UNCLE ARAD HAS RECOURSE TO LEGAL FORCE
IN the several oceans of our great globe there are many floating
wrecks, abandoned for various causes by their crews, which may float on
and on, without rudder or sail, for months, and even years. Especially
is this true of the North Atlantic Ocean, where, during the past five
years, nearly a thousand “derelicts,” as these floating wrecks are
called, were reported.
The Hydrographic Office at Washington prints a monthly chart on which
all the derelicts reported by incoming vessels are plainly marked, even
their position in the water being designated by a little picture of the
wreck.
By this method of “keeping run” of the wrecks, it has been found that
some float thousands of miles before they finally reach their ultimate
port--Davy Jones’ locker.
The average life of these water logged hulks is, however, but thirty
days; otherwise the danger from collision with them would be enormous
and the loss of life great. Many of those vessels which have left
port within the past few years and never again been heard from, were
doubtless victims of collisions with some of these derelicts.
Several more or less severe accidents have been caused by them, and
so numerous have they become that, within the past few months, several
vessels belonging to our navy have gone “derelict cruising”--blowing up
and sinking the most dangerous wrecks afloat in the North Atlantic.
At the time of the Silver Swan’s reported loss, however, it was
everybody’s business to destroy the vessels, and therefore nobody’s.
At any time, however, the hull of the brig, reported by the steamship
Montevideo as floating off Cuba, might be run into and sunk by some
other vessel, such collisions being not at all uncommon.
Brandon Tarr realized that there was but a small chance of the Silver
Swan being recovered, owing to these circumstances; yet he would not
have been a Tarr had he not been willing to take the chance and do all
he could to secure what he was quite convinced was a valuable treasure.
Derelicts had been recovered and towed into port for their salvage
alone, and the Silver Swan was, he knew, richly laden. It might also
be possible to repair the hull of the brig, for she was a well built
craft, and if she had withstood the shock of being ground on the reef
so well, she might even yet be made to serve for several years.
These thoughts flitted through the mind of the boy as he slowly crossed
the wet fields toward the farm house.
“I’ll go tomorrow morning--Uncle Arad or no Uncle Arad,” he decided.
“It won’t do to leave the old fellow alone, so I’ll step down after
dinner and speak to Mrs. Hemingway about coming up here. He will have
to have her any way within a few days, so it won’t much matter.”
He didn’t really know how to broach the subject to the old man, for he
felt assured that his great uncle would raise manifold objections to
his departure. He had lived at the farm four years now and Uncle Arad
had come to depend on him in many ways.
They had eaten dinner--a most miserable meal--and Don was washing the
dishes before he spoke.
“Uncle Arad,” he said, trying to talk in a most matter of fact way,
“now that father is--is gone and I have nothing to look forward to, I
believe I’ll strike out for myself. I’m past sixteen and big enough and
old enough to look out for myself. I think I shall get along faster by
being out in the world and brushing against folks, and I reckon I’ll go
to New York.”
Uncle Arad fairly wilted into his seat, and stared at Don in utter
surprise.
“Go to New York?” he gasped.
“That’s what I said.”
“Go to New York--jest when yer gittin’ of some account ter me?”
“Oh, I’ve been of some account to you for some time, and any way father
always paid my board before last fall, you know,” said Don cheerfully.
Uncle Arad snorted angrily, and his eyes began to flash fire.
“Paid your board!” he exclaimed. “I dunno what put _that_ inter your
head.”
“Father put it there, that’s who,” declared Don hotly.
“_I_ never give him no receipts for board money,” cried the old man.
“You can’t show a one!”
“I don’t suppose you did,” returned Don, with scorn. “You never give
receipts for anything if you can help it. If you’d given receipts to
your own brother as you ought, you wouldn’t be in possession of this
farm now.”
“I wouldn’t, hey?” cried the old man, goaded to desperation by this
remark, which he knew only too well to be true. “You little upstart
you! Ye’ll go ter New York, whether ’r no, will ye?”
He arose in his wrath and shook his bony fist in Don’s face. The youth
looked down upon him scornfully, for the man would have been no match
for him at all.
“Now don’t have a fit,” he said calmly. “I’m going to step ’round to
Mrs. Hemingway’s after dinner, and get her to come up here and look
after you. You’ll need her any way, in a few days.”
“It won’t matter! it won’t matter!” shrieked Uncle Arad, exasperated
by the boy’s coolness. “It won’t matter, I s’pose, when I hev ter pay
three dollars--_three dollars_, mind ye--fur a hull week’s extry work!”
He fairly stamped about the room in his fury.
“It don’t matter, eh, when I’ll have ter hire a man ter take your
place? Be you crazy, Brandon Tarr?”
“Guess not,” responded Don, wiping the last dish and hanging up the
towel to dry. “You must think _me_ crazy, however. Do you s’pose I’d
stayed here this season without wages?”
“Wages!” again shrieked the old man, to whom the thought of paying
out a penny was positive pain, “Wages! an’ you a beggar--yes, sir, a
beggar!--’pendent upon my bounty, as it were.”
Don smiled at this.
“I’m a pretty sturdy beggar, as they used to call ’em in the old days,”
he said.
“Wal, any way, I’m your guardeen, an’ I’ll see if you’re goin’ jest
when you like.”
Don laughed outright now.
“My guardian!” he responded. “I’d like to know _why_ I should have any
guardian. I’ve no property, goodness knows. And as you said about the
board receipts, _where are your papers giving you any legal control
over me?_”
The old man was utterly taken aback at this and sat down again,
glowering at his nephew angrily, while the latter put on his hat and
coat and departed on his errand to Mrs. Hemingway’s.
But Arad Tarr was not the man to see either money or its equivalent
slipping his grasp without strenuous efforts to retain it. His nephew
represented to him just so much hard cash saved, for if Brandon went
away Uncle Arad realized that the hiring of an extra hand would be an
absolute necessity.
Therefore, the boy had not been gone long before the old man decided on
a line of action. He struggled into his own coat, locked up the house,
and harnessed a horse to a dilapidated light wagon. He was too careful
of his good vehicles to take anything but this out on such a nasty day.
“That boy is a-gettin’ too upstartish!” he declared, climbing into the
wagon and chirruping to the horse. “He’s jest like Anson an’ Horace.
There was no livin’ with _them_, an’ now _he’s_ got this fool notion
inter his head erbout goin’ away!
“But I’ll git _that_ aout o’ him,” he added, with emphasis. “If I
hain’t got no legal right ter his services, I _will_ have, now I tell
ye! Arter all I’ve done fur him an’ fur his shif’less, no ’count pa,
I ain’t goin’ ter let go o’ him till he comes of age--mos’ five years
yet.”
He shook his head slowly at that thought. Five years of Brandon’s
services on the farm would be worth all of twenty-five hundred dollars!
He clucked to the horse and drove on the faster at that. Suppose the
boy should take it into his head to go before he obtained the papers
which he was sure he could have made out? The idea was quite agonizing.
“I reckon Squire Holt kin fix it up for me in short order,” he
muttered, as he urged his horse into a faster trot. “I’ll show that boy
’t he ain’t his own master, by no means!”