The pair went off, heading for the mainland. Mr. Holwell had promised to arrive on the train that reached the little station at four o’clock. He would take a team to bring him to the camp, and hoped to be on hand long before sundown.
It lacked a few minutes of five now, and dinner was being gotten ready, though the fish would not be put on the fire or the coffee started until just as the minister should arrive at the landing on the main shore.
Asa persisted in doing the rowing across, and even asked Fred to let him handle the oars on the return trip.
“You see I need all this outdoor exercise I can get,” he explained, and the request was so unusual that Fred, of course, obligingly granted him permission.
“I ought to be satisfied to act as the skipper of the craft, and take my ease, Asa,” he went on to say, laughingly, as he lay in the stern, and stretched his long legs out comfortably; “so just please yourself. I’m always ready to oblige a willing worker.”
After a while those on the island heard a series of loud shouts, and they managed to make out a team that had arrived at the landing. Mr. Holwell then had not failed them, and every one in the camp felt pleased at the idea of having him with them. When a man loves boys from the bottom of his heart it invariably happens that they regard him with something of the same sort of affection.
“There, he’s getting into the boat now!” called out Clint Babbett, whose keen eyes were able to keep track of passing events across that mile of water better than most of the others. “And say! it looks as if he’s brought a heap of packages along with him.”
“Sure thing,” laughed Peg Fosdick, rubbing his stomach vigorously. “Mr. Holwell was a boy himself once on a time, and he’s never forgotten that a fellow gets as hungry as a cannibal every little while. I reckon now he concluded that we’d underestimated our holding capacity, and that we’d nearly starve unless he brought along a new lot of supplies.”
“There they start,” said Mr. Bartlett, presently. “When the boat draws in near our landing be ready to give our honored guest the glad welcome cheer.”
Closer it drew, under the steady strokes of Asa Gardner. Finally, there arose a roar of voices, accompanied by the violent waving of hats and handkerchiefs, that made the minister’s heart beat a little faster than its wont with pleasure.