CHAPTER IV.
"That's him!"
Dab was standing by the ponies, in front of a store in the village. His mother was making some purchases in the store, and Dab was thinking how the Morris house would look when it was finished, and it was at him the old farmer was pointing in answer to a question which had just been asked.
The questioner was the sharp-eyed boy who had bothered poor Dick Lee that morning.
At that moment, however, a young lady—quite young—came tripping along the sidewalk, and was stopped by Dab Kinzer with:
"There, Jenny Walters, I forgot my label!"
"Why, Dabney, is that you? How you startled me! Forgot your label?"
"Yes," said Dab; "I'm in another new suit to-day, and I want to have a label with my name on it. You'd have known me, then."
"But I know you now," exclaimed Jenny. "Why, I saw you yesterday."
"Yes, and I told you it was me. Can you read, Jenny?"
"Why, what a question!"
"Because, if you can't, it wont do me any good to wear a label."
"Dabney Kinzer," exclaimed Jenny. "There's another thing you ought to get?"
"What's that?"
"Some good manners," said the little lady, snappishly. "Think, of your stopping me in the street to tell me I can't read."
"Then you mustn't forget me so quick," said Dab. "If you meet my old clothes anywhere you must call 'em Dick Lee. They've had a change of name."
"So, he's in them, is he? I don't doubt they look better than they ever did before."
And Jenny walked proudly away, leaving her old playmate feeling as if he had had a little the worst of it. That was often the way with people who stopped to talk with Jenny Walters, and she was not as much of a favorite as she otherwise might have been.
Hardly had she disappeared before Dab was confronted by the strange boy.
"Is your name Dabney Kinzer?" said he.
"Yes, I believe so."
"Well, I'm Mr. Ford Foster, of New York."
"Come over here to buy goods?" suggested Dab. "Or to get something to eat?"
Ford Foster was apparently of about Dab's age,[Page 559] but a full head less in height, so that there was more point in the question than there seemed to be, but he treated it as not worthy of notice, and asked: "Do you know of a house to let anywhere about here?"
"House to let?" suddenly exclaimed the voice of Mrs. Kinzer, behind him, much to Dab's surprise. "Are you asking about a house? Whom for?"
If Ford Foster had been ready to "chaff" Dick Lee, or even Dab Kinzer, he knew enough to speak respectfully to the portly and business-like lady now before [him].
"IS YOUR NAME DABNEY KINZER?"
"Yes, madam," he said, with a ceremonious bow. "I wish to report to my father that I've found an acceptable house in this vicinity."
"You do!"
Mrs. Kinzer was reading the young gentleman through and through as she spoke, but she followed her exclamation with a dozen questions, and then wound up with:
"Go right home, then, and tell your father the only good house to let in this neighborhood will be ready for him next week, and he'd better see me at once. Get into the buggy, Dabney."
"A very remarkable woman!" muttered Ford Foster to himself as they drove away. "I must make some more inquiries."
"Mother," said Dabney, "you wouldn't let 'em have Ham's house?"
"No, indeed; but I don't mean to have our own stand empty." And, with that, a great deal of light began to break in on Dabney's mind.
"That's it, is it?" he said to himself, as he touched up the ponies. "Well, there'll be room enough for all of us there, and no mistake. But what'll Ham say?"
It was not till late the next day, however, that Ford Foster completed his inquiries. He took the afternoon train for the city, satisfied that, much as he knew before he came, he had actually learned a good deal more which was valuable.
He was almost the only person in the car. Trains going toward the city were apt to be thinly peopled at that time of day, but the empty cars had to be taken along all the same, for the benefit of the crowds who would be coming out, later in the afternoon and in the evening. The railway company would have made more money with full loads both ways, but it was well they did not have one on that precise train. Ford had turned over the seat in front of him, and stretched himself out with his feet on it. It was almost like lying down[Page 560] for a boy of his length, but it was the very best position he could have taken if he had known what was coming.
Known what was coming?
Yes, there was a pig coming.
That was all, but it was quite enough, considering what that pig was about to do. He was going where he chose, just then, and he chose not to turn out for the railway train.
"What a whistle!" Ford Foster had just exclaimed. "It sounds more like the squeal of an iron pig than anything else. I——"
But at that instant there came a great jolt and a shock, and Ford found himself suddenly tumbled, all in a heap, on the seat where his feet had been. Then came bounce after bounce and the sound of breaking glass, and then a crash.
"Off the track!" shouted Ford, as he sprang to his feet. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but I do hope nobody's killed."
In the tremendous excitement of the moment he could hardly have told how he got out of that car, but it did not seem ten seconds till he was standing beside the conductor and engineer, looking at the battered engine as it lay on its side in a deep ditch. The baggage car, just behind it, was broken all to pieces, but the passenger cars did not seem to have suffered very much, and nobody was badly hurt, as the engineer and fireman had jumped off in time.
"This train'll never get in on time," said Ford to the conductor, a little later. "How'll I get to the city?"
"Well," replied the railway man, who was not in the best of humors, "I don't suppose the city could do without you overnight. The junction with the main road is only two miles ahead, and if you're a good walker you may catch a train there."
Some of the other passengers, none of whom were very much hurt, had made the same discovery, and in a few minutes more there was a long, straggling procession of uncomfortable people marching by the side of the railway track, under the hot sun, The conductor was right, however, and nearly all of them managed to make the two miles to the junction in time.
Mr. Ford Foster was among the very first to arrive, and he was likely to reach home in very fair season in spite of the pig.
As for his danger, he had hardly thought of that, and he would not have missed so important an adventure for anything he could think of, just then.
It was to a great, pompous, stylish, crowded, "up-town boarding-house," that Ford's return was to take him. There was no wonder at all that wise people should wish to get out of such a place in such hot weather. Still, it was the sort of a home Ford Foster had been best acquainted with all his life, and it was partly owing to that that he had become so prematurely "knowing."
He knew too much, in fact, and was only too well aware of it. He had filled his head with an unlimited stock of boarding-house information, as well as with a firm persuasion that there was little more to be had,—unless, indeed, it might be scraps of such outside, knowledge as he had now been picking up over on Long Island.
In one of the great "parlor chambers" of the boarding-house, at about eight o'clock that evening, a middle-aged gentleman and lady, with a fair, sweet-faced girl of about nineteen, were sitting near an open window, very much as if they were waiting for somebody.
Such a kindly, motherly lady! She was one of those whom no one can help liking, after seeing her smile once, or hearing her speak. Whatever may have been his faults or short-comings, Ford Foster could not have put in words what he thought about his mother. And yet he had no difficulty in expressing his respect for his father, or his unbounded admiration for his pretty sister Annie.
"Oh, husband!" exclaimed Mrs. Foster, "are you sure none of them were injured?"
"So the telegraphic report said. Not a bone broken of anybody but the pig that got in the way."
"But how I wish he would come!" groaned Annie. "Have you any idea, papa, how he can get home?"
"Not clearly," said her father, "but you can trust Ford not to miss any opportunity. He's just the boy to look out for himself in an emergency."
Ford Foster's father took very strongly after the son in whose ability he expressed so much confidence. He had just such a square, active, bustling sort of body, several sizes larger, with just such keen, penetrating, greenish-gray eyes. Anybody would have picked him out, at a glance, for a lawyer, and a good one.
That was exactly what he was, and if any one had become acquainted with either son or father, there would have been no difficulty afterward in identifying the other.
It required a good deal more than the telegraphic report of the accident or even her husband's assurances, to relieve the motherly anxiety of good Mrs. Foster, or even to drive away the shadows from the face of Annie.
No doubt if Ford himself had known the state of affairs, they would have been relieved earlier; for even while they were talking about him he was already in the house. It had not so much as occurred to him that his mother would hear of the accident to the pig and the railway train until he himself should tell her, and so, he had made sure of his supper down-stairs, before reporting himself.[Page 561] He might not have done it, perhaps, but he had come in through the lower way, by the area door, and that of the dining-room had stood temptingly wide open with some very eatable things ready on the table.
That had been too much for Ford, after his car-ride and his smash-up and his long walk. But now, at last, up he came, brimful of new and wonderful experiences, to be more than a little astonished by the manner and enthusiasm of his welcome.
"Why, mother!" he exclaimed, when he got a chance for a word, "you and Annie couldn't have said much more if I'd been the pig himself."
"The pig?" said Annie.
"Yes, the pig that stopped us. He and the engine wont go home to their families to-night."
"Don't make fun of it, Ford," said his mother, gently; "it's too serious a matter."
Just then his father broke in, almost impatiently, with, "Well, Ford, my boy, have you done your errand, or shall I have to see about it myself? You've been gone two days."
"Thirty-seven hours and a half, father," replied Ford, taking out his watch. "I've kept an exact account of my expenses. We've saved the cost of advertising."
"And spent it on railroading," said his father, with a laugh.
"But, Ford," asked Annie, "did you find a house?—a good one?"
"Yes," added Mrs. Foster, "now I'm sure you're safe, I do want to hear about the house."
"It's all right, mother," said Ford, confidently. "The very house you told me to hunt for. Neither too large nor too small, and it's in apple-pie order."
There were plenty of questions to answer now, but Ford was every way equal to the occasion. His report, in fact, compelled his father to look at him with an expression of face which very clearly meant, "That boy resembles me. I was just like him at his age. He'll be just like me at mine."
There was really very good reason to approve of the manner in which the young gentleman had performed his errand in the country, and Mr. Foster promptly decided to go over, in a day or two, and settle matters with Mrs Kinzer.
(To be [continued].)
MAKING READY FOR A CRUISE.
HOW [WILLY] WOLLY WENT A-FISHING.
BY S.C. STONE.
One day, on going fishing
Was Willy Wolly bent;
And, as it chanced a holiday,
Why, Willy Wolly [went].
Now, Willy Wolly planned, you see,
To catch a speckled trout;
But caught a very different fish
From what he had laid out!
In view of all the fishes,—
Who much enjoyed the joke,
With many a joyous wriggle
And finny punch and poke,—
Young Willy Wolly, leaping[Page 563]
A fence with dire design,
Had carelessly left swinging
His fishing-hook and [line].
How Willy Wolly did it,
He really could not tell,
But instantly he had his fish
Exceeding fast and well!
He hooked the struggling monster
Securely in the sleeve;
And, all at once, he found it time
His pleasant sport to leave;—
'T was not a very gamy fish[Page 564]
For one so large and strong,
That Willy Wolly, blubbering,
Helped carefully along.
The giggling fishes crowded to
The river bank to look,
As Willy Wolly, captive, led
Himself with line and [hook]!
When Willy Wolly went, you see,
To catch a speckled trout,
Why, Willy Wolly caught himself!
And so the joke is out.
His mother saved that barbèd hook,
And sternly bid him now
No more to dare a-fishing go,
Until he has learned how!