XVI—THE CAMPERS CALL AT BARMOUTH
The Argo was scudding along in a good breeze to Barmouth. Ben was carving a small piece of wood into what he fancied was a resemblance to a mermaid. David, his hands clasped behind his head, lounged in a comfortable corner. Tuckerman was at the tiller, and Tom surveyed his pupil through approving eyes.
“Professor, I think we’re ready to give you your diploma,” Tom said, as he noticed the easy manner in which Tuckerman handled the sailboat. “You’re an able seaman. I’ll give you an honor mark as a navigator.”
“And I’ll pass you as a first-rate cook,” said David, turning and nodding his head. “You fried those eggs this morning just as well as I could have, and praise can’t be higher than that.”
“You coax the fish right out of the sea,” said Ben, looking up from his carving. “There was a time when I didn’t believe you’d ever learn to bait a hook so the fish couldn’t nibble it off; but you can do it now. I’ll graduate you as a competent fisherman.”
“And my swimming?” asked Tuckerman, his eye on the water curling over the bow.
“Well, as to that,” said David, “you’re not exactly a merman, but you can paddle along at a decent pace. Yes, we’ll call you a swimmer. I should say you were a pretty good all-around fellow now, Professor.”
Tuckerman looked pleased. Praise from these three boys was very satisfying. And he knew that what they said was not mere idle banter. He had learned a great deal since he had been camping with them.
“Thanks,” he said. “To be able to sail a boat, to cook, to fish, to swim—why, that’s more than I ever expected to learn when I came here from the west. I tell you what! It was a great thing for me when I decided to take a look at my Uncle Christopher’s island.”
“And what are you going to do with it now that you’ve seen it?” asked Tom.
“I don’t know. I’ve got to go back to my home. I don’t suppose anyone would want to live way out in the harbor nowadays. There’s not enough to do there. But I hate to take all those fine old furnishings out of the house. They belong there, and they don’t belong anywhere else.”
“There’s an old house out on the Boston road,” said Ben, “that the owner keeps up as a sort of a museum. He has all the old furniture that was used in colonial days. There’s a great deal of travel on that road in summer, and he charges a quarter for every person that goes over the house. There’s a care-taker, of course. I think she serves tea for a quarter extra.”
“That’s an idea,” said Tuckerman. “Only my house isn’t on a main road. It’s a rather hard place to reach.”
“All the better,” put in Tom. “People like excursions. We could put up signs in Barmouth and all along the road. ‘Be sure to take the boat to famous Cotterell Hall on Cotterell’s Island and hunt for the treasure!’ That would get them all right. You could charge as much as you like.”
“And Tom could run a ferry, and Ben be the care-taker and serve ginger-ale at a dollar a glass,” suggested David.
“And you could cork your face and be the famous mahogany man from the Barbadoes,” retorted Ben. “He’s a wonder in a minstrel show, Professor.”
“It sounds good,” Tuckerman agreed. “It’s certainly up-to-date. But somehow I don’t feel that it’s quite dignified enough for Cotterell Hall.”
“You can make it dignified enough,” said Tom, “by charging enormous prices.”
Tuckerman laughed. “You’re right. You fellows are Yankees sure enough. You make me feel like a greenhorn.”
“And think of the business it would bring to Barmouth,” said Ben, putting the attempt at a mermaid into his pocket and sitting up straight. “People who went to the island would probably have to spend the night at the hotel. Why, you ought to be able to make a deal with the proprietor to share his profits.”
“Ben’s started now,” exclaimed David. “Stop him somebody quick, or he’ll be spending the money we’re making from the concern.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Ben proceeded, as usual paying no attention to David’s jibe. “It’ll put Barmouth on the map. ‘Cotterell Hall, the most famous treasure house on the Atlantic Coast!’”
“I wish you wouldn’t use that word ‘treasure,’” Tom protested. “It has a hoodoo sound.”
“And speaking of putting things on the map,” said Tuckerman, “here’s the wharf ahead. Don’t get me all excited while I bring her up to the dock.”
The Argo made a perfect landing. “Good enough,” said Tom. “That couldn’t have been done better. Professor, you’re a dandy.”
They went up the main street and turned off to the elm-shaded lane where the Halletts lived. They were going to call on Milly Hallett.
Milly was at home. She was, in fact, enjoying an afternoon nap in the Nantucket hammock on the side porch when Tom spied her from the lane.
The sound of footsteps woke her, and seeing who was coming in at the gate she swung her feet down from the hammock, smoothed her rumpled skirt, and patted her fluffy hair. And because she still felt a trifle piqued that Tom was having all the fun of camping on Cotterell’s Island, she decided on the spur of the moment to be a little standoffish with the callers.
“Hello, Milly,” said her brother, in the offhand way brothers have, “we thought we’d come over to see how you were getting along.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Tuckerman,” said Milly, standing up and giving that gentleman the tips of her fingers. “I hope the boys are looking after you all right on your island.”
“I can’t complain,” smiled Tuckerman. “We do as well as we can, without any ladies to help us.”
“Won’t you sit down?” Milly invited politely.
Tuckerman took a chair, and the three boys, impressed in spite of themselves by Milly’s society manner, perched on the rail of the porch.
“We were wondering,” said Tuckerman, “whether we could induce you to come out to supper on the island. We hoped the simplicity of the meal would be atoned for by the beauty of the scenery. I can promise you a fine sunset.”
“Thank you for the invitation.” Milly swung gently back and forth. “Let me see—what did I have on hand for this evening?”
“Oh, chuck it, Milly!” said Tom. “Of course you want to come along.”
“I remember now,” said Milly suavely. “I have a date with my friend Sarah Hooper. There’s a new movie in town.”
“Well, of course,” said Tuckerman in a regretful tone, “we can’t compete with a new moving-picture show.”
Milly smiled. “The boys are still giving you plenty of good food, are they? And keeping you amused?”
David moved impatiently on his perch. “The Professor never got better food anywhere. He says so himself.”
“I thought perhaps the menu might get a little tiresome,” Milly suggested sweetly. “Boys are so apt to stick to one or two of the same things when they have to cook for themselves.”
“We don’t,” grunted David.
“She knows we don’t,” said Tom. “I say, Milly, what’s your game?”
“Game?” Milly wrinkled her pretty nose. “I don’t know what you mean!” She glanced again at Tuckerman. “Boys are funny creatures, aren’t they?”
The boys came down from the rail with one accord. Indignant replies were on the tongues of each; but Milly pointed beyond them at the lane. “Here comes Sarah Hooper now,” she said. “It’s just possible I can get her to change our date.”
Up the path came the black-eyed girl, a yellow sweater on her arm. “Hello, everybody!” she sang out, as she reached the porch. “What is it? An experience meeting?”
“They want me to go to supper with them on Mr. Tuckerman’s island,” said Milly. “I told them I had a date with you.”
“Perhaps Miss Sarah Hooper will join the party,” Tuckerman added promptly. “We’d like her to.”
“Fine!” exclaimed Sarah. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t.”
“Milly said,” put in Tom, “that you and she were going to a new movie.”
A glance passed from Sarah to Milly, and Sarah nodded her head. “That’s so,” she agreed. “I do remember we were.”
“However,” said Milly, “if Sally would really like to accept your invitation, we can go to the movies some other time.”
There was a pause, for Sarah was not sure what her friend wanted her to say; and then Ben broke the silence by pounding the porch-rail with his fist. “By jiminy, girls are funny creatures, aren’t they? They’re crazy to come, but they don’t want to admit it.”
“Oh!” began Milly. But Tuckerman interposed.
“The funnier people are, the pleasanter it is to be with them. We do need the company of ladies on our island. We’ve only been seeing each other, and sandpipers and gulls. It would be doing us a great favor if these two ladies would come and freshen us up.”
“Well,” said Sarah, charmed by this gallant speech, “I’d be glad to come. It’ll be a perfect evening.”
Milly got up from the hammock. “I’ll contribute a box of fudge.”
“That’s all that’s needed to make it complete,” said Tuckerman.
The girls went indoors, Milly to tell her mother about the party, and Sarah to telephone to her house.
“Now,” said Tuckerman, on the porch, “we’ve got to give them as good a time as they’d have had at the movies.”
“Milly wanted to come all along,” said Tom. “Why didn’t she say so?”
“I think,” answered Ben, “that she wanted to show us that she was having just as good a time here at home as we were having in camp; and she knew she wasn’t.”
Tuckerman smiled and nodded. “Ben’s hit it on the head. And that’s all the more reason why we should see that they enjoy themselves this evening.”
They all agreed to that line of reasoning, and the first result of it was that they suggested to Milly that she should sail the Argo back to the island. She was very much pleased, and Milly, on her mettle, handled the craft as skillfully as Tom could have done himself.
They landed, and Sarah said that she would like to see the island, since all she had seen of it on her first visit had been Cotterell Hall and the shore about the camp. So the boys and Tuckerman took their guests on a regular tour, through the woods, where the russet-green pine-needles made a clean and fragrant carpet, dappled with patches of sunlight; along the little beaches, curves of yellow sand, where sandpipers played and strutted, or flew in silver bands; up on the ramparts of cliffs, against which the waves rolled in and slipped and slid in white cascades over the low-lying ledges, and so to the southern point, where they watched the sun setting in all its glory, tinting the sky and the sea in wonderful combinations of shifting colors.
Then they went to the camp, where David made a marvelous fish chowder of cunners and cod that Ben had caught that morning. And for dessert they had apple fritters and Milly’s home-made fudge.
When it was time to take their guests back to Barmouth, Tom suggested that they sail around the island. As they cruised up the ocean side they saw a sail to the east. And after watching the distant boat intently for some minutes David exclaimed, “I think that’s the fishing-smack that took me from the cove to Gosport!”
Tom shifted the tiller, and the Argo took a course toward the larger boat. As they sailed, David, in answer to Milly’s questions, told of his adventure with the crew of the smack.
To the northeast lay a small island, and the larger boat sailed around its southern point. The Argo kept up its chase, and presently came on the fishing-smack at anchor off a half-moon beach.
The big boat stood silhouetted against the violet sky of the summer night. It was too dark to distinguish figures on her deck. Apparently she had come to anchor there for the night.
“How about it, Dave?” asked Ben. “Is that the craft that kidnapped you?”
“Looks like her picture,” was the answer.
“Want to hail your good friend Sam?” inquired Tom.
“No, I don’t,” said David. “He might throw something out here that the girls wouldn’t like.”
“Oh, don’t mind us,” exclaimed Milly and Sarah in chorus.
“I don’t know what the smack—if it is Dave’s boat—is doing around here,” said Tuckerman. “There can’t be much to steal from that island.”
For a time the Argo bobbed about, but there came no hail from the boat, no light appeared, she might have been a ship without a crew.
“Let sleeping hornets lie,” Tuckerman advised. And at the suggestion Tom sheered away. The Argo sailed up the shore of the island and pointed her bow toward the twinkling lights of the town.
They were all enjoying the breeze, the star-sprinkled sky, the soft swish of the water against the side of the boat when Ben, from a brown study, spoke. “If the men on that smack are the thieves who broke into Mr. Fitzhugh’s house, might they be hunting around here for the Cotterell treasure?”
“Well, I wish them luck at finding it,” said David.
“Thieves who broke into Mr. Fitzhugh’s house!” cried Milly. “Oh, do tell us about that!”
Then the whole story came out, and when she had heard it all Milly said positively, “I think Ben’s right. They’re planning to steal something from your island.”
“Hope they don’t take our cooking outfit,” said Tom.
“Or any of my fine old colonial furniture,” added Tuckerman.
“Oh, no,” scoffed David. “It’s the treasure they’re after.”
“Don’t you want to take our watch-dog back with you?” said Sarah. “He’s fine at biting tramps.”
There was a laugh from the crowd. And they were still talking of ways of protecting the island from prowlers when the sailboat ran up to the wharf.
The campers escorted the girls to their homes and then went back to the harbor.
On the waterfront they encountered a man—he had been a sea-captain in his day—smoking a pipe and regarding the lights of the harbor. He knew the boys. “Hello, Tom,” he said, “I hear you’re out on the island, hunting for Sir Peter’s treasure.”
“Well, we’re camping on the island,” Tom admitted.
“Haven’t found the treasure yet, have you?” The mariner chuckled. “There’s treasure hid all along the coast, if you believe the stories. I was brought up on yarns about treasures, Captain Kidd’s and others. And I’ve hunted for ’em, too. But I never laid my hands on none. Howsomever, I always thought there might be something to the story about Sir Peter. But it’s one thing to think there’s a treasure, and another to lay hands on it.”
“Where would you look?” asked Ben.
The mariner reflected. “Well, if I was hiding a treasure I’d put it where I could get it if I wanted it in a hurry. Seems to me I’d pick out a place in the chimney-breast. I’ve heard of folks hiding things in places like that.”
“Seems to me we’ve got to pull the house down,” said David. “And then like as not we wouldn’t find it.”
“Might be so,” the mariner agreed. “It don’t pay to take too much trouble hunting for things like that. But some people just have to.”
The four embarked in the Argo. “Ben’s one of the people that just have to,” said David. “I guess he’ll pull the house down.”
“I hadn’t thought of the chimney-breast,” said Ben. “We’d better look there to-morrow.”
“Go to it, Tige,” laughed David. “We’ll get out the pick-ax and crow-bar.”