Stories for Boys

by Richard Harding Davis

The flaw struck the boat with her heavy sail dragging in the water, and with young Prescott’s weight removed from the rail. She reeled under the gust as a tree bows in a storm, bent gracefully before it, and then turned over slowly on her side.

The next instant the Wave swept by her, and as the two Prescotts scrambled up on the gunwale of their boat, the defeated crew saluted them with cheers, in response to which the victors bowed as gracefully as their uncertain position would permit.

The new arrival, who had come to Manasquan in the hope of finding something to shoot, stood among the people on the bank and discharged his gun until the barrels were so hot that he had to lay the gun down to cool. And every other man and boy who owned a gun or pistol of any sort, fired it off and yelled at the same time, as if the contents of the gun or pistol had entered his own body. Unfortunately, every boat possessed a tin horn with which the helmsman was wont to signal the keeper of the drawbridge. One evil-minded captain blew a blast of triumph on his horn, and in a minute’s time the air was rent with tootings as vicious as those of the steam whistle of a locomotive.

The Wave just succeeded in reaching the dock before she settled and sank. A dozen of Chadwick’s boarders seized the crew by their coat collars and arms, as they leaped from the sinking boat to the pier, and assisted them to their feet, forgetful in the excitement of the moment that the sailors were already as wet as sponges on their native rocks.

“I suppose I should have stuck to my ship as Prescott did,” said the captain of the Wave with a smile, pointing to where the judges’ boat was towing in the Rover with her crew still clinging to her side; “but I’d already thrown you my rope, you know, and there really isn’t anything heroic in sticking to a sinking ship when she goes down in two feet of water.”

As soon as the Prescotts reached the pier, they pushed their way to their late rivals and shook them heartily by their hands. Then the Atlantic House people carried their crew around on their shoulders, and the two Chadwick’s crews were honored in the same embarrassing manner. The proprietor of the Atlantic House invited the entire Chadwick establishment over to a dance and a late supper.

“I prepared it for the victors,” he said, “and though these victors don’t happen to be the ones I prepared it for, the victors must eat it.”

The sun had gone down for over half an hour before the boats and carriages had left the Chadwick dock, and the Chadwick people had an opportunity to rush home to dress. They put on their very best clothes, “just to show the Atlantic people that they had something else besides flannels,” and danced in the big hall of the Atlantic House until late in the evening.

When the supper was served, the victors were toasted and cheered and presented with a beautiful set of colors, and then Judge Carter made a stirring speech.

He went over the history of the rival houses in a way that pleased everybody, and made all the people at the table feel ashamed of themselves for ever having been rivals at all.