Kitabı oku: «The Girls of Central High in Camp: or, the Old Professor's Secret», sayfa 3

CHAPTER VI
PRETTYMAN SWEET MAKES A FRIEND

Lake Luna was a beautiful body of water, all of twenty miles long and half as broad, with Centerport on its southern shore and Lumberport and Keyport situated at either end.

The first named stood at the mouth of Rocky River which fed the great lake, while Keyport was at the head of Rolling River through which Lake Luna discharged its waters.

Centerport was a thriving and rich city of some 150,000 inhabitants, while the other two towns – although much smaller – were likewise thriving business communities. There was considerable traffic on Lake Luna, between the cities named, and up and down the rivers.

Cavern Island was a beautiful resort in the middle of Lake Luna; but man’s hand was shown in its landscape gardening and in the pretty buildings and the park at one end.

Acorn Island, in Lake Dunkirk (thirty miles above Lumberport, and connected with Lake Luna by Rocky River) was a very different place. It was heavily timbered and had been held by a private estate for years. Therefore the trees and rubbish had been allowed to grow, and one end of the island, as the girls of Central High knew, was almost a jungle.

But at the eastern end – that nearest the head of Rocky River – was a pleasant grove on a high knoll, where the old cabin stood. There they proposed to camp.

Indeed, Mr. Tom Hargrew, Bobby’s father, had been kind enough to send the girls’ tents up to the island with the men he had directed to repair the cabin, and the party expected to find the camp pitched, and everything ready for them when they arrived at Acorn Island.

This would scarcely be before dark, for there was some current to Rocky River, although its channel was deep and there were no bridges or other barriers which the powerboats and their tows could not easily pass.

The boys expected to have to rough it at the site of their camp for the first night, and they had come prepared for all emergencies of wind and weather.

All, did we say? All but one!

In the confusion of getting under way the details of Prettyman Sweet’s outing suit, and his general get-up for camping in the wilds, was scarcely noticed. Once the boats were steering up the lake toward Lumberport, a sudden shriek from Billy Long drew the attention of the girls and Mrs. Morse to the object to which he pointed.

“It’s not! it’s not! my eyes deceive me!” panted Short and Long, who was the third member of the crew of boys aboard the Bonnie Lass, Chet and Lance being the other two.

Short and Long was pointing to the other powerboat that was drawing in beside the Bonnie Lass, Pretty himself was at the wheel of the Duchess for he had learned to manage her.

“What is the matter with you, Billy?” Chet demanded.

“What is it I see?” begged the younger boy, wringing his hands and glaring across the short strip of water between the powerboats. “I know there ain’t no sech animile, as the farmer said when he first saw the giraffe at the circus.”

“What’s eating you, Billy?” asked Lance, who was giving his attention to the steering of the Bonnie Lass. “Don’t frighten the girls and Mrs. Morse to death.”

“It’s just some joke of Billy’s,” began Jess, when the very short boy broke in with:

“If that’s a joke, may I never see another! It is a phantom! It’s a nightmare! It’s something that comes to you in a bad dream.”

“What?” demanded Chet, suddenly shaking Short and Long by the collar.

“Don’t, Chetwood,” begged Billy. “I’m not strong. I’m sea-sick. That thing yonder has queered me–”

“What thing?” asked Laura. “We don’t see the joke, Billy.”

“There you go again – calling a serious thing like that a joke,” cried the small boy. “Look at it – at the wheel of the Duchess! How ever did it crawl aboard? I bet a cent it’s been living in the bottom of the lake for years and years, and has come up to the light of day for the first time now.”

“You ridiculous thing!” snapped Lily Pendleton. “Do you mean Prettyman Sweet?”

“My goodness gracious Agnes!” gasped Billy. “That’s never Purt Sweet? Don’t tell me he’s disguised himself for a nigger minstrel show in that fashion?”

They were all laughing at the unconscious Purt by now – all save Lily; and Chet said, gravely:

“There is something the matter with your eyesight, Short and Long. That’s Purt in a brand new outing suit.”

“He didn’t dress like that to go camping?” murmured Billy. “Say not so! Somebody dared him to do it!”

It was a fact that the exquisite of Central High had decked himself out in most astonishing array – considering that he was expected to “rough it” in the woods instead of appear at a lawn party on the “Hill.”

“His tailor put him up to that suit,” chuckled Lance. “He told me so. As he expects to live in the sylvan forest, as did the ‘merrie, merrie men’ of Robin Hood, Purt is dolled up accordingly.”

“Gee!” breathed Bobby. “Do you suppose Robin Hood ever looked like that?”

“That’s Lincoln green,” announced Lance, trying to keep his face straight. “You notice that the pants are short – knickerbockers, in fact. They are tied just below the knee with ‘ribbands’ in approved outlaw style.”

“Oh, my!” giggled Dora Lockwood. “Do you suppose they hurt him?”

“What hurts him most is the leather belt at which is slung a long-bladed hunting knife so dull that it wouldn’t cut cheese! But the knife handle gets in his way every time he stoops.”

“Oh! he’s so funny!” gasped Dorothy Lockwood. “You boys are certainly going to have a great time with Pretty Sweet on this trip.”

“I don’t think it is funny at all,” muttered Lily Pendleton. “That rude little thing, Billy Long, tries to be too smart.”

“But look at the cap!” gasped Laura, who was herself too much amused to ignore the queer get-up of their classmate. “Where did he get the idea of that?”

“It’s a tam-o’-shanter,” said Lance. “Another idea of the tailor’s. That tailor, I think, tries things out on Pretty. If Pretty doesn’t get shot wearing them, then he puts similar garments on his dummies and risks them outside his shop door.”

“But what has he got stuck into the cap?” pursued Laura.

“A feather. Rather, the remains of one,” chuckled Lance. “It was quite a long one when he started for the dock this morning; but he crossed the street right under the noses of Si Cumming’s team of mules that draws the ice-wagon, and that off mule grabbed the best part of the feather. You know, that mule will eat anything.”

“Well, one thing is sure,” drawled Bobby. “If Purt is supposed to represent a Sherwood Forest outlaw, and he ever meets one of the outlaws of the Big Woods that he’s been worried about, the latter ‘squashbuckler’ will be scared to death.”

“‘Squashbuckler’ is good!” chuckled Jess. “Some of those old villains I expect were squashes.”

“My dear!” ejaculated her mother. “I fear the language you young folk use does not speak well for your instructors of Central High.”

“I guess we do not cast much glory upon our teachers, Mrs. Morse,” rejoined Laura, laughing.

“It’s only Short and Long, here, who ‘does the teachers proud,’” said her brother, with a grin. “Hear about what he got off in Ancient History class the other day? Professor Dimp pretty nearly set him back for that.”

“Aw – now,” growled Billy. “He asked for a date, didn’t he?”

“What’s the burn?” demanded Bobby, briskly.

“Why, Old Dimple asked Billy to mention a memorable date in Roman history, and Billy says: ‘Antony’s with Cleopatra.’”

“Oh, oh, oh!” gasped Jess. “That’s the worst kind of slang.”

Mrs. Morse paid the young folk very little attention. She had withdrawn from the group and was busy with pencil and notebook.

“When mother gets to work that way, she heeds neither time, place, nor any passing event,” laughed Jess. “She expects to sketch out her whole book while she is at camp with us.”

“She’s going to be a dandy chaperone,” declared Chet. “Suppose we’d had Miss Carrington along?”

“Goodness!” groaned Bobby. “Don’t let’s mention that lady again this summer.”

“And we can cut out Old Dimple, too,” grumbled Billy Long.

“He’s off somewhere on a trip, so we won’t have to bother about him,” said Chet, with confidence.

The girls had begun to compare notes regarding what they had packed in their suitcases, long before the boats reached Lumberport; and some of them discovered that they had neglected to bring some very essential things.

“You’ll just have to tie up beyond the Main Street bridge, and give us a chance to shop, Chet,” announced Laura. “We’re making good time as it is.”

“Isn’t that just like a parcel of girls?” grumbled Billy. “Now, we fellows didn’t forget a thing – you bet!”

“Wait till we unpack at camp,” chuckled Chet. “We’ll see about that, then.”

He and Lance agreed to make the halt as the girls requested; and they shouted to the crowd on the smaller boat to do the same. As Lily Pendleton was one of the girls who must shop in Lumberton, Purt Sweet was most willing to tarry and accompany the girls ashore.

He was, in fact, the only escort the girls had when they went up into the town in search of the several articles they needed. The dude was evidently proud of his outing suit and, as Billy suggested, “wanted to give the people of Lumberport a treat.”

So he swaggered along up Main Street with the girls. Not a block from the wharf at which the boats were tied he met with an adventure.

“Whatever impression Purt is making on the good people of this town,” whispered Nellie Agnew to Laura, “he has certainly smitten a four-footed inhabitant with a deep, deep interest.”

“What’s that?” asked Laura, turning swiftly to see. Bobby Hargrew looked, likewise. Purt and Lily were behind, and Bobby immediately shouted:

“Say, Purt who’s your friend?”

“What’s that, Miss Hargrew?” asked Purt staring. “I weally don’t get you – don’t you know?”

“But he’ll get you in a minute,” chuckled Bobby.

“Don’t pay any attention to her, Mr. Sweet,” said Lily. “She’s a vulgar little thing.”

But just then Purt felt something at his heels and turned swiftly. One of the homeliest mongrel curs ever seen was sniffing at Purt’s green stockings.

“Get out, you brute!” gasped the dude, rather frightened.

But the dog didn’t seem to have any designs upon Purt’s thin shanks. Instead, he jumped about, foolishly stiff-legged as a dog will when he thinks he has found a friend, and barked.

“Gee! he’s glad to see you,” said Bobby. “Where’d you find him, Purt?”

“Weally!” declared the dude, trying to shoo the dog off. “I – I never did see the horrid brute before – I never did.”

“Don’t call him names. You’ll hurt his feelings,” suggested one of the Lockwood twins, while Laura said, seriously: “That dog certainly does know you, Mr. Sweet.”

“I declare, I never saw him before,” said Purt, making frantic efforts to frighten the dog away.

He was a snarly haired dog, with one ear cocked up and the other half chewed off, his coat muddied, only half a tail, which he wiggled ecstatically, and the most foolish looking face that was ever given to a dog.

“Did you ever see such a looking thing?” gasped Bobby, half choked with laughter.

“And how well he matches Purt’s suit,” said Nellie, demurely.

“I’m not going to walk with you if you don’t get rid of that dog!” declared Lily, seeing that many bystanders were laughing at the boy and the mongrel.

She went ahead with the other girls while poor Purt remained in the rear, trying his best to chase away the friendly animal. But the more Purt shooed him, or attempted to hit him, or strove otherwise to send the brute about his business, the more the latter considered that the boy was playing with him, and he welcomed the game with loud and cheerful barks.

Soon a small crowd was collected, watching the performance with broad grins. The girls, giggling, but rather worried by the attention that was being attracted to their escort, darted into a store and left Purt to settle the matter by himself.

CHAPTER VII
THE BARNACLE

The crowd was laughing loudly and Purt Sweet (although he was frequently the source of mirth for his companions) did not enjoy it. He began to hate that mongrel cur with an intense hatred.

“Get away from me, you brute!” he exclaimed, trying to kick the dog.

“Look out there, son,” drawled one on-looker. “If you abuse your dog the S. P. C. A. will do something to you that you won’t like.”

“It isn’t my dog! I weally never saw it before,” gasped the dude, growing very warm and red as the dog leaped about him in delight.

“You’ll have to tell that to the judge,” the man assured him.

This really scared Purt. He did not want to be arrested for abusing the strange dog. But he could not allow it to follow him, that was sure. The girls were already disgusted with him for having attracted the brute.

“And I never meant to!” thought the boy, in despair. “Oh! if I only had him out in the woods, and had a good rock!”

But he dared not pelt the mongrel after what the bystander had said. The crowd became so numerous that a policeman came strolling that way. He saw Purt with the dog dancing about him.

“Here! this is no place for a circus. You and your dog get out!” commanded the officer of the law. “Move on!”

He flourished his baton; the horrified Purt made off around the nearest corner; the dog stuck like a porous plaster.

“If I only had a club!” groaned Purt.

He escaped the crowd and sat down upon a dwelling house stoop. At once that imbecile dog rushed upon him, leaped into his lap, and lapped Purt’s face!

“Get out! You nawsty, nawsty brute you!” wailed the dude, beating the dog off weakly.

The latter considered it all in the game. He had taken a decided liking to the boy from Central High, and nothing would drive him away.

Purt had never really cared for dogs. Most boys are tickled enough to get a dog – even a mongrel like this one. But the dude found himself with a possession for which he had never longed.

The dog lay down on the walk in front of him, his tongue hanging on his breast like an inflammatory necktie, and laughing as broadly as a dog could laugh. He evidently admired Purt greatly. Whether it was the Lincoln green suit, or the tam-o’-shanter cap, or the dude’s personal pulchritude, which most attracted his doggish soul, it was hard to say.

Suddenly a window went up behind Purt and a lady put out her head.

“Little boy! Little boy!” she called, shrilly. “I wish you’d take your dog away from here. I want to let my cat out, and dogs make her so nervous.”

“It isn’t my dog – weally it isn’t!” exclaimed Purt, jumping up. Immediately the dog leaped about, barking fit to split his throat.

“You naughty boy!” gasped the lady in the window. “I have seen you with that dog go past here hundreds of times!” and she immediately slammed down the sash before Purt could further defend himself.

However the lady could have made the mistake of thinking she had seen Purt before, is not easily explained. Perhaps she was very near sighted.

The Central High dude “moved on,” with the mongrel frisking about him. Purt heartily wished the animal would have a sunstroke (for it was high noon now, and very warm) or would be taken with an apoplectic stroke, or some other sudden complaint!

Purt wanted to get back to Main Street and rejoin the girls; but he knew it would be no use in trying that unless he could “shake” the dog. The girls (especially Lily Pendleton, whom he so much admired) would not stand for that mongrel brute following in their train.

So, finding that the dog was fastened to him like a new Old Man of the Sea, Prettyman Sweet decided to sneak back to the dock, by the way of back streets, and escape the beast by going aboard the Duchess.

He set off, therefore, through several byways, coming out at last on a water-front street of more prominence. Here were stores and tenements. The gutters were crowded with noisy children, and the street with traffic.

A fat butcher stood before his shop, with his thumbs in the string of his apron. When he spied Purt and his close companion, he gave vent to an exclamation of satisfaction and reached for the Central High boy with a mighty hand.

“Here!” he said, hoarsely, his fat face growing scarlet on the instant. “I been waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me, Mister?” gasped Purt. “Weally – that cawn’t be, doncher know! I never came this way before.”

“No, ye smart Ike! But yer dog has,” growled the man, giving Prettyman a shake that seemed to start every tooth in his head.

“Oh, dear me!” cried Purt. “I never saw you before, sir.”

“But I’ve seen yer dog – drat the beast! And if I could ketch him I’d chop him up into sassingers – that’s what I’d do to him.”

“He – he’s not my dog,” murmured Purt, faintly.

Fido had scurried across the street when he spied the butcher; but he waited there, mouth agape, stump of tail wagging, and a knowing cock to his good ear, to see how his adopted master was coming out with his sworn enemy, the butcher.

“I tell yer what,” hoarsely said the butcher, still gripping Purt’s shoulder, “a boy can deny his own father, but ’e can’t deny his dawg – no, sir! That there brute knows ye, bub. Only yisterday he grabbed several links of frankfurter sassingers off’n this hook right overhead ’ere.

“I ain’t goin’ to have no dumbed dawg like him come an’ grab my sassingers an’ make off with ’em, free gratis for nothin’.”

A little crowd – little, but deeply interested – had gathered again. Had Purt been seeking notoriety in Lumberport, he was getting it without doubt!

The grocer next door, with a great guffaw of laughter, cried:

“Hey, Bill! don’t blame the dawg. He smelled some o’ his relatives, it’s likely, in the frankfurters, an’ set out to rescue ’em!”

“I do-ent care,” breathed the fat butcher, growing more and more excited. “No man’s dawg ain’t goin’ ter do what he done ter me an’ git away with it. This boy has got ter pay for what the dawg stole.”

Purt did not like to let go of money – among his school chums he was considered a notorious “tight-wad” – but he was willing to do almost anything to get away from the greasy-handed butcher.

“What – what did the dog take? How much were the frankfurters worth?” he stammered. “The dog isn’t mine – weally! – but I’ll pay–”

“A dollar, then. And I’ll lose by it, too,” said the butcher, but with an avaricious sparkle in his eye.

“A dollar’s worth of frankfurters!” gasped Purt.

“Yes. An’ I wish they’d ha’ chocked the brute,” complained the butcher.

“I wish they had – before he ever saw me,” murmured Purt.

He paid over the money and hurried away from the laughing crowd. And there, within a block, the dog was right at his heels again – rather slinkingly, but with the joy of companionship in his eye.

Now Purt was nearing the dock above the Main Street bridge where the motorboats were tied up. Whether the girls had returned or no, he hated to face the other fellows with this mongrel trailing at his heels.

The situation sharpened Purt’s wits. Here was a store where was sold rope and other ship-chandlery. He marched in and bought a fathom of strong manilla line, called the foolish dog to him, found that he wore a nondescript collar, and hastily fastened the line to the aforesaid collar.

It was in the boy’s mind to tie the dog somewhere and leave it behind. If he had dared, he would have tied a weight to the other end of the rope and dropped both weight and dog overboard.

Just then, however, he met a group of ragged, barefooted urchins – evidently denizens of the water-front. They hailed the gaily dressed Purt and the ragged mongrel, with delight.

“What yer doin’ wid the dawg?” inquired one.

“Takin’ him to the bench-show, Clarence? He’ll win a blue ribbon, he will.”

“Naw,” said another youthful humorist. “They don’t let Clarence out without the dawg. That’s to keep Clarence from gettin’ kidnapped. Nobody would wanter kidnap him if they had ter take that mutt along, too.”

Purt was too anxious to be offended by these remarks. He walked directly up to the leader of the gang.

“Say!” he exclaimed, breathlessly. “Do you want a dog?”

“Not if that’s what yer call a dawg, Mister,” said the other boy. “I’d be ashamed to call on me tony friends wit’ that mutt. What I needs is a coach-dawg to run under the hind axle of me landau.”

“Say!” breathed Purt, heavily, and paying no attention to the gibes. “You take this dog and keep it – or tie it up somewhere so he can’t follow me – and I’ll give you a quarter.”

“When do I git the quarter?” demanded the boy.

“Right now,” declared Purt reaching into his pocket with his free hand.

“Hand it over,” said the other, snatching away the rope.

The dude sighed to think how this strange and unknown cur had already cost him a dollar and a quarter. A dollar and a quarter would have been far too much to pay for a dozen similar mongrels, and well Purt knew it.

But the instant the quarter was transferred to the other boy, the Central High exquisite traveled away from there just as fast as he could walk.

At once a mournful and heart-rending howl broke out. He looked back once; the dog was leaping at the length of his rope, nearly capsizing the holder of the same with every jump, and wailing hungrily for his fast disappearing friend.

Purt set off on a run. He did not know how soon that rope might break!

He reached the dock just after the girls, who had arrived breathless with laughter, and full of the tale of Purt Sweet’s new friend.

“Where is he?” was the chorus that welcomed Purt.

“I – I got rid of him,” panted Purt.

“Sure?” laughed Chet, as they began to cast off.

“I – I hope so,” returned the worried Purt. “I never did see such a cweature – weally.”

“He must have been an old friend of yours, Purt,” said Reddy Butts. “Dogs don’t follow folks for nothing.”

“But weally, I never saw him before,” Purt tried to explain.

“Aw, that’s all very well,” Billy Long sang out. “But it’s plain enough why he followed you.”

“Why?” asked Reddy, willing to help the joke along.

“It was Purt’s shanks in those green socks that attracted the dog. I suppose the poor dog was hungry, and a hungry dog will go far for a bone, you know.”

Purt was hurrying to get his Duchess under way, and he was so glad of getting rid of the dog that he did not mind the boys’ chaffing. Suddenly a wild yell arose from some of the boys on the dock.

“What’s this? See who’s come!” yelled Billy Long.

“The Barnacle!” quoth Chet, bursting into a roar of laughter.

Even Lily Pendleton could not forbear giving vent to her amusement, and she laughed with the others. Down the dock tore the ragged coated dog, with a fathom of rope tied to his collar.

He leaped aboard the Bonnie Lass and then, with a glad yelp, sprang to the decked-over part of the Duchess.

Purt Sweet looked up with a cry of amazement and received the delighted dog full in his chest. They rolled together in the cockpit of the boat, the dog eagerly lapping Purt’s face, while the boy tried to beat him off with his fists.

“The Barnacle!” yelled Chet again, and that name stuck.

So did the dog. He refused to leave. The party left Lumberton with the foolish beast sitting up in the prow of the Duchess, wagging his ridiculous tail and barking a last farewell to the amused spectators gathered along the edge of the dock.