CHAPTER XIII

"HOME AGAIN! HERE WE ARE!"

The wind was indeed "just right;" but even Dab forgot, for the moment, that "The Swallow" would go faster and farther before a gale than she was likely to with the comparatively mild southerly breeze now blowing. He was by no means likely to get home by dinner-time. As for danger, there would be absolutely none, unless the weather should again become stormy; and there was no probability of any such thing at that season. And so, after he had eaten his breakfast, and, with a genuine boy's confidence in boys, Frank Harley came on board "The Swallow" as a passenger, the anchor was lifted, and the gay little craft spread her white sails, and slipped lightly away from the neighborhood of the forlorn-looking, stranded steamer.

"They'll have her out of that in less'n a week," said Ford to Frank. "My father'll know just what to do about your baggage, and so forth."

There were endless questions to be asked and answered on both sides; but at last Dab yawned a very sleepy yawn, and said, "Ford, you've had your nap. Wake up Dick, there, and let him take his turn at the tiller. The sea's as smooth as a lake, and I believe I'll go to sleep for an hour or so. You and Frank can keep watch while Dick steers: he's a good steerer."

Whatever Dab said was "orders" now on board "The Swallow;" and Ford's only reply was,—

"If you haven't earned a good nap, then nobody has."

Dick, too, responded promptly and cheerfully; and in five minutes more the patient and skilful young "captain" was sleeping like a top.

"Look at him," said Ford Foster to Frank Harley. "I don't know what he's made of. He's been at that tiller for twenty-three hours by the watch, in all sorts of weather, and never budged."

"They don't make that kind of boy in India," replied Frank.

"He's de bes' feller you ebber seen," added Dick Lee. "I's jes' proud ob him, I is!"

Smoothly and swiftly and safely "The Swallow" was bearing her precious cargo across the summer sea; but the morning had brought no comfort to the two homes at the head of the inlet, or the humble cabin in the village. Old Bill Lee was out in the best boat he could borrow, by early daylight; and more than one of his sympathizing neighbors followed him a little later. There was no doubt at all that a thorough search would be made of the bay and the island, and so Mr. Foster wisely remained at home to comfort his wife and daughter.

"That sort of boy," mourned Annie, "is always getting into some kind of mischief."

"Annie!" exclaimed her mother indignantly, "Ford is a good boy, and he does not run into mischief."

"I didn't mean Ford: I meant that Dabney Kinzer. I wish we'd never seen him, or his sailboat either."

"Annie," remarked her father a little reprovingly, "if we live by the water, Ford will go out on it, and he had better do so in good company. Wait a while."

Annie was silenced, but it was only too clear that she was not entirely convinced. Her brother's absence and all their anxiety were positively due to Dab Kinzer, and his wicked, dangerous little yacht; and he must be to blame somehow.

She could not help "waiting a while," as her father bade her; but her eyes already told that she had been doing more than wait.

Summer days are long; but some of them are a good deal longer than others, and that was one of the longest any of those people had ever known.

For once, even dinner was more than half neglected in the Kinzer family circle. At the Fosters' it was forgotten almost altogether. Long as the day was, and so dreary, in spite of all the bright, warm sunshine, there was no help for it: the hours would not hurry, and the wanderers would not return. Tea-time came at last; and with it the Fosters all came over to Mrs. Kinzer's again, to take tea, and tell her of several fishermen who had returned from the bay without having discovered a sign of "The Swallow" or its crew.

Stout-hearted Mrs. Kinzer talked bravely and encouragingly, nevertheless, and did not seem to abate an ounce of her confidence in her son. It seemed as if, in leaving off his roundabouts, particularly considering the way in which he had left them off, Dabney must have suddenly grown a great many "sizes" in his mother's estimation. Perhaps, too, that was because he had not left them off any too soon.

There they sat around the tea-table, the two mothers and all the rest of them, looking gloomy enough; while over there in her bit of a brown house, in the village, sat Mrs. Lee in very much the same frame of mind, trying to relieve her feelings by smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of her boy's best clothes, and planning for him any number of bright red neckties, if he would only come back to wear them.

The neighbors were becoming more than a little interested, and even excited about the matter; but what was there to be done?

Telegrams had been sent to other points on the coast, and all the fishermen notified. It was really one of those puzzling cases, where even the most neighborly can do no better than "wait a while."

Still, there were more than a dozen people, of all sorts, including Bill Lee, lingering around the "landing" as late as eight o'clock that evening.

Suddenly one of them exclaimed,—

"There's a light coming in!"

Others followed with,—

"There's a boat under it!"

"Ham's boat carried a light."

"I'll bet it's her!"

"No, it isn't"—

"Hold on and see."

There was not long to "hold on;" for in three minutes more "The Swallow" swept gracefully in with the tide, and the voice of Dab Kinzer shouted merrily,—

"Home again! Here we are!"

Such a ringing volley of cheers answered him!

It was heard and understood away there in the parlor of the Morris house, and brought every soul of that anxious circle right up standing.

"Must be it's Dab!" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer.

"O mother!" said Annie, "is Ford safe?"

"They wouldn't cheer like that, my dear, if any thing had happened," remarked Mr. Foster; but, in spite of his coolness, the city lawyer forgot to put his hat on, as he dashed out of the front gate and down the road towards the landing.

Then came one of those times that it takes a whole orchestra and a gallery of paintings to tell any thing about: for Mrs. Lee as well as her husband was on the beach; and within a minute after "Captain Kinzer" and his crew had landed, poor Dick was being hugged and scolded within an inch of his life, and the two other boys found themselves in the midst of a perfect tumult of embraces and cheers.

Frank Harley's turn came soon, moreover; for Ford Foster found his balance, and introduced the "passenger from India" to his father.

"Frank Harley!" exclaimed Mr. Foster. "I've heard of you, certainly; but how did you—boys, I don't understand"—

"Oh! father, it's all right. We took Frank off the French steamer, after she ran ashore."

"Ran ashore?"

"Yes. Down the Jersey coast. We got in company with her in the fog, after the storm. That was yesterday evening."

"Down the Jersey coast? Do you mean you've been out at sea?"

"Yes, father; and I'd go again, with Dab Kinzer for captain. Do you know, father, he never left the rudder of 'The Swallow' from the moment we started until seven o'clock this morning."

"You owe him your lives!" almost shouted Mr. Foster; and Ford added emphatically, "Indeed we do!"

It was Dab's own mother's arms that had been around him from the instant he had stepped ashore, and Samantha and Keziah and Pamela had had to content themselves with a kiss or so apiece; but dear, good Mrs. Foster stopped smoothing Ford's hair and forehead just then, and came and gave Dab a right motherly hug, as if she could not express her feelings in any other way.

As for Annie Foster, her face was suspiciously red at the moment; but she walked right up to Dab after her mother released him, and said,—

"Captain Kinzer, I've been saying dreadful things about you, but I beg pardon."

"I'll be entirely satisfied, Miss Foster," said Dabney, "if you'll only ask somebody to get us something to eat."

"Eat!" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer. "Why, the poor fellows! Of course they're hungry."

"Cap'n Kinzer allers does know jes' de right t'ing to do," mumbled Dick in a half-smothered voice; and his mother let go of him, with—

"Law, suz! So dey be!"

Hungry enough they all were, indeed; and the supper-table, moreover, was the best place in the world for the further particulars of their wonderful cruise to be told and heard.

Dick Lee was led home in triumph to a capital supper of his own; and as soon as that was over he was rigged out in his Sunday clothes,—red silk necktie and all,—and invited to tell the story of his adventures to a roomful of admiring neighbors. He told it well, modestly ascribing every thing to Dab Kinzer; but there was no good reason, in any thing he said, for one of his father's friends to inquire next morning,—

"Bill Lee, does you mean for to say as dem boys run down de French steamah in dat ar' boat?"

"Not dat. Not zackly."

"'Cause, ef you does, I jes' want to say I's been down a-lookin' at her, and she ain't even snubbed her bowsprit."

CHAPTER XIV.

A GREAT MANY THINGS GETTING READY TO COME!

The newspapers from the city brought full accounts of the stranding of the "Prudhomme," and of the safety of her passengers and cargo.

The several editors seemed to differ widely in their opinions relating to the whole affair; but there must have been some twist in the mind of the one who excused everybody on the ground that "no pilot, however skilful, could work his compass correctly in so dense a fog as that."

None of them had any thing whatever to say of the performances of "The Swallow." The yacht had been every bit as well handled as the great steamship; but then, she had reached her port in safety, and she was such a little thing, after all.

Whatever excitement there had been in the village died out as soon as it was known that the boys were safe; and a good many people began to wonder why they had been so much upset about it, anyhow.

Mrs. Lee herself, the very next morning, so far recovered her peace of mind as to "wonder wot Dab Kinzer's goin' to do wid all de money he got for dem bluefish."

"I isn't goin' to ask him," said Dick. "He's capt'in."

As for Dab himself, he did an immense amount of useful sleeping, that first night; but when he awoke in the morning he shortly made a discovery, and the other boys soon made another. Dab's was, that all the long hours of daylight and darkness, while he held the tiller of "The Swallow," he had been thinking as well as steering. He had therefore been growing very fast, and would be sure to show it, sooner or later.

Ford and Frank found that Dab had forgotten nothing he had said about learning how to box, and how to talk French; but he did not say a word to them about another important thing. He talked enough, to be sure; but a great, original idea was beginning to take form in his mind, and he was not quite ready yet to mention it to any one.

"I guess," he muttered more than once, "I'd better wait till Ham comes home, and talk to him about it."

As for Frank Harley, Mr. Foster had readily volunteered to visit the steamship-office in the city, with him, that next day, and see that every thing necessary was done with reference to the safe delivery of his baggage. At the same time, of course, Mrs. Foster wrote to her sister Mrs. Hart, giving a full account of all that had happened, but saying that she meant to keep Frank as her own guest for a while, if Mrs. Hart did not seriously object.

That letter made something of a sensation in the Hart family. Neither Mrs. Hart nor her husband thought of making any objection; for, to tell the truth, it came to them as a welcome relief.

"It's just the best arrangement that could have been made, Maria, all around," said he. "Write at once, and tell her she may keep him as long as she pleases."

That was very well for them, but the boys hardly felt the same way about it. They had been planning to have "all sorts of fun with that young missionary," in their own house. He was, as Fuz expressed it, to be "put through a regular course of sprouts, and take the Hindu all out of him."

"Never mind, though," said Joe, after the letter came, and the decision of their parents was declared: "we'll serve him out after we get to Grantley. There won't be anybody to interfere with the fun."

"Well, yes," replied Fuz, "and I'd just as lief not see too much of him before that. He won't have any special claim on us, neither, if he doesn't go there from our house."

That was a queer sort of calculation, but it was only a beginning. They had other talks on the same subject, and the tone of them all had in it a promise of lively times at Grantley for the friendless young stranger from India.

Others, however, were thinking of the future, as well as themselves; and Joe and Fuz furnished the subject for more than one animated discussion among the boys down there by the Long Island shore. Ford Foster gave his two friends the full benefit of all he knew concerning his cousins.

"It's a good thing for you," he said to Frank, "that the steamer didn't go ashore anywhere near their house. They're a pair of born young wreckers. Just think of the tricks they played on my sister Annie!"

They were all related in Ford's most graphic style, with comments to suit from his audience. After that conversation, however, it was remarkable what good attention Dab Kinzer and Frank Harley paid to their sparring-lessons. It even exceeded the pluck and perseverance with which Dab worked at his French; and Ford was compelled to admit, to him in particular, "You ought to have a grown-up teacher,—somebody you won't kill if you make out to get in a hit on him. You're too long in the reach for me, and your arms are too hard."

What between the boxing-gloves and the boat, there could be no question but what Frank Harley had landed at the right place to get strong in.

There was plenty of fishing, bathing, riding, boating, boxing: if they had worked day and night, they could not have used it all up. Three boys together can find so much more to do than one can, all alone; and they made it four as often as they could, for Dick Lee had proved himself the best kind of company. Frank Harley's East-Indian experience had made him indifferent to the mere question of color, and Ford Foster was too much of a "man" to forget that long night of gale and fog and danger on board "The Swallow."

It was only a day or two after that perilous "cruise," that Dab Kinzer met his old playmate, Jenny Walters, just in the edge of the village.

"How well you look, Dabney!" remarked the sharp-tongued little lady.
"Drowning must agree with you."

"Yes," said Dab, "I like it."

"Do you know what a fuss they made over you, when you were gone? I s'pose they'd nothing else to do."

"Jenny," said Dab suddenly, holding out his hand, "you mustn't quarrel with me any more. Bill Lee told me about your coming down to the landing. You may say any thing to me you want to."

Jenny colored, and bit her lip; and she would have given her bonnet to know if Bill Lee had told Dab how very red her eyes were, as she looked down the inlet for some sign of "The Swallow." Something had to be said, however; and she said it almost spitefully.

"I don't care, Dabney Kinzer: it did seem dreadful to think of you three boys being drowned, and you, too, with your new clothes on. Good-morning, Dab."

"She's a right good-hearted girl, if she'd only show it," muttered Dab, as Jenny tripped away; "but she isn't a bit like Annie Foster."

His thoughts must have been on something else than his young-lady acquaintances, nevertheless; for his next words were, "How I do wish Ham Morris would come home!"

There was time enough for that, and Ham was hardly likely to be in a hurry. The days were well employed in his absence; and, as they went by, the Morris homestead went steadily on looking less and less like its old self, and more and more like a house made for people to live and be happy in. Mrs. Kinzer and her daughters had now settled down in their new quarters as completely as if they had never known any others; and it seemed to Dab, now and then, as if they had taken almost too complete possession. His mother had her room, of course; and a big one it was. There could be no objection to that. Then another big one, of the very best, had to be set apart and fitted up for Ham and Miranda on their return home; and Dab had taken great delight in doing all in his power to make that room all it could be made. But then Samantha had insisted upon having a separate domain, and Keziah and Pamela had imitated their elder sister to a fraction.

The "guest-chamber" had to be provided as well, or what would become of the good old Long Island notions of hospitality?

Dab said nothing while the partition was under discussion, nor for a while afterwards; but one day at dinner, just after the coming of a letter from Miranda, announcing the speedy arrival of herself and her husband, he quietly remarked,—

"Now I can't sleep in Ham's room any longer, I suppose I'll have to go out on the roof. I won't sleep in the garret or in the cellar."

"That will be a good deal as Mrs. Morris says, when she comes," calmly responded his mother.

"As Miranda says!" said Dab, with a long breath.

"Miranda?" gasped Samantha and her sisters in chorus.

"Yes, my dears, certainly," said their mother. "This is Mrs. Morris's house,—or her husband's,—not mine. All the arrangements I have made are only temporary. She and Ham both have ideas and wills of their own. I've only done the best I could for the time being."

The girls looked at one another in blank amazement, over the idea of Mrs. Kinzer being any thing less than the mistress of any house she might happen to be in; but Dabney laid down his knife and fork, with—

"It's all right, then. If Ham and Miranda are to settle it, I think I'll take the room Sam has now. You needn't take away your books, Sam: I may want to read some of them, or lend them to Annie. You and Kezi and Mele had better take that upper room back. The smell of the paint's all gone now, and there's three kinds of carpet on the floor."

"Dabney!" exclaimed Samantha, reproachfully, and with an appealing look at her mother, who, however, said nothing on either side, and was a woman of too much good sense to take any other view of the matter than that she had announced.

Things were again all running on smoothly and pleasantly, before dinner was over; but Dab's ideas of how the house should be divided were likely to result in some changes,—perhaps not precisely the ones he indicated, but such as would give him something better than a choice between the garret, the cellar, and the roof. At all events, only three days would now intervene before the arrival of the two travellers, and any thing in the way of further discussion of the room question was manifestly out of order.

Every thing required for the coming reception was pushed forward by Mrs. Kinzer with all the energy she could bring to bear; and Dab felt called upon to remark to Pamela,—

"Isn't it wonderful, Mele, how many things she finds to do after every thing's done?"

The widow had promised her son-in-law that his house should be "ready" for him, and it was likely to be a good deal more ready than either he or his wife had expected.

CHAPTER XV.

DABNEY KINZER TO THE RESCUE.

One of the most troublesome of the annoyances which come nowadays to dwellers in the country, within easy reach of any great city, is the bad kind of strolling beggar known as "the tramp." He is of all sorts and sizes; and he goes everywhere, asking for any thing he wants, very much as if it belonged to him and he had come for his own—so long as he can do his asking of a woman or a sickly-looking man. There had been very few of these gentry seen in that vicinity, that summer, for a wonder; and those who had made their appearance had been reasonably well behaved. Probably because there had been so many healthy-looking men around, as a general thing. But it come to pass, on the very day in which Ham and Miranda were expected to arrive by the last of the evening trains, just as Dab Kinzer was turning away from the landing, where he had been for a look at "The Swallow" and to make sure she was all right for her owner's eyes, that a very disreputable specimen of a worthless man stopped at Mrs. Kinzer's to beg something to eat, and then sauntered away down the road. It was a little past the middle of the afternoon; and even so mean-looking, dirty a tramp as that had a perfect right to be walking along then and there. The sunshine, and the fresh salt air from the bay, were as much his as anybody's, and so was the water in the bay; and no one in all that region of country stood more in need of plenty of water than he.

The vagabond took his right to the road, as he had taken his other right to beg his dinner, until, half-way down to the landing, he was met by an opportunity to do a little more begging.

"Give a poor feller suthin'?" he impudently drawled, as he stared straight into the sweet fresh face of Annie Foster.

Annie had been out for only a short walk; but she happened to have her pocket-book with her, and she thoughtlessly drew it out, meaning to give the scamp a trifle, if only to get rid of him.

"Only a dime, miss?" whined the tramp, as he shut his dirty hand over Annie's gift. "Come, now, make it a dollar, my beauty. I'll call it all square for a dollar."

The whine grew louder as he spoke; and the wheedling grin on his disgusting face changed into an expression so menacing that Annie drew back with a shudder, and was about returning her little portemonnaie to her pocket.

"No, you don't, honey!"

The words were uttered in a hoarse and husky voice, and were accompanied by a sudden grip of poor Annie's arm with one hand, while with the other he snatched greedily at the morocco case.

Did she scream?

How could she help it? Or what else could she have done, under the circumstances?

She screamed vigorously, whether she would or no, and at the same moment dropped her pocket-book in the grass beside the path, so that it momentarily escaped the vagabond's clutches.

"Shut up, will you!"

Other angry and evil words, accompanied by more than one vicious threat, followed thick and fast, as Annie struggled to free herself, while her assailant peered hungrily around after the missing prize.

It is not at all likely he would have attempted any thing so bold as that, in broad daylight, if he had not been drinking too freely; and the very evil "spirit" which had prompted him to his rash rascality unfitted him for its immediate consequences.

These latter, in the shape of Dab Kinzer and the lower joint of a stout fishing-rod, had been bounding along up the road from the landing, at a tremendous rate, for nearly half a minute.

A boy of fifteen assailing a full-grown ruffian?

Why not? Age hardly counts in such a matter; and then it is not every boy of even his growth that could have brought muscles like those of Dab Kinzer to the swing he gave that four-foot length of seasoned ironwood.

Annie saw him coming; but her assailant did not until it was too late for him to do any thing but turn, and receive that first hit in front instead of behind. It would have knocked over almost anybody; and the tramp measured his length on the ground, while Dabney plied the rod on him with all the energy he was master of.

"Oh, don't, Dabney, don't!" pleaded Annie: "you'll kill him!"

"I wouldn't want to do that," said Dab, as he suspended his pounding; but he added, to the tramp,—

"Now you'd better get up and run for it If you're caught around here again, it'll be the worse for you."

The vagabond staggered to his feet, and he looked savagely enough at Dab; but the latter looked so very ready to put in another hit with that terrible cudgel, and the whole situation was so unpleasantly suggestive of further difficulty, that the youngster's advice was taken without a word. That is, if a shambling kind of double limp can be described as a "run for it."

"Here it is: I've found my pocket-book," said Annie, as her enemy made the best of his way off.

"He did not hurt you?"

"No: he only scared me, except that I suppose my arm will be black-and-blue where he caught hold of it. Thank you ever so much, Dabney: you're a brave boy. Why, he's almost twice your size."

"Yes; but the butt of my rod is twice as hard as his head," said Dabney. "I was almost afraid to strike him with it. I might have broken his skull."

"You didn't even break your rod."

"No; and now I must run back for the other pieces and the tip. I dropped them in the road."

"Please, Dabney, see me home first," said Annie. "I know it's foolish, and there isn't a bit of danger; but I must confess to being a good deal frightened."

Dab Kinzer was a little the proudest boy on Long Island, as he walked along at Annie's side, in compliance with her request. He went no farther than the gate, to be sure, and then he returned for the rest of his rod: but before he got back with it, Keziah Kinzer hurried home from a call on Mrs. Foster, bringing a tremendous account of Dab's heroism; and then his own pride over what he had done was only a mere drop in the bucket, compared to that of his mother.

"Dabney is growing wonderfully," she remarked to Samantha, "He'll be a man before any of us know it."

If Dab had been a man, however, or if Ham Morris or Mr. Foster had been at home, the matter would not have been permitted to drop there. That tramp ought to have been followed, arrested, and shut up where his vicious propensities would have been under wholesome restraint for a while. As it was, after hurrying on for a short distance, and making sure he was not pursued, he clambered over the fence, and sneaked into the nearest clump of bushes. From this safe covert he watched Dab Kinzer's return after the lighter pieces of his rod; and then he even dared to crouch along the fence, and see which house his young conqueror went into.

"That's where he lives, is it?" he muttered, with a scowl of the most ferocious vengeance. "Well, they'll have some fun there before they git to bed to-night, or I'll know the reason why."

It could not have occurred to such a man that he had been given his dinner at the door of that very house. What had the collection of his rights as a "tramp" to do with questions of gratitude and revenge?

The bushes were a good enough hiding-place for the time, and he crawled back to them with the air and manner of a man whose mind was made up to something.

Ford and Frank were absent in the city that day with Mr. Foster, who was kindly attending to some affairs of Frank's; but when the three came home, and learned what had happened, it was hard to tell which of them failed most completely in trying to express his boiling indignation. They were all on the point of running over to the Morris house to thank Dab, but Mrs. Foster interposed.

"I don't think I would. To-morrow will do as well, and you know they're expecting Mr. and Mrs. Morris this evening."

It was harder for the boys to give it up than for Mr. Foster, and the waiting till to-morrow looked a little dreary. They were lingering near the north fence two hours later, with a faint idea of catching Dab, even though they knew that the whole Kinzer family were down at the railway-station, waiting for Ham and Miranda.

There was a good deal of patience to be exercised by them also; for that railway-train was provokingly behind time, and there was "waiting" to be done accordingly.

The darkness of a moonless and somewhat cloudy night had settled over the village and its surrounding farms, long before the belated engine puffed its way in front of the station-platform.

Just at that moment, back there by the north fence, Ford Foster exclaimed,—

"What's that smell?"

"It's like burning hay, more than any thing else," replied Frank.

"Where can it come from, I'd like to know? We haven't had a light out at our barn."

"Light?" exclaimed Frank. "Just look yonder!"

"Why, it's that old barn, 'way beyond the Morris and Kinzer house.
Somebody must have set it on fire. Hullo! I thought I saw a man running.
Come on, Frank!"

There was indeed a man running just then; but they did not see him, for he was already very nearly across the field, and hidden by the darkness. He had known how to light a fire that would smoulder long enough for him to get away.

He was not running as well, nevertheless, as he might have done before he came under the operation of Dab Kinzer's "lower joint."

Mrs. Kinzer did her best to prevent any thing like a "scene" at the railway-station when Ham and Miranda came out upon the platform; but there was an immense amount of "welcome" expressed in words and hugs and kisses, in the shortest possible space of time. There was no lingering on the platform, however; for Ham and his wife were as anxious to get at the "surprise" they were told was waiting for them, as their friends were to have them come to it.

Before they were half way home, the growing light ahead of them attracted their attention; and then they began to hear the vigorous shouts of "Fire!" from the throats of the two boys, re-enforced now by Mr. Foster himself, and the lawyer's voice was an uncommonly good one. Dabney was driving the ponies, and they had to go pretty fast for the rest of that short run.

"Surprise?" exclaimed Ham. "I should say it was! Did you light it before you started, Dabney?"

"Don't joke, Hamilton," remarked Mrs. Kinzer. "It may be a very serious affair for all of us. But I can't understand how in all the world that barn should have caught fire."

"Guess it was set a-going," said Dab.

CHAPTER XVI.

DAB KINZER AND HAM MORRIS TURN INTO A FIRE-DEPARTMENT.

The Morris farm, as has been said, was a pretty large one; and the same tendency on the part of its owners which led them to put up so extensive and barn-like a house, had stimulated them from time to time to make the most liberal provisions for the storage of their crops. Barns were a family weakness with them, as furniture had been with the Kinzers. The first barn they had put up, now the oldest and the farthest from the house, had been a large one. It was now in a somewhat dilapidated condition, to be sure, and was bowed a little northerly by the weight of years that rested on it; but it had still some hope of future usefulness if it had not been for that tramp and his box of matches.

"There isn't a bit of use in trying to save it!" exclaimed Ham, as they were whirled in through the wide-open gate. "It's gone!"

"But, Ham," said Mrs. Kinzer, "we can save the other barns perhaps. Look at the cinders falling on the long stable. If we could keep them off somehow!"

"We can do it, Ham," exclaimed Dab, very earnestly. "Mother, will you send me out a broom and a rope, while Ham and I set up the ladder?"

"You're the boy for me," said Ham. "I guess I know what you're up to."

The ladder was one the house-painters had been using, and was a pretty heavy one; but it was quickly set up against the largest and most valuable of the barns, and the one, too, which was nearest and most exposed to the burning building and its flying cinders. The rope was on hand, and the broom, by the time the ladder was in position.

"Ford," said Dab, "you and Frank help the girls bring water, till the men from the village get here. There's plenty of pails, but every one of our hands is away.—Now, Ham, I'm ready."

Up they went, and were quickly astride of the ridge of the roof. It would have been perilous work for any man to have ventured farther unassisted; but Dab tied one end of the rope firmly around his waist, Ham tied himself to the other, and then Dab could slip down the steep roof, in any direction, without danger of slipping off to the ground below.

But the broom?

It was as useful as a small fire-engine. The flying cinders of burning hay or wood, as they alighted upon the sun-dried shingles of the roof, needed to be swept off as fast as they fell, before they had time to fulfil their errand of mischief. Here and there they had been at work for some minutes, and the fresh little blazes they had kindled had so good a start, that the broom alone would have been insufficient; and there the rapidly-arriving pails of water came into capital play.

Ford Foster had never shone out to so good an advantage in all his life before, as he did when he took his station on the upper rounds of that ladder, and risked his neck to hand water-pails to Ham. It was hard work, all around, but hardest of all for the two "firemen" on the roof. Now and then the strength and agility of Ham Morris were put to pretty severe tests, as Dab danced around under the scorching heat, or slipped flat upon the sloping roof. It was well for Ham that he was a man of weight and substance.

There were scores and scores of people streaming up from the village now, arriving in panting squads, every moment; and Mrs. Kinzer had all she could do to keep them from "rescuing" every atom of her furniture out of the house, and piling it up in the road.

"Wait, please," she said to them very calmly.

"If Ham and Dab save the long barn, the fire won't spread any farther.
The old barn won't be any loss to speak of, anyhow."

Fiercely as the dry old barn burned, it used itself up all the quicker on that account; and it was less than thirty minutes from the time Ham and Dabney got at work before roof and rafters fell in, and the worst of the danger was over. The men and boys from the village were eager enough to do any thing that now remained to be done; but a large share of this was confined to standing around and watching the "bonfire" burn down to a harmless heap of badly smelling ashes. As soon, however, as they were no more wanted on the roof, the two "volunteer firemen" came down; and Ham Morris's first word on reaching the ground was,—

"Dab, my boy, how you've grown!"

Not a tenth of an inch in mere stature, and yet Ham was entirely correct about it.

He stared at Dabney for a moment; and then he turned, and stared at every thing else. There was plenty of light just then, moon or no moon; and Ham's eyes were very busy for a full minute. He noted rapidly the improvements in the fences, sheds, barns, the blinds on the house, the paint, a host of small things that had changed for the better; and then he simply said, "Come on, Dab," and led the way into the house. Her mother and sisters had already given Miranda a hurried look at what they had done, but Ham was not the man to do any thing in haste. Deliberately and silently he walked from room to room, and from cellar to garret, hardly seeming to hear the frequent comments of his enthusiastic young wife. That he did hear all that had been said around him as he went, however, was at last made manifest, for he said,—

"Dab, I've seen all the other rooms. Where's yours?"

"I'm going to let you and Miranda have my room," said Dab. "I don't think I shall board here long."

"I don't think you will either," said Ham emphatically. "You're going away to boarding-school. Miranda, is there any reason why Dab can't have the south-west room, up stairs, with the bay-window?"

That room had been Samantha's choice, and she looked at Dab reproachfully; but Miranda replied,—

"No, indeed. Not if you wish him to have it."

"Now, Ham," said Dabney, "I'm not big enough to fit that room. Give me one nearer my size. That's a little loose for even Sam, and she can't take any tucks in it."

Samantha's look changed to one of gratitude, and she did not notice the detested nickname.

"Well, then," said Ham, "we'll see about it. You can sleep in the spare chamber to-night.—Mother Kinzer, I couldn't say enough about this house business if I talked all night. It must have cost you a deal of money. I couldn't have dared to ask it. I guess you must kiss me again."

A curious thing it was that came next,—one that nobody could have reckoned on. Mrs. Kinzer—good soul—had set her heart on having Ham and Miranda's house "ready for them" on their return; and now Ham seemed to be so pleased about it, she actually began to cry. She said, too,—

"I'm so sorry about the barn!"

Ham only laughed, in his quiet way, as he kissed his portly mother-in-law, and said,—

"Come, come, mother Kinzer, you didn't set it afire. Can't Miranda and I have some supper? Dab must be hungry, too, after all that roof-sweeping."

There had been a sharp strain on the nerves of all of them that day and evening; and they were glad enough to gather around the tea-table, while all that was now left of the old barn smouldered peaceably away with half the boys in the village on guard.

Once or twice Ham or Dab went out to see that all was dying out rightly; but it was plain that all the danger was over, unless a high wind should come to scatter the cinders.

By this time the whole village had heard of Dab's adventure with the tramp, and had at once connected the latter with the fire. There were those, indeed, who expressed a savage wish to connect him with it bodily; and it was well for him that he had done his running away promptly, and had hidden himself with care, for men were out after him in all directions, on foot and on horseback. Who would have dreamed of so dirty a vagabond "taking to the water"?

"He's a splendid fellow, anyway!"

Odd, was it not? but Annie Foster and Jenny Walters were half a mile apart when they both said that very thing, just before the clock in the village church hammered out the news that it was ten, and bedtime. They were not either of them speaking of the tramp.

It was long after that, however, before the lights were out in all the rooms of the Morris mansion.

CHAPTER XVII.

DAB HAS A WAKING DREAM, AND HAM GETS A SNIFF OF SEA-AIR.

Sleep? One of the most excellent things in all the world, and very few people get too much of it nowadays.

As for Dabney Kinzer, he had done his sleeping as regularly and faithfully as even his eating, up to the very night after Ham Morris came home to find the old barn afire. There had been a few, a very few, exceptions. There were the nights when he was expecting to go duck-shooting before daylight, and waked up at midnight with a strong conviction that he was late about starting. There were, perhaps, a dozen of "eeling" expeditions, that had kept him out late enough for a full basket and a proper scolding. There, too, was the night when he had stood so steadily by the tiller of "The Swallow," while she danced, through the dark, across the rough billows of the Atlantic.

But, on the whole, Dab Kinzer had been a good sleeper all his life till then. Once in bed, and there had been for him an end of all wakefulness.

On that particular night, for the first time, sleep refused to come, late as was the hour when the family circle broke up.

It could not have been the excitement of Ham and Miranda's return. He would have gotten over that by this time. No more could it have been the fire, though the smell of smouldering hay came in pretty strongly at times through the wide-open windows. If any one patch of that great roomy bed was better made up for sleeping than the rest of it, Dab would surely have found the spot; for he tumbled and rolled all over it in his restlessness. Some fields on a farm will "grow" wheat better than others, but no part of the bed seemed to grow any sleep. At last Dab got wearily up, and took a chair by the window.

The night was dark, but the stars were shining; and every now and then the wind would make a shovel of itself, and toss up the hot ashes the fire had left, sending a dull red glare around on the house and barns for a moment, and flooding all the neighborhood with a stronger smell of burnt hay.

"If you're going to burn hay," soliloquized Dabney, "it won't do to take a barn for a stove. Not that kind of a barn. But what did Ham Morris mean by saying that I was to go to boarding-school? That's what I'd like to know"

The secret was out.

He had kept remarkably still, for him, all the evening, and had not asked a question; but, if his brains were ever to work over his books as they had over Ham's remark, his future chances for sound sleep were all gone. It had come upon him so suddenly, the very thing he thought about that night in "The Swallow," and wished for and dreamed about during all those walks and talks and lessons of all sorts with Ford Foster and Frank Harley, ever since they came in from that memorable cruise.

It was a wonderful idea, and Dab had his doubts as to the way his mother would take to it when it should be brought seriously before her. Little he guessed the truth. Ham's remark had gone deep into other ears as well as Dabney's; and there were reasons, therefore, why good Mrs. Kinzer was sitting by the window of her own room, at that very moment, as little inclined to sleep as was the boy she was thinking of. So proud of him too, she was, and so full of bright, motherly thoughts of the man he would make, "one of these days, when he gets his growth."

There must have been a good deal of sympathy between Dab and his mother; for by and by, just as she began to feel drowsy, and muttered, "Well, well, we'll have a talk about it to-morrow," Dab found himself nodding against the window-frame, and slowly rose from his chair, remarking,—

"Guess I might as well finish that dream in bed. If I'd tumbled out o' the window I'd have lit among Miranda's rose-bushes. They've got their thorns all out at this time o' night."

It was necessary for them both to sleep hard, after that; for more than half the night was gone, and they were to be up early. So indeed they were; but what surprised Mrs. Kinzer when she went into the kitchen was to find Miranda there before her.

"You here, my dear? That's right. I'll take a look at the milk-room.
Where's Ham?"

"Out among the stock. Dab's just gone to him."

Curious things people will do at times. Miranda had put down the coffee-pot on the range. There was not a single one of the farm "help" around, male or female; and there stood the blooming young bride, with her back toward her mother, and staring out through the open door. And then Mrs. Kinzer slipped forward, and put her arms around her daughter's neck.

Well, it was very early in the morning for those two women to stand there and cry; but it seemed to do them good, and Miranda remarked at last, as she kissed her mother,—

"O mother, it is all so good and beautiful, and I'm so happy!"

And then they both laughed, in a subdued and quiet way; and Miranda picked up the coffee-pot while Mrs. Kinzer walked away into the milk-room. Such cream as there seemed to be on all the pans that morning!

As for Ham Morris, his first visit on leaving the house had been to the relics of the old barn, as a matter of course.

"Not much of a loss," he said to himself; "but it might have been, but for Dab. There's the making of a man in him. Wonder if he'd get enough to eat, if we sent him up yonder? On the whole, I think he would. If he didn't, I don't believe it would be his fault. He's got to go; and his mother'll agree to it, I know. Talk about mothers-in-law! If one of 'em's worth as much as she is, I'd like to have a dozen. Don't know 'bout that, though. I'm afraid the rest would have to take back seats as long as Mrs. Kinzer was in the house."

Very likely Ham was right; but just then he heard the voice of Dab, behind him,—

"I say, Ham, when you've looked at the other things, I want to show you 'The Swallow.' I haven't hurt her a bit, and her new grapnel's worth three of the old one."

"All right, Dab. I think I'd like a sniff of the water. Come on. There's nothing else I know of like that smell of the shore with the tide half out."

No more there is; and there have been sea-shore men, many of them, who had wandered away into the interior of the country, hundreds and hundreds of long miles, and settled there, and even got rich and old there, and yet who have come all the way back again, just to get another smell of the salt marshes and the sea-air and the out-going tide.

Ham actually took a little boat, and went on board "The Swallow," when they reached the landing, and Dab kept close to him.

"She's all right, Ham. But what are you casting loose for?"

"Dab, they won't all be ready for breakfast in two hours. The stock and things can go: the men'll tend to 'em. Just haul on that sheet a bit. Now the jib. Look out for the boom. There! The wind's a little ahead, but it isn't bad. Ah!"

The last word came out in a great sigh of relief, and was followed by a chuckle which seemed to gurgle all the way up 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 ain't any thing 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 broke away to the discussion of other topics, such as blue-fish, porpoises, crabs, or the sailing qualities of "The Swallow," and Dab dimly felt that it would be better to wait until another time. So he waited.

It was a grand good time, however, to be had before breakfast; and as they again sailed up the inlet, very happy and very hungry, Dab suddenly exclaimed,—

"Ham, do you see that? How could they have guessed where we'd gone?
There's the whole Kinzer tribe, and the boys are with them, and Annie."

"What boys and Annie?"

"Oh! Ford Foster and Frank Harley. Annie is Ford's sister. They live in our old house, you know."

"What's become of Jenny?"

"You mean my boat? There she is, hitched a little out, just beyond the landing."

There was nothing on Dab's face to lead any one to suppose that he guessed the meaning of the quizzical grin on Ham's.

It is barely possible, however, that there would have been fewer people at the landing, if Ham and Dab had not been keeping a whole house-full of hungry mortals, including a bride, waiting breakfast for them.