Ralph Henry Barbour

“ Harry’s mouth drooped until Roy cut in with an indignant: “Don’t you mind him, Harry. It’s a bully likeness. I’d know it anywhere!”
“So would I,” said Dick. “Chub’s just teasing.” And Chub owned up that he was.
“Say, don’t you love the colors, though?” asked Roy eagerly. “Why, that blue looks good enough to eat!” He turned toward the artist with a new respect. “I guess you’re a cracker-jack, sir.”
“Oh, you’re all too flattering,” laughed Mr. Cole. “You’ll never make art critics of yourselves unless you restrain your enthusiasm. ”

“ At some time, probably a good many years before, the Minerva had been new and trim. To-day she was a veritable apology for a boat. Some twenty feet long, she was blunt of nose, wide of beam, almost guiltless of paint. The cockpit was only large enough to hold one man and allow the tiller to swing, the rest of the deck space being occupied by a cabin. One port had been closed with a piece of tin through which a length of stove-pipe and an elbow projected. The mast had apparently not been scraped for years and the single sail was gray with age and patched from boom to gaff. ”

“ Dick grunted and turned his regard to the stubborn engine. But he got no satisfaction there. So, giving it a contemptuous kick and chipping off half an inch of beautiful bright red enamel, he subsided on the seat and studied the blisters on his hands.
“I’ll try it again,” suggested Roy not over eagerly.
“What’s the use?” growled Dick. “You’ll only break your back.”
“Let me have a whack at it,” said Chub cheerfully, getting up. “I have an irresistible way with engines, Dick.”
“You!” snorted Dick. “All you can do is to lie around and make a fool of yourself. ”

“ I never thought that sitting down and painting pictures of things on pieces of canvas was a decent job [262] for a full-grown man. But I do now, by jove! A chap must have a whole lot of—of goodness, don’t you think, fellows, to do a thing like that picture of Harry?”
“I should think so,” answered Roy. “Painting a thing like that seems to me like composing a wonderful poem or writing a fine piece of music, eh?”
“You bet!” said Chub. “But I’d rather be a painter than a poet any old day.”
“You’re like Harry,” laughed Dick. “She prefers painters to poets, too, nowadays.” ”

“ Noon took a third helping of preserve and cake and warmed to his subject. “To sell a set of books to some one who wants them is nothing; it brings no warmth to the heart. To sell a set of books to some one who needs them but doesn’t want to buy them is worth while but still lacks the highest artistic touch. But to sell those books to a person who doesn’t need them, doesn’t want them and will never use them—that is an accomplishment!”
“I should think so!” muttered Roy admiringly. ”

“ Hear!” shouted Chub appreciatively.
“In future make for itself,” continued Dick, encouraged by the applause, “a name which will become famous from—from Poughkeepsie to Albany,—aye, from Long Island Sound to Lake George! We are about to place another star in the galaxy which—which has for generations upheld the supremacy of the American nation at home and abroad, by land and by sea, in peace and in war!” ”

“ Afternoon? Morning would be better for me; the light’s clearer. What do you say to ten to-morrow forenoon, Miss Emery?”
Harry nodded.
“Very well, and thank you. I’ll expect you then at ten o’clock. If you like you may bring one of these young gentlemen with you, but we don’t want a crowd, do we?”
“I guess I’d rather not have any one, if it doesn’t matter,” answered Harry.
“Isn’t she tight?” cried Chub. “She’s afraid we’ll get some of the candy! If she backs down, Mr. Cole, I’ll sit for you any time.”
“Ho, ho!” laughed the artist. “You like candy, too, do you? Well, there’ll be enough for all. ”

“ Back of them, on the opposite shore and a little farther down-stream, a modest boat-house and landing lay at the margin of the river, and from these a path wound upward until it disappeared into the dim green depths of the grove which spread down the side of the hill. Where the trees ended the red, ivy-draped buildings of Ferry Hill School appeared, crowning the summit of the slope. There was School Hall with its tower, the dormitory, angular and uncompromising, the gymnasium, the little brick Cottage, and the white barns. ”

“ But what tempted him still more was the fragrant odor that came from Dick’s pan and the accompanying eloquent sizzling sound. Chub was out before the two minutes had expired. The bacon and eggs were frying merrily, the coffee-pot was exhaling a fragrant aroma through its spout, and life was wonderfully well worth living. Chub balanced himself precariously on the jutting stone and performed a somewhat sketchy toilet. Then he and Roy tumbled into the canoe and shot it out across the green-shadowed water. ”

“ But he had better success with the rest of the performance, for the look of haughtiness which he assumed sent the others into howls of laughter. Dick and Roy followed him into the tent and Harry and Snip wandered away along Inner Beach in search of blueberries. Presently there was a chorus of yells that sent the hair along the middle of Snip’s back pointing upward like the quills of the fretful porcupine and the three boys came tearing along the beach in their bathing-suits. As they came abreast of Harry and Snip Chub shouted:
“Last one in is a fool!” ”

“ But still she was very much of a girl at heart, was Harry, although she wouldn’t have thanked you for saying so.
At the present moment, in spite of the cool white waist and skirt which she wore, she looked far from comfortable. Her low tan shoes were covered with the dust—for Silver Cove was a full mile distant, and there had been no rain for over a fortnight—her face was very red and her hair, usually decently well-behaved, had lost most of its waviness, and was straggling around her flushed face and around her neck in straight, damp strands. ”

“ The yacht was the Idler of New York, and on board were the Welches, whose son, “Sid,” was a student at Ferry Hill, and who had journeyed up the river for to-day’s festivities, and were to remain over for the school graduation. Sid had been in a state of excitement and mental intoxication ever since the yacht had dropped anchor yesterday evening and a flippant little mahogany tender had chugged him away from the landing to a dinner on board. At this moment, had you known Sid by sight, you could readily have discerned him under the striped awning, the proudest person aboard. ”

“ The windows were curtained with white dimity and through one of the doors, which stood partly open, they saw an engine. (“Gasolene,” murmured Dick knowingly.) On the hull at the bow was painted the name in bold black letters: Jolly Roger; and above, from a pole at the forward end of the roof-deck was a white flag which, when the little breeze spread its folds, displayed the gruesome skull-and-cross-bones in black!
“Must be a pirate ship,” said Roy, and Harry looked somewhat uneasy until she saw that the others took it as a joke. ”

“ After dinner Dick armed himself with pot and brush and went back to work, and after looking on for awhile Roy and Chub were forced to join him.
“You fellows needn’t help,” Dick assured them. But the assurance was only half-hearted and Chub grunted irritably.
“Huh,” he said, “you know blamed well we can’t sit there in the shade and see you working out here all alone. If I get sunstruck, like Billy Warren in the boat-race, you’ll be sorry, I guess.” ”

“ The red setter began to bark joyfully and so for a moment the dogs had everything their own way. Then:
“Be quiet, Jack,” commanded the man, and the setter dropped obediently to the deck and restricted [222] his manifestations of delight to a frantic wagging of his tail. Snip was not so easily controlled, but Dick grabbed him up and muzzled him with his hand.
“Well, here’s the bear,” said the man, still regarding them solemnly. “A big brown bear ready to eat you up. Aren’t you frightened?”
“No,” said Harry, “not a bit! That was just some of Chub’s nonsense. He didn’t mean anything.” ”

“ They ran up the river in the late afternoon sunlight, a little wind which had risen since noon kicking the water into tiny white-caps which caught the rays and turned to gold and copper. The breeze rumpled their hair and tingled their cheeks, and to what Chub called “the merry barking of the Pup” they sailed home past the shadowed shore and dropped anchor (it was a folding one and weighed seven pounds) in Victory Cove.
“That was a dandy sail!” exclaimed Harry, her cheeks ruddy under their tan. And they all agreed with her and vied with each other in saying nice things about the Pup. ”

“ Now when you have been busy out of doors all day long, steak sizzling in butter, potatoes steaming through burst jackets, thick slices of snowy bread, and tea glowing like amber when it is poured from the pot in the late sunlight, are just about the finest things ever fashioned. ”

“ Finally Harry’s voice triumphed above the babel.
“I think it’s perfectly wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Snip will never go near strangers. It just shows that he must be a beautiful character!”
“Who?” asked Dick. “The dog?”
“No, the poet,” replied Harry, earnestly. “Couldn’t we lend him some clothes, Roy?”
“Yes, if we knew his size. But we don’t. He may be as big as all outdoors or as small as Chub.”
“We might offer to do it, anyway,” said Chub, ignoring the insult. “I’ve got a shirt he can take, and a sweater—”
“And he can have my duck trousers,” said Dick. ”

“ At three o’clock on Tuesday the last examination was over, and at a few minutes past that hour Dick, Roy, Chub, and Harry, the three former in a blissful state of relief, feeling as boys do feel when the last book has been flung aside for the summer, sat in the shade of the Cottage porch.
“If Cobb gives me a C in German,” said Chub hopefully, “I’m all right.”
“Well, I guess I got through,” said Dick proudly, “but it was hard work.”
“Shucks!” scoffed Chub. “Just you wait until next year!”
“Now don’t scare him to death,” Roy protested. “If you don’t look out he won’t show up in the fall at all. ”

“ Harry—for she hated to be called Harriet—was the daughter of the principal, Doctor Emery. As she was an only child she had been perhaps a little bit spoiled; or, at least, that is what her Aunt Harriet Beverly often intimated; and as she had been born and brought up in a boys’ school she was not unnaturally somewhat of a tomboy, to the extent of being fonder of boys’ games than girls’, and of being no mean hand with oar or paddle, bat or racket. ”

“ But Roy and Dick weren’t willing to go so far as to suspect the Licensed Poet of wrong intentions.
“Maybe he isn’t a book agent,” allowed Dick, “but that doesn’t mean that he’s a—a pirate or a ‘bad man.’”
“Pirate!” answered Chub. “Who said anything about pirates? He might be looking around the country to see what was worth swiping, mightn’t he?”
“A burglar? Pshaw,” said Roy, “you’re daffy! Why, any one could see he’s too much of a gentleman for that. Besides, you crazy chump, burglars don’t take all that trouble. They just go and find out where there’s stuff worth stealing and steal it. ”

“ Roy was the only one of the three who wasn’t thoroughly bored by the middle of the afternoon. He was at work on his map of the island, becoming so absorbed in the task of tracing his lines on the big sheet of paper he had purchased for the purpose that he forgot all about the weather. Once it became necessary to verify a portion of his map, and he donned his thickest sweater and went around to Turtle Point, unheeding the ridicule of the others. By supper-time he had finished it, and although there were many criticisms offered he was very proud of it. ”

“ Each succeeding tube was a new surprise. She wondered why he needed so many, many colors [247] to paint her since she was all in white save for the tan shoes and stockings and the dainty blue ribbon at her waist. Then, as a flash of orange vermilion joined the other mounds of color, she wondered in consternation whether that was for her hair! Presently the palette was set, the canvas on the easel and all in readiness. Then the artist stood up and looked at his model. Harry began to feel nervous. Maybe she wasn’t as pret—well, as nice looking this morning! ”

“ What’s all this noise about?”
“Camp out with Roy and Chub and Dick on the island! I may, mayn’t I? You know you said—”
“Well, I’m surely not going to let you sleep on the island, my dear, if that’s what you mean. You’d catch your death of cold.”
“Not to speak of the likelihood of being devoured alive by bears,” added the Doctor as he joined them on the porch.
“Bears!” scoffed Harry. “I don’t suppose there’s even a rabbit on the island! And, mama dear, folks never catch cold in camps.” ”

“ The leading boat was Hammond’s; the tips of the oars showed brilliantly red as they were lifted dripping from the water. Cheers for Hammond broke forth anew, and the cherry-and-black flags waved bravely in the hot sunlight.
“Pshaw!” muttered Dick again. But Chub was still undismayed.
“That’s all right,” he cried, excitedly. “You wait until they reach the three quarters and then see what will happen. Ed’s letting them wear themselves out. He will catch them before the finish, all right.” ”

“ I’ve never met a real poet.”
“Well, if we do,” said Dick grimly, “I’m for hiding the solid silver.”
They reached Point Harriet without finding trace of the quarry, although whenever Snip barked in the woods Chub insisted that the poet was treed. They turned homeward and passed the Grapes and Hood’s Hill. Then, as they scrambled down to Outer Beach, Roy gave a shout. At their feet lay the still smoldering remains of a small fire. The sand between the fire and the edge of the water was trampled, and marks showed where a boat of some sort had been pulled partly out of the water. ”

“ I was Signor Billinuni, the celebrated European Clown. That explains the pantaloons. The coat I wore in the parades. I played the trombone in the band.” He sighed again. “Those were indeed glorious days!”
“A circus clown!” cried Chub. “Say, that’s bully. I’ve always wanted to meet a real clown!” And the others murmured assent; all save Harry, whose face fell.
“I thought you were a poet,” she faltered. ”

“ Let’s call him over and get him to show us his sunstroke.”
“Thomas Eaton, you’re too foolish for anything, to-day!” declared Harry, severely. “And it’s mean of you to make fun of Billy. He feels terribly bad about losing the race.”
“I’m not making fun of him,” denied Chub, indignantly. “The idea! Only if I had a sunstroke I’d be proud to show it around! I’d be pleased purple if fellows would ask me—”
“I’ll bet a dollar that’s what’s the matter with you,” laughed Dick. “It’s affected your brain.”
“Pretty smart sun if it found Chub’s brain,” added Roy.
“Enjoy yourselves,” said Chub, cheerfully. ”