“My dinner,” answered Dan, grimly.
“Jing!” exclaimed Freddy, breathlessly. “That was great! When we get to Killykinick let us go out like those bare legged boys and catch our dinner, too.”
And Dan laughed and forgot he was a “low-down chump” as he agreed they would catch dinners whenever possible. Then he and Freddy proceeded to explore the big boat high and low, decks, cabins, saloons, machinery wherever visible. Freddy, who had made similar explorations with Uncle Tom as guide, was quite posted in steamboat workings; but it was all new and wonderful to Dan, who had only dry book-knowledge of levers and cogs and wheels; and to watch them in action, to gaze down into the fiery depths of the furnace, to hear the mighty throb of the giant engine,—to see all these fierce forces mastered by rules and laws into the benignant power that was bearing him so gently over summer seas, held him breathless with interest and delight. Even the clang of the first dinner gong could not distract him from his study of cylinder and piston and shaft and driving-rod, and all shining mechanism working without pause or jar at man’s command.
“Just as if they had sense,” said Dan, thoughtfully,—“a heap more sense than lots of living folk I know.”
“That’s what Uncle Tom says,” replied Freddy, to whom, in their brief holidays together, Uncle Tom, cheery and loving, was an authority beyond question. “He says they work by strict law and rule, and people won’t. They shirk and kick. Jing! if these here engines took to shirking and kicking where would we be? But they don’t shirk and kick against law. Uncle Tom says they obey, and that’s what boys ought to do—obey. Gee! it’s good we’re not engines, isn’t it, Dan? We’d blow things sky high.—Here’s the second call for dinner,” said Freddy, roused from these serious reflections by the sound of the gong. “We’d better move quick, Dan, or the ice-cream may give out.”
“Can you have ice-cream,—all you want?” asked Dan.
“Well, no,” hesitated Freddy, who knew what Dan could do in that line,—“not like we have at college. They dish it out other places a little skimp, but they’ll give you a good supply of other things to make up.”
Which information Dan soon found to be most pleasantly correct; and, though the glories of the long dining room, with its corps of low-voiced waiters, were at first a trifle embarrassing, and Brother Bart’s grace, loudly defying all human respect, attracted some attention to his table, the boys did full justice to the good things set so deftly before them, and went through the bill of fare most successfully.
The black waiters grinned as the young travellers proceeded to top off with apple pie and ice-cream, combined in such generous proportions that Brother Bart warned them that the sin of gluttony would be on their souls if they ate another mouthful.
Then Freddy, sorely against his will, was borne off by his good old friend to rest, according to Brother Tim’s last order; while Dan was left to himself to watch the boat turning into the shore, where a wharf loaded with truck for shipping jutted out into the stream; and one passenger—a sturdy, grizzled man in rough, brown hunting corduroy—leaped aboard followed by two fine dogs. Then the laboring engines, with puff and shriek, kept on their way; while Dan continued his investigations, and made friendly overtures to a big deck hand who volunteered to show the eager young questioner “below.”