The last word came out in a great sigh of relief, and was followed by a chuckle which seemed to gurgle up all the way from Ham's boots.
"This is better than railroading," he said to Dabney, as they tacked into the long stretch where the inlet widened toward the bay. "No pounding or jarring here. Talk of your fashionable watering-places! Why, Dab, there aint anything else in the world prettier than that reach of water and the sand island with the ocean beyond it. There's some ducks and some gulls. Why, Dab, do you see that? There's a porpoise inside the bar."
It was as clear as daylight that Ham Morris felt himself "at home" again, and that his brief experience of the outside world had by no means lessened his affection for the place he was born in. If the entire truth could have been known, it would have been found that he felt his heart warm toward the whole coast and all its inhabitants, including the clams. And yet it was remarkable how many of the latter were mere empty shells when Ham finished his breakfast that morning. He preferred them roasted, and his mother-in-law had not forgotten that trait in his character.
Once or twice in the course of the sail Dabney found himself on the point of saying something about boarding-schools, but each time his friend suddenly broke away to discuss other topics, such as blue-fish, porpoises, crabs, or the sailing qualities of the "Swallow," and Dab dimly felt it would be better to wait till another time. So he waited.
And then, as they sailed up the inlet, very happy and very hungry, he suddenly exclaimed: "Ham, do you see that? How could they have guessed where we had gone? There's the whole tribe, and the boys are with 'em, and Annie."
"What boys and Annie?"
"Oh, Ford Foster and Frank Harley. Annie is Ford's sister."
"What's become of Jenny?"
"You mean my boat? Why, there she is, hitched a little out, there by the landing."
And Dabney did not seem to guess the meaning of Ham's queer, quizzical smile.