CHAPTER VA RESCUE
The notice was printed with a brush on a piece of sheeting, in a frame a yard long and a half a yard high:
HOLDEN’S FERRYTO THE HOTEL LANDINGEVERY HOUR10 cents
“People can see it, anyway,” commented George.
“And I saw it first, so I’ll be the first passenger,” said Cap’n Crumbie. “When does the ferry leave?”
“Right away,” replied Jack. “The moment you step aboard I’ll see if I can knock a bit of life into my crew. Look at him!Lookat him, sitting there on the top of the deck-house laughing, and the ship crammed with a wholepassenger waiting to get across to the Point on most important business! Watch your step, Cap’n. Dining-saloon forward, but the cook’s not on duty to-day, so we can’t serve meals. Mr. Mate, let go that rope for’ard and don’t fall overboard in front of all the passenger. Run that mains’l up and be lively about it or, shiver my timbers, I’ll know the reason why! Now, Cap’n Crumbie, if you’re at all likely to be seasick, you’d better slip down into the cabin and take a nap. If there’s any danger, I’ll call you.”
“Starboard your helm a bit,” said Cap’n Crumbie. “The only danger I see is that you’re like to bump into that coal-barge if you don’t keep her away.” He put out a brawny hand and with a slight pull on the wheel brought the sloop further away from the collision that had threatened as the sloop started away from the wharf, not yet fully under control.
“Paint is scarce,” said Jack. “I don’t want to lose any.”
“Not with bumping into one o’ Simon Barker’s boats, you don’t,” agreed Cap’n Crumbie.“Not that he’d ever think o’ putting paint on the side o’ one of his ships if tar would do, but I want to warn you right now that he’s none too friendly. He hasn’t got over that little affair with your father yet, though I don’t see whathe’sgot to kick about. He was down on our wharf yesterday, trying his best to be ugly about this little sloop. Said she got in the way o’ his craft, he did. He’s a misery. Don’t you ever leave theSea-Larklying in the way o’ his rotten old boats, or she’ll get crushed for a certainty, if he has anything to do with it. And he’ll sure make out that it was all your fault.”
“Thank you for being a passenger,” said Jack, as the vessel edged up to the hotel landing on the Point. “If you’re not going to stay ashore long I will wait for you.”
“Ashore! I ain’t going ashore,” replied the watchman. “I just came across to be able to tell my great-grandchildren, when you’re an old man, that I was the first to cross the harbor in Holden’s Ferry. Here’s my twenty cents. Now take me back.”
“I can’t take the money. We sailors always give free passage to old shipmates,” said Jack. “Why, we should never have had her painted if it hadn’t been for you, Cap’n! Besides, you’re one of the crew, in a way. Didn’t you say you were going to keep an eye on her? Yes, you’re our watchman. Couldn’t dream of taking the money.”
“Son, I hired this ship for the trip,” replied Cap’n Crumbie, “and when you two have gone and drowned yourselves some fine day I don’t want it on my conscience that there’s twenty cents I owe you. When you’ve been at sea as long as I have you won’t so much mind letting people pay their fare.”
“All right, Cap’n,” Jack responded. “George, half of this goes to you, for luck. Push her off there. Wait a second. Here comes a passenger, I believe.”
Walking down to the landing was a tall boy, about Jack’s age.
“Ahoy, there! Going across in the ferry?” Cap’n Crumbie hailed.
The prospective passenger did not reply, butcame straight to the landing, and, with a puzzled expression, ran his eyes over theSea-Lark.
“What have you got there?” he asked. There was something about either the question or the way in which it was put that rather irritated the captain of the sloop. However, he did not openly show his resentment.
“A ferry-boat, across to the town,” he replied. “Are you coming?”
“Queer sort of boat to use for a ferry, isn’t she?” asked the stranger.
“Why?” asked Jack, who saw nothing whatever queer about his beloved craft. Obviously the strange boy was one of the “summer folk,” and city bred at that, probably knowing no more about sailing-craft than the keeper of a dime museum would.
The boy on the wharf began to laugh, and Jack’s cheeks flushed.
“Are you the chap who wrote to Mr. Farnham in New York about theSea-Lark?” the stranger asked.
“That,” replied the skipper with youthful dignity, “is my business. Push off, George.”
“And who might the young pup be?” asked Cap’n Crumbie, as they sailed leisurely back to Garnett and Sayer’s wharf. “Never seen him before, as far as I rec’lect, and yet his face is kind o’ familiar.”
“I don’t know him,” said Jack. “And if he’s trying to be funny at the expense of this boat, I don’t want to know him. There’s nothing queer about her, is there, Cap’n?”
“Queer! I should say not! Maybe the color o’ the paint offends his artistic eye; or then again maybe he’s only jealous.”
“Well, summer visitor or not, if he doesn’t stop trying to make fun of the sloop I’ll give him a licking,” declared Jack.
“Or let him come on board as a passenger,” grinned the watchman, “and take his money, and then drop him overboard half-way over.”
That morning only two other passengers crossed in the ferry, one of them a lady who had a small hand-bag with her and insisted on paying Jack fifty cents for his services, and the other a portly man who wore three diamondrings and, after handing Jack a quarter at the hotel landing, waiting in the boat, apparently as a guarantee of good faith, while the boy hunted for change, and finished up by pocketing the fifteen cents and complaining bitterly about the lad running a public ferry and not being able to change a quarter.
Business did not improve much during the rest of the day, and the owner of the ferry was a trifle disappointed.
“They don’t seem to be coming with a rush,” he said to Cap’n Crumbie.
“For the land’s sake, give ’em a chance!” replied the watchman. “Here you are, not in business more than an hour or two, and complaining.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” Jack protested. “I was only wondering whether it was going to be a success, after all.”
“Can’t you wait about five minutes till somebody besides us gets wind o’ the ferry?” spluttered the old man. “Give ’em time, son, give ’em time. Why, the season hasn’t half begunyet. Most of the cottages along the shore are still empty. Another week or two will make a difference; you see if it don’t.”
Sure enough, business did “look up” a few days later, much to the satisfaction of both Jack and his father. Mr. Holden, though he had never discouraged the boy in his project, had always been a little skeptical as to whether the ferry would bring much grist to the mill, but he now grew really enthusiastic, for there were times when theSea-Larkcarried as many as fifteen people at a time. To some extent Cap’n Crumbie was responsible for the boy’s success in the early stages of the ferry’s career, as he rarely allowed a party of sight-seers to wander down to his wharf without urging them to make the trip in theSea-Lark.
“Wunnerful sight over there on the Point,” he would say. “You get a view from there that ain’t equaled in all New England. Ferry-boat won’t be more’n a few minutes, sir, before it’s back, and it’s a fine day for a sail.”
“I shall have to give you a commission,” declaredJack, once, after the watchman had detained almost a boat-load of people until his return.
“Now, don’t talk foolish,” replied Cap’n Crumbie. “It’s just to keep me from gettin’ tired o’ myself. Some night maybe I’ll borrow the sloop and take a party for a moonlight trip round Indian Head. Meanwhile, I can’t stand here and see you losing good money.”
“That’s a bargain, Cap’n Crumbie,” replied Jack. “Any evening you want theSea-Larkyou just mention it.”
That afternoon Jack left the hotel landing with several passengers, including the lady who had given him fifty cents on the first day. She was going into the town shopping, but Jack noticed that she stood for a moment on the wharf before embarking, and wore a rather anxious expression as she looked out toward a canoe that was being paddled about in the vicinity of Gull Island.
“Don’t you think the wind is a little too strong for any one to be out there in a canoe?” she asked.
The skipper glanced at the little craft bobbing up and down in the distance.
“Well, it depends on how well you can handle a canoe,” he replied. “There’s a fresh breeze, though, and it’s kind of choppy.”
Jack had been thinking of taking a reef in his mainsail, but a few moments later he was glad he hadn’t. He had run about a cable’s length from the landing, and the passengers were watching a salt-bark slowly drifting to anchorage, when his eyes happened to alight on the canoe. It was perhaps half a mile away, and Jack’s thoughts were on the navigation of his own boat, but the brief glance showed him something amiss. With a shout to George to haul in the sheet, he put the helm hard over and jibed theSea-Lark, rather than make the turn in a safer but slower way. There was a stiff wind blowing, and the boom swept across the deck with a rattle and a bang, fetching up on the other side with a wrench. But the gear stood the strain, and the sloop was now racing in the direction of the canoe, which had capsized.
There was a sudden cry of alarm from thelady. “He’s drowning! He’s drowning!” Every vestige of color was gone from her face, as, leaning forward, she stared in horror across the water. “It’s Rodney! It’s my boy!”
“Lay hold of that boat-hook, George,” sang out the captain. And then, “We’ll get him in time, ma’am,” he added reassuringly to the distracted mother.
TheSea-Larkleaned to the breeze and flew on her mission of rescue. That she would arrive none too soon was evident to all on board. Apparently the boy in the water was no swimmer, and his floundering efforts were barely keeping his head above the surface. A choking appeal for help came across the rapidly narrowing water that intervened.
“Take the wheel, George!” Jack spoke crisply, imperatively. “Keep her straight!” As he spoke he slipped off jacket and shoes. “The moment I jump swing her ’round.You, sir,” he added, to one of the passengers, “be ready to reach out to me with this boat-hook.”
Another twenty feet! Ten! And then the boy in the water, with a despairing cry, sankfrom sight. Jack, poised at the bow, shot over the side as theSea-Larksped past.
Down he went into the green depths. A few yards away a blurred shape showed dimly and he swam gropingly toward it. Then his hands found what they sought and in a moment his head was above water again. Kicking out with all his strength, and sweeping his right hand through the green water, he clung on to the half-drowned canoeist with his left, until the sloop, with fluttering sail, loomed beside him.
A minute later the two dripping figures were on the deck.
The canoeist opened his eyes and looked up at the woman who was now kneeling beside him. He tried to raise himself on his elbow, but sank back, gasping for a few moments.
“Hello, Mother! I—I’m all right,” he said presently. “Just a minute, till I get my breath back. Hope I haven’t scared you, but I—I wasn’t going to drown.”
Then he sat up, somewhat limply, and looked around. The captain, with water running fromhis clothing, was assisting George to recover the canoe and paddle. As soon as this had been accomplished, he turned his attention to the boy he had rescued, and for the first time recognized him.
“Well, how do you feel?” Jack asked, bearing no ill feeling.
“Pretty fair, thanks,” replied the other. “I think I’m still full up to the neck with water, though. I’m awfully obliged to you. I tried to catch hold of the paddle, but I couldn’t quite make it. Then I saw your boat coming, but it seemed ever so far away. I’d have been—” he was going to say “drowned by now,” but checked himself as his mother was there—“down there yet if you hadn’t come to the rescue.”
“That’s all right,” Jack replied. “Glad to have been able to help.” Then, as the canoeist seemed to have almost recovered, he added: “Only—only, just as a favor, don’t laugh at this boat again, please!”
A puzzled look came into the other’s face.
“Laugh at her?” he queried.
“Yes,” replied Jack, “and you said she was a queer sort of boat to use for a ferry.”
“Oh, I remember now,” said the owner of the canoe. “But don’t you know why it seemed queer to me?” Jack shook his head. “Why, you see, this was my father’s sloop, for a long time, and all I meant was that it seemed queer to me to see her being used as a ferry-boat. I used to sail about in her with my dad three years ago, and many a time I held that wheel you’re steering with. I used to feel that she was my boat, though of course, really, she was nothing of the kind. My name is Rodney Farnham, and this is my mother.”
Jack felt a little sheepish because of the resentment he had shown, and after Rodney Farnham’s frank explanation he began to reconsider his opinion of the lad.
“I didn’t understand,” he said. “Sorry if I was rude. I haven’t seen Mr. Farnham yet, but I want to, to tell him how glad I am he gave me the boat. I wrote to tell him I’d got her afloat, but he didn’t reply.”
“Dad’s a pretty busy man when he’s in New York, and I guess he hasn’t had too much time to write. You may be sure he meant to look you up when he came down to Greenport, though,” replied Rod. “We have a motor-boat now, and you must come for a run in her with me some day; but I’m jolly glad he gave you the oldSea-Lark, or I might still be floating around back there.”
“It was very fortunate,” Mrs. Farnham agreed. “My husband will be doubly anxious to see you now. I shall write to him to-night, telling him what happened. He will probably be with us next week.”
“When he comes I’d like to take you all for a sail. That is, if you would care to go. You’d be quite safe,” said Jack.
“I’m sure we should, judging from what I’ve seen of your seamanship to-day,” replied Mrs. Farnham. “And it is very kind of you to ask us. I’m sure we would all love to go with you.”
When the sloop touched Garnett and Sayer’swharf Mrs. Farnham, on assuring herself that Rodney was no worse after his immersion, stepped ashore.
“I didn’t like to say so in front of Mother,” remarked Rod, as soon as the sloop was heading back toward the Point, “but that was the narrowest escape I’ve ever had in my life. I’d got to the stage where I didn’t know much. By the way, I hope you’re doing good business with the sloop.”
“Not bad,” replied the captain. “It was fairly slow at first, but the town is pretty full of visitors now, and all the cottages on the Point are open.”
“It must have cost you a lot to get her fixed up like this,” Rod said, giving the vessel a comprehensive glance.
Jack smiled, and shook his head.
“It might have, if we hadn’t done the work ourselves,” he replied. “George Santo, here, helped me a lot, and we did the whole thing ourselves, except fixing the mast and rigging, of course.”
“But you’ve had her painted,” said Rod.
“We did that, too,” replied the skipper. “It cost us just fifty cents, but we got the paint at a special bargain. The sails and halyards were all I really had to buy, and I made almost enough at the ferry in the first week to pay for those.”
“Well, she looks splendid,” said Rod, stepping off at the hotel landing. “And—and, I’m awfully glad Dad gave her to you!”