“I believe you, Bill,” he said. “Boys, this is a big surprise to me. I didn’t know how the life saving crew learned of the wreck, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it might have been through you. I don’t see but what you’re a parcel of young heroes! Well, I am certainly grateful, and I think the men will be when they learn of it. It appears to me, Herrick, that you’re the prime hero of all, eh?”
“Oh, no, sir.” Jack shook his head. “We all had a hand in it.”
“It was Jack’s idea, though,” said Hal. “We’d never have thought of getting to the railroad, would we, Bee?”
“Speak for yourself,” replied Bee with dignity. “I’d have thought of it—ultimately; perhaps this morning!”
“And I haven’t forgotten, Herrick, that you saved these two simpletons from an unpleasant experience, at least, and perhaps worse,” continued Mr. Folsom. He was looking at Jack very hard with his sharp eyes, and Jack, embarrassed, bent over his cooking. “You don’t look very much like your father, but I guess you must be—a whole lot.”
“He be more like his grandfather,” agreed Bill Glass with conviction. “I mind a story they used to tell about the old Cap’n, sir. Likely you’ve hearn it. ’Twere in the old days afore the railroad came to Greenhaven an’ we had to go to Shepard’s Falls to get the cars. ’Twas a three mile drive an’ like as not when you’d get there the train would be gone an’ there’d be no other till afternoon. Seems old Cap’n Herrick driv over one day an’ afore he could get his horse put up an’ leg it to the station, the train was a-pullin’ out. The Cap’n he waved an’ he shouted, but they didn’t see him an’ kep’ on a-goin’. So the Cap’n he lit out after the train. He had pretty long legs, the Cap’n did, an’ they say as long as they could see him from the station he was gainin’ on the train every leap! He cal’ated to catch up with it at Saunder’s Mill, which be only half a mile away, for in them days the train used to stop maybe three or four minutes at a station. Well, when the Cap’n got to Saunder’s there wa’n’t any train in sight. The agent there was on the platform, though, an’ the Cap’n he asks: ‘Young feller, have you seen a train go by here?’ Well, the agent he stared an’ he says, ‘Yes, sir, the Newb’ryport train just went out.’ ‘How far ahead be she?’ asks the Cap’n. ‘Maybe a half-mile by this time,’ says the agent. ‘Sho!’ says the Cap’n. ‘Blessed if she ain’t gainin’ on me!’ An’ off he set again down the track. Well, sir, he hadn’t gone more’n a half-mile farther, likely, when he sees the train. Seems they’d got a hot bearin’ or lost a spar or somethin’, an’ the Cap’n he walks up and climbs aboard. An’ just then the conductor comes along an’ sees him an’ says, ‘Why Cap’n Herrick, where’d you come from?’ An’ the Cap’n, bein’ a little angry, says, ‘I come from Shepard’s an’ I’d be in Newb’ryport now if your fool train hadn’t been in my way!’”
Jack laughed with the others and announced that dinner was ready. There weren’t plates enough to go around, nor cups either, but they got along somehow and everyone ate hungrily save Bill Glass. Bill explained apologetically that he’d had his breakfast pretty late—most eight o’clock—and wasn’t hungry yet! Mr. Folsom praised the dinner and the cook and then announced that he would have to get back to the tug.
“I guess we can start to haul her off pretty soon now. Want to come along, Bill?”