DABNEY KINZER TO THE RESCUE.
One of the most troublesome of the annoyances which come nowadays to
dwellers in the country, within easy reach of any great city, is the bad
kind of strolling beggar known as "the tramp." He is of all sorts and
sizes; and he goes everywhere, asking for any thing he wants, very much
as if it belonged to him and he had come for his own--so long as he can
do his asking of a woman or a sickly-looking man. There had been very
few of these gentry seen in that vicinity, that summer, for a wonder;
and those who had made their appearance had been reasonably well
behaved. Probably because there had been so many healthy-looking men
around, as a general thing. But it come to pass, on the very day in
which Ham and Miranda were expected to arrive by the last of the evening
trains, just as Dab Kinzer was turning away from the landing, where he
had been for a look at "The Swallow" and to make sure she was all right
for her owner's eyes, that a very disreputable specimen of a worthless
man stopped at Mrs. Kinzer's to beg something to eat, and then sauntered
away down the road. It was a little past the middle of the afternoon;
and even so mean-looking, dirty a tramp as that had a perfect right to
be walking along then and there. The sunshine, and the fresh salt air
from the bay, were as much his as anybody's, and so was the water in the
bay; and no one in all that region of country stood more in need of
plenty of water than he.
The vagabond took his right to the road, as he had taken his other right
to beg his dinner, until, half-way down to the landing, he was met by an
opportunity to do a little more begging.
"Give a poor feller suthin'?" he impudently drawled, as he stared
straight into the sweet fresh face of Annie Foster.
Annie had been out for only a short walk; but she happened to have her
pocket-book with her, and she thoughtlessly drew it out, meaning to give
the scamp a trifle, if only to get rid of him.
"Only a dime, miss?" whined the tramp, as he shut his dirty hand over
Annie's gift. "Come, now, make it a dollar, my beauty. I'll call it all
square for a dollar."
The whine grew louder as he spoke; and the wheedling grin on his
disgusting face changed into an expression so menacing that Annie drew
back with a shudder, and was about returning her little portemonnaie to
her pocket.
"No, you don't, honey!"
The words were uttered in a hoarse and husky voice, and were accompanied
by a sudden grip of poor Annie's arm with one hand, while with the other
he snatched greedily at the morocco case.
Did she scream?
How could she help it? Or what else could she have done, under the
circumstances?
She screamed vigorously, whether she would or no, and at the same moment
dropped her pocket-book in the grass beside the path, so that it
momentarily escaped the vagabond's clutches.
"Shut up, will you!"
Other angry and evil words, accompanied by more than one vicious threat,
followed thick and fast, as Annie struggled to free herself, while her
assailant peered hungrily around after the missing prize.
It is not at all likely he would have attempted any thing so bold as
that, in broad daylight, if he had not been drinking too freely; and the
very evil "spirit" which had prompted him to his rash rascality unfitted
him for its immediate consequences.
These latter, in the shape of Dab Kinzer and the lower joint of a stout
fishing-rod, had been bounding along up the road from the landing, at a
tremendous rate, for nearly half a minute.
A boy of fifteen assailing a full-grown ruffian?
Why not? Age hardly counts in such a matter; and then it is not every
boy of even his growth that could have brought muscles like those of Dab
Kinzer to the swing he gave that four-foot length of seasoned ironwood.
Annie saw him coming; but her assailant did not until it was too late
for him to do any thing but turn, and receive that first hit in front
instead of behind. It would have knocked over almost anybody; and the
tramp measured his length on the ground, while Dabney plied the rod on
him with all the energy he was master of.
"Oh, don't, Dabney, don't!" pleaded Annie: "you'll kill him!"
"I wouldn't want to do that," said Dab, as he suspended his pounding;
but he added, to the tramp,--
"Now you'd better get up and run for it If you're caught around here
again, it'll be the worse for you."
The vagabond staggered to his feet, and he looked savagely enough at
Dab; but the latter looked so very ready to put in another hit with that
terrible cudgel, and the whole situation was so unpleasantly suggestive
of further difficulty, that the youngster's advice was taken without a
word. That is, if a shambling kind of double limp can be described as a
"run for it."
"Here it is: I've found my pocket-book," said Annie, as her enemy made
the best of his way off.
"He did not hurt you?"
"No: he only scared me, except that I suppose my arm will be
black-and-blue where he caught hold of it. Thank you ever so much,
Dabney: you're a brave boy. Why, he's almost twice your size."
"Yes; but the butt of my rod is twice as hard as his head," said Dabney.
"I was almost afraid to strike him with it. I might have broken his
skull."
"You didn't even break your rod."
"No; and now I must run back for the other pieces and the tip. I dropped
them in the road."
"Please, Dabney, see me home first," said Annie. "I know it's foolish,
and there isn't a bit of danger; but I must confess to being a good deal
frightened."
Dab Kinzer was a little the proudest boy on Long Island, as he walked
along at Annie's side, in compliance with her request. He went no
farther than the gate, to be sure, and then he returned for the rest of
his rod: but before he got back with it, Keziah Kinzer hurried home from
a call on Mrs. Foster, bringing a tremendous account of Dab's heroism;
and then his own pride over what he had done was only a mere drop in the
bucket, compared to that of his mother.
"Dabney is growing wonderfully," she remarked to Samantha, "He'll be a
man before any of us know it."
If Dab had been a man, however, or if Ham Morris or Mr. Foster had been
at home, the matter would not have been permitted to drop there. That
tramp ought to have been followed, arrested, and shut up where his
vicious propensities would have been under wholesome restraint for a
while. As it was, after hurrying on for a short distance, and making
sure he was not pursued, he clambered over the fence, and sneaked into
the nearest clump of bushes. From this safe covert he watched Dab
Kinzer's return after the lighter pieces of his rod; and then he even
dared to crouch along the fence, and see which house his young conqueror
went into.
"That's where he lives, is it?" he muttered, with a scowl of the most
ferocious vengeance. "Well, they'll have some fun there before they git
to bed to-night, or I'll know the reason why."
It could not have occurred to such a man that he had been given his
dinner at the door of that very house. What had the collection of his
rights as a "tramp" to do with questions of gratitude and revenge?
The bushes were a good enough hiding-place for the time, and he crawled
back to them with the air and manner of a man whose mind was made up to
something.
Ford and Frank were absent in the city that day with Mr. Foster, who was
kindly attending to some affairs of Frank's; but when the three came
home, and learned what had happened, it was hard to tell which of them
failed most completely in trying to express his boiling indignation.
They were all on the point of running over to the Morris house to thank
Dab, but Mrs. Foster interposed.
"I don't think I would. To-morrow will do as well, and you know they're
expecting Mr. and Mrs. Morris this evening."
It was harder for the boys to give it up than for Mr. Foster, and the
waiting till to-morrow looked a little dreary. They were lingering near
the north fence two hours later, with a faint idea of catching Dab, even
though they knew that the whole Kinzer family were down at the
railway-station, waiting for Ham and Miranda.
There was a good deal of patience to be exercised by them also; for that
railway-train was provokingly behind time, and there was "waiting" to be
done accordingly.
The darkness of a moonless and somewhat cloudy night had settled over
the village and its surrounding farms, long before the belated engine
puffed its way in front of the station-platform.
Just at that moment, back there by the north fence, Ford Foster
exclaimed,--
"What's that smell?"
"It's like burning hay, more than any thing else," replied Frank.
"Where can it come from, I'd like to know? We haven't had a light out at
our barn."
"Light?" exclaimed Frank. "Just look yonder!"
"Why, it's that old barn, 'way beyond the Morris and Kinzer house.
Somebody must have set it on fire. Hullo! I thought I saw a man running.
Come on, Frank!"
There was indeed a man running just then; but they did not see him, for
he was already very nearly across the field, and hidden by the darkness.
He had known how to light a fire that would smoulder long enough for him
to get away.
He was not running as well, nevertheless, as he might have done before
he came under the operation of Dab Kinzer's "lower joint."
Mrs. Kinzer did her best to prevent any thing like a "scene" at the
railway-station when Ham and Miranda came out upon the platform; but
there was an immense amount of "welcome" expressed in words and hugs and
kisses, in the shortest possible space of time. There was no lingering
on the platform, however; for Ham and his wife were as anxious to get at
the "surprise" they were told was waiting for them, as their friends
were to have them come to it.
Before they were half way home, the growing light ahead of them
attracted their attention; and then they began to hear the vigorous
shouts of "Fire!" from the throats of the two boys, re-enforced now by
Mr. Foster himself, and the lawyer's voice was an uncommonly good one.
Dabney was driving the ponies, and they had to go pretty fast for the
rest of that short run.
"Surprise?" exclaimed Ham. "I should say it was! Did you light it before
you started, Dabney?"
"Don't joke, Hamilton," remarked Mrs. Kinzer. "It may be a very serious
affair for all of us. But I can't understand how in all the world that
barn should have caught fire."
"Guess it was set a-going," said Dab.