That Saturday morning was a sad one for poor Dick Lee!
His mother carefully locked up his elegant apparel, the gift of Mr.
Dabney Kinzer, the previous night, after Dick was in bed, and, when
daylight came, he found his old clothes by his bedside.
It was a hard thing to bear, no doubt, but Dick had been a bad boy on
Friday. He had sold his fish instead of bringing them home, and then had
gone and squandered the money on a brilliant new red neck-tie.
"Dat's good nuff for me to w'ar to meetin'," said Mrs. Lee, when her
eyes fell on the gorgeous bit of cheap silk. "Reckon it wont be wasted
on any good-for-nuffin boy. I'll show ye wot to do wid yer fish. You's
gettin' too mighty fine, anyhow."
Dick was disconsolate for a while, but his humility took the form of a
determination to go for crabs that day, mainly because his mother had
long since set her face against that tribe of animals.
"Dey's a wasteful, stravagant sort ob fish," remarked Mrs. Lee, in
frequent explanation of her dislike. "Dey's all clo'es and no body, like
some w'ite folks I know on. I don't mean the Kinzers. Dey's all got body
nuff."
And yet that inlet had a name of its own for crabs. There was a wide
reach of shallow water inside the southerly point at the mouth, where,
over several hundred acres of muddy flats, the depth varied from three
and a half to eight feet, with the ebb and flow of the tides. That was a
sort of perpetual crab-pasture, and there it was that Richard Lee
determined to expend his energies that Saturday.
Very likely there would be other crabbers on the flats, but Dick was not
the boy to object to that, provided none of them should notice the
change in his raiment. At an early hour, therefore, Dab and Ford were
preceded by their colored friend, they themselves waiting for later
breakfasts than Mrs. Lee was in the habit of preparing.
Dick's ill fortune did not leave him when he got out of sight of his
mother. It followed him down to the shore of the inlet, and compelled
him to give up all idea, for that day, of borrowing a respectable boat.
There were several belonging to the neighbors, from among which Dick was
accustomed to take his pick, in return for errands run and other
services done for their owners; but, on this particular morning, not one
of them all was available. Some were fastened with ugly chains and
padlocks. Two were hauled away above even high-water mark, and so Dick
could not have got them into the water even if he had dared to try; and
as for the rest, as Dick said, "Guess dar owners must hab borrowed 'em."
The consequence was that the dark-skinned young fisherman was for once
compelled to put up with his own boat, or rather his father's.
The three wise men of Gotham were not much worse off when they went to
sea in a bowl than was Dick Lee in that rickety little old flat-bottomed
punt.
Did it leak?
Well, not so very much, with no heavier weight than Dick's; but there
was reason in his remark that "Dis yer's a mean boat to frow down a fish
in, w'en you cotch 'im. He's done gone suah to git drownded."
Yes, and the crabs would get their feet wet and so would Dick; but he
resigned himself to his circumstances and pushed away. To tell the
truth, he had not been able to free himself from a lingering fear lest
his mother might come after him, before he could get afloat, with orders
for some duty or other on shore, and that would have been worse than the
little old "scow," a good deal.
"Reckon it's all right," said Dick, as he shoved off. "It'd be an awful
risk to trus' dem nice clo'es in de ole boat, suah."
Nice clothes, nice boats, a good many other nice things, were as yet
beyond the reach of Dick Lee, but he was quite likely to catch as many
crabs as his more aristocratic neighbors.
As for Dabney Kinzer and his friend from the city, they were on their
way to the water-side at an hour which indicated smaller appetites than
usual, or greater speed at the breakfast table.
"Plenty of boats, I should say," remarked Ford, as he surveyed the
little "landing" and its vicinity with the air of a man who had a few
fleets of his own. "All sorts. Any of 'em fast?"
"Not many," said Dab; "the row-boats, big and little, have to be built
so they'll stand pretty rough water."
"How are the sail-boats?"
"Same thing. There's Ham Morris's yacht."
"That? Why, she's as big as any in the lot."
"Bigger, but she don't show it," said Dab.
"Can't we make a cruise in her?" said Ford.
"Any time. Ham lets me use her whenever I like. She's fast enough, but
she's built so she'll stand most anything. Safe as a house if she's
handled right."
"Handled!"
Ford Foster's expression of face would have done honor to the Secretary
of the Navy, or the chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee in Congress,
or any other perfect seaman, Noah included. It seemed to say: "As if any
boat could be otherwise than well sailed with me on board."
Dabney, however, even while he had been talking, had been hauling in
from its "float and grapnel," about ten yards out at low water, the very
stanch-looking little yawl-boat that called him owner. She was just such
a boat as Mrs. Kinzer would naturally have provided for her boy,--stout,
well made and sensible,--without any bad habits of upsetting, or the
like. Not too large for Dabney to manage all alone, the "Jenny," as he
called her, and as the name was painted on the stern, was all the better
off for having two on board.
"The inlet's pretty narrow for a long reach through the marsh," said
Dabney, "and as crooked as a ram's-horn. I'll steer and you pull till
we're out o' that, and then I'll take the oars."
"I might as well row out to the crab-grounds," said Ford, as he pitched
his coat forward and took his seat at the oars. "All ready?"
"Ready," said Dab, and the "Jenny" glided gracefully away from the
landing with the starting push he gave her.
Ford Foster had had oars in his hands before, but his experience must
have been limited to a class of vessels different from the one he was in
now.
He was short of something, at all events. It may have been skill, and it
may have been legs, or discretion; but, whatever was lacking, at the
third or fourth stroke the oar-blades went a little too deeply below the
smooth surface of the water; there was a vain tug, a little out of
"time," and then there was a boy on the bottom of the boat, and a pair
of well-polished shoes lifted high in the air.
"You've got it!" shouted Dabney.
"Got what?" exclaimed an all but angry voice from between the seats.
"Caught the first 'crab,'" replied Dabney,--"that's what we call it. Can
you steer? Guess I'd better row."
"No you wont," was the very resolute reply, as Ford regained his seat
and his oars; "I sha'n't catch any more crabs of that sort. I'm a little
out of practice, that's all."
"I should say you were, a little. Well, it wont hurt you. 'Tisn't much
of a pull."
Ford would have pulled it, now, if he had blistered all the skin off his
hands in doing so, and he did very creditable work, for some minutes,
among the turns and windings of the narrow inlet.
"Here we are," shouted Dabney, at last. "We are in the inlet yet, but it
widens out into the bay."
"That's the bay, out yonder?"
"Yes; and the island between that and the ocean's no better'n a mere bar
of sand."
"How d'you get past it?"
"Right across there, almost in a straight line. We'll run it, next week,
in Ham's yacht. Splendid weak-fishing, right in the mouth of that inlet,
on the ocean side."
"Hurrah!" exclaimed Ford. "I'm in for that. Is the bay deep?"
"Not very," replied Dabney, "but it gets pretty rough sometimes."
Ford was getting red in the face, just then, with his unaccustomed
exercise, and his friend added:
"You needn't pull so hard. We're almost there. Hullo! if there isn't
Dick Lee in his dry-goods box! That boat'll drown him, some day, and his
dad, too. But just see him pull in crabs!"
Ford came near "catching" one more as he tried to turn around for the
look proposed, exclaiming:
"Dab, let's get to work as quick as we can. They might go away."
"Might fly?"
"No; but don't they go and come?"
"Well, you go and drop the grapnel over the bows, and we'll see 'em come
in pretty quick."
The grapnel, or little anchor, was thrown over quickly enough, and the
two boys were in such an eager haste that they had hardly a word to say
to Dick, though he was now but a few rods away.
Now it happened that when Ford and Dab came down to the water that
morning, each of them had brought a load. The former had only a neat
little japanned tin box, about as big as his head, and the latter,
besides his oars, carried a seemingly pretty heavy basket.
"Lots of lunch, I should say," had been Ford's mental comment; but he
had not thought it wise to ask questions.
"Plenty of lunch, I reckon," thought Dab at the same time, but only as a
matter of course.
And they were both wrong. Lunch was the one thing they had both
forgotten.
But the box and the basket?
Ford Foster came out, of his own accord, with the secret of the box, for
he now took a little key out of his pocket and unlocked it with an air
of "Look at this, will you?"
Dab Kinzer looked, and was very sure he had never before seen quite such
an assortment of brand-new fish-hooks, of many sorts and sizes, and of
fish-lines which looked as if they had thus far spent their lives on dry
land.
"Tip-top!" he remarked. "I see a lot of things we can use one of these
days, but there isn't time to go over 'em now. Let's go for the crabs.
What made you bring your box along?"
"Oh," replied Ford, "I left my rods at home, both of 'em. You don't
s'pose I'd go for a crab with a rod, do you? But you can take your pick
of hooks and lines."
"Crabs? Hooks and lines?"
"Why, yes. You don't mean to scoop 'em up in that landing-net, do you?"
Dab looked at his friend for a moment in blank amazement, and then the
truth burst upon him for the first time.
"Oh, I see! You never caught any crabs. Well, just you lock up your
jewelry-box, and I'll show you."
It was not easy for Dab to keep from laughing in Ford Foster's face; but
his mother had not given him so many lessons in good breeding for
nothing, and Ford was permitted to close his ambitious "casket" without
any worse annoyance than his own wounded pride gave him.
But now came out the secret of the basket.
The cover was jerked off and nothing revealed except a varied assortment
of clams, large and small, but mostly of good size; tough old customers
that no amount of roasting or boiling would ever have prepared for human
eating.
"What are they for,--bait?"
"Yes, bait, weight and all."
"How's that?"
Dabney's reply was to draw from his pocket a couple of long, strong
cords, bits of old fishing-line. He cracked a couple of clams, one
against the other; tied the fleshy part firmly to the ends of the cords;
tied a bit of shell on, a foot or so from the end, for a sinker; handed
one to Ford; took the other himself, and laid the long-handled scoop-net
he had brought with him down between them, saying:
"Now we're ready. Drop your clam to the bottom and draw it up gently.
You'll get the knack of it in five minutes. It's all knack. There isn't
anything else so stupid as a crab."
Ford watched carefully, and obeyed in silence.
In a minute or so more the operation of the scoop-net was called for,
and then the fun began.
"The young black rascal!" exclaimed Dabney. "If he hasn't gone and got a
sheep's-head!"
"A sheep's-head?"
"Yes; that's why he beats us so badly. It's better than clams, only you
can't always get one."
"But how he does pull 'em in!"
"We're doing well enough," began Dabney, when suddenly there came a
shrill cry of pain from Dick Lee's punt.
"He's barefooted," shouted Dab, with, it must be confessed, something
like a grin, "and one of the little fellows has pinned him with his
nippers."
There need have been nothing very serious in that, but Dick Lee was more
than ordinarily averse to anything like physical pain, and the crab
which had seized him by the toe was a very muscular and vicious specimen
of his quarrelsome race.
The first consequence was a momentary dance up and down in the punt,
accompanied by vigorous howling from Dick, but not a word of any sort
from the crab. The next consequence was that the crab let go, but so, at
the same instant, did the rotten board in the boat-bottom upon which
Dick Lee had so rashly danced.
[Illustration: DICK LEE IN TROUBLE.]
It let go of the rest of the boat so suddenly that poor Dick had only
time for one tremendous yell as it let him right down through to his
armpits. The water was perfectly smooth, but the boat was full in an
instant, and nearly a bushel of freshly caught and ill-tempered crabs
were maneuvering in all directions around the woolly head which was all
their late captor could now keep in sight.
"Up with the grapnel, Ford," shouted Dab. "Take an oar! We'll both row.
He can swim like a duck, but he might split his throat."
"Or get scared to death."
"Or eaten up by the crabs."