THE HOUSEBOAT
Ruth stole a quick glance at the face of her guardian. There was a
silence between them for a moment, broken only by the purr of the
powerful machine and the suction of the rubber tires on the street.
Agnes, Dot and Tess were having a gay time behind the two figures on the
front seat.
"A canal boat?" murmured Ruth, as if she had not heard aright.
"Perhaps I had better qualify that statement," went on Mr. Howbridge in
his courtroom voice, "by saying that it is, at present, Minerva, on the
canal. And a boat on the canal is a canal boat, is it not? I ask for a
ruling," and he laughed as he slowed down to round a corner.
"I don't know anything about your legal phraseology," answered Ruth,
entering into the bantering spirit of the occasion, "but I don't see why
a boat on the canal becomes a canal boat any more than a cottage pudding
becomes a house. The pudding has no cottage in it any more than a club
sandwich has a club in it and--"
"I am completely at your mercy," Mr. Howbridge broke in with. "But,
speaking seriously, this boat is on the canal, though strictly it is not
a canal boat. You know what they are, I dare say?"
"I used to have to take Tess and Dot down to the towpath to let them
watch them often enough when we first came here," said Ruth, with a
laugh. "They used to think canal boats were the most wonderful objects
in the world."
"Are we going on a canal boat?" asked Tess, overhearing some of the talk
on the front seat. "Oh, are we?"
"Oh, I hope we are!" added Dot. "My Alice-doll just loves canal boats.
And wouldn't it be splendiferous, Tess, if we could have a little one
all to ourselves and Scalawag or maybe Billy Bumps to pull it instead of
a mule?"
"That would be a sight on the towpath!" cried Agnes. "But what is this
about canal boats, Mr. Howbridge?"
"Has some one opened a soda water store on board one?" asked Dot
suddenly.
"Not exactly. You'll see, presently. But I do want your opinion," he
went on, speaking directly to Ruth now, "and it has to do with a boat on
a canal."
"I still think you are joking," she told him. "And except for the fact
that we have a canal here in Milton I should think you were trying to
fool me."
"Impossible, Minerva," he replied, soberly enough.
As Ruth had said, Milton was located on both the canal and a river, the
two streams, if a canal can be called a stream, joining at a certain
point, so that boats could go from one to the other. Gentory River,
which acted as a feeder to one section of the canal, also connected with
Lake Macopic, a large body of water. The lake contained many islands.
The automobile skirted the canal by a street running parallel to it, and
then Mr. Howbridge turned down a rather narrow street, on which were
situated several stores that sold supplies to the canal boats, and
brought his machine to a stop on the bank of the waterway beside the
towpath, as it is called from the fact that the mules or horses towing
the boats walk along that level stretch of highway bordering the canal
and forming part of the canal property.
At this part of the canal, the stream widened and formed a sort of
harbor for boats of various kinds. It was also a refitting station; a
place where a captain might secure new mules, hire helpers, buy grain
for his animals and also victuals for himself and family; for the owners
of the canal boats often lived aboard them. This place, known locally as
"Henderson's Cove," was headquarters for all the canal boatmen of the
vicinity.
"Here is where we disembark, to use a nautical term," said Mr.
Howbridge, with a smile at the younger children.
"Is this where we take the boat?" asked Dot eagerly.
"You might call it that," said Mr. Howbridge, with another genial smile.
"And now, Martha, to show that I was in earnest, there is the craft in
question," and he pointed to an old hulk of a canal boat, which had seen
its best days.
"That! You want my opinion on _that_?" cried the girl, turning to her
guardian in some surprise.
"Oh, no, the one next to it. The _Bluebird_."
Ruth changed her view, and saw a craft which brought to her lips
exclamations of delight, no less than to the lips of her sisters. For it
was not a "rusty canaler" they beheld, but a trim craft, a typical
houseboat, with a deck covered with a green striped awning and set with
willow chairs, and a cabin, the windows of which, through their draped
curtains, gave hint of delights within.
"Oh, how lovely!" murmured Agnes.
"A dream!" whispered Ruth. "But why do you bring us here to show us
this?" she asked with much interest.
"Because," began Mr. Howbridge, "I want to know if you would like--"
Just then an excited voice behind the little party burst out with:
"Oh, Mr. Howbridge, I've been looking everywhere for you!" Neale O'Neil
came hurrying along the towpath, seemingly much excited.
"I hope that Supreme Court decision hasn't gone against me," Ruth heard
her guardian murmur. "If that case is lost--"
And then Neale began to talk excitedly.