CHAPTER VIII
HOBO TO THE RESCUE
Life at Dolittle Cottage had been anything but uneventful, even before the arrival of Graham and his friend. But it must be confessed that the presence of the two young men added appreciably to the agreeable excitements and diversions of the days. For upwards of twenty-four hours the girls had maintained the superiority of first arrivals, and then to their surprise, found the tables turned and that they were being introduced to spots whose charms they had never discovered, and to pleasures as yet untried.
Jerry Morton bringing his fish as usual, looked askance at the two young fellows, taking their ease in the porch hammocks, and received with marked ungraciousness Peggy’s suggestion that he should act as their guide to some point where the fishing was good.
“I never could get on with swells,” said Jerry, with his customary frankness. “Let ’em fish out of your cistern. Them city dudes will catch as much there as anywhere.”
Peggy restrained her laughter with difficulty. It seemed rather hard that Graham and Jack, attiring themselves in garments so old as barely to be presentable should yet be designated by a term of such unbounded contempt. Privately, Peggy thought Aunt Abigail had come nearer the mark, and that the boys bore a more striking resemblance to tramps than to city dudes.
Wisely she made no effort to defend her friends. “Of course, if you are too busy,” she said indifferently, “we can make some other arrangement. Perhaps Mr. Cole would spare Joe–”
“Oh, I’ll take ’em,” interrupted Jerry, still sulkily, though he looked a little ashamed of himself. “I’ll show ’em where the fish are, and if they come home with nothing but their tackle, don’t blame me.”
But the fishing excursion was more successful than Jerry’s gloomy hints gave ground for anticipating. The boys brought back so many fish that thrifty Peggy racked her brains to find ways of disposing of them all. Jerry, for his part, carried home a new idea of “city dudes” and their ways. These clear-eyed, clean-minded young fellows had not treated him as an inferior, nor had they committed the offence still less pardonable, from Jerry’s standpoint, of condescending to his level. As fishermen, too, they had showed no mean skill, and from dislike and mistrust, Jerry had at length been brought to grudging admiration and reluctant respect.
The favorable impression was not all on one side, however. As Graham cleaned his fish–the girls lightening his labors, by sitting around in an appreciative circle–he suddenly checked his operations to exclaim: “Say, do you know, that fellow’s a wonder!”
“Who? Not Jerry Morton?” Ruth’s tone was rather scandalized, for Ruth did not share Peggy’s faculty for finding all kinds of people interesting, and had a not uncommon weakness for good clothes and conventional manners.