PRETTYMAN SWEET MAKES A FRIEND
Lake Luna was a beautiful body of water, all of twenty miles long and half as broad, with Centerport on its southern shore and Lumberport and Keyport situated at either end.
The first named stood at the mouth of Rocky River which fed the great lake, while Keyport was at the head of Rolling River through which Lake Luna discharged its waters.
Centerport was a thriving and rich city of some 150,000 inhabitants, while the other two towns—although much smaller—were likewise thriving business communities. There was considerable traffic on Lake Luna, between the cities named, and up and down the rivers.
Cavern Island was a beautiful resort in the middle of Lake Luna; but man’s hand was shown in its landscape gardening and in the pretty buildings and the park at one end.
Acorn Island, in Lake Dunkirk (thirty miles 51 above Lumberport, and connected with Lake Luna by Rocky River) was a very different place. It was heavily timbered and had been held by a private estate for years. Therefore the trees and rubbish had been allowed to grow, and one end of the island, as the girls of Central High knew, was almost a jungle.
But at the eastern end—that nearest the head of Rocky River—was a pleasant grove on a high knoll, where the old cabin stood. There they proposed to camp.
Indeed, Mr. Tom Hargrew, Bobby’s father, had been kind enough to send the girls’ tents up to the island with the men he had directed to repair the cabin, and the party expected to find the camp pitched, and everything ready for them when they arrived at Acorn Island.
This would scarcely be before dark, for there was some current to Rocky River, although its channel was deep and there were no bridges or other barriers which the powerboats and their tows could not easily pass.
The boys expected to have to rough it at the site of their camp for the first night, and they had come prepared for all emergencies of wind and weather.
All, did we say? All but one!
In the confusion of getting under way the 52 details of Prettyman Sweet’s outing suit, and his general get-up for camping in the wilds, was scarcely noticed. Once the boats were steering up the lake toward Lumberport, a sudden shriek from Billy Long drew the attention of the girls and Mrs. Morse to the object to which he pointed.
“It’s not! it’s not! my eyes deceive me!” panted Short and Long, who was the third member of the crew of boys aboard the Bonnie Lass, Chet and Lance being the other two.
Short and Long was pointing to the other powerboat that was drawing in beside the Bonnie Lass, Pretty himself was at the wheel of the Duchess for he had learned to manage her.
“What is the matter with you, Billy?” Chet demanded.
“What is it I see?” begged the younger boy, wringing his hands and glaring across the short strip of water between the powerboats. “I know there ain’t no sech animile, as the farmer said when he first saw the giraffe at the circus.”
“What’s eating you, Billy?” asked Lance, who was giving his attention to the steering of the Bonnie Lass. “Don’t frighten the girls and Mrs. Morse to death.”
“It’s just some joke of Billy’s,” began Jess, when the very short boy broke in with:
“If that’s a joke, may I never see another! 53 It is a phantom! It’s a nightmare! It’s something that comes to you in a bad dream.”
“What?” demanded Chet, suddenly shaking Short and Long by the collar.
“Don’t, Chetwood,” begged Billy. “I’m not strong. I’m sea-sick. That thing yonder has queered me––”
“What thing?” asked Laura. “We don’t see the joke, Billy.”
“There you go again—calling a serious thing like that a joke,” cried the small boy. “Look at it—at the wheel of the Duchess! How ever did it crawl aboard? I bet a cent it’s been living in the bottom of the lake for years and years, and has come up to the light of day for the first time now.”
“You ridiculous thing!” snapped Lily Pendleton. “Do you mean Prettyman Sweet?”
“My goodness gracious Agnes!” gasped Billy. “That’s never Purt Sweet? Don’t tell me he’s disguised himself for a nigger minstrel show in that fashion?”
They were all laughing at the unconscious Purt by now—all save Lily; and Chet said, gravely:
“There is something the matter with your eyesight, Short and Long. That’s Purt in a brand new outing suit.”
“He didn’t dress like that to go camping?” 54 murmured Billy. “Say not so! Somebody dared him to do it!”
It was a fact that the exquisite of Central High had decked himself out in most astonishing array—considering that he was expected to “rough it” in the woods instead of appear at a lawn party on the “Hill.”
“His tailor put him up to that suit,” chuckled Lance. “He told me so. As he expects to live in the sylvan forest, as did the ‘merrie, merrie men’ of Robin Hood, Purt is dolled up accordingly.”
“Gee!” breathed Bobby. “Do you suppose Robin Hood ever looked like that?”
“That’s Lincoln green,” announced Lance, trying to keep his face straight. “You notice that the pants are short—knickerbockers, in fact. They are tied just below the knee with ‘ribbands’ in approved outlaw style.”
“Oh, my!” giggled Dora Lockwood. “Do you suppose they hurt him?”
“What hurts him most is the leather belt at which is slung a long-bladed hunting knife so dull that it wouldn’t cut cheese! But the knife handle gets in his way every time he stoops.”
“Oh! he’s so funny!” gasped Dorothy Lockwood. “You boys are certainly going to have a great time with Pretty Sweet on this trip.” 55
“I don’t think it is funny at all,” muttered Lily Pendleton. “That rude little thing, Billy Long, tries to be too smart.”
“But look at the cap!” gasped Laura, who was herself too much amused to ignore the queer get-up of their classmate. “Where did he get the idea of that?”
“It’s a tam-o’-shanter,” said Lance. “Another idea of the tailor’s. That tailor, I think, tries things out on Pretty. If Pretty doesn’t get shot wearing them, then he puts similar garments on his dummies and risks them outside his shop door.”
“But what has he got stuck into the cap?” pursued Laura.
“A feather. Rather, the remains of one,” chuckled Lance. “It was quite a long one when he started for the dock this morning; but he crossed the street right under the noses of Si Cumming’s team of mules that draws the ice-wagon, and that off mule grabbed the best part of the feather. You know, that mule will eat anything.”
“Well, one thing is sure,” drawled Bobby. “If Purt is supposed to represent a Sherwood Forest outlaw, and he ever meets one of the outlaws of the Big Woods that he’s been worried 56 about, the latter ‘squashbuckler’ will be scared to death.”
“‘Squashbuckler’ is good!” chuckled Jess. “Some of those old villains I expect were squashes.”
“My dear!” ejaculated her mother. “I fear the language you young folk use does not speak well for your instructors of Central High.”
“I guess we do not cast much glory upon our teachers, Mrs. Morse,” rejoined Laura, laughing.
“It’s only Short and Long, here, who ‘does the teachers proud,’” said her brother, with a grin. “Hear about what he got off in Ancient History class the other day? Professor Dimp pretty nearly set him back for that.”
“Aw—now,” growled Billy. “He asked for a date, didn’t he?”
“What’s the burn?” demanded Bobby, briskly.
“Why, Old Dimple asked Billy to mention a memorable date in Roman history, and Billy says: ‘Antony’s with Cleopatra.’”
“Oh, oh, oh!” gasped Jess. “That’s the worst kind of slang.”
Mrs. Morse paid the young folk very little attention. She had withdrawn from the group and was busy with pencil and notebook.
“When mother gets to work that way, she heeds neither time, place, nor any passing event,” 57 laughed Jess. “She expects to sketch out her whole book while she is at camp with us.”
“She’s going to be a dandy chaperone,” declared Chet. “Suppose we’d had Miss Carrington along?”
“Goodness!” groaned Bobby. “Don’t let’s mention that lady again this summer.”
“And we can cut out Old Dimple, too,” grumbled Billy Long.
“He’s off somewhere on a trip, so we won’t have to bother about him,” said Chet, with confidence.
The girls had begun to compare notes regarding what they had packed in their suitcases, long before the boats reached Lumberport; and some of them discovered that they had neglected to bring some very essential things.
“You’ll just have to tie up beyond the Main Street bridge, and give us a chance to shop, Chet,” announced Laura. “We’re making good time as it is.”
“Isn’t that just like a parcel of girls?” grumbled Billy. “Now, we fellows didn’t forget a thing—you bet!”
“Wait till we unpack at camp,” chuckled Chet. “We’ll see about that, then.”
He and Lance agreed to make the halt as the girls requested; and they shouted to the crowd on 58 the smaller boat to do the same. As Lily Pendleton was one of the girls who must shop in Lumberton, Purt Sweet was most willing to tarry and accompany the girls ashore.
He was, in fact, the only escort the girls had when they went up into the town in search of the several articles they needed. The dude was evidently proud of his outing suit and, as Billy suggested, “wanted to give the people of Lumberport a treat.”
So he swaggered along up Main Street with the girls. Not a block from the wharf at which the boats were tied he met with an adventure.
“Whatever impression Purt is making on the good people of this town,” whispered Nellie Agnew to Laura, “he has certainly smitten a four-footed inhabitant with a deep, deep interest.”
“What’s that?” asked Laura, turning swiftly to see. Bobby Hargrew looked, likewise. Purt and Lily were behind, and Bobby immediately shouted:
“Say, Purt who’s your friend?”
“What’s that, Miss Hargrew?” asked Purt staring. “I weally don’t get you—don’t you know?”
“But he’ll get you in a minute,” chuckled Bobby. 59
“Don’t pay any attention to her, Mr. Sweet,” said Lily. “She’s a vulgar little thing.”
But just then Purt felt something at his heels and turned swiftly. One of the homeliest mongrel curs ever seen was sniffing at Purt’s green stockings.
“Get out, you brute!” gasped the dude, rather frightened.
But the dog didn’t seem to have any designs upon Purt’s thin shanks. Instead, he jumped about, foolishly stiff-legged as a dog will when he thinks he has found a friend, and barked.
“Gee! he’s glad to see you,” said Bobby. “Where’d you find him, Purt?”
“Weally!” declared the dude, trying to shoo the dog off. “I—I never did see the horrid brute before—I never did.”
“Don’t call him names. You’ll hurt his feelings,” suggested one of the Lockwood twins, while Laura said, seriously: “That dog certainly does know you, Mr. Sweet.”
“I declare, I never saw him before,” said Purt, making frantic efforts to frighten the dog away.
He was a snarly haired dog, with one ear cocked up and the other half chewed off, his coat muddied, only half a tail, which he wiggled ecstatically, and the most foolish looking face that was ever given to a dog. 60
“Did you ever see such a looking thing?” gasped Bobby, half choked with laughter.
“And how well he matches Purt’s suit,” said Nellie, demurely.
“I’m not going to walk with you if you don’t get rid of that dog!” declared Lily, seeing that many bystanders were laughing at the boy and the mongrel.
She went ahead with the other girls while poor Purt remained in the rear, trying his best to chase away the friendly animal. But the more Purt shooed him, or attempted to hit him, or strove otherwise to send the brute about his business, the more the latter considered that the boy was playing with him, and he welcomed the game with loud and cheerful barks.
Soon a small crowd was collected, watching the performance with broad grins. The girls, giggling, but rather worried by the attention that was being attracted to their escort, darted into a store and left Purt to settle the matter by himself.