_THE CAMP AT THE NUB._
Two days later the light-keeper gave Dave a holiday, that he might spend
a day at the Nub. Dick Pray came after him, and as he rowed off from
the lighthouse he called out to the keeper, who stood in the tower door,
"Don't worry about your assistant. I will bring him home after dinner.
Get here by four."
The keeper nodded his head. He said to himself, "May be; but if I don't
see a boat starting off from the Nub by a quarter of four, I shan't
leave it to you to bring him, but go myself for him. You are great on
what you are going to do; I like the kind that does."
It was a pleasant boat-ride to the Nub.
"Welcome!" shouted several young men in chorus as Dick's dory neared the
shore of the Nub. They stood on a broad, flat stone, for which the
rock-weed had woven a brown mat, and on the crown of the ledge behind
them rose a tent tipped with a dirty flag.
"Hurrah!" responded Dick.
"Hurrah!" shouted Dave.
"I thought, Dick," said Dave, "only Sam Whittles was here."
"Oh, these fellers came down last night. Just to spend a couple of
days, you know."
"Who are they?"
"Oh, Jimmy Dawes, I believe, and there's Steve Pettigrew and a Keese
Junkins."
Dave's feelings of like and dislike were very quick in their operation,
and he now said to himself, "Don't fancy those specimens!"
They were showily rather than tastefully dressed, strutted about with a
self-important air, and their talk was loud, coarse, and slangy.
"Who is that little fellow?" asked Dave, noticing a small boy in the
rear of the tent.
"Oh, that is a kind of servant they brought down with them. He came
down, and waits on them just for his board. He is a queer chap, and
makes fun for us all. We call him Dovey. Don't know what his real name
is. Splendid place here for camp!"
"Tolman doesn't like it; says you can't get on or off easy."
"O Dave, Tolman is an old fogey. But here we are."
The boat was bumping against the landing-rock, and Dick and Dave
disembarked amid a chorus of "How are ye?" "Step ashore!" and other
friendly salutations. So cordial were these that Dave's dislike was put
to sleep, and he said to himself, "They are pleasant. Good-hearted, I
daresay."
The tent within was an assortment of bedding, camp-chests, old clothes,
and provisions, all mixed up in great confusion. Dave thought the
outside of the tent would be more agreeable than the inside, which was
clouded with tobacco smoke. He took a seat without, and looked off upon
the sea. It was a vivid summer day. All the colouring of nature was
very bright and sharp. The sky was very blue; the clouds were very
white; the water was very dark, and the foam of the breakers white as
the flakes scattered by the storms of January. Dick and the others were
discussing plans for dinner. As Dave sat alone, watching the white
sails slowly drifting across the distant sea, a light hand was laid on
his shoulder by some one who had stepped up behind him. It was not a
big, coarse hand, but a gentle pressure such as a child might make.
"Oh, it is the boy Dick told about," thought Dave; "it's that Dovey."
He looked up, and to his surprise there was Little Mew!
"Why, Bartie, you down here?" exclaimed Dave, turning and looking with
interest at the small, twisted features of Bartholomew Trafton.
"Yes; and I am glad to see you. Did you get my letter?"
Bart had seated himself beside Dave, and rested his hand on Dave's knee
as if he were a little boat gladly tying up to a friendly pier.
[Illustration: "Bart seated himself beside Dave and rested his hand on
his knee." _Page 97_.]]
"Yes, I got your letter, and it was a very nice one. There is a party,
too, coming down to the lighthouse, and I thought you might be in it.
My sister will be one, I expect."
"Teacher?"
"Yes; and Mr. James Tolman, my teacher when I was in the school, is
going to bring them."
"Oh, I wish I could go. I don't like it here."
As he spoke he turned his head and looked about as if to make sure that
no one heard him save Dave.
"Well, how did you come here?"
"Reese Junkins," said Bartie, again looking back. "He lives near us. He
came to the house and told gran'sir and granny they wanted a boy to go
with them and just wait in the tent, and he would look after me, and I
might like it. But I don't like it."
Here if his eyes had been straight, and Dave had followed their glance,
he would have noticed that Bartie was looking at a basket of bottles
near a rear corner of the tent.
"I don't like to be with such people; they make too much noise."
He bravely concealed the fact that they made fun of him, though his soul
was vexed and torn by their unkind jokes.
"Well, you know Dick."
"Yes; but he has forgotten me. He only saw me that day."
That day meant the time of the rescue from the water. Dave looked into
the face turned trustingly toward his own.
"Don't you worry, Bartie; I will look after you."
The boy looked up so gratefully, and the hand on Dave's knee pressed
harder. The little boat rejoiced to have found such good moorings.
----
About half-past three Dave said to Dick, "I think I must be going, if
you can row me across. You know I said I would be back by four, and I
shall be needed at the light."
"All right," replied Dick.
"Going?" called out Sam. "Don't hurry."
"Thank you; but I think I must be starting," said Dave.
"Don't go!"
This last was a timid, pitiful voice.
Dave turned, and there was Little Mew.
"Oh, I must go, Bartie. You see I said I would go back this afternoon,
and the keeper will look for me at the light."
"Oh take me!" he begged aside.
"You really want to go--really, Bartie?"
"Oh yes; I'll ask them."
Bart turned to Dick and Sam, and asked if he could go to the lighthouse.
"We have no objection," they said.
"Very well," said Dave, who saw the place was a prison for the little
fellow.
But what did it mean that Steve, Billy, and Reese leaned against the
boat, and looked sullen as a fog-bank on the horizon?
"You can't have this boat!" muttered Steve.
"But it's one I borrowed," shouted Dick angrily. "Hands off! This
fellow is my company, and he shall be treated as he ought to be."
"We will row him over ourselves in the morning, or--or--maybe--we will
spill him out half-way across. Ha! ha!"
Billy's tone was sarcastic and offensive.
"No, you won't!" said Dave, who, indignant beyond the power to quietly
state his feeling, had remained silent. "Somebody's coming after me."
"What?" said Reese in amazement, looking toward Black Rocks.
"Who's a-coming?"
They all looked off and saw a dory advancing from the direction of the
lighthouse.
"That's Tolman, the light-keeper!" explained Dick.
"Who cares for Tolman, the light-keeper?--Boy," said Billy Dawes,
turning to Dave and shaking a dirty fist insultingly, "we don't want
anything to do with you."
"You may be glad to have my help," replied Dave.
"No help from babies. Remember that," said Billy.
Dave's face was red with wrath. What would he do? He was in no danger,
for close at hand was Toby Tolman, a champion of no mean size, and the
rowdies stupidly gazed at him rowing his boat with all the ease of a
strong, skilled oarsman.
"All ready!" exclaimed Dave, advancing to meet the light-keeper's boat.
"Good-bye, Dick."
"Oh--oh--take me!" sobbed Bart.
"What does that booby want?" asked Reese.
"He wants to go to the lighthouse," explained Sam.
"Well, let him go," replied Reese. "He has been a bother ever since he
came."
With what joy Bart's small legs wriggled over the side of the keeper's
dory!
"This little fellow, in whom I am interested, wants to go, if you will
let him," said Dave to the light-keeper; "and he can go to Shipton with
the party expecting to come down, you know, to visit us."
"All right; and tumble in yourself, Dave."
"Here I am!" replied Dave. "Let me push off!"
Toby Tolman's boat was quickly rising and falling with the sea that
rocked about the Nub, and the departure was watched in an amazed,
ignoble silence by the three rowdies leaning against Dick's boat.
"I am so much obliged to you for coming," said Dave to the keeper,
"though I did not mean to trouble you. Things were rather squally at
the Nub, and you came just in time. I will tell you about it."
When Dave had given his story, the light-keeper, resting on his oars,
exclaimed, "There! I guessed as much. I didn't feel easy about you.
That Dick is a well-meaning boy, I don't doubt; but when I found out
that Sam Whittles was with him, I guessed what kind of a camp they would
have at the Nub, and it seems my guess was about right.--And this little
lamb?"
Bart's eyes brightened at this pitying title; the appellatives bestowed
upon him had generally been of a different nature.
It was a happy party that went into the lighthouse after the trip from
the Nub.
"Oh, isn't this nice!" cried Bart, as he entered the kitchen. The sense
of peaceful, safe seclusion, the warm fire in the kitchen stove, above
all, the protecting friends near him, made the place seem like--Bart
whispered to himself what he thought it must be like--"heaven!"
When he thought of the Nub he shuddered.
What a happy boy it was that tumbled into the bed where the keeper told
him he could sleep that night! Dave added to his happiness by an
acknowledgment made. "Bartie," he whispered.
"What, Davie?"
"I owe you a good deal for stopping me at the dinner at the Nub."
"Stopping you?"
"When I didn't think, and lifted that glass, you know."
"Oh, but you wouldn't have touched it."
"If you had not been there, Bart, I don't know what might have
happened."
"Oh, I am sure you would have come out all right," shouted confidently
this diminutive mentor. And yet as he was falling asleep that night,
hushed by the sound of the waves musically breaking against the walls of
the lighthouse, a thought came to him and steeped his soul in comfort,
that as Dave might have yielded, he--just Little Mew--might have been of
some use, and so not for nought had God sent into the world this puny
little fellow.