CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW DAB WORKED OUT ANOTHER OF HIS GREAT PLANS.

There was a sort of council at the breakfast-table of the Foster family that morning; and Ford and Annie found their side of it "voted down."

That was not at all because they did not debate vigorously, and even "protest;" but the odds were too much against them.

"Annie, my dear," said Mrs. Foster at last, in a gentle but decided way, "I'm sure your aunt Maria, if not your uncle, must feel hurt at your coming away so suddenly. If we invite Joe and Foster to visit us, it will make it all right."

"Yes," sharply exclaimed Mr. Foster: "we must have them come. They'll behave themselves here. I'll write to their father: you write to Maria."

"They're her own boys, you know," added Mrs. Foster soothingly.

"Well, mother," said Annie, "if it must be. But I'm sure they'll make us all very uncomfortable if they come."

"I can stand 'em for a week or so," said Ford, with the air of a man who can do or bear more than most people. "I'll get Dab Kinzer to help me entertain them."

"Excellent," said Mr. Foster; "and I hope they will be civil to him."

"To Dabney?" asked Annie.

"Fuz and Joe civil to Dab Kinzer?" exclaimed Ford.

"Certainly: I hope so."

"Father," said Ford, "may I say just what I was thinking?"

"Speak it right out."

"Well, I was thinking what a good time Fuz and Joe would be likely to have, trying to get ahead of Dab Kinzer."

Annie looked at her brother, and nodded; and there was a bit of a twinkle in the eyes of the lawyer himself, but he only remarked,—

"Well, you must be neighborly. I don't believe the Hart boys know much about the seashore."

"Dab and Frank and I will try and educate them."

Annie thought of the ink, and her box of spoiled cuffs and collars, while her brother was speaking. Could it be that Ford meant a good deal more than he was saying? At all events, she fully agreed with him on the Dab Kinzer question.

That was one "council;" and it was one of peace or war, probably a good deal as the Hart boys themselves might thereafter determine.

At the same hour, however, matters of even greater importance were coming to a decision around the well-filled breakfast-table in the Morris mansion. Ham had given a pretty full account of his visit to Grantley, including his dinner at Mrs. Myers's, and all he had learned relating to the academy.

"It seems like spending a great deal of money," began Mrs. Kinzer, when
Ham at last paused for breath; but lid caught her up at once, with—

"I know you've been paying out a good deal, mother Kinzer, but Dab must go, if I pay"—

"You pay, indeed? For my boy? I'd like to see myself! Now I've found out what he is, I mean he shall have every advantage. If this Grantley's the right place"—

"Mother," exclaimed Samantha, "it's the very place Mr. Foster is going to send Ford to, and Frank Harley."

"Exactly," said Ham; "Mr. Hart spoke of a Mr. Foster,—his brother-in-law,—a lawyer."

"Why," said Keziah, "he's living in our old house now. Ford Foster is
Dab's greatest crony. They're the very people you met at the landing."

"Yes, I've heard all that," said Ham, "but somehow I hadn't put the two things together. Now, mother Kinzer, do you really mean Dab is to go?"

"Of course I do," said she.

"Well, if that isn't doing it easy! Do you know, it's about the nicest thing I've heard since I got here?"

"Except the barn," said Dabney, unable to hold in any longer. "Mother, may I stand on my head a while?"

"You'll need all the head you've got," said Ham. "You won't have much time to get ready."

"He'll have books enough after he gets there," said Mrs. Kinzer decidedly. "I'll risk Dabney."

"And they'll make him give up all his slang," added Samantha.

"Yes, Sam; when I come back I'll talk nothing but Greek and Latin. I'm getting French now from Ford, and Hindu from Frank Harley. Then I know English, and slang, and Long-Islandish. Think of one man with seven first-rate languages!"

But Dabney soon found himself unable to sit still, even at the breakfast-table. Not that he got up hungry, for he had done his duty by Miranda's cookery; but the house itself, big as it was, seemed too small to hold him, with all his new prospects swelling within him. Perhaps, moreover, the rest of the family felt that they would be better able to discuss the important subject before them, after Dab had taken himself out into the open air; for none of them tried to stay his going.

"This beats dreaming, all hollow," he said to himself, as he stood, with his hands in his pockets, half way down to the gate between the two gardens. "Now I'll see what can be done about that other matter."

Two plans in one head, and so young a head as that?

Yes; and it spoke well for Dab's heart, as well as his brains, that his plan number two was not a selfish one. The substance of it came out in the first five minutes of the talk he had, a trifle later, with Ford and Frank, on the other side of the gate.

"Ford, you know there's twenty dollars left of the money the Frenchman paid us for the bluefish."

"Well, what of it? Isn't it yours?"

"One share of it's mine. The rest is yours and Dick's."

"He needs it more'n I do."

"Ford, did you know Dick Lee was real bright?"

"'Cute little chap as ever I saw. Why?"

"Well, he ought to go to school."

"Why don't he go?"

"He does, except in summer. He might go to the academy, if they'd take him, and if he had money enough to go with."

"Academy? What academy?"

"Why, Grantley, of course. I'm going, and so are you and Frank. Why shouldn't Dick go?"

"You're going? Hurrah for that! Why didn't you say so before?"

"Wasn't sure till this morning. You fellows 'll be a long way ahead of me, though. But I mean to catch up."

For a few minutes poor Dick was lost sight of in a perfect storm of talk; but Dab came back to him, with,—

"Dick's folks are dreadful poor, but we might raise it. Twenty dollars to begin with."

"I've ten dollars saved up, and I know mother'll say 'Pass it right in,'" exclaimed Ford.

It was hardly likely Mrs. Foster would express her assent in precisely that way; but Frank Harley promptly added,—

"I think I can promise five."

"I mean to speak to Ham Morris and mother about it," said Dab. "All I wanted was to fix it about the twenty dollars to start on."

"Frank," shouted Ford, "let's go right in, and see our crowd!"

Ford was evidently getting a little excited; and it was hardly five minutes later that he wound up his story, in the house, with,—

"Father, may I contribute my ten dollars to the Richard Lee Education
Fund?"

"Of course; but he will need a good deal more money than you boys can raise."

"Why, father, the advertisement says half a year for a hundred and fifty. He can board for less than we can. Perhaps Mrs. Myers would let him work out a part of it."

"I can spare as much as Ford can," here put in Annie.

"Do you leave me out entirely?" said her mother, with a smile that was even sweeter than usual.

As for sharp-eyed lawyer Foster himself, he had been hemming and coughing in an odd sort of way for a moment, and he had said, "I declare," several times; but he now remarked, somewhat more to the purpose,—

"I don't believe in giving any man a better education than he will ever know what to do with; but then, this Dick Lee and you boys,—well, see what you can do; but no one must be allowed to contribute outside of the Foster and Kinzer families, and Frank. As for the rest, hem!—ah—I think I'll say that there won't be any difficulty."

"You, father?"

"Why not, Annie? Do you s'pose I'm going to let myself be beaten in such a matter by a mere country-boy like Dabney Kinzer?"

"Father," said Ford, "if you'd seen how Dick behaved, that night, out there on the ocean, in 'The Swallow'!"

"Just as well, just as well, my son."

"Hurrah!" shouted Ford. "Then it's all right, and Dick Lee'll have a fair shake in the world!"

"A what, my son?" exclaimed his mother.

"I didn't mean to talk slang, mother: I only meant—well, you know how dreadfully black he is; but then, he can steer a boat tiptop, and he's splendid for crabs and bluefish; and Dab says he's a good scholar too."

"Dab's a very good boy," said Mrs. Foster; "but your friend Dick will need an outfit, I imagine,—clothing, and almost every thing. I must see Mrs. Kinzer about it."

Meantime Dick Lee's part in the matter, and that of his family, had been taken for granted, all around. An hour later, however, Mrs. Kinzer's first reply to her son, after listening to a calculation of his, which almost made it seem as if Dick would make money by going to Grantley, was,—

"What if Mrs. Lee should say she can't spare him?"

Dab's countenance fell. He knew Mrs. Lee, but he had not thought so far as that.

He said something not very intelligible, but to that effect.

"Well, Dabney, if we can make the other arrangements, I'll see her about it."

Ham Morris had been exchanging remarkable winks with Miranda and
Samantha, and now gravely suggested,—

"Maybe the academy authorities will refuse to take him."

"Ford says they had a blacker boy than he is, there, last year."

"Now, Dab!" exclaimed Ham.

"Well, I know he's pretty black; but it don't come off."

"Mother," said Samantha, "Mrs. Foster and Annie are coming through the gate."

Dab waited just long enough after that to learn the news concerning the "Richard Lee Education Fund" and Mr. Foster's offer, and then he was off towards the shore.

He knew very well in which direction it was best to go; and, half way to the landing, he met Dick coming up the road with a basket of eels on his arm.

"Dick," shouted Dabney, "I'm going away to boarding-school, at an academy."

"'Cad'my? Whar?"

"Up in New England. They call it Grantley Academy,—where Frank and Ford are going."

"Dat spiles it all," said Dick ruefully. "Now I's got to fish wid fellers 'at don't know nuffin."

"No, you won't. You're going with us. It's all fixed,—money and all."

Dick would never have thought, ordinarily, of questioning a statement made by "Captain Kinzer;" but the rueful expression deepened on his face, the basket of eels dropped heavily on the grass, the tough black fingers of his hands twisted nervously together for a moment, and then he sat mournfully down beside the basket.

"It ain't no use, Dab."

"No use? Why not?"

"I ain't a w'ite boy."

"What of it? Don't you learn well enough, over at the school?"

"More dar like me. Wot'd I do in a place whar all de res' was w'ite?"

"Well as anybody."

"Wot'll my mudder say, w'en she gits de news? You isn't a-jokin', is you, Dab Kinzer?"

"Joking? I guess not."

"You's lit onto me powerful sudden 'bout dis. Yonder's Ford an' Frank a-comin'. Don't tell 'em. Not jes' yit."

"They know all about it. They helped raise the money."

"Did dey? I's obleeged to 'em. Well, 'tain't no use. All I's good for is eels and crabs and clams and sech. Har dey come. Oh, my!"

Ford and Frank brought a fresh gust of enthusiasm with them, and they had Dick and his eels up from the grass in short order.

"We must see Mrs. Lee right away," said Ford. "It would never do to let
Dick tell her."

"Guess dat's so," said Dick.

Quite an embassy they made, those four boys, with Dab Kinzer for spokesman, and Dick Lee almost crouching behind them. Mrs. Lee listened with open mouth while Dab unfolded his plan, but when he had finished she shut her lips firmly together. They were not very thin, and not at all used to being shut, and in another instant they opened again.

"Sho! De boy! Is dat you, Dick? Dat's wot comes ob dressin' on 'im up. How's he goin' to git clo'es? Wot's he got to do wid de 'Cad'my, anyhow? Wot am I to do, yer all alone, arter he's gone? Who's goin' to run err'nds an' do de choahs? Wot's de use ob bringin' up a boy an' den hab him go trapesin' off to de 'Cad'my? Wot good'll it do 'im?"

"I tole yer so, Dab," groaned poor Dick. "It ain't no use. I 'most wish
I was a eel!"

Dabney was on the point of opening a whole broadside of eloquence, when
Ford Foster pinched his arm, and whispered,—

"Your mother's coming, and our Annie's with her."

"Then let's clear out. She's worth a ten-acre lot full of us. Come on, boys!"

If Mrs. Lee was surprised by their very sudden and somewhat unceremonious retreat, she need not have been, after she learned the cause of it. She stood in wholesome awe of Mrs. Kinzer; and a "brush" with the portly widow, re-enforced by the sweet face of Annie Foster, was a pretty serious matter.

She did not hesitate about beginning the skirmish, however; for her tongue was already a bit loosened, and in fine working-order.

"Wot's dis yer, Mrs. Kinzer, 'bout sendin' away my Dick to a furrin
'Cad'my? Isn't he 'most nigh nuff spiled a'ready?"

"Oh! it's all arranged nicely. Miss Foster and I only came over to see what we could do about getting his clothes ready. He must have things warm and nice, for the winters are cold up there."

"I hasn't said he might go—Dick, put down dem eels; an' he hasn't said he'd go—Dick, take off yer hat; an' his father"—

"Now, Glorianna," interrupted Mrs. Kinzer, calling Dick's mother by her first name, "I've known you these forty years, and do you suppose I'm going to argue about it? Just tell us what Dick'll need, and don't let's have any nonsense. The money's all provided. How do you know what'll become of him? He may be governor yet."

"He mought preach!"

That idea had suddenly dawned upon the perplexed mind of Mrs. Lee, and Dick's fate was settled. She was prouder than ever of her boy; and, truth to tell, her opposition was only what Mrs. Kinzer had considered it, a piece of unaccountable "nonsense," to be brushed away by just such a hand as the widow's own.

CHAPTER XIX.

A GRAND SAILING-PARTY, AND AN EXPERIMENT BY RICHARD LEE.

That was a great day for the boys; but, before the close of it, Ford Foster had told his friends the news that Joe Hart and his brother Fuz had been invited to visit with him.

"Will they come?" asked Dab.

"Certainly. That kind of boy always comes. Nobody wants to keep him from coming."

"When do you look for them?"

"Right away. Vacation's almost gone, you know."

"Won't they be ashamed to meet your sister?"

"Not a bit. They'll try their tricks, even after they get here."

"All right. We'll help 'em all we know how. But, boys, I'll tell you what we must try for."

"What's that?"

"One grand good sailing-party in 'The Swallow,' before they get here."

"Hurrah for that! Annie was wishing for one, only yesterday."

"We'll have all of your folks and all of ours. 'The Swallow' is plenty big enough."

"Mother wouldn't go, and father can't just now. He's trying a case. But there's Annie and Frank and me"—

"And my mother, and Ham and Miranda, and our girls. Ham'll go, sure.
Then we must take Dick Lee along. It'd make him sick if we didn't."

"Of course. Ain't I glad about him! Could we get ready and go to-morrow?"

"Guess not so quick as that. We might by the day after, if the weather's all right."

Exactly. There is always a large-sized "if" to be put in, where any thing depends on the weather, Mrs. Kinzer took the matter up with enthusiasm, and so did the girls, Miranda included; and Ford Foster was quite right about his part of the company.

But the weather!

It looked well enough, to unpractised eyes; but Ham Morris shook his head, and went to consult his fishermen friends. There was a good deal of head-shaking done thereupon; for every human barometer among them advised him to wait a day or so, and hardly any two of them gave him the same reason for doing it.

Ford Foster was at the house when Ham made his report, and was a little surprised to see how promptly Dab Kinzer yielded his assent to the verdict.

"Such warm, nice weather as this is," he remonstrated; "and there isn't any wind to speak of."

"There's too much of it coming," was Ham's response; and there was no help for it after that, not even when the mail brought word from "Aunt Maria" that both of her dear boys would arrive in a day or two.

"Our last chance is gone, Annie," said Ford, when the news came.

"O mother!" she said despondingly, "what shall we do?"

"Have your sail, just the same, and invite your cousins."

"But the Kinzers"—

"Why, Annie! Mrs. Kinzer will not think of neglecting them. She's as kind as kind can be."

"And we are to pay her with Joe and Fuz," said Ford. "Well, I wish Ham
Morris's storm would come along."

He only had to wait until the next day for it, and he felt quite contented to be safe on shore while it lasted. There was no call for any laughter at the prophecies of the fishermen after it began to blow. Still the blow was not a long one, and Ham Morris remarked,—

"This is only an outside edge of it. It's a good deal worse than this out at sea. I'm glad we're not out in it."

Ford Foster thought that about the worst of that weather was when the afternoon train came in, and he had to show a pair of tired, moist, and altogether unpleasant cousins to the room set apart for them. The clouds in his mind did not clear away perceptibly even when, just after supper, a note came in from Mrs. Kinzer, inviting the Hart boys to join the yachting-party next morning.

"The storm may not be over," growled Ford a little sulkily.

"Oh!" said Annie, "Mrs. Kinzer adds that the weather will surely be fine after such a blow, and the bay will be quite safe and smooth."

"Does she know the clerk of the weather?" asked Joe Hart.

"Got one of her own," said Ford.

Joe and Ford both found something to laugh at in that, but they said nothing. They were both feeling a little "strange," as yet, and were almost inclined to try and behave themselves; the main difficulty in the way of it being a queer idea they had that their ordinary way of doing things made up a fair article of "good behavior." Nobody had taken the pains to bounce them out of the notion.

When the morning really came, sea and earth and sky seemed to be all the better for the trial they had been through, and the weather was all that Mrs. Kinzer had prophesied of it. The grass and trees were greener, and the bay seemed bluer; while the few clouds visible were very white and clean, as if all the storms had been recently washed out of them.

There was no question now to be raised concerning the yachting-party, or any part of it. Not a single thing went wrong in Mrs. Kinzer's management of the "setting out," and that was half the day won to begin with. Ford had some difficulty in getting Joe and Fuz out of bed so early as was necessary; but he gave them an intimation which proved quite sufficient:—

"You'd better hop, boys. Ham Morris wouldn't wait five minutes for the
Queen of England, or even for me."

"Joe," whispered Fuz, a little while after they got on board the yacht, "are we to be gone a week?"

"Why? What's up?"

"Such piles of provisions as they've stowed away in that kennel!"

The bit of a water-tight cabin under the half-deck, at which Fuz pointed, was pretty well filled, beyond a doubt; but Mrs. Kinzer knew what she was about. She had provided luncheon for most of that party before, and the effect on them of the sea-air was also to be taken into account.

"Dab," said Ford Foster, "you've forgotten to unhitch the 'Jenny,' Here she is, towing astern."

"That's all right. We may need her. She's too heavy to be taken on board."

A careful fellow was Mr. Hamilton Morris, and he well knew the value of a rowboat to a sea-going picnic-party. As for Joe and Fuz, they were compelled to overcome a strong inward inclination to cast the boat loose. Such a good joke it would have been! But Ham Morris was in the way of it, so long as he stood at the tiller.

"The Swallow" was steady enough to inspire even Annie Foster with a feeling of confidence; but Ford carefully explained to her the difference between slipping over the little waves of the landlocked bay, and plunging into the gigantic billows of the stormy Atlantic.

"I prefer this," said Annie.

"But I wouldn't have missed the other for any thing," replied Ford.
"Would you, Dick?"

Mr. Richard Lee had taken his full share in the work of starting, and had made himself singularly useful; but, if all the rest had not been so busy, they would surely have noticed his remarkable silence. Hardly a word had he uttered that anybody could remember; and, now he was forced to say something, his mouth opened slowly, as if he had never tried to speak before, and was not quite sure he knew how.

"No—Mr.—Foster,—I—would—not—have—missed—that—trip—for—a—good —deal."

Every word came out by itself, "afoot and alone," and as different from Dick's ordinary speech as a cut stone is from a rough one. Ham Morris opened his eyes wide, and Ford puckered his lips into the shape of a still whistle; but Annie caught the meaning of it quicker than they did.

"Dick," she said at once, "are we to fish to-day?"

"May—be,—but—that—depends—on—Mr. Morris."

Every word was slowly and carefully uttered, a good deal in the manner of a man counting over a lot of money, and looking out sharp for counterfeits.

"Look here, Dick," suddenly exclaimed Dab Kinzer, "I give it up: you can do it. But don't you try to keep it up all day. Kill you, sure as any thing, if you do."

"Did I say 'em all right, Cap'n Dab?" anxiously inquired Dick, with a happy look on his merry black face.

"Every word," said Dab; "but it's well for you they were all short. Keep on practising."

"I'll jes' do dat, shuah!"

Practising? Dick?

Yes, that was it; and he joined heartily in the peal of laughter with which the success of his first attempt at "w'ite folks' English" was received by that party.

Dab explained, that, as soon as Dick found he was really to go to the academy, he determined to teach his tongue new habits; and the whole company heartily approved, even while they joined Dab in advising him not to attempt too much at a time.

"You might sprain your tongue over a big word," said Ford.

There was an abundance of talk and fun all around, as "The Swallow" skimmed onward; and the outlines of the long, low sand-island were rapidly becoming more distinct.

Nearer they drew, and nearer.

"Is that a light-house, away over there?" asked Annie of Dab.

"Yes, that's a light-house; and there's a wrecking-station, close down by it."

"A wrecking-station?"

"I say," said Ford, "are there men there all the while? Are there many wrecks on this coast?"

"Ever so many wrecks," said Dab, "and they keep a sharp lookout. There used to be more before there were so many light-houses. It was a bad place to go ashore in, too,—almost as bad as Jersey."

"Why?"

"Well, the coast itself is mean enough, for shoals and surf; and then there were the wreckers."

"Oh! I understand," said Ford. "Not the Government men."

"No, the old sort. It was a bad enough piece of luck to be driven in on that bar, or another like it; but the wreckers made it as much worse as they knew how to."

They were all listening now, even his sisters; and Dabney launched out into a somewhat highly-colored description of the terrors of the Long-Island "south shore," in old times and new, and of the character and deeds of the men who were formerly the first to find out if any thing or anybody had been driven ashore.

"What a prize to them that French steamer would have been!" said Annie; "the one you and Ford took Frank from."

"No, she wouldn't. Why, she wasn't wrecked at all. She only stuck her nose in the sand, and lay still till the tugs came and pulled her off. That isn't a wreck. A wreck is where the ship is knocked to pieces, and people are drowned, and all that sort of thing. The crew can't help themselves, after that. Then, you see, the wreckers have a notion that every thing that comes ashore belongs to them. Why, I've heard some of our old fishermen—best kind of men too—talk of how Government has robbed them of their rights."

"By the new system?" said Annie.

"Well, first by having wrecks prevented, and then by having all property kept for the owners."

"Isn't that strange! Did you say they were good men?"

"Some of 'em. Honest as the day is long about every thing else. But they weren't all so. There was old Peter, now, and he lives on the island yet. There's his cabin. You can just see it sticking out of the edge of that big sand-hill."

"What a queer thing it is!"

"Queer? I guess you'd say so, if you could have a look at the things he's picked up along shore, and stowed inside of it. There isn't but just room for him to cook and sleep in."

"Is he a fisherman too?"

"Why, that's his trade. Sometimes the storms drift the sand high all over that cabin, and old Pete has to dig it out again. He gets snowed under two or three times every winter."

Annie Foster, and probably some of the others, were getting new ideas concerning the sea-coast and its inhabitants, every minute; and she felt a good deal like Dick Lee,—she "wouldn't have missed that trip for any thing."

They were now coasting along the island, at no great distance; and, although it was not nearly noon, Dabney heard Joe Hart say to his brother,—

"Never was so hungry in all my life. Glad they did lay in a good stock of provisions."

"So am I," returned Fuz; and he added in a whisper,

"Isn't there any way for us to get into that cabin?"

Joe shook his head. There was not the slightest chance for any small piracy to be worked on that craft, so long as Mrs. Kinzer remained the "stewardess" of it; and the two hungry boys were compelled to wait her motions.

CHAPTER XX.

A WRECK AND SOME WRECKERS.

Dismally barren and lonesome was that desolate bar between the bay and the ocean. Here and there it swelled up into great drifts and mounds of sand, which were almost large enough to be called hills; but nowhere did it show a tree, or a bush, or even a patch of grass. Annie Foster found herself getting melancholy, as she gazed upon it, and thought of how the winds must sometimes sweep across it, laden with sea-spray and rain and hail, or with the bitter sleet and blinding snow of winter.

"Dabney," she said, "was the storm very severe here last night and yesterday?"

"Worse than it was over on our side of the bay, ten times."

"Were there any vessels wrecked?"

"Most likely, but it's too soon to know just where."

At that moment "The Swallow" was running around a sandy point, jutting out into the bay from the foot of the highest mound on the bar, not half a mile from the light-house, and only twice as far from the low wooden roof of the "wrecking-station," where, as Dab had explained to his guests, the lifeboats and other apparatus of all sorts were kept safely housed. The piles of drifted sand had for some time prevented the brightest eyes on board "The Swallow" from seeing any thing to seaward; but now, as they came around the point and a broad level lay before them, Ham Morris sprang to his feet in sudden excitement, as he exclaimed,—

"In the breakers! Why, she must have been a three-master! It's all up with her now."

"Look along the shore!" shouted Dab. "Some of 'em saved, anyhow. The coast-men are there, too, life-boats and all."

So they were; and Ham was right about the vessel, though not a mast was left standing in her now. If there had been, indeed, she might have been kept off the breakers, as they afterwards learned. She had been dismasted in the storm, but had not struck until after daylight that morning, and help had been close at hand and promptly given. There was no such thing as saving that unfortunate hull. She would beat to pieces just where she lay, sooner or later, according to the kind of weather that might take the job in hand, and the size and force of the waves it should bring with it.

The work done already by the life-boat men had been a good one; and it had not been very easy, either, for they had brought the crew and passengers safely through the boiling surf, and landed them all upon the sandy beach. They had even saved for them some items of baggage. In a few hours the coast "wrecking-tugs" would be on hand to look out for the cargo. There was therefore no chance for the 'long-shore men to turn an honest penny without working hard for it. Work and wages enough there would be, to be sure, helping to unload, whenever the sea, now so heavy, should go down a little; but "work" and "wages" were not the precise things some of them were most hungry for.

Two of them, at all events,—one a tall, grizzled, weather-beaten, stoop-shouldered old man, in tattered raiment, and the other more battered still, but with no "look of the sea" about him,—stood on a sand-drift, gloomily gazing at the group of shipwrecked people on the shore, and the helpless mass of timber and spars out there among the beatings of the surf.

"Not more'n three hunder' yards out She'd break up soon, 'f there was no one to hender. Wot a show we'd hev!"

"I reckon," growled the shorter man. "'S your name Peter?"

"Ay. I belong yer. Allers lived 'bout high-water mark. Whar'd ye come from?"

The only answer was a sharp and excited exclamation. Neither of them had been paying any attention to the bay side of the bar; and, while they were gazing at the wreck, a very pretty little yacht had cast anchor, close in shore; and then, with the help of a rowboat, quite a party of ladies and gentlemen—the latter somewhat young-looking for the greater part—had made their way to the land, and were now hurrying forward. They did not pay the slightest attention to Peter and his companion, but in a few minutes more they were trying to talk to those poor people on the seaward beach. Trying, but not succeeding very well; for the wreck had been a Bremen bark, with an assorted cargo and some fifty passengers, all emigrants. German seemed to be their only tongue, and none of Mrs. Kinzer's pleasure-party spoke German.

"Too bad," Ford Foster was saying about it, when there came a sort of wail from a group at a little distance, and it seemed to close with,—

"Pauvre enfant!"

"French!" exclaimed Ford. "Why, they look as Dutch as any of the rest.
Come on, Annie, let's try and speak to them."

The rest followed, a good deal like a flock of sheep; and it was a sad enough scene that lay before them. No lives had been lost in the wreck; but there had been a good deal of suffering among the poor passengers, cooped up between decks, with the hatches closed, while the storm lasted. Nobody drowned, indeed; but all had been dreadfully soaked in the surf in getting ashore, and among the rest had been the fair-haired child, now lying there on his mother's lap, so pinched and blue, and seemingly so nearly lifeless.

French, were they?

Yes and no; for the father, a tall, stout young man, who looked like a farmer, told Ford they were from Alsace, and spoke both languages.

"The child, was it sick?"

Not so much "sick" as dying of starvation and exposure. Oh, such a sad, pleading look as the poor mother lifted to the moist eyes of Mrs. Kinzer, when the portly widow pushed forward and bent over the silent boy! Such a pretty child he must have been, and not over two years old; but the salt water was in his tangled curls now, and his poor lips were parted in a weak, sick way, that told of utter exhaustion.

"Can any thing be done, mother?"

"Yes, Dabney, there can. You and Ham and Ford and Frank go to the yacht, quick as you can, and bring the spirit-heater, lamp and all, and bread and milk, and every dry napkin and towel you can find. Bring Keziah's shawl."

Such quick time they made across that sand-bar!

They were none too soon, either; for, as they came running down to their boat a mean-looking, slouching sort of fellow walked rapidly away from it.

"He was going to steal it!"

"Can't go for him now, Dab; but you'll have to mount guard here, while we go back with the things."

There was a good deal of the "guard mounted" look in Dab's face, when they left him, a few minutes later, standing there by the boat, and he had one of the oars in his hand. An oar is almost as good a club as the lower joint of a fishing-rod, and that was exactly the thought in Dab's mind.

Ham and Frank and Ford hurried back to the other beach, to find that Mrs. Kinzer had taken complete possession of that baby. Every rag of his damp things was already stripped off; and now, while Miranda lighted the "heater," and made some milk hot in a minute, the good lady began to rub the little sufferer as only an experienced mother knows how.

Then there was a warm wrapping-up in cloths and shawls, and better success than anybody had dreamed of in making the seemingly half-dead child eat something.

"That was about all the matter with him," said Mrs. Kinzer. "Now, if we can get him and his mother over to the house, we can save both of them. Ford, how long did you say it was since they'd eaten any thing?"

"About three days, they say."

"Mercy on me! And that cabin of ours holds so little! Glad it's full, anyhow. Let's get every thing out and over here, right away."

"The cabin?"

"No, Hamilton, the provisions."

Not a soul among them all thought of their own lunch, any more than Mrs. Kinzer herself did; but Joe and Fuz were not among them just then. On the contrary, they were over there by the shore, where the "Jenny" had been pulled up, trying to get Dab Kinzer to put them on board "The Swallow."

"Somebody ought to be on board of her," said Fuz, in as anxious a tone as he could assume, "with so many strange people around."

"It isn't safe," added Joe.

"Fact," replied Dab; "but then, I kind o' like to feel a little unsafe."

The Hart boys had a feeling, at that moment, that somehow or other Dab knew why they were so anxious to go on board; and they were right enough, for he was saying to himself, "They can wait. They do look hungry, but they'll live through it. There ain't any cuffs or collars in Ham's locker."

All there was then in the locker was soon out of it, after Mrs. Kinzer and the rest came, for they brought with them the officers of the wrecked bark; and neither Joe nor Fuz had an opportunity to so much as "help distribute" that supply of provisions. Ham went over to see that the distribution should be properly made; while Mrs. Kinzer saw her little patient, with his father and mother, safely stowed on board "The Swallow."

"I'll save that baby, anyhow," she said to Miranda; "and Ford says his father's a farmer. We can find plenty for 'em to do. They'll never see a thing of their baggage, and I guess they hadn't a great deal."

She was just the woman to guess correctly about such a matter.

At that moment Dabney was saying to Annie Foster,—

"Whom do you guess I've seen to-day?"

"I can't guess. Who was it?"

"The tramp!"

"The same one?"

"The very same. There he goes, over the sandhill yonder, with old Peter the wrecker. We've got to hurry home now, but I'm going to set Ham Morris on his track before we get through."

"You'll never find him again."

"Do you s'pose old Peter'd befriend a man that did what he did? Right on the shore of the bay? No, indeed! There isn't a fisherman from here to Montauk, that wouldn't join to hunt him out. He's safe to be found whenever Ham wants him, if we don't scare him away now."

"Don't scare him, then," almost whispered Annie.

The wind was fair; and the home sail of "The Swallow" was really a swift and short one, but it did seem dreadfully long to her passengers.

Mrs. Kinzer was anxious to see that poor baby and his mother safely in bed. Ham wanted to send a whole load of refreshments back to the shipwrecked people. Dab Kinzer could not keep his thoughts from following that "tramp." And then, if the truth must come out, every soul on board the beautiful little yacht was getting more and more painfully aware with every minute that passed, that they had had a good deal of sea-air and excitement, and a splendid sail across the bay, but no dinner,—not so much as a red herring and a cracker.