LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| [“Hold on! Isn’t that a sort of a light over there?”] | Frontispiece |
|---|---|
| Facing Page | |
| [“We’ve gained like anything, Arn!”] | 66 |
| [Toby pegged hard to Tim] | 122 |
| [He consumed a large piece of apple pie] | 254 |
KEEPING HIS COURSE
CHAPTER I
TOBY RESENTS AN INSULT
A boy with light blue eyes that just about matched the slightly hazy June sky sat on the float below the town landing at Greenhaven, L. I., and stared thoughtfully across harbor and bay to where, two miles northward, the village of Johnstown stretched along the farther shore. He had a round, healthy, and deeply tanned face of which a short nose, many freckles, the aforementioned blue eyes, and a somewhat square chin were prominent features. There was, of course, a mouth, as well, and that, too, was prominent just now, for it was puckered with the little tune that the boy was softly whistling. Under a sailor’s hat of white canvas the hair was brown, but a brown that only escaped being red by the narrowest of margins. That fact was a sore subject with Toby Tucker.
Perhaps had his hair been really and truly red, beyond all question, he wouldn’t have minded being called “Ginger” and “Carrots” and “Sorrel Top” and “Red Head” and all the other names frequently—but usually from a safe distance—bestowed on him. Perhaps it was the injustice of it that hurt. That as may be, a hint that Toby’s hair was red—or even reddish—was equivalent to a declaration of war, and entailed similar consequences! He wore, besides the duck hat, a sailor’s jacket of like material, a pair of khaki trousers, and brown canvas “sneakers.” You wouldn’t have called him “smartly dressed,” perhaps, but what he wore seemed to suit him and was, at least, clean.
From where he sat, perched on a box labeled “Sunny South Brand Tomatoes,” he had a clear view of Spanish Harbor, and beyond its mouth a wide expanse of Great Peconic Bay. Beyond that again lay the green fields and low, wooded hills of the north shore. A coal barge, which had lately discharged her cargo at Rollinson’s Wharf, was anchored in the middle channel, awaiting a tug. Nearer at hand were a half-dozen pleasure sailboats, a blunt-nosed, drab-hued fishing sloop, and a black launch, all tugging gently at their moorings on the incoming tide. On either side of the float a little company of rowboats and small launches rubbed sides. Behind him, the rusted iron wheels of the gangplank, leading to the wharf above, creaked as the float swung to the rising water.
Toby had the landing to himself. The box on which he sat held provisions for the yacht Penguin, and some time around nine o’clock a tender was to call for them. Toby, when school wasn’t in session, did such odd jobs as fell to his hand, and just now, it being Saturday morning, he was earning a whole quarter of a dollar from Perkins & Howe, the grocers. Having propelled the box to the gangplank in a wheelbarrow, and slid it down to its present resting place, all that remained was to continue sitting right there until some one claimed it, a task which suited Toby perfectly.