“I’ll tell him to-night, and then he can go as soon as he likes.”
She woke up Charlie, and told him the good news, which kept him awake a long time, laying plans for the amusement of his company. The next morning he set off betimes, arriving at Captain Rhines’s just as they were sitting down to breakfast, where he received a hearty welcome.
When John heard that he had come to invite him and Fred to spend a week on the island, he could no longer contain himself. He clapped his hands, and unable to find language to express his delight, hugged every one at the table, and finished by hugging Tige.
“O, mother! only see Tige,” who, participating in the unusual joy, was frisking round the room, and wagging his tail; “I declare if I had a tail I’d wag it, too. Don’t you wish you was going?”
“I’ll invite him,” said Charlie; and, taking him by the paw, he said, “Tige Rhines, Mr. Benjamin Rhines, wife, and baby invite you to make them a visit, with John and Fred Williams.”
“Mother, he knows what it means, and is as glad as I am; see, he is going to roll.”
After rolling over, he remained a few moments on his back, his paws stuck up in the air, apparently in joyous meditation. As this was Tige’s method of manifesting the very acme of happiness, we are bound to suppose, with John, that he knew what was in store for him.
“John, I can’t spare Tige; he is my protector when your father is gone; and we need him, too, now that the fruit is ripe, to watch the orchard, and also to get the cows for us.”
The boys now set off for Fred, whom they found in the mill, taking charge, as his father was gone; but at noon he would return, and might let him go, though it was doubtful, as they were very busy indeed in the mill; and the tears almost stood in his eyes as he said so.
The boys looked at the mill, and helped Fred a while, and then caught fish in the mill-pond; for it was a tide-mill, though there was a brook ran into it. When the gates were open, and the tide from the sea flowed in, the fish—smelts, tom-cod, and sometimes small mackerel, called “tinkers,” came with it. When tired of fishing they went to look at the ducks. Fred had nearly a hundred ducks, that spent the greater part of their time in the mill-pond. Never did ducks have a better time than Fred’s; they had plenty of corn from the mill, and when the pond was full they fed upon the insects and little fish that live in the salt water; but when the pond became low they resorted to the brook.