question was manifestly out of
order.
Every thing required for the coming reception was pushed forward by Mrs.
Kinzer with all the energy she could bring to bear; and Dab felt called
upon to remark to Pamela,--
"Isn't it wonderful, Mele, how many things she finds to do after every
thing's done?"
The widow had promised her son-in-law that his house should be "ready"
for him, and it was likely to be a good deal more ready than either he
or his wife had expected.