CHAPTER XXIV
The boys had returned a good deal sooner than had been expected, but they made no more trouble. As Ford Foster remarked, they were all "willing to go slow for a week" after being carried so very fast by Dab Kinzer's ponies.
There was a great deal to be said about the runaway, and Mrs. Foster longed to see Dab and thank him on Ford's account, but he himself had no idea that he had done anything remarkable, and was very busily at work decking Miranda's parlors with the "greens."
A very nice appearance they made, all those woven branches and clustered sprays, when they were in place, and Samantha declared for them that,
"They had kept Dab out of mischief all the afternoon."
At an early hour after supper, the guests began to arrive, for Mrs. Kinzer was a woman of too much sense to have night turned into day when she could prevent it. As the stream of visitors steadily poured in, Dab remarked to Jenny Walters:
"We shall have to enlarge the house after all."
"If it were only a dress, now?"
"What then?"
"Why, you could just let out the tucks. I've had to do that with mine."
"Jenny, shake hands with me."
"What for, Dabney?"
"I'm so glad to meet somebody else that's outgrowing something."
There was a tinge of color rising in Jenny's face, but, before she could say anything, Dab added:
"There! Jenny, there's Mrs. Foster and Annie. Isn't she sweet?"
"One of the nicest old ladies I ever saw——"
"Oh, I didn't mean her mother."
"Never mind. You must introduce me to them."
"So I will. Take my arm."
"MAY I HAVE THE HONOR?"
Jenny Walters had been unusually kindly and gracious in her manner that evening, and her very voice had much less than its accustomed sharpness, but her natural disposition broke out a little some minutes later, while she was talking with Annie. Said she:
"I've wanted so much to get acquainted with you."
"With me?"
"Yes. I've seen you in church, and I've heard you talked about, and I wanted to find out for myself."
"Find out what?" asked Annie a little soberly.
"Why, you see, I don't believe it's possible for any girl to be as sweet as you look. I couldn't, I know. I've been trying these two days, and I'm nearly worn out."
Annie's eyes opened wide with surprise, and she laughed merrily as she answered:
"What can you mean? I'm glad enough if my face doesn't tell tales of me."
"But mine does," said Jenny, "and then I'm so sure to tell all the rest with my tongue. I wish I knew what were your faults."
"My faults? What for?"
"I don't know. Seems to me if I could think of your faults instead of mine, it wouldn't be so hard to look sweet."
Annie saw that there was more earnestness than fun in the queer talk of her new acquaintance. The truth was that Jenny had been having almost as hard a struggle with her tongue as ever poor Dick Lee with his, though not for not the same reason. Before many minutes she had frankly told Annie all about it, and she could never have done that if she had not somehow felt that Annie's "sweetness" was genuine. The two girls were sure friends after that, much to the surprise of Mr. Dabney Kinzer.
He, indeed, had been too much occupied in caring for his guests to pay special attention to one of them. His mother had looked after him again and again with eyes brimful of pride and of commendation of the way he was acquitting himself.
Even Mrs. Foster said to her husband, who had now arrived:
"Do you see that? Who would have expected as much from a raw, green country boy?"
"But, my dear, don't you see? The secret of it is that he's not thinking of himself at all. He's only anxious his friends should have a good time."
"That's it; but then that too is a very rare thing in a boy of his age."
"Dabney!" exclaimed the lawyer in a louder tone of voice.
"Good-evening, Mr. Foster. I'm glad you've found room. The house isn't half large enough."
"I understand your ponies ran away with you to-day?"
"They did come home in a hurry; but nobody was hurt."
"I fear there would have been, but for you. Do you start for Grantley with the other boys to-morrow?"
"Of course. Dick Lee and I need some one to take care of us. We never traveled so far before."
"On land, you mean. Is Dick here to-night?"
"Came and looked in, sir, but got scared by the crowd and went home."
"Poor fellow! Well, we will do all we can for him."
Poor Dick Lee!
And yet, if Mr. Dabney Kinzer had known his whereabouts at that very moment he would half have envied him.
Dick's mother was in the kitchen helping about the supper, but she had not left home until she had compelled Dick to dress himself in his best,—white shirt, red neck-tie, shining shoes and all,—and she had brought him with her almost by force.
"You's good nuff to go to de 'cad'my and leab yer pore mother, an' I reckon you's good nuff for de party."
And Dick had actually ventured in from the kitchen through the dining-room and as far as the door of the back parlor, where few would look.
"PINNED!"
How his heart did beat as he looked on the merry gathering, a large part of whom he had known "all his born days!"
But there was a side door opening from that dining-room on the long piazza which Mrs. Kinzer had added to the old Morris mansion, and Dick's hand was on the knob of that door almost before he knew it.
Then he was out on the road to the landing, and in five minutes more he was vigorously rowing the "Jenny" out through the inlet toward the bay.
His heart was not beating unpleasantly any longer, but as he shot out from the narrow passage through the flags and saw the little waves laughing in the cool, dim starlight, he suddenly stopped rowing, leaned on his oars, gave a sigh of relief, and exclaimed:
"Dar! I's safe now. I aint got to say a word to nobody out yer. Wonder 'f I'll ebber git back from de 'cad'my an' kitch fish in dis yer bay? Sho! Course I will. But goin' away's awful!"
Dab Kinzer thought he had never known Jenny Walters to appear so well as she looked that evening; and he must have been right, for good Mrs. Foster said to Annie:
"What a pleasant, kindly face your new friend has! You must ask her to come and see us. She seems quite a favorite with the Kinzers."
"Have you known Dabney long?" Annie had asked of Jenny a little before that.
"Ever since I was a little bit of a girl, and a big boy seven or eight years old pushed me into the snow."
"Was it Dabney?"
"No, but Dabney was the boy that pushed him in for doing it, and then helped me up. Dab rubbed his face for him with snow till he cried."
"Just like him!" exclaimed Annie with emphasis. "I should think his friends here will miss him."
"Indeed they will," replied Jenny, and then she seemed disposed to be quiet for a while.
The party could not last forever, pleasant as it was, and by the time his duties as "host" were met, Dabney was tired enough to go to bed and sleep soundly. His arms were lame and sore from the strain the ponies had given them, and that may have been the reason why he dreamed half the night that he was driving runaway teams and crashing over rickety old bridges.
But why was it that every one of his dream-wagons, no matter who else was in it, seemed to have Jenny Walters and Annie Foster smiling at him from the back seat?
He rose later than usual next morning, and the house was all in its customary order by the time he got down-stairs.
Breakfast was ready also, and, by the time that was over, Dab's great new trunk was brought down-stairs by a couple of the farm-hands.
"It's an hour yet to train-time," said Ham Morris; "but we might as well get ready. We must be on hand in time."
What a long hour that was, and not even a chance given for Dab to run down and take a good-bye look at the "Swallow!"
His mother and Ham and Miranda and the girls seemed to be all made up of "good-bye" that morning.
"Mother," said Dab.
"What is it, my dear boy?"
"That's it exactly. If you say 'dear boy' again, Ham Morris'll have to carry me to the cars. I'm all kind o' wilted now."
Then they all laughed, and before they got through laughing, they all cried except Ham.
He put his hands in his pockets and drew a long whistle.
The ponies were at the door now. The light wagon had three seats in it, but when Dab's trunk was in, there was only room left for the ladies; Ham and Dab had to walk to the station.
It was a short walk, however, and a silent one, but as they came in sight of the platform, Dab exclaimed:
"There they are, all of them!"
"The whole party?"
"Why, the platform's as crowded as our house was last night."
Mrs. Kinzer and her daughters were already the center of the crowd of young people, and Ford Foster and Frank Harley, with Joe and Fuz Hart were asking what had become of Dab, for the train was in sight.
A moment later, as the puffing locomotive drew up by the water-tank, the conductor stepped out on the platform, exclaiming:
"Look a here, folks. This aint right. If there was going to be a picnic you'd ought to have sent word, and I'd have tacked on an extra car. You'll have to pack in, now, best you can."
He seemed much relieved when he found how small a part of the crowd were to be his passengers.
"Dab," said Ford, "this is your send-off, not ours. You'll have to make a speech."
Dab did want to say something, but he had just kissed his sisters and his mother, and half a dozen of his school-girl friends had followed the example of Jenny Walters, and then Mrs. Foster had kissed him, and Ham Morris had shaken hands with him, and Dab could not have said a loud word to have saved his life.
"Speech!" whispered Ford, mischievously, as Dab stepped upon the platform; but Dick Lee, who had just escaped from the tremendous hug his mother had given him, came to his friend's aid in the nick of time. Dick felt that "he must shout, or he should go off," as he afterward told the boys, and so at the top of his shrill voice he shouted:
"Hurrah for Cap'n Kinzer! Dar aint no better feller lef' along shore!"
And, amid a chorus of cheers and laughter, and a grand waving of white handkerchiefs, the engine gave a deep, hysterical cough, and hurried the train away.
The two homesteads by the Long Island shore were a little lonely for a while, after the departure of all those noisy, merry young fellows. Mr. Foster had enough to do in the city, and Ham Morris had his farm to attend to, besides doing more than a little for Mrs. Kinzer. It was much the better for both estates that he had that notable manager at his elbow. The ladies, however, old and young, had plenty of time to come together and wonder how the boys were getting along, even before the arrival of the first batch of letters.
"They must be happy," remarked kind Mrs. Foster, after the long, boyish epistles had been read, over and over; "and such good letters! Not one word of complaint of anything."
Mrs. Kinzer assented somewhat thoughtfully. Dabney had not complained of anything; but while he had praised the village, the scenery, the academy, the boys, and had covered two full sheets of paper, he had not said a word about the table of his boarding-house.
"He is such a growing boy," she said to herself. "I do hope they will give him enough to eat."
It went on a good deal in that way, however, for weeks, even till the Fosters broke up their summer residence and returned to the city. There were plenty of letters, and all his sisters wondered where Dabney had learned to write so capitally; but Mrs. Kinzer's doubts were by no means removed until Ham Morris showed her a part of a curious epistle Dabney had sent to him in a moment of confidence.
"I tell you what, Ham," he wrote, "mother doesn't know what can be done with corn. Mrs. Myers does. She raised a pile of it last year, and the things she makes with it would drive a cook-book crazy. I've been giving them Latin names, and Frank, he turns them into Hindustanee. It's real fun, but I sha'n't be the boy I was. I'm getting corned. My hair is silkier and my voice is husky. My ears are growing. I'd like some fish and clams for a change. A crab would taste wonderfully good. So would some oysters. They don't have any up here; but we went fishing, last Saturday, and got some perch and cat-fish and sun-fish. They call them pumpkin-seeds up here, and they aint much bigger. Don't tell mother we don't get enough to eat. There's plenty of it, and you ought to see Mrs. Myers smile when she passes the johnny-cake. We are all trying to learn that heavenly smile. Ford does it best. I think Dick Lee is getting a little pale. Perhaps corn doesn't agree with him. He's learning fast, though, and so am I; but we have to work harder than the rest. I guess the Hart boys know more than they did when they came here, and they didn't get it all out of their books, either. We keep up our French and our boxing; but oh, wouldn't I like to go for some blue-fish, just now! Has mother made any mince-pies yet? I've almost forgotten how they taste. I was going by a house here the other day and I smelt some ham, cooking. I was real glad I hadn't forgotten. I knew what it was right away. Don't you be afraid about my studying, for I'm at it all the while, except when we're playing ball or eating corn. They say they have sleighing here earlier than we do, and plenty of skating. Well, now, don't say anything to mother about the corn; but wont I eat when I get home.—Yours all the while. Dabney Kinzer."
"Why, the poor fellow!" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer, and it was not very many days after that before young Dabney received a couple of boxes by express.
There was a boiled ham in the first one and a great many other things, and Dab called in all the other boys to help him get them out.
"Mince-pies!" shouted Ford Foster. "How'd they ever travel so far?"
"They're not much mashed," said Dabney. "There's enough there to start a small hotel. Now let's open the other."
"Ice. Sawdust. Fish, I declare. Clams. Oysters. Crabs. There's a lobster. Ford, Frank, Dick, do you think we can eat those fellows?"
"After they're cooked," said Ford.
"Well, I s'pose we can; but I feel like shaking hands with 'em, all round. They're old friends and neighbors of mine, you know."
"I guess we'd better eat 'em."
"Cap'n Dab," remarked Dick Lee, "dey jest knocks all de correck pronounciation clean out of me."
Eaten they were, however, and Mrs Myers was glad enough to have her boarders supply such a remarkable "variety" for her table, which, after that "hint," began to improve a little.
And so we leave Dab Kinzer, still, in mind and body, as when first we saw him, a growing boy.
[WHERE?]
By Mary N. Prescott.
Where does the Winter stay?
With the little Esquimaux,
Where the frost and snow-flake grow?
Or where the white bergs first come out,
Where icicles make haste to sprout,
Where the winds and storms begin,
Gathering the crops all in,
Among the ice-fields, far away?
Where does the Summer stay?
In distant sunny places,
'Midst palms and dusky faces,
Where they spin the cocoa thread,
Where the generous trees drop bread,
Where the lemon-groves give alms,
And Nature works her daily charms,
Among the rice-fields, far away?
[PARLOR MAGIC.]
(Pleasing, Harmless, and Inexpensive Experiments, chiefly Chemical, for Young People.)
By Leo H. Grindon.
This series of experiments is designed for the use of young people who are interested in the wonders and the beautiful realities of nature, and who delight to observe for themselves how curious are the phenomena revealed by scientific knowledge. Simple instructions are given for the performance of a number of pretty experiments, all of which are perfectly safe, and cost very little money. For "evenings at home," it is hoped that these experiments will be found indefinitely amusing and recreative, at the same time that they will lead the minds of boys and girls to inquiries into the entire fabric of the grand sciences which explains the principles on which they are founded. All the materials spoken of, and all the needful apparatus, which is of the simplest and most inexpensive kind, can be obtained at a good chemist's. It is of the highest importance that all the materials be pure and good.