ON WILD GOOSE ISLAND
“My!” Tess gasped, sitting in the stern of the drifting boat, “how
fast the shores go past, Dot! We’re going up the river awfully quick.”
“And so j-j-jerky!” exclaimed her sister, clinging to the Alice-doll.
“You aren’t really afraid, are you, Dot?”
“No-o. Only for Alice. She’s always been weakly, you know, since that
awful time she got buried alive,” said Dot, seriously. “And if she
should get wet and catch her death of cold——”
“But you mustn’t drop her overboard,” warned Tess.
“Do you s’pose I _would_, Tess Kenway?” demanded Dot, quite hurt by
the suggestion.
“If she did fall overboard, Tom Jonah would save her, of course,” went
on Tess.
“Oh! don’t you say such things,” cried Dot. “And _do_, please, stop
the boat from jerking so!”
“I—I guess it wants to be steered,” Tess said.
The tiller ropes were at hand and Tess had observed Ruth and Agnes use
them. She began experimenting with them and soon got the hang of using
the rudder. But as the boat was propelled, only by the tide, it
_would_ “wabble.”
Tom Jonah watched all the small girls did with his keen eyes. But he
scarcely moved. The boat floated on and on. Tess did not know how to
work the boat ashore—indeed, caught as the craft was in the strong
tide-rip, it would have taken considerable exertion with the oars to
have driven it to land.
There chanced to be no other boats beyond the bend on this day. On
either hand there were farms, but the houses were too far from the
shores for the dwellers therein to notice the plight of the two small
girls and the big dog in the bobbing cedar boat.
The shores at the river’s edge were wooded for the most part, as was
the long and narrow island in the middle of the river, not far ahead.
This latter was called Wild Goose Island, as Tess and Dot knew.
“Maybe the boat will go ashore there,” said Dot, more cheerfully.
“There are berries on that island,” cried Tess. “Only they were not
ripe when we were there last week.” She was beginning to feel hungry;
it was past midday.
“But we can’t walk back to the tent from there,” objected Dot.
“No-o,” admitted Tess. “It’ll be land, just the same!”
But the tide swept the cedar boat out from the lower end of the island
and up the northern channel. It was this fact that hid the drifting
boat from the anxious eyes of Ruth and Agnes when they came around the
bend, expecting to see the missing craft. The island hid it.
Wild Goose Island was more than half a mile long. In the channel where
the boat floated, the current of the river and the inflowing tide
began to battle.
There were eddies that seized the boat and swept it in circles. The
surface of the channel was rippled by small waves. The boat bobbed
every-which-way, for Tess could not control the rudder.
“Oh, dear me!” gasped Dot. “I—I am afraid my Alice-doll will be sick.
Do—don’t you s’pose we can get ashore, Tess?”
But Tess did not see how they could do that, although the boat was now
and then swept very close to the shore of the island.
The island was a famous picnicking place; but there were no pleasure
seekers there to-day. The shore seemed deserted as the girls were
swept on by the resistless tide.
Suddenly Dot stood right up and squealed—pointing at the island. Tom
Jonah lifted his head and barked.
“There’s somebody, Tess!” declared Dot.
The bigger Corner House girl had seen the face break through the
fringe of bushes on the island shore. It was a dark, beautiful face,
and it was a girl’s.
“Oh! oh! Let’s call her,” gasped Tess. “She’ll help us.”
The two small Kenways had a strong belief in the goodness of humanity
at large. They expected that anybody who saw their plight would come
to their rescue if possible.
For fully a minute, however, the girl in the bushes of Wild Goose
Island did not come out into the open. Tess and Dot shouted again and
again, while Tom Jonah lifted up his head and bayed most mournfully.
If the girl on the island did not want general attention attracted to
the place, it behooved her to come out of concealment and try to
pacify the drifting trio in the cedar boat.
Her face was very red when she reappeared in an open place on the
shore. The distance between her and the boat, which was now caught in
a small eddy, was only a few yards.
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded, in rather a sharp tone.
“We—we can’t stop the boat,” responded Tess.
“We want to get ashore,” added Dorothy,
“How did you get out there?” asked the strange girl. She was older
than Ruth, and although she was very pretty, Tess and Dot were quite
sure they did not like her—much!
“We got in it, and it floated away with us,” said Tess.
“Where from?” asked the girl on shore.
“Oh! ’way down the river. ’Round that turn. We live at Willowbend Camp
with Ruth and Aggie.”
“Ruth _Who_?” the other demanded, sharply.
“Our sister, Ruth Kenway,” said Tess.
The girl on the island was silent for a moment, while the boat turned
lazily in the eddy. It now was headed up stream again, when she said:
“Is that dog good for anything?”
“Tom Jonah?” cried Tess and Dot together. “Why, he’s the best dog that
ever _was_,” Dot added.
“Does he know anything?” insisted the strange girl.
“Uncle Rufus says he’s just as knowin’ as any human,” Tess said,
impressively.
“Does he mind?” pursued the girl on the shore.
“Oh, yes,” said Tess. “He’ll sit up and beg—and shakes hands—and
lies down and rolls over—and——”
“Say! those tricks won’t help you any,” cried the other. “Can you make
him swim ashore here?”
“Why—ee—I don’t know,” stammered Tess.
“We wouldn’t want to let you have Tom Jonah,” Dorothy hastened to
explain.
“Goodness knows, _I_ don’t want him,” said the big girl, still tartly.
“But if he can swim ashore with the end of that rope you have coiled
there in the bow of your boat, tied to his collar, he may be of some
use.”
“Oh, yes!” cried Tess, scrambling toward the bow at once.
“See that the other end is fast to your boat,” commanded the girl on
the island.
It was. Tess quickly knotted the free end of the long painter to Tom
Jonah’s collar.
“Now send him ashore, child!” cried the big girl.
Tom Jonah was looking up at Tess with his wonderfully intelligent
eyes. He seemed to understand just what was expected of him when the
rope was tied to his collar.
“Go on, Tom Jonah! Overboard!” cried Tess, firmly.
“He—he’ll get all wet, Tess,” objected Dot, plaintively.
“That won’t hurt him, Dot,” explained her sister. “You know he loves
the water.”
“Come on, here!” cried the girl on the island, snapping her fingers.
“Push him overboard.”
But Tom Jonah did not need such urging. With his forepaws on the
gunwale of the boat he barked several times. The boat tipped a little
and Dot screamed, clutching the Alice-doll tighter to her bosom.
“Go on, Tom Jonah!” shouted Tess. “You’re rocking the boat!”
The big dog leaped over the gunwale into the river, leaving the light
craft tossing in a most exciting fashion. Some water even slopped over
the side.
“Come on, sir! come on!” shouted the girl ashore.
Tom Jonah swam directly for the beach where she stood. The line
uncoiled freely behind him, slipping into the water. It was long
enough to reach the shore where the big girl stood; but none too long.
The sag of the rope in the water began to trouble Tom Jonah, strong as
he was. Quickly the girl drew off her shoes and stockings and waded in
to meet the laboring dog.
“Come on, sir! now we’ll get them!” she urged, laying hold of the
line.
The dog scrambled ashore, barking loudly. The line was taut and the
boat had swung around, tugging on the other end like a thing of life.
“Now we have them!” cried the girl.
She pulled hard on the rope. Tom Jonah, seeing what she was doing,
caught the rope in his strong jaws, and set back to pull, too. Tess
and Dot screamed with delight.
As the big girl slowly drew in the rope the dog backed up the beach,
and so the cedar boat, with its two remaining passengers, came to
land.
“Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me!” gasped Dot, standing in the bow of the
boat. “I’m so glad to get ashore. And so’s my Alice-doll,” she added,
seriously.
Tess helped her sister to jump down upon the sand and then followed,
herself. Tom Jonah dropped the rope and bounded about them, barking
his satisfaction. But the strange girl was looking up and down the
river, and over at the opposite shore, with a mind plainly disturbed.
“Come on, now!” she said, sharply. “Unfasten the rope from that dog’s
collar. We’ll keep _that_. It may come in handy.”
“Don’t you want it to pull the boat up on the beach?” asked Tess, as
she obeyed the command.
The strange girl was already unfastening the rope from the ring in the
bow of the boat. She threw the line ashore and then pushed the boat
off with such vigor that she ran knee deep into the river again.
“Oh! oh!” squealed Dot. “You’ll lose our boat.”
“I want to lose it,” declared the girl, coming back very red in the
face from her exertions. “I got you kids ashore, ’cause you might have
been tipped over, or hurt in some way. I’m not going to be bothered by
that boat.”
“But that’s Ruthie’s boat,” exclaimed Tess.
“I can’t help it! You young ones go into the bushes there and sit
down. Keep quiet, too. Take the dog with you and keep _him_ quiet.
Don’t let him run about, or bark. If he does I’ll tie him to a tree
and muzzle him.”
“Why—why, I don’t think that’s very nice of you,” said Tess, who was
too polite, and had too deep a sense of gratitude, to say just what
she really thought of this conduct on the part of the strange girl.
“We might have saved the boat for Ruth.”
“And it would give me dead away,” declared the big girl, angrily. “You
children be satisfied that I took you ashore. Now keep still!”
“I—I don’t believe I like her very much, Tess,” Dot whispered again.
The older Corner House girl was not only puzzled by the strange girl’s
actions and words, but she was somewhat frightened. She and Dot sat
down among the bushes, where they were completely hidden from the
river and the opposite shore, and called Tom Jonah to them.
He lay at their feet. He had shaken himself comparatively dry, and now
he put his head on his paws and went to sleep.
“Well,” sighed Tess, caressing the dog’s head. “I’m glad we have him
with us.”