CHAPTER X. AN ASTOUNDING OFFER.
Oscar was very tired when he reached home that night, but he spent some hours at his bench before he went to bed. He was anxious to have his case of birds ready for delivery by the time it had been promised. So as soon as he had eaten his supper, and answered all the questions his mother had to ask regarding the man he and Sam had saved from drowning, he lighted the lamp in his shop and went to work.
Everything being ready to his hand, he made rapid progress, and when he locked his shop, at ten o'clock, he told himself that by Monday, at noon, if nothing unforeseen happened, the case would be safely mounted in Mr. Jackson's dining-room.
And so it was. It was finished at eight o'clock, and Oscar, who was a good judge of such matters, declared, with no little satisfaction, that he had never seen a finer piece of work.
There was one thing about it that did not look just right, and the boy wondered what Mr. Jackson would say when he saw it.
The wheelbarrow was again brought into requisition, and the case having been placed upon it, and covered with a sheet to protect it from the dust, Oscar trundled it off toward Mr. Jackson's house.
His pull at the bell was answered by that gentleman himself, who, not being an early riser, had not yet eaten his breakfast.
He assisted Oscar to carry the case through the hall and place it upon the little side-table on which it was to stand, and, when the sheet had been removed, he stood off and looked at it critically. Then he called Miles and all the rest of his family in, to pass judgment upon it.
"It is just what I wanted, Oscar," said Mr. Jackson, at length, "and you could not improve it in any way. It is splendid, and I am entirely satisfied. Hold on, here; what's this?"
He walked close up to the case, and placed his finger on one of the panes of glass opposite a bird in resplendent plumage, with a green and purple crest, marked with two narrow lines of white.
"That's a very pretty bird!" continued Mr. Jackson; "but what is he doing up there? You wouldn't put any woodcock or snipe in the tree, because you said they didn't belong there; and now you've gone and put a duck in it! What sort of work is that?"
"That bird does belong there," said Oscar. "I shot him out of a tree."
Mr. Jackson was well posted in drugs, but he knew nothing of natural history.
He looked toward Miles for an explanation, but as the latter was no better acquainted with birds and their habits than his uncle was, he could give him no information.
"I'll take him out of there, if you wish me to do so, and put a grouse in his place," said Oscar.
"Oh, no!" replied Mr. Jackson quickly. "If he belongs there, let him stay; but I never saw a duck in a tree. Sit down, and have some coffee with us."
"Thank you, sir! I had my breakfast three hours ago."
"You did!" exclaimed Mr. Jackson, as he followed Oscar through the hall toward the front door. "Well, I never could see any sense in eating during the night. You will have the dyspepsia some day if you don't stop it. There's your money, and good-by, if you must go.
"Miles," he continued, as he came back into the dining-room, where the rest of the family were seated at the table, "what sort of work would you make of it if you were turned loose in the world, as that boy is, and had no one to depend on but yourself?"
"I am sure I don't know," replied Miles. "I hope I shall never be in that situation."
"So do I," said his uncle. "I hope you will associate with Oscar all you can, for his influence and example will help any boy. If you hear anything said against his honesty, I hope you will have pluck enough to resent it on the spot."
"Oh, I don't think that anyone will ever hear another word said about his stealing money!" exclaimed Miles, recalling the exciting interview which he and his friend Sam had had with Mr. Smith on the previous Friday.
Then, believing that he ought to give some reason for thinking so, he added:
"It wouldn't be safe to slander Oscar, for Sam Hynes says he will thrash any fellow who does it."
"He's another good one; a little too blunt sometimes, but as true as steel," observed Mr. Jackson. "I can't quite understand why Oscar put a duck in that tree. I believe he has made a mistake, and I am going to find out about it."
And he did.
While he was on the way to his store, he met a tall, dignified gentleman, who stopped to exchange a few words with him.
It was Mr. Chamberlain, the principal of the High School. The two men had met on that very street, at that very hour and near that same spot, every day except Saturdays and Sundays, for more than a year. The principal was the best educated man in town, and a good many hard nuts were brought to him to crack.
"You know everything, professor," said Mr. Jackson, after the usual greetings had been exchanged; "but you never knew of a duck being shot out of a tree, did you?"
"Certainly," was the unexpected answer. "The wood-duck of Audubon, commonly called summer duck. It is the most beautiful species of the duck family, and reflects all the colors of the rainbow. It never makes its nest upon the ground, but always in some hollow tree that hangs over the water. As soon as the young are hatched, they throw themselves down into the stream below without the least injury. There goes the first bell! Good-morning, Mr. Jackson!"
"I've learned something," thought the druggist, as he continued his walk toward the store. "Oscar was right when he put that duck in the tree. It beats me where that boy found time to pick up so much information about birds and things."
Meanwhile Oscar, with his forty dollars in his pocket, was trundling his wheelbarrow merrily over the sidewalk toward home.
He wanted first to place his money in his mother's hands—he thought it would be safer there than in his pocket—and then he intended to go down to Mr. Peck's boat-house after the decoys, sail, and oars he had left there on Saturday.
He placed his wheelbarrow in the front yard, but when he tried to open the door he found it was locked.
"Mother has gone over to visit some of the neighbors," thought he. "I'll stay here until she comes back. I've got the key of the shop in my pocket, and I can find plenty to do there."
During the time Oscar had worked in the store, the shop had not been kept as neat and tidy as it usually was. The tools he had found time to use now and then were scattered about over the bench; the shavings and dust had accumulated everywhere, and it was a good hour's work to straighten up things. But it was work that Oscar liked to do, and he whistled merrily as he set about it, Bugle meanwhile stationing himself in the open door and keeping a close watch over everybody that passed along the street. Presently he uttered a loud bay and sprang out into the yard.
Oscar, knowing that somebody was coming, hurried to the door to see who it was, and discovered the hound following at the heels of a little dried-up man, who was coming around the house toward the shop. It was the same man he and Sam Hynes had found clinging to the rudder of the wrecked sail-boat.
Oscar knew him at once, for he still wore Sam's cap on his head.
"Come here, Bugle!" shouted Oscar. "Don't be afraid of him, sir. He is friendly, even to strangers."
"Good-morning," exclaimed the visitor. "I knocked at the front door, but no one answered my summons. I heard someone whistling, however; so I made bold to come around here."
"Mother went out while I was absent," replied Oscar. "I am glad to see you again, sir, and hope you did not suffer any inconvenience from your cold bath on Saturday. Will you walk in? I have a fire in here. I am sorry I can't take you into the house."
The visitor made no reply whatever. He came into the wood-shed, stopped in front of the door that gave entrance into the shop, and said:
"I believe your name is—ah—is—ah——"
He thrust his hand into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a small notebook. Opening it, he began turning over the leaves to find Oscar's name, which the miller had given him on Saturday.
The book was filled with writing, and on every page the visitor seemed to find something that he wanted to remember, for he stopped to read it over, in a half audible tone, before turning to the next one.
Oscar stood there in the door of the shop, with the broom in his hand, for fully five minutes, waiting for him to say something.
"Your name is Oscar Preston," said the visitor, at length, "and you are the boy who rendered me a very important service two days ago."
"I am the one who caught you as you were sinking, but I never could have brought you into the boat if it hadn't been for Sam Hynes," replied Oscar.
He did not want all the honor himself, for the absent Sam, who was at that moment puzzling his brains over his Vergil, was entitled to a good share of it, and Oscar intended that he should have it.
The visitor, however, seemed to think that the boy who had kept him from sinking was the one who deserved all the credit, and he did not act as though he heard Sam's name mentioned.
"I am greatly indebted to you, my young friend," he continued, "and I regret that I cannot reward you as you deserve. My name is Potter, and I am president of the Yarmouth University. I was down the river in search of some specimens of the Fuligula Valisneria, which I am told are now and then to be found here."
"Oh, that's what he went after, is it?" thought Oscar. "Well, I am no wiser than I was before. I don't know what those things are, and it is no wonder that Mr. Hall and Mr. Peck didn't understand him."
"I became bewildered, and was obliged to pass the night alone upon an island, without food or fire," continued the visitor. "In the morning I attempted to reach the village, but the wind overturned the boat, and I lost a valuable gun and all the equipments belonging to one of the faculty, who had kindly loaned it to me. Perhaps it was just as well, after all, for I was afraid to use it, having never fired a gun in my life, although I hoped to gain courage enough to discharge it, if I saw an opportunity to secure a specimen or two. Your name is" (here he consulted his notebook again) "Oscar Preston, and I am informed that you are an expert taxidermist."
"I am an amateur taxidermist, sir," answered Oscar. "I do not claim to be an expert. I have a few specimens, which I shall be glad to show you, if you are interested in such things. Will you walk in?"
Oscar deposited his broom in one corner, and drew aside the curtain concealing the recess in which his birds and animals were placed.
The professor entered, and instantly seemed to become entirely unconscious of Oscar's presence, so engrossed was he with what he saw before him. He stopped in front of each bird, and talked to it in an undertone, and finally he began to speak his words aloud, so that Oscar could understand them.
"Ah," said he, "a very fine specimen of the order Rasores, family Tetraonidæ, vulgo partridge; the Tetrao Umbellus of Linnæus, and the Bonasia Umbellus of Bonaparte, which is incorrect. This is a specimen of the order Insessores, family Ampelidæ, genus Bombycilla Carolinensis. Very finely mounted, I should say; much better than some of the specimens we have at the university."
All these hard words were rolled off without the least hesitation, and it was evident that the professor had them at his tongue's end. Oscar listened in genuine amazement, and then seizing a piece of pine board, that happened to be lying near him on the bench, hastily wrote something upon it with a pencil he drew from his pocket, and moved up a little closer to his visitor, so that he could catch every word he said.
"Young man," said the latter, "do you know anything about comparative anatomy?"
"No, sir," replied Oscar, who had never heard this expression before.
"You ought to study it," continued the professor, "for it belongs to your business. If you will give a scientist a single bone, he can build the skeleton of the beast or bird to which that bone belongs, although he may never have seen it. The species may even be extinct. Some of my students once brought me a bone they had found in the woods, and which they thought was the bone of a mastodon of the order Pachydermata; but it proved to belong to one of the order Ruminantia, being the bone of an ox."
Oscar wrote two words more on his board, and waited for the professor to go on; and when he did go on, Oscar heard something for which he was not at all prepared, and which astonished him beyond measure.
"I think you are the person we want," continued the visitor.
He stood with his hands behind his back, and his spectacles on the end of his nose, looking up at the specimens on the shelves; and he seemed to be talking more to himself than to Oscar.
"A generous and public-spirited citizen of Yarmouth has given to our university a hundred thousand dollars, which is to be expended in founding as fine a museum as that amount of money will pay for. The birds and animals of our country are to be represented first, mounted in a life-like manner, and looking, if possible, as natural as they do in their wild haunts. Those of other countries are to be taken in hand afterward.
"We have already gathered a few specimens, though in a desultory way, and some of them are declared by experts to be very imperfect. Of the order Ruminantia, family Cervidæ, we have obtained but one species—the Cervus Virginianus." (Oscar wrote these words on his board. He could easily do it, for his visitor did not seem to be paying the least attention to him.) "We have the Alces Americanus and the Cervus Tarandus, as well as the hollow-horned ruminants, of which there is but one species in this country, as you are no doubt aware, yet to procure. Of the Digitigrades, family Canidæ, we have but one—the red fox.
"We should be willing to give something handsome for a gray-cross, or black fox. Of the Plantigrades, we have two—Ursus Americanus and Procyon lotor. We should like a specimen of the Ursus horribilis and the Ursus maritimus, and also of the cinnamon bear, which seems to be gaining some notoriety for voracity and fierceness; but I don't suppose that a boy of your years would care to face animals of that description.
"We have been trying to engage an accomplished taxidermist, who is at the same time a successful hunter, to work for us for a term of years at a stated salary; but thus far we have not succeeded in our object, for the reason that those to whom we have applied demand more money than the committee, in whose hands the matter is placed, think they can afford to pay. We are quite willing to give a hundred dollars a month and expenses, provided the collector is willing to go where we want to send him; but more than that we could not promise, under the terms on which the money was given to us. Ah, here's a Digitigrade!" he exclaimed, when he discovered the fox, which was one of Oscar's first specimens. "Now, if you think you can afford to work for us for that amount of money, we shall be glad to employ you. I know that the committee will indorse any bargain I may make with you; but in order to make 'assurance doubly sure,' perhaps I had better consult with them before we come to any definite understanding."
Oscar had stood with his board in one hand and his pencil in the other, ready to note down as many of the visitor's hard words as he could catch; but while he listened, his hands gradually fell, until they rested by his side, and when the professor ceased speaking, he backed up against his work-bench and leaned heavily upon it.
The astounding offer of a hundred dollars a month and expenses almost knocked him over.