MR. BROSE WILKINS
There seemed nothing for it but to take Kewpie into their confidence,
and this they did when, after dinner, Ned and Laurie were back in No.
16. Kewpie, still demanding a work-out and impatient at delay, proved
that he was not entirely obsessed by baseball. He became quite excited
about Miss Comfort and the _Pequot Queen_ and demanded to be let in on
the affair.
“Got any money?” asked Ned.
Kewpie smiled in an irritatingly superior manner and showed a purse
fairly bulging with bills and silver coins. “Which,” he observed
grandly, “reminds me that I owe you fellows a trifle.” The twins
accepted payment without demur.
“I asked about money,” said Ned when that matter had been concluded,
“because to get in on this game, Kewpie, you have to have――er――three
dollars.”
Kewpie’s countenance promptly betrayed the secret thought that he
could remain out and still manage to survive. Whereupon Laurie added
hastily: “Of course, three dollars makes you a life member, you
understand. You can become an ordinary member for two.”
Kewpie grinned and disentangled two one-dollar bills from the wad. Ned
accepted them gravely. “Want a receipt?” he asked.
“Yes, I’d like a receipt for your cheek,” responded Kewpie flippantly.
“Bet nobody else has put in any little old two dollars! Bet nobody else
has put in two bits!”
“The books of the association are always open to inspection,” replied
Ned coldly, pocketing Kewpie’s contribution.
“All right, Nid. Now, what about some pitching?”
Laurie tottered to his feet. “Come on,” he sighed. “But, oh, Kewpie
darlin’, I rue the day I first looked on your ugly face!”
Later that day the initial contribution to the expense fund was
augmented by like sums paid or pledged by the others, and the colossal
amount of twelve dollars resulted. Laurie opined that it would
suffice, since he meant to beg or borrow whenever possible. In the
evening the twins went over to see Bob’s father, and that gentleman
readily agreed to intercede with the Porter Quarry Company in their
behalf. “I’ll stop there in the morning, boys, and see Porter himself.
Bob, you stay around the telephone here, and I’ll call you up about
nine.”
And at a little after nine the next morning the message came. The
Porter Quarry Company, Mr. Starling telephoned, claimed no equity in
the _Pequot Queen_, and, furthermore, would be extremely relieved to
see the last of her!
Five minutes later Laurie and Bob had set out to find Mr. Wilkins, who
conducted the boat-yard a quarter of a mile beyond the new location
chosen for the _Pequot Queen_. There were a pier and a landing, two
weather-stained sheds, piles of second-hand lumber, and a few boats
in various stages of dissolution. But there was no Mr. Wilkins, even
though they crossed the lane and adventured to a neighboring house.
They had decided to give up the search for the time when there came
a hail from the river. A small launch chugged toward shore, and a
man waved to them from it. They went to meet it. The noisy motor was
stilled, and the man hailed again.
“Looking for dad?” he asked. He was a tall chap of possibly twenty-two
or three years with copper-red hair that curled closely about his bare
head. His face was long and thin and chiefly remarkable for a lazy,
good-natured, and very wide smile. The boys explained their errand
while the little launch floated close to the inshore end of the wharf.
“Dad’s over to Hamlin doing a job of work. But I can give you a tow.
Where’s your launch?” Bob told him. “Huh?” asked young Mr. Wilkins, his
smile almost fading. “The old _P. Q._? You bought her?” They explained
further. Young Mr. Wilkins looked dubious. “Don’t know as I’d want to
take a chance like that,” he said. “S’pose the Porter folks had me
pinched. May be all right, fellers, like you say, but you don’t own
her――”
“But we’ve told you that it’s all right,” interrupted Bob. “We wouldn’t
be stealing her, anyhow. All we want to do is bring her up the river
and tie her up to the bulkhead down there.”
“That’s so.” The tall youth’s smile broadened to normal. “All right.
When you want I should do it?”
“Pronto,” said Laurie. “Right off. How much will you charge for the
job?”
Young Mr. Wilkins viewed them swiftly and shrewdly. “Oh, it ain’t worth
more’n five dollars, I guess,” he answered carelessly.
“I’ll say it isn’t!” exclaimed Bob. “Listen, please. We’re not selling
you the boat. All we want is a tow.”
The other laughed merrily. “I wouldn’t give you five dollars for her,
feller. Well, how much do you want to pay?”
Oddly, perhaps, they hadn’t considered the question before. But Laurie
answered quite promptly, “Two dollars.”
“All right,” was the equally prompt reply. “Jump in!”
Two minutes later the launch was chugging out into the stream, Laurie
and Bob huddled in the stern seat, with the water rippling past a scant
four inches below the gunwale. The craft was rather an amazing affair,
being not more than fourteen feet in length and apparently built of
odds and ends. No two planks seemed the same width, while, as for
length, they were anywhere from two feet to ten. Water trickled in from
innumerable seams. The engine was a diminutive thing of one cylinder,
with a fly-wheel scarcely larger than a good-sized dinner-plate, but it
pushed the boat along at a good gait, the boat shaking and trembling at
every explosion in the cylinder. The skipper, seated on an empty box by
the engine, laughed.
“How do you like her?” he asked. “Some cruiser, eh? I knocked her
together two, three years ago. Got that engine out of a yacht dinghy
that sank over by Eagle Beak one time. She’s sort of wet underfoot, but
she generally gets there. You fellers from Hillman’s?”
Bob said they were.
“Fine man, the Doctor. Used to work for him sometimes when I was in
high school. Mowed grass and so on a couple of summers. My name’s
Ambrose Wilkins. Called Brose generally. What sort of a baseball team
you fellers going to have up there this year?” He gave a negligent
tug at the tiller-line and swerved around the stern of a tug that was
backing out from the coal-wharf with a lighter snuggled beside her.
“Why, pretty good, I reckon,” answered Laurie.
Brose Wilkins’s grin broadened more. “Guess you weren’t up there when
we played you that twenty-two to three game. Course not. That was five
years ago. That was some game, boys. Hillman’s didn’t get a hit until
the fifth and didn’t put a run over until the eighth. Then our in-field
went flooey for a minute, and your crowd piled in three runs. Some
game!”
“Did you play?” asked Laurie.
Brose nodded and squirted some oil in the general direction of the
little engine. “Yeah,” he answered. “Pitched.”
“Oh! Well, you must have been good,” replied Laurie.
“Fair,” the other acknowledged modestly. “That would have been a
shut-out if a couple of our in-fielders hadn’t cracked.”
Laurie stared intently at the _Pequot Queen_, now less than two hundred
yards away. After a moment he asked idly, “Do you still play ball?”
“Yeah, I pitch for the Lambert team, over to Munroe. At least, I been
pitching for them. There’s a team down at Carmel that’s written me a
couple of times lately. Guess they’ll make me an offer soon. I got
twenty a game from the Lamberts, but I guess this Carmel crowd’ll do
better.”
“Twenty dollars a game?” asked Bob.
“Yeah. ’Tain’t much, of course, but it helps. Besides, I like to play
ball, and there ain’t so much doing up here that dad can’t tend to it
once a week. Well, here’s the old _P. Q._ Gee-whillikins, fellers, I
remember when this old scow was a regular lady! Say, what you guys
meaning to do with her, anyway?”
“That’s a long story,” evaded Laurie.
“All right. None of my business, eh? Reach under that seat, will you,
and pull out that coil of rope.”
No one paid any attention as the _Pequot Queen’s_ weather-grayed
hawsers were cast off and, with Laurie and Bob at the bow, the long
idle craft moved slowly from the dock. Until the last moment Laurie had
feared that some officious employee of the quarry company would object,
and he breathed freely when the boat was clear of the little harbor
and her broad nose had been pointed up-stream. She moved sluggishly
since, as Brose Wilkins remarked, she probably had enough water under
her deck to fill a pond. “Water-line’s ’most a foot under,” said Brose,
“but she’ll come all right as soon as she gets started.” The boys
thought the three-quarter-inch manila rope that Brose was using as a
tow line perilously weak, but it proved quite equal to its purpose. At
first the little one-lung engine threatened to throb itself into junk
in its effort to move the _Pequot Queen_, but gradually the larger
craft got under way, imperceptibly at first, and the voyage up the
river began. It was slow going, but the tiny launch never faltered,
and the _Pequot Queen_, having, as it seemed, finally made up her mind
to say good-by to her old home and set forth on an exciting adventure,
displayed a cheerful willingness to follow this new acquaintance.
On the coal-wharf a half-dozen workers paused in their labors and
stared incredulously. One shouted a question, and after that the
_Pequot Queen_ wallowed leisurely past to a chorus of ribald comments.
In answer Laurie, seated on the bow rail, waved a nonchalant hand.
Further along other denizens of the waterfront stood and stared at the
sight. That they were causing a tremendous sensation was quite evident
to the passengers on the old ferry-boat, and, boy-like, they enjoyed it
thoroughly. Laurie regretted that they hadn’t brought a flag and run it
up on the short staff beside them!
Getting the _Pequot Queen_ into her new berth was far more difficult
than persuading her to leave her old home. She had to be taken past the
sunken canal-boat without running her bow on the bottom, and that task
required patience and ingenuity. But Brose Wilkins was equal to it,
and finally, after much tugging and swinging and shoving――the _Pequot
Queen’s_ steering apparatus was no longer of use――the battered old
craft was lying against the short stretch of bulkhead. That her rail
smashed off the upper plank of the bulkhead was immaterial, since it
allowed her to get a few inches nearer. That the boys had neglected
to bring anything to tie the boat up with complicated matters at
first. They had not brought the old hawsers along since they had been
uncertain whether they had been the property of the boat’s former
owners or of the quarry company. In any case, those rotted ropes would
have been of only temporary use. Laurie offered to run over to a store
and get some new line, but Brose vetoed that suggestion.
“You fellers hold her here a few minutes,” he said. “We’ve got some
second-hand stuff over in the shed that’ll do fine and won’t cost you
but a few cents. All we need is about thirty feet at each end.” He
chugged off, leaving the boys sitting on the rail of the boat with
their legs dangling over the bulkhead planking. The _Pequot Queen_
showed no desire to leave her new home. In fact, she seemed more
desirous of pushing her way right up on the beach, and Laurie audibly
wondered whether they hadn’t better somehow strengthen the bulkhead.
“I guess she’ll be all right when she’s once tied up,” said Bob. “We’ll
ask the Wilkins chap when he comes back.”
Brose allayed their fears as he climbed aboard the _Pequot Queen_ with
a supply of thick hawser. “She won’t budge when we get her fixed,” he
assured them. “Ease her off a bit while I stick these fenders over the
side.” The fenders were two sausage-shaped canvas bags attached to
short lengths of cord, and he inserted them between bulkhead and boat
about ten feet apart, making the free ends of the cords fast under the
low rail. “They won’t cost you anything,” he said. “They’re worn out.
All right for this job, though. Now let’s see.”
Ten minutes later the _Pequot Queen_ was fast, bow and stern, the
worn but still serviceable hawsers securely tied to two spiles.
“There,” said Brose. “She’ll stay put till the Yankees win the World’s
Championship, fellers!”
“We’re awfully much obliged to you,” said Laurie gratefully. “You’ve
been mighty decent. Now, how much is it, rope and all?”
“Two dollars and seventy-five cents,” answered Brose. “But I’ll throw
off the seventy-five cents if you’ll tell me what in the name of Old
Joe Barnes you’re aiming to do with her now you’ve got her!”
Laurie questioned Bob silently, and, because they had taken a sudden
and immense liking to the queer, loose-jointed, red-haired Brose, Bob
nodded. So Laurie told him the whole story, and Brose Wilkins’s eyes
opened wide and his broad smile threatened to jostle his ears while he
listened. Once or twice he chuckled, too. And when Laurie had finished
he laughed until tears stood in his gray eyes. Laurie frowned then.
He supposed it did sound rather funny, but Brose’s laughter lasted
too long. It wasn’t _that_ funny! Then, just when Laurie was forming
a stinging rebuke in his mind, Brose wiped his streaming eyes with a
sleeve of his old brown sweater and became coherent. He had previously
attempted without success to speak.
“Well, if that don’t beat the Cubs!” he gasped. “I got to hand it to
you fellers for using the old bean! And, say, what about Miss Pansy,
eh? Ain’t she running true to form? I’ll say she is! You can’t beat
that little woman, fellers. She’s plucky, she is! Think of her living
down here all by her lonesome, and tickled to do it because she’s on a
boat! Funny, eh? And sporting, too, eh? She’s a wonder, Miss Pansy is!”
“You know her then?” asked Laurie, mollified.
“Know her? Know Miss Pansy Comfort? Known her since I was that high.”
Brose swept a hand along about six inches from the deck. “Used to be
in her Sunday-school class. Done odd jobs for her when I was a kid,
often. Shingled the shed roof for her not more’n four years ago. Sure,
I know her. Guess every one does. I heard something about her having to
leave that house up there, but I didn’t know she was up against it like
that. Well, say!”
“Don’t you think she’d get on all right here?” asked Laurie anxiously.
“I’ve been thinking that it’ll be sort of lonely here at night for her.”
“She’ll get on. Trust her. She’s plucky. Anyway, no one would trouble
her. Why, gee-whillikins, I’ll look out for her myself! I’m going past
here all times, land or water, and I’ll keep the old eagle eye peeled
sharp. Another thing. You say you’re going to fix this old ark up a
bit. You’d have to, of course. Well, that’s where I come in, eh? I’m
sort of handy with tools, and I’d like mighty well to help. What say,
fellers?”
“Gosh,” answered Laurie joyfully, “I say ‘Sure!’ That’ll be simply
corking. And maybe you’ve got some tools?”
“Tools? Yeah. Or if I ain’t I can get them. When you aiming to get at
her and what you aiming to do?”