ANOTHER GRAND PLAN, AND A VERY GRAND RUNAWAY.
The whole community was stirred up over the news of the capture of the
tramp. It made a first-class excitement for a place of that size; but
none of the inhabitants took a deeper interest in the matter than did
Ford and Frank and the two Hart boys. It was difficult for them to get
their minds quite right about it, especially the first pair, to whom it
was a matter of unasked question just how much help Ham had given Dab in
capturing the marauder. Mr. Foster himself got a little excited about
it, when he came home; but poor Annie was a good deal more troubled than
pleased.
"O mother!" she exclaimed. "Do you suppose I shall have to appear in
court, and give my testimony as a witness?"
"I hope not, my dear. Perhaps your father can manage to prevent it
somehow."
It would not have been an easy thing to do, even for so good a lawyer as
Mr. Foster, if Burgin himself had not saved them all trouble on that
score. Long before the slow processes of country criminal justice could
bring him to actual trial, so many misdeeds were brought home to him,
from here and there, that he gave the matter up, and not only confessed
to the attack on Annie's pocket-book, but to the barn-burning, to which
Dab's cudgelling had provoked him. He made his case so very clear, that
when he finally came before a judge and jury, and pleaded "guilty,"
there was nothing left for them to do but to say just what he was guilty
of, and how long he should "break stone" to pay for it. It was likely to
be a good deal more than "ten years," if he lived out his "time."
All that came to pass some months later, however; and just now the
village had enough to talk about in discussing the peculiar manner of
his capture.
The story of the demijohn leaked out, of course; and, while it did not
rob Dab and Ham of any part of their glory, it was made to do severe
duty in the way of a temperance lecture.
Old Jock, indeed, protested.
"You see, boys," said he, "real good liquor, like that, don't do nobody
no harm. That was the real stuff,--prime old apple-jack 'at I'd had in
my cellar ten year last Christmas; an' it jest toled that feller across
the bay, and captered him, without no manner of diffikilty."
There were some among his auditors who could have testified to a
decidedly different kind of "capture."
One effect of Dab's work on the day of the yachting-trip, including his
special performances as cook, and as milliner to the lobsters, was, that
he felt himself thenceforth bound to be somewhat carefully polite to Joe
and Fuz. The remaining days of their visit would have been altogether
too few for the varied entertainments he laid out for them, in his own
mind, by way of reparation for his unlucky "practical joke." They were
to catch all there was in the bay. They were to ride everywhere. They
were to be shown every thing there was to see.
"They don't deserve it, Dab," said Ford; "but you're a real good fellow.
Mother says so."
"Does she?" said Dab; and he evidently felt a good deal relieved, after
that.
Mr. Richard Lee, when his friends once more found time to think of him,
had almost disappeared from the public eye.
Some three days after "the trip," while all the other boys were out in
the "Jenny," having a good time with their hooks and lines, Dick's
mother made her appearance in Mrs. Kinzer's dining-room, or Miranda's,
with a face that was even darker than usual, with a cloud of motherly
anxiety.
"Miss Kinzer," she said, "has you seen my Dick, dis week?"
"No: he hasn't been here at all. Is there any thing the matter with
him?"
"Dat's de berry question. I jes' doesn't know wot to make ob 'im."
"Why, Glorianna, do you think he's studying too hard?"
"It ain't jes' de books; I isn't so much afeard ob dem: but it's all
'long ob de 'Cad'my. I wish you'd jes' take a good look at 'im, fust
chance ye git."
"Does he look badly?"
"No: 'tain't jes' altogedder his looks. He's de bes' lookin' boy 'long
shoah. But den de way he's a-goin' on to talk. 'Tain't natural. He used
to talk fust-rate."
"Can't he talk now?"
"Yes, Miss Kinzer, he kin talk; but den de way he gits out his words.
Nebber seen sech a t'ing in all my born days. Takes him ebber so long
jes' to say good-mornin'. An' he doesn't say it like he use ter. I wish
you'd jes' take a good look at 'im."
Mrs. Kinzer promised, and she gave her black friend what comfort she
could; but Dick Lee's tongue would never again be the free-and-easy
member of society it had been. Even when at home, and about his
commonest "chores," he was all the while struggling with what he called
his "pronounciation." If he should succeed as well with the rest of his
"schooling," it was safe to say that it would not be thrown away upon
him.
Glorianna went her way that morning; and the next to intrude upon Mrs.
Kinzer's special domain was her son-in-law himself, accompanied by his
blooming bride.
"We've got a plan."
"You? Apian? What about?"
"Dab and his friends."
That was the beginning of a tolerably long consultation, and the results
of it were duly reported to Dabney when he came home with his fish.
"A party?" he exclaimed, when his mother finished her brief but
comprehensive statement: "Ham and Miranda to give a party for us boys?
Well, now, if they're not right down good! But, mother, we'll have to
get it up mighty quick."
"I know it, Dab; but that's easy enough, with all the help we have. I'll
take care of that."
"A party! but, mother, what can we do? There's only a few of 'em know
how to dance. I don't, for one."
"You must talk it over with Ford. Perhaps Annie and Frank can help you."
They were all taken into counsel soon enough; and endless were the plans
and propositions made, till even Mrs. Kinzer found her temper getting a
little fretted and worried over them.
At all events, it was a settled fact that the "party" was to be; and the
invitations went out in due and proper form.
"Miranda," said her mother, on the morning of the important day, "we
must manage to get rid of Dabney and those boys for a few hours."
"Send 'em for some greens to rig the parlor with," suggested Ham. "Let
'em take the ponies."
"Do you think the ponies are safe for them to drive, just now?"
"Oh! Dab can handle 'em. They're a trifle skittish, that's all. They
need a little exercise."
So they did; but it was to be doubted if the best way to secure it for
them was to send them out in a light, two-seated wagon, with a load of
five lively boys.
"Now, don't you let one of the other boys touch the reins," said Mrs.
Kinzer.
Dab's promise to that effect proved a hard one to keep; for Fuz and Joe
almost tried to take the reins away from him, before they had driven two
miles from the house. He was firm, however, and they managed to reach
the strip of woodland, some five miles inland, where they were to gather
their load, without any disaster; but it was evident to Dab, all the
way, that his ponies were in uncommonly "high" condition. He took them
out of the wagon, while the rest began to gather their liberal harvest
of evergreens; and he did not bring them near it again until all was
ready for the start homeward.
"Now, boys," he said, "you get in; Joe and Ford and Fuz on the back
seat, to hold down the greens. Frank, get up there, forward, while I
hitch in the ponies. These fellows are chuck full of mischief."
Very full, certainly; nor did Dab Kinzer know exactly what the matter
was for a minute or so after he seized the reins and sprang up beside
Frank Harley.
Then, indeed, as the ponies kicked and reared and plunged, he thought he
saw something work out from under their collars, and fall to the ground.
An acorn-burr is just the thing to worry a restive horse, if put in such
a place; but Joe and Fuz had hardly expected their "little joke" to be
so very successful as it was.
The ponies were off now!
"Joe," shouted Fuz, "let's jump!"
"Don't let 'em, Ford," exclaimed Dab, giving his whole energies to the
horses. "They'll break their necks if they do. Hold 'em in."
Ford, who was in the middle, promptly seized an arm of each of his
panic-stricken cousins, while Frank clambered over the seat to help him.
They were all down on the bottom now, serving as a, weight to hold the
evergreen branches, as the light wagon bounced and rattled along over
the smooth, level road.
In vain Dab pulled and pulled at the ponies. Run they would, and run
they did; and all he could do was to keep them fairly in the road.
Bracing strongly back, with the reins wound around his tough hands, and
with a look in his face that should have given courage even to the Hart
boys, Dab strained at his task as bravely as when he had stood at the
tiller of "The Swallow" in the storm.
There was no such thing as stopping those ponies.
And now, as they whirled along, even Dabney's face paled a little.
"I must reach the bridge before he does: he's just stupid enough to keep
right on."
It was very "stupid," indeed, for the driver of that one-horse
"truck-wagon" to try and reach the little narrow unrailed bridge first.
It was an old, used-up sort of a bridge, at best.
Dab loosened the reins a little, but could not use his whip.
"Why can't he stop!"
It was a moment of breathless anxiety, but the wagoner kept stolidly on.
There would be barely room to pass him on the road itself; none at all
on the narrow bridge.
The ponies did it.
They seemed to put on an extra touch of speed on their own account, just
then.
There was a rattle, a faint crash; and then, as the wheels of the two
vehicles almost touched each other in passing, Ford shouted,--
"The bridge is down!"
Such a narrow escape!
One of the rotten girders, never half strong enough, had given way under
the sudden shock of the hinder wheels; and that truck-wagon would have
to find its road across the brook as best it could.
There were more wagons to pass, as they plunged forward, and rough
places in the road for Dabney to look out for; but even Joe and Fuz were
now getting confidence in their driver. Before long, too, the ponies
themselves began to feel that they had had enough of it. Then it was
that Dab used his whip again, and the streets of the village were
traversed at a rate to call for the disapprobation of all sober-minded
people.
"Here we are, Ham! Greens and all."
"Did they run far, Dab?" asked Ham quietly.