SQUIRE BRACKETT DISCOMFITED
“But say,” inquired Henry Burns, in a somewhat disappointed tone, as they
were about to begin, “where are the fellows? It doesn’t seem natural to
me to arrive at Southport and not have them on hand. Didn’t you tell them
we were coming?”
“Didn’t have a chance,” replied Bob. “We went up to the cottage, but
there wasn’t anybody there. Then we met Billy Cook, and he said he saw
all three of them away up the island this afternoon.”
Henry Burns went to the door of the tent and looked over the point of
land, up the sweep of the cove.
“They have come back,” he exclaimed. “There’s a light in the cottage.
Come on, let’s hurry up and eat, and get over there.”
But at that very moment the light went out.
“Hello!” he said. “There they go, off to bed. Guess they must be tired.
Too bad, for I simply cannot stand it, not to go over to the cottage
to-night—just to look at the cottage, if nothing more. And I am afraid if
I do, I may make a little noise, accidentally, and wake one of them up.”
Henry Burns said this most sympathizingly; but there was a twinkle in the
corners of his eyes.
“Come on, Henry,” cried Harvey, “you are missing the greatest chowder you
ever saw.”
“Looks as though I might miss a good deal of it, by the way you are
stowing it aboard,” replied Henry Burns, reëntering the tent and
observing the manner in which Harvey was attacking his dish, while Tom
and Bob looked on admiringly.
“Never mind, Henry,” said Bob. “There’s enough. And, besides, Harvey is a
delicate little chap. He needs nourishing food and plenty of it.”
Harvey squared his broad shoulders and smiled.
“I’m beginning to get good-natured once more,” he said.
The campers’ quarters were certainly comfortable enough to make most any
one feel good-natured. The tent was roomy; the stove warmed it gratefully
against the night air, which still had some chill in it; the warm supper
tasted good after the long, hard day’s sailing; and Tom and Bob were
genial hosts.
Outside, the waves, fallen from their boisterousness of the afternoon to
gentle murmurings, were rippling in with a pleasing sound against the
point of land whereon the camp stood. The breeze was soft, though lacking
the mildness of the later summer, and the night was clear and starlit.
It had passed the half-hour after ten o’clock when the boys had finished
eating. They arose and went out in front of the tent.
“It is all dark over yonder at the Warren cottage,” said Tom. “What do
you think—had we better go over? The fellows are surely asleep.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Henry Burns. “Why, they would never forgive me if I
didn’t go over the first night I arrived here. We can just go over and
leave our cards at the front door. Of course we don’t have to wake them
up if they are asleep.”
“Oh, of course not,” exclaimed Harvey. “But just wait a moment, and I’ll
go out aboard and bring in that fog-horn and that dinner-bell.”
“We’ll get them in the canoe, Jack,” said Bob. He and Harvey departed,
and returned shortly, bringing with them a fog-horn that was not by any
means a toy affair, but for serious use, to give warning in the fog to
oncoming steamers; likewise, a gigantic dinner-bell, used for the same
purpose aboard the _Viking_.
“We haven’t anything in camp fit to make much of a noise with,” said Tom,
almost apologetically. “We keep our tent anchored in a fog, you know.”
“Who said anything about making a noise?” inquired Henry Burns,
innocently; and then added, “Never mind, there’s stuff enough up at the
cottage.”
They proceeded without more delay up through the little clump of
spruce-trees which shaded the camp on the side toward the village, and
struck into the road that led through the sleeping town. Sleepy by day,
even, the little village of Southport, which numbered only about a score
of houses, clustered about the harbour, was seized with still greater
drowsiness early of nights. Its inhabitants, early to rise, were likewise
early to bed; and the place, before the summer visitors arrived, was wont
to fall sound asleep by nine o’clock.
It was very still, therefore, as the boys went on up the main street.
Presently they turned off on a road to the right that led along the shore
of the cove, and back of which was a line of summer cottages, now for the
most part unopened for the season.
“There’s Captain Sam’s,” remarked Henry Burns, as they passed a little
frame cottage just before they had come to the turn of the road. “I’d
like to give him one salute for old time’s sake. He’s the jolliest man in
Southport.”
“He is not at home,” said Tom. “We asked about him to-day, when we got
in. He started up the bay this afternoon. Queer you did not see him out
there somewhere.”
“Why, we saw one or two boats off in the distance at the time of the
collision,” said Harvey; “but we were pretty much occupied just about
that time, eh, Henry? I didn’t notice what boats they were.”
They were approaching the Warren cottage by this time, and their
conversation ceased. The cottage was the last in the row that skirted the
cove, somewhat apart from all the others, occupying a piece of high
ground that overlooked the cove and the bay, and affording a view away
beyond to the off-lying islands. This view was obtained through a thin
grove of spruces, with which the island abounded, and which made a
picturesque foreground.
The cottage itself was roomy and comfortable, with a broad piazza
extending around the front and one side. Upon this piazza the boys now
stepped, quietly—“so as not to disturb the sleepers,” Henry Burns put in.
“Well, Henry, what’s up? You are master of ceremonies, you know,” said
Tom.
“Why, we want to wake them very gently at first,” replied Henry Burns.
“You know it is not good for any one to be frightened out of his sleep.
They might not grow any more; and it might take away young Joe’s
appetite—No, it would take more than that to do it,” he added.
They stepped around cautiously to the front door. As they had surmised,
the peacefulness of Southport made locks and keys a matter more of form
than usage, and the Warren boys had not turned the key in the lock. They
entered softly.
“Hark! what’s that?” whispered Bob.
They paused on tiptoe. A subdued, choky roar, or growl, was borne down
the front stairway from above.
“You ought to know that sound by this time,” said Henry Burns. “It’s
young Joe, snoring. Don’t you remember how the other boys used to declare
he would make the boat leak, by jarring it with that racket, when we had
to sleep aboard last summer? Why, he used to have black and blue spots up
and down his legs, where George and Arthur kicked him awake, so they
could go to sleep.”
The sound was, indeed, prodigious for one boy to make.
“We may as well have some light on the subject,” said Henry Burns,
striking a match and lighting the hanging-lamp in the sitting-room. It
shed a soft glow over the place and revealed a room prettily furnished;
the hardwood floor reflecting from its polished surface the rays from the
lamp; a generous fireplace in one corner; and, more to the purpose at
present, some big easy chairs, in which the boys made themselves at home.
But first a peep into the Warren kitchen pantry rewarded Bob with a
mighty iron serving-tray, and Tom with a pair of tin pot-covers, which,
grasped by their handles and clashed together, would serve famously as
cymbals.
“Now,” said Henry Burns, when they were all assembled and comfortably
seated, “you remember how we used to imitate the village band when it
practised nights in the loft over the old fish-house? Well, I’ll be the
cornet; Tom, you’re the bass horn—”
“He is when his voice doesn’t break,” remarked Bob, slyly.
“That’s all right,” replied Henry Burns. “Every musician strikes a false
note once in awhile, you know.” And he continued, “You are the
slide-trombone, Jack; and you, Bob, come in with that shrieking whistle
through your fingers for the flute.”
“Great!” exclaimed Bob. “What shall we try?”
“Oh, we’ll give them ‘Old Black Joe’ for a starter,” said Henry Burns,
“just out of compliment to young black Joe up-stairs.”
Presently, there arose through the stillness of the house, and was wafted
up the stairway, an unmelodious, mournful discord, that may perhaps have
borne some grotesque resemblance to the old song they had chosen, but
was, indeed, a most atrocious and melancholy rendering of it.
Then they paused to listen.
There was no answering sound from above, save that the snoring of young
Joe was no longer deep and regular, but broken and short and sharp, like
snorts of protest.
“Repeat!” ordered Henry Burns to his grinning band.
Again the combined assault on “Old Black Joe” began.
Then they paused again.
The snoring of young Joe was broken off abruptly, with one particularly
loud outburst on his part. There was, also, the creaking of a bed in
another room, and a sound as of some one sitting bolt upright.
“Here, you Joe! Quit that! What on earth are you doing?” called out the
voice of George Warren, in tones which denoted that he had awakened from
slumber, but not to full consciousness of what had waked him, except that
it was some weird sound.
Then another voice, more sleepily than the other: “What’s the matter,
George? Keep quiet, and let a fellow go to sleep.”
“Why, it’s that young Joe’s infernal nonsense, I suppose,” exclaimed the
elder brother. “Now, that will be enough of that, Joe. It isn’t funny,
you know.”
“That’s it! always blaming me for something,” came the answer from the
youngest boy’s room. “You fellows are dreaming—gracious, no! I hear a
voice down-stairs.”
It was the voice of Henry Burns saying solemnly, “Repeat.”
“Old Black Joe,” out of time, out of tune, turned inside out and scarcely
recognizable, again arose to the ears of the now fully aroused Warren
brothers.
There was the sound of some one leaping out of bed upon the bare chamber
floor.
“Now you get back into bed there, Joe!” came the voice of George Warren,
peremptorily. “Let those idiots, Tom and Bob, amuse themselves till they
get tired, if they think it’s funny. We are not going to get up to-night,
and that’s all there is about it. Say, you fellows go on now, and let us
alone. We’re tired, and we are not going to get up.”
“Too dictatorial, altogether,” commented Henry Burns, softly. “Give them
the full band now, good and lively.”
So saying, he seized the huge dinner-bell; Harvey took up the great
fog-horn; Tom and Bob, the pot-covers and serving-tray, respectively. A
hideous din, that was the combined blast of the deep horn, the clanging
reverberation of the tray beaten upon by Bob’s stout fist, the bellowing
of the dinner-bell and the clash of cymbals, roared and stormed through
the walls of the Warren cottage, as though bedlam had broken loose. The
rafters fairly groaned with it.
Down the stairway appeared a pair of bare legs. Then the form and face of
young Joe came into view. He stared for a moment wildly at the occupants
of the Warren easy chairs, and the next moment let out a whoop of
delight.
“Oh, hooray!” he yelled. “Come on, George. Come on, Arthur. Hurry up! Oh,
my! but it’s Henry Burns.”
A small avalanche of bare feet and bare legs poured down the stairs,
belonging in all to Joe, Arthur, and George Warren. Three sturdy figures,
clad in their night-clothes, leaped into the room, whooping and yelling,
and descended in one concerted swoop upon the luckless Henry Burns. That
young gentleman went down on the floor, where he afforded a seat for two
of the Warren boys, while young Joe, with pretended fury, proceeded to
pummel him, good-naturedly.
The three remaining boys were quickly added to the heap, dragging the
Warrens from off their fallen leader; and the turmoil and confusion that
raged about the Warren sitting-room for a moment might have meant the
wreck and ruin of a city home, adorned with bric-à-brac, but resulted in
no more serious damage than a collection of bruises on the shins and
elbows of the participants.
Out of the confusion of arms and legs, however, each individual boy at
length withdrew his own, more or less damaged.
“You’re a lot of villains!” exclaimed George Warren. “Wasn’t I sound
asleep, though? But, oh! perhaps we are not glad to see you.”
“I tell you what we will do,” cried young Joe. “We will hurry up and
dress and go out in the kitchen and cook up a big omelette—”
The roar that greeted young Joe’s words drowned out the rest of the
sentence.
“Isn’t he a wonder, though!” exclaimed George Warren. “Why, he had his
supper only three hours and a half ago, and here he is talking about
eating.”
“I don’t care about anything to eat,” declared young Joe. “I thought the
other fellows would like something.”
“He’s so thoughtful,” said Arthur.
Young Joe looked longingly toward the kitchen.
“Well, we are not going to keep you awake,” said Henry Burns at length,
after they had talked over the day’s adventures. “We thought you would
like to have us call. We’ll be round in the morning, though.”
But the Warrens wouldn’t hear of their going. There were beds enough in
the roomy old house for all, as the rest of the family had not arrived.
So up the stairs they scrambled. Twenty minutes later, the fact that
young Joe was sleeping soundly was audibly in evidence.
“He can’t keep me awake, though,” exclaimed Harvey. “I have had enough
for one day to make me sleep, haven’t you, Henry?”
But Henry Burns was asleep already.
The next afternoon, as the crowd of boys sat about the Warren
sitting-room, talking and planning, the tall figure of a man strode
briskly up the road leading to the cottage. He was dressed in a suit of
black, somewhat pretentious for the island population, with a white
shirt-front in evidence, and on his head he wore a large, broad-brimmed
soft hat. In his hand he carried a cane, which he swung with short,
snappy strokes, as a man might who was out of temper.
George Warren, from a window, observed his approach.
“Hello!” he exclaimed. “Here comes the squire. Doesn’t look especially
pleasant, either. I wonder what’s up.”
That something or other was “up” was apparent in the squire’s manner and
expression, as he walked hastily across the piazza and hammered on the
door with the head of his cane.
“Good morning, Captain Ken—” began young Joe.
But he got no further. “Here, you stop that!” cried the squire, advancing
into the room and raising his cane threateningly. “Don’t you ever call me
‘Captain Kendrick’ again as long as you live. It’s no use for you to say
you mistake me for him, for you don’t.”
Young Joe disappeared.
“Confound that Joe!” said Arthur. “He always says the wrong thing.”
Captain Kendrick was the squire’s bitterest enemy; and it was a constant
thorn in the squire’s side that they really did resemble each other
slightly.
“Good morning, squire,” said George Warren, politely. “Won’t you have a
seat?”
“No, I won’t!” said Squire Brackett, shortly. “I don’t need any seat to
say what I want to say. I want to talk with those two young scamps over
there.”
Squire Brackett pointed angrily toward Jack Harvey and Henry Burns.
“What can we do for you, squire?” inquired Henry Burns, quietly.
“Do for me!” repeated the squire, his voice rising higher. “You have done
enough for me already, I should say. What do you mean by running down my
sailboat in the bay yesterday? Hadn’t you done enough to annoy me
already, without smashing into the _Seagull_ and tearing a brand-new sail
and ripping things up generally?
“What can you do for me, indeed! Well, I’ll tell you what you can do: you
can pay me forty dollars for a new sail; and you can pay for a new boom
to replace the broken one. And there’s some rigging that was carried
away. That is all I think of now.”
The squire paused for breath.
“Yes, I guess that is about all,” remarked Henry Burns.
But Jack Harvey was on his feet and facing the angry squire. “See here,”
he began, “do you mean to say that that young chap we helped out of his
scrape blames us for the wreck? Just bring him—”
“Hold on, Jack,” said Henry Burns. “Take it easy. We were not to blame,
so let’s not get into a quarrel with the squire. Perhaps he has not heard
just how it did happen.”
“Haven’t I?” roared the squire. “That’s impudence added to injury. Didn’t
my son, Harry, tell me all about it—how you ran him down; how you steered
in on to him when he was trying his best to keep clear of you? Haven’t I
heard of it, indeed! I have heard all I want to about it. Now, there is
only one thing left for you two young men to do, and that is to settle
for the damages. That is all I want of you—and no impudence.
“It won’t do you any good to try to lie out of it,” he added, as he
started for the door. “I’ve got no time to waste listening to denials.
You can just come down to Dakin’s store and settle to-day or to-morrow,
or there will be a lawsuit begun against both of you, or whoever is
responsible for you. I guess my son Harry’s word is good as a dozen of
yours. He’s told me all about it. Good morning to you.”
The squire swung himself angrily out of the door and strode away down the
road, flipping off the grass-tops with his cane.
Harvey and Henry Burns sat back in their chairs in amazement.
“And to think that I helped that young cub bail out his boat!” groaned
Jack Harvey.
Henry Burns snickered.
“It’s no joke, Jack,” he said. “But I can’t help thinking of that young
Brackett, sitting up there on the rail and watching you work.
“It is a bad scrape, too,” he added, more seriously. “It does mean a real
lawsuit. The squire is in the mood for it; and, the worst of it, there
weren’t any witnesses. It is his word against ours. It’s a bad start for
the summer, and no mistake.”
A half-hour later, a procession of sober-faced boys strolled down into
the village. Villagers, who had always liked Henry Burns, and had come to
like Jack Harvey since he had atoned for many past pranks by gallantry at
the end of the last season, greeted the new arrivals cordially.
“See you boys got into a leetle trouble with the squire,” remarked one of
them. “Well, that’s too bad. He’s a hard man when it comes to money
matters. What’s that? You say young Brackett was the one to blame? Pshaw!
Well, I do declare. Hm!”
Down in Rob Dakin’s grocery store there was the usual gathering of the
villagers and fishermen, lounging about, with elbows on counters,
half-astride sugar and cracker barrels, and a few of the more early
comers occupying the choice seats about the sheet-iron stove. This
inevitable centre of attraction, having done its duty faithfully
throughout the winter, was, of course, now cold and not an object of
especial beauty; but it still possessed that magnetic quality that
pertains to a stove in a country store, to draw all loungers about it,
and make it the common meeting-place.
There was Billy Cook, from over across the cove, who was always barefoot,
although a man of forty. There was Dave Benson, from the other side of
the island, who had deposited a molasses-jug on the floor in a corner,
and who now stood, apparently extracting some nourishment, and at least
comfort, from a straw held between his teeth. There was Old Slade, from
over on the bluff opposite, slyly cutting a sliver of salt fish from one
in the bale upon which he sat. Also a half-dozen or more others.
To this assembled group of his townsfolk, the squire, accompanied now by
his hopeful son, Harry, was holding forth, as the party of boys entered
the door.
“Here they be now, squire,” remarked Dave Benson. “Hello, boys! Ketchin’
any lobsters lately?”
“Yes, here they are, and here they shall pay!” cried the squire, turning
upon them.
Jack Harvey advanced toward young Brackett.
“Do you dare say we ran you down?” he inquired, angrily.
“Yes, you did,” answered young Brackett, sullenly, and sidling up close
to his father.
“Why, of course they did!” exclaimed the squire. “And it won’t do them
any good—”
But at this point his remarks were interrupted.
A strongly built, heavy-shouldered man entered the store, gave a loud,
good-natured “Haw! Haw!” for no apparent reason except that his natural
good spirits prompted him to, and bade everybody good evening in a voice
that could be heard a quarter of a mile away.
“Why, hello, Cap’n Sam,” said Dave Benson, hailing him as he entered the
doorway. “Haven’t seen you much lately.”
Captain Sam Curtis roared out a salutation in return. If there was a
voice within a radius of twenty miles about Southport that could equal
that of Captain Sam Curtis, no one had ever heard of it. It had a
reputation all its own, far and wide.
“Why, hello, squire,” cried Captain Sam. He had failed to notice Harvey
and Henry Burns for the moment in the crowd. “Good evening, squire, good
evening. Guess you’re glad to get that ’ere boy of yours back again,
ain’t yer?”
“Yes,” answered the squire, irritably.
“Well, I guess you better be!” exclaimed Captain Sam. “I thought he was a
goner there, yesterday, when I saw the _Seagull_ go kerflop.”
“What!” cried the squire. “You saw it? How is that? I thought you said
there weren’t any other boats around, Harry.”
The squire turned to his son; but young Harry Brackett was vanishing out
the store door.
“See it? I rather guess I did see it,” bawled Captain Sam, warming up to
his subject, while the villagers sat up and paid attention. “Why, I had
the spy-glass on that ’ere youngster for twenty minutes before he did the
trick. He was a-sailing that ’ere boat like a codfish trying to play
‘Home, Sweet Home’ on the pianner.”
“Nonsense!” roared the now infuriated squire, who observed the audience
in the store snickering and nudging one another. “Nonsense, I say. He can
sail a boat just as good as you can. Why, he told me, only the other day,
before I let him have the _Seagull_ at all, how he won races last summer
in a yacht off Marblehead.”
“Mebbe so, squire,” retorted Captain Sam. “But he was a-sailin’ this ’ere
boat of yours like a mutton-head. Haw! Haw! That’s what he was a-doin’,
squire.
“Why, sir, squire, he was a-standing up in that boat, with his hat blown
off, lookin’ as scared as you was last summer when you and old Witham
took that sail down the bay with me. Haw! Haw! And that ’ere boom was
a-jumpin’, and that ’ere sail was a-slattin’ around like an old alpacker
dress out on a clothes-line.
“‘Gracious goodness!’ says I to myself, ‘that youngster is a-scared out
of his wits. He’ll jibe her, as sure as a hen sets.’ And he done it, too.
Bang! she went, and the boom slat up against that other boat that was
comin’ down ’tother way—and I says, ‘It’s all up with poor Harry.’ And so
it would have been if it hadn’t been for the chaps in that other boat—
“Why, hello, Henry Burns! And if there ain’t young Harvey, too,” cried
Captain Sam, interrupting himself, as he espied the two boys. “Why, that
was your boat, eh? Well, I guess the squire is mightily obliged to you,
both of yer.
“Reckon you’ve thanked these young chaps, good and hearty, for saving
young Harry, eh?” cried Captain Sam, advancing to the squire.
But, to the utter amazement of Captain Sam, the squire turned upon his
heel, with an exclamation of disgust, dashed out of the store, and
disappeared in the direction taken shortly before by his son, while a
roar of laughter from the assembled villagers followed after him.