CHAPTER IIGEORGE SIGNS ON
A few minutes later Jack left the watchman, and made his way through town toward the cottage in which he lived. And as he went, his mind busied itself with the idea of the ferry suggested by Cap’n Crumbie.
Jack Holden was as care-free as any boy of his age in Greenport. For him, life so far had contained little but healthy sport and amusement, and the question of earning money had never concerned him. Nor was it the wish of his father that it should. Yet, despite his natural light-heartedness, Jack had a level head. The time would come, and before very long, when he must face the problem of winning a place for himself in the world. It had been decided that, if it could be arranged, he was to spend another two years at High School, afterwhich he would seek a position. But two years is a long time, and Jack was by no means certain that he would not have to turn out and become a wage-earner long before his education was completed. For his father was now a very different man from the old Samuel Holden. Since the robbery, troubles had piled themselves on his shoulders somewhat seriously. First had come the loss of Jack’s mother, from which Mr. Holden had never really recovered. Then had followed that blow on the head inflicted by the thief, which had necessitated numerous visits to a costly eye specialist, in order to preserve his sight. Finally, with his business taken away from under his feet, he had been in financial straits ever since. After selling his home to make good the missing money, he had taken a small cottage on the outskirts of Greenport and gone to work as a bookkeeper for Garnett and Sayer, the fish-packers. Had his wife lived, with her indomitable spirit and unending courage—characteristics which, fortunately, she had bestowed upon her son—she would have buoyed him up and kept alive his old ambition.But now his worries told on him, and it was that fact which caused Jack to wonder sometimes whether his own education would ever be completed as he would like it to be.
If, he reflected, as he walked home, he could only start that ferry and so bring a little grist to the mill, it would at least help to relieve his father of some of his anxiety. But one cannot make bricks without straw. And he was face to face with the cold fact that he had no boat, nor any chance of acquiring one. At home, he looked over his sum total of worldly possessions. There was four dollars and twenty cents in the savings-bank. He had a nickel and two dimes in his pocket. Also, he owned a silver watch, of little value, as most of its works were missing. There was a penknife, which he had bought after much careful deliberation, and there was—well, little else save rubbish, worth nothing when it came to a question of raising enough money to buy a boat suitable for Holden’s Ferry.
“Holden’s Ferry!” Jack repeated aloud, smiling a little at the sound. The name hadan agreeable ring to it. It would be fun. And at the same time it might be fairly profitable fun.
In the evening, when his father returned, Jack immediately introduced the subject uppermost in his thoughts.
“Dad,” he began impulsively, “how can I get a boat, twenty feet long, or something like that—one that will hold ten or a dozen people and won’t leak more than about ten buckets of water an hour.”
“Eh? What’s that?” asked Mr. Holden, in surprise.
“I’ve got an idea, and I want a boat, Dad,” replied Jack. “I thought—perhaps—somehow—”
“I wish I could buy you one, my lad,” said Mr. Holden, a trifle dejectedly, “but you’ll have to wait till my ship comes in.”
“I don’t want it for pleasure—not altogether, that is,” the boy declared.
“Not for pleasure? Then what on earth— Are you thinking of setting up in the shipping business?”
Jack chuckled.
“I may do a little freight-carrying,” he said with mock seriousness, “but the passenger trade is what I was thinking of chiefly.”
“Modest youth! You’ll want to go into steam for that, though,” said Mr. Holden, jokingly. “It is a pretty tall proposition for a youngster of your age. Have you fixed on just what ports you are going to trade at?”
“Only Greenport, Dad. But I’m in earnest.”
Still slightly amused, Mr. Holden stroked his chin and eyed his son inquiringly.
“Well, what is this wonderful scheme of yours?” he asked.
“I want to run a ferry between Garnett and Sayer’s wharf and the hotel landing on the Point,” the boy replied. “There is no way of getting across except by hiring a boat or walking around, or taking a carriage; and plenty of people would pay a dime to be run across there in a ferry-boat.”
“Yes, but—”
“Wait a minute, Dad. I’ve had this in mymind all the afternoon. Cap’n Crumbie tells me there are lots of people who inquire for the ferry in the summer. He says there never has been one, but that is no reason why there shouldn’t be one now. Perhaps I wouldn’t makelotsof money at it, but I’m old enough to help you a bit, and I don’t want to loaf all through vacation, because I know you’ve had worry enough and that you’re going to have a tough time keeping me in school until I finish.”
“Well?” observed Samuel Holden, rather vaguely.
“I was wondering,” continued the boy, “whether you could manage somehow to buy me the sort of boat I’d need. Almost anything would do that was half-way decent—and clean, too, because summer folk wouldn’t want to get into her if she wasn’t.”
Mr. Holden shook his head slowly. “I dare say it might work out all right, Jack,” he said, “and a little more money would come in very handy, but you’d better get the notion out of your head, son, before you waste any more timethinking about it. I couldn’t afford to buy you even a dory, and it’s about six times too far across the water at that point to row, anyway.”
“All right, Dad,” said Jack, quietly. He realized that there was no use in asking his father to perform impossibilities. Later in the evening Mr. Holden noted an expression of quiet determination in the lad’s face such as he had so often seen in Mrs. Holden’s when, things not going well, her resourceful brain and stout heart had set themselves the task of getting affairs back in order.
The next day was Saturday, and shortly after breakfast, there being no school, Jack and his chum, George Santo, started off on a hike toward the sand-dunes and salt-flats which lay for miles to the north of Greenport. This region the boys had made their playground ever since they were old enough to go about together. It was on the bold summit of Indian Head, a rocky barrier which for centuries had kept the encroaching sea at bay, that they had built their first wigwam out of driftwood, and stood, at the mature ages of nine and ten respectively,adorned with feathers and armed with spears, guarding their hunting-grounds from the hated palefaces who never seemed to approach much nearer than Greenport. From there they let their eyes wander in imagination over vast herds of buffalo, moose and antelope grazing peacefully on a far-stretching prairie. At times, as the hated palefaces all seemed to be fully occupied elsewhere, phantom palefaces had to blunder upon their hunting-grounds, and these intruders were hastily despatched or led captive to the driftwood wigwam, there to be held as hostages. There were terrific battles up on Indian Head, but somehow or other, whatever the overwhelming odds with which they were faced, the two lone braves invariably came out from the encounters unscathed. But the wigwam was now scattered to the four winds of heaven. The boys had grown too old for that sort of make-believe; yet their love for the region of dunes and marsh endured.
On this particular morning they headed over toward the salt-flats above Cow Creek, and then followed the course of the Sangus Rivertoward the sea. They must have trudged half a dozen miles by this circuitous route before Jack, standing on the rippled summit of a wind-swept dune, drew his companion’s attention to the fact that the Sangus had changed its sandy course.
“It must have been caused by the flood and the last gale,” he said. “See, the water has come right across this low bit and—and—say, George, the old sloop, theSea-Lark, was lying nearly buried just along here. I shouldn’t wonder if the river has swept her away now. Come on, let’s see how the old dear is.”
Ten minutes’ tramping brought them to the place, and each gave a cry of joy when they saw that the sloop lay exactly as she had lain for three years. But she had escaped the effects of the recent gale by a narrow margin only, for the Sangus had swirled over its banks, eating its way through the sand to a new course, until it now flowed within twenty feet of theSea-Lark.
The boys climbed aboard the derelict, and with their legs dangling over the side, withhealthy appetites attacked a parcel of sandwiches.
“I’m glad she’s still here,” said Jack. “Do you remember when I was a pirate king last summer and made you walk the plank? We’ve had lots of fun on this sloop. If she’d been lying a mile or so nearer Greenport, crowds of kids would have been swarming all over her and she’d have been broken up.”
George nodded, and poked the last of the sandwiches into his mouth.
“Talking of boats,” Jack went on, “where do you suppose I could get one, George?”
“What do you want her for? There’s my dory. You can have that any time you want.”
“Thanks, George,” Jack replied. “But a dory isn’t just what Idowant.”
Then he explained.
“I don’t know. I guess a boat like that, one you could use for a ferry, would cost money,” declared the other, when Jack had finished.
“I thought maybe, your father being a boat-builder, you might know of some way I couldmanage it,” said Jack. “There’s plenty of time, because it’s early in the season yet, and maybe I’ll find what I want somewhere.”
“If you do start the ferry I want to help. May I?” asked George.
“Why not?”
“You’ll be skipper and I’ll be mate,” said George, laughing.
“You mustn’t laugh at the captain—that is, not after you’re properly appointed mate—” said Jack, “or I’ll order you put in irons. That’s what they always do. Yes, laugh now, if you like, but wait till I’m your captain. But why wait? See here, George Santo, weren’t you making an application to me for a job just now?”
“Yes, sir,” replied George, meekly touching his cap.
“How old are you?” This, brusquely, as befitting a fearsome master mariner.
“Fifteen, sir.”
“Umph! Pretty young for my class of trade. What’s your rating?”
“Chief mate, sir.”
“Got your certificate?”
“I left it at home, sir.”
“Umph! Very careless of you. Well, you want to sail with me, eh? What about the compass? Can you box it?”
“I’m a pretty fair boxer, sir.”
“Not that sort of boxing, chump! All right, you’re engaged.Now, Mr. Mate, laugh at me if you dare!”
Whereupon the mate promptly laughed, and Jack as promptly hurled him overboard into the raging billows of sand. Jack then strolled aft and stood for a few moments, measuring the distance between the embedded sloop and the river.
The mate, clambering aboard again, shouted something which fell on deaf ears. Again George spoke, and again Jack made no answer. At last, however, he emerged from his abstraction, and, “Come here,” he called.
George obeyed, and Jack passed his arm through that of his friend.
“Now, use your brain,” he said. “How far is it from here to the stream?”
“Thirty feet,” the other guessed. “Why?”
“Wrong. It’s nearer twenty. And don’t ever ask the captain ‘why’ anything. He’s in supreme command; see? Tell me what is to prevent us digging theSea-Larkout of this and getting her afloat.”
“Afloat!” gasped the mate. “Why, you can’t do it! She’s stuck here.”
“Why can’t I do it?”
“Well,” began the mate, dubiously.
“You’ll be disrated if you don’t use more intelligence,” snapped the skipper. “What are shovels for but to dig with?”
“Yes, but—” began George.
“But what?”
“Well, if you got her afloat she’d only sink. Her timbers will all be rotten.”
“Show me a rotten timber!” said Jack. “I don’t mean these planks that have got broken on deck. I mean in the hull. She’s as sound as a bell. A boat like this would take years and years to rot. She’d need some calking, I guess, but that’s what I engaged you for, isn’t it?—while I sit in my deck chair and give orders.George, honestly, I believe it could be done.”
“But she isn’t yours to float,” parried the mate, “nor to use after you get her afloat.”
“That’s true,” agreed the skipper, frowning. “But you have got a way of raising difficulties since I signed you on. Who does she belong to?”
“She used to belong to Mr. Farnham,” replied George. “He’s a New York man with pots of money, who lives over on the Point in the summer. The sloop was in my father’s boat-yard for repairs the summer before she broke away and got stranded here.”
“Well, do you suppose he wants her? I don’t believe so.”
“Don’t know,” observed George, doubtfully.
“Well, if he does want her, why doesn’t he come and get her? And what could he use her for? A coal cellar, or what? She’s abandoned, I tell you.”
“If you took her away from here, which you couldn’t do, anyway,” observed the younger boy, “you’d be committing ship theft.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a dreadful offense, worse than piracy. I believe they hang you for it, or something.”
“I certainly don’t want you to get hanged,” said the captain. “Good mates are scarce; and they always hang the mate, because he’s engaged to make himself useful in little ways like that. But it wouldn’t be ship theft if I wrote a letter to this Mr. Farnham and got his permission, would it?”
“I suppose not.”
“Of course not. Where does he live?”
“My dad will have his address.”
“Well, don’t forget to ask him for it, and I’ll write. He can only refuse.”
George, beginning to awake to the possibilities of the plan, cast a more critical eye over the stranded sloop.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right,” he said at length. “Wemightget her into the water.”
“It wouldn’t be exactly easy, because she’s pretty big,” Jack admitted, “but it would be worth trying, anyway. What a prize if we gother, though! She’s thirty foot over all, if she’s an inch. And ten—no, twelve-foot beam. The only thing is, if she did float, we couldn’t row her very well.”
“There’s bales of junk gear up at our yard,” put in George. “I suppose her mast got broken off in the gale when she stranded. I think I could get that fixed all right, though. There’s an old spar that came out of her when she was refitted. I don’t know why it was taken out, but it looks all right. We can find an old mainsail and jib somewhere. Even if they need a bit of patching, they’ll do.”
“The boat is the chief thing,” Jack mused. “The rest will be easy, once we get her. I’m going to send that letter off to-day. Let’s go home now and do it.”
Letter-writing was not an occupation which, ordinarily, filled Jack with joy. But this was not an ordinary occasion. After a first attempt which he regarded as a failure, the boy produced a missive that was both frank and polite, and then, feeling that he did not stand a ghost of a chance of having his request granted,posted it. Later, he and George walked to the boat-yard, there to consult George’s father, Tony Santo, on the question of moving theSea-Larkfrom her sandy bed. Tony promised to go down the river and look the sloop over, the following day, and was as good as his word. Jack and George accompanied him in his sailing-dory, and to the delight of the boys the boat-builder declared that there ought not to be a great deal of difficulty in getting the sloop off, though he cautiously declined either to have anything to do with such operations or allow his son to, unless definite permission was received from Mr. Farnham. He pointed out, however, that the accumulation of sand in the sloop’s cabin would have to be removed before any attempt could be made at shifting her. Her companionway door had evidently been open when she grounded, with the result that in the three years which had since elapsed the space below deck, a roomy cabin twelve feet by nine, had been half filled with the fine white sand.
During the next three days the boys, takinga shovel with them, employed themselves busily at this task until the last of the undesired ballast was removed. Jack now began to keep an anxious lookout for the postman. Four days elapsed, and still no reply arrived. Thursday came, and on returning from school he found an envelope bearing his name, on the mantel-shelf. His fingers unsteady with excitement, he tore it open and read:
Dear Sir:I thought my old sloop must have been broken up by now. Yes, she is still my property, and if you want her you are welcome to her, on one condition. If you get her afloat, you must take me for a sail in her some day.Yours sincerely,CHARLES FARNHAM.
Dear Sir:
I thought my old sloop must have been broken up by now. Yes, she is still my property, and if you want her you are welcome to her, on one condition. If you get her afloat, you must take me for a sail in her some day.
Yours sincerely,
CHARLES FARNHAM.