CHAPTER XIVA PERFECTLY GORGEOUS IDEA
Ned and Bob were watching Thomas, the man-of-all-work, rolling the cinder surface of the new tennis-court. Theirs was a pleasant occupation for such a morning, and Laurie joined them where they sat on a pile of posts and boards that had once been a grape-arbor and that had been removed to make way for the court.
“What happened to you?” asked Ned. “Thought maybe they’d had you arrested. Bob and I were just talking of pooling our resources and bailing you out.”
“I found I had nearly ninety cents,” said Bob proudly.
“No, they were all right about it,” replied Laurie musingly. Then he lapsed into silence, staring thoughtfully at Thomas as he paced to and fro behind the stone roller.
“What do you think of it?” asked Bob, nodding at the court.
“Corking. Pretty nearly done, isn’t it?”
“Pretty nearly. It’ll take about two days to put the gravel on. They’re going to bring the first load this afternoon. It has to have clay mixed with it, you know, and that makes it slower. And then it’s got to be rolled well—”
“Seems to me,” said Laurie, “a turf court would have been easier.”
“Yes, but they don’t last. You know that. And it’s the very dickens to get a grass surface level.”
Laurie nodded. It was evident to Ned, who had been watching him closely, that Laurie’s mind was not on the tennis-court. “What’s eating you, partner?” he asked finally. Laurie started.
“Me? Nothing. That is, I’ve been thinking.”
“Don’t,” begged Ned. “You know what it did to you yesterday.”
“I want you and Bob to be at Polly’s this afternoon when she gets home from school. I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Tell us now,” suggested Bob. Laurie shook his head.
“No use saying it twice.”
“What’s it about?” asked Ned.
“About—about Miss Comfort.”
“Gee,” said Bob, “I thought that was done with. What about her, Nod?” But Laurie shook his head, and their pleas for enlightenment were vain.
“You’ll know all about it this afternoon,” he said. “So shut up.” A minute after he asked, “Say, Bob, does your father know the folks who run that quarry?”
“Yes, I guess so. He buys stone from them. Why?”
“I want to meet the head guy, president or general manager or whatever he calls himself. That’s all.”
“Want to meet him! What for? Going to get after him for not having a railing around the top of the bluff?”
“Not exactly. Know any one here who has a launch?”
“Lunch? Say, what are you talking about?”
“I didn’t say lunch, you goop; I said launch, l-a-u—”
“Oh,launch! Why, no, I don’t believe so. I know a fellow who owns a canoe—”
“Sure,” agreed Laurie with deep sarcasm,“and I know a fellow who owns a bean-shooter, but it doesn’t interest me. There must be some one who has a launch around here. There are half a dozen on the river.”
“Why, there’s a man down there who rents boats, you idiot. I think he has some sort of a launch. I thought you meant—”
“What’s his name? Where’s he live?”
“Name’s Wilkins or Watkins or something, and he lives—I don’t know where he lives, but he keeps his boats up by the old chain-works.”
“Thanks. You fellows going to spend the day here? Let’s do something.”
“Want some tennis?” asked Bob eagerly. “I’ll take on you and Nid.”
Laurie looked inquiringly at his brother. “Would you?” he asked. “Seems sort of too bad to take advantage of his ignorance.”
“It’ll teach him a lesson,” answered Ned, rising, stretching, and looking commiseratingly down at the challenger. “Pride goeth before a fall and a haughty spirit—”
“Before the Turners,” completed Laurie. “Come on to the slaughter, Bob, before my heart softens and I let you off.”
Shortly after three that afternoon, Laurie, perched on a counter in the Widow Deane’s shop, had the floor. That sounds peculiar, I acknowledge, but you know what I mean. They were in the shop because Mrs. Deane and Miss Comfort were occupying the back—pardon me, the garden. “It’s like this,” Laurie was telling Polly, Mae, Ned, and Bob. “We couldn’t find a place on land for Miss Comfort, and so it occurred to me that a place on the water might do.” He paused to enjoy the effect of this strange announcement.
“On the water!” echoed Polly. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
“Yes,” cried Mae, “whatever—”
“Don’t you get it?” asked Ned. “He wants Miss Comfort to join the navy!”
Laurie grinned. “Shut up, you idiot! You know thePequot Queen?” They all agreed silently that they did. “Well, I’ve been all over the boat this morning. It would take about two or three days—and a few dollars, of course—to make her into just as nice a house as any one would want. Take that cabin—”
“But, look here, you three-ply goop,” interruptedNed, “Miss Comfort wouldn’t want to live on a tumble-down old ferry-boat!”
“How do you know?” asked Laurie. “Have you asked her?”
“But—but she’d be afraid, Laurie,” protested Polly. “I’m sure I should! Suppose it floated away or—or sank—”
“Suppose it spread its wings and flew on top of the court-house,” answered Laurie sarcastically. “It couldn’t float away because it would be moored to the bank, and it couldn’t sink because there wouldn’t be enough water under it. Now, just listen a minute until I get through. Of course I know that the scheme sounds funny to you folks because you haven’t any imagination. As for saying that Miss Comfort wouldn’t live in thePequot Queen, you don’tknowanything of the sort. I’m blamed certain that if I was—were Miss Comfort I’d a lot rather live in a nice clean boat tied to the bank than go to the poor-farm!”
“Well,” said Polly dubiously, “you’re a man.”
“A man!” jeered Ned.
“Well, you know perfectly well what I mean,” said Polly. It was evident that Polly wanted very much to be convinced of the practicability ofthe plan, and her objection had been almost apologetic. Mae, taking her cue from her friend, awaited further enlightenment in pretty perplexity.
“Miss Comfort has enough to furnish it with,” continued Laurie. “At least, Polly said she had taken a lot of stuff with her.” Polly nodded vigorously. “All we’d have to do would be to board up about four windows on each side of the cabin, put some shades or curtains at the others, put a new lock on the door, run a stove-pipe through the roof—”
“Perfectly simple and easy,” said Ned. “Go on, son.”
“That’s about all. That cabin’s big enough for her to live in comfortably, big enough for a stove and bed and table and chairs—and—and everything. Then, there’s the roof, too. Why, she could have a roof-garden up there, and a place to dry her clothes—”
“After she’s fallen overboard?” asked Bob.
“That’s all right,” answered Laurie a trifle warmly. “Have your fun, but the scheme’s all right, and if you’d quit spoofing and stop to think seriously a minute—”
“Why, I think it’s a perfectly splendid idea!” asserted Polly with a bewildering change of front.
“Gorgeous!” chimed in Mae.
“If only Miss Comfort can be persuaded to try a life on the ocean wave,” added Ned dryly. “Seems to me the first thing to do is to ask her whatshethinks of it.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Laurie. “The first thing is for you to go down there with me right now and see for yourselves. If you don’t agree with me we’ll just let it drop.”
“Of course,” said Polly. “Come on, every one! Oh, I do hope that Miss Comfort will like it!”
“How about the owners?” asked Bob as, a minute later, they were all on the way to the river. “Well, not the owners, for I suppose there aren’t any. But what about the quarry people, Nod? Think they’ll let us have it?”
They all accompanied Laurie to thePequot Queen
They all accompanied Laurie to thePequot Queen
They all accompanied Laurie to thePequot Queen
“Don’t see why not. It’s no good to them, and it’s in their way. That’s where your father comes in, Bob. I want him to introduce us to the head guy and say a good word. Think he’d mind?”
“No, but even if Miss Comfort lived in the boat, Nod, it would be just as much in the way, wouldn’t it?” Bob looked puzzled.
“No, because it wouldn’t be there any longer. We’d have it hauled out of their dock and taken to a place I found the other side of town, up-river. Know where Ash Street comes out down there? Well, about two blocks beyond that. We’d draw the boat up close to the bank, make her fast, and build a sort of bridge to the deck. Some of that stuff in your yard will come in very handy.”
“Why, that would be perfect!” declared Polly. “I didn’t want to mention it, Laurie, but I was dreadfully afraid that Miss Comfort wouldn’t want to live down there by the quarry, with the dynamite shooting off and all those rough-looking men about!”
“Sounds as if the young fellow’s scheme might have something in it after all,” allowed Ned. “Just the same, I’ll bet the quarry folks won’t give up the boat unless some one pays them for storage or whatever it’s called.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Bob. “Dad’s company is a pretty good customer just now, and ifdad will talk with the head of the firm—”
“He might tell them that he wouldn’t buy any more of their old stone,” said Mae. “I guess that would—would bring them around!”
“Not a doubt of it,” laughed Ned. “Well, let’s have a good look at the old ship first. Maybe she’s fallen to pieces since morning!”
But she hadn’t. They spent a full twenty minutes aboard her, while Laurie explained and Polly’s enthusiasm grew by leaps and bounds. Bob, too, came over to Laurie’s side, and even Ned, although he still pretended to doubt, was secretly favorable. As for Mae—well, as Polly went so went Mae! After they had viewed and discussed thePequot Queento their satisfaction, Laurie led them back along the river and showed the place he had selected for thePequot Queen’sfuture moorings. It was a quiet spot, disturbed by scant traffic along the lane, now that the chain-works was no longer in operation. Passing steamers and tugs might infrequently break the silence with their whistles, and when, further down, a coal-barge tied up at the wharf, the whir of the unloading machinery would come softened by distance. Between the well-nigh unused road and the water lay a strip of grass and weeds, aribbon of rushes, a narrow pebbled beach. Some sixty feet out a sunken canal-boat exposed her deck-house above the surface. Six yards or so from the tiny beach the remains of a wooden bulkhead stretched. In places the piles alone remained, but opposite where Laurie had halted his companions there was a twelve-foot stretch of planking still spiked to the piles.
“We could bring her up to that bulkhead and make her fast to the piles at bow and stern. I figure that there’s just about enough water there to float her. Then we’d built a sort of bridge or gangway from the bulkhead to the shore. She couldn’t get away, and she couldn’t sink. That old hulk out beyond would act as a sort of breakwater if there was a storm, too.”
“I think it’s a perfectly gorgeous idea,” said Polly ecstatically. “And just see, Mae, how very, very quiet and respectable it is here!”
Ned, though, seemed bent on enacting the rôle of Mr. Spoilsport. “That’s all right,” he said, “but how are you going to get permission to tie her up here? This property belongs to some one, doesn’t it?”
Laurie looked taken aback. “Why, I don’t believeso, Ned. Here’s the road and here’s the river. There’s only a few feet—”
“Just the same,” Ned persisted, “some one’s bound to own as far as high tide.”
“Maybe the folks in the house across the road,” suggested Mae.
“Mean to tell me,” demanded Laurie, “that the fellow who left that canal-boat out there had to ask permission?”
“That’s in deep water,” answered Ned.
“So would thePequot Queenbe in deep water!”
“Maybe, but your bridge or gangplank wouldn’t be.”
“Oh, shucks,” said Laurie. “That doesn’t sound like sense. Does it, Bob?”
“Well, I guess whoever owns this little strip wouldn’t object to a person landing on it.”
“Of course not,” said Polly. “Besides, I don’t believe it belongs to any one—except the town or the State of New York or some one like that!”
“Guess we can find that out easy enough,” said Laurie, recovering confidence. “Now, what’s the verdict? Think there’s anything in the scheme?”