Jack Harvey

“ It was an odd situation, that the positions of man and boy should be reversed at the crisis. But Tom Edwards was not the equal of Jack Harvey in strength, and he knew it. Years of activity, at baseball, swimming, yachting and the like, had developed Harvey into an athlete of no mean proportions, as the muscles that played beneath his sweater denoted; Tom Edwards had been flabby and easily winded when he came aboard the dredger, and he had had little chance to gain strength with the bad food that Haley provided. ”

“ Henry Burns and the Warren brothers, arriving at Millstone Landing on the evening when Jack Harvey had seen a strange vision through Haley’s telescope, found a young man on the wharf awaiting them. He hailed them with a hearty shout of welcome the moment the steamer came to its landing. He was a tall, somewhat spare man, but with broad, muscular shoulders, and a general build that told of unusual strength. ”

“ It was with difficulty that he was dragged to the manger and hitched up.
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“That’s queer, sure enough,” said Edward Warren. “There’s something about that manger he acts afraid of. I’ll just step up-stairs, pitch him down a feed of hay, and quiet him.”
He took the lantern and ascended to the floor above, leaving the boys in darkness.
Jack Harvey, stretched at length on the beam, heard the footsteps, with alarm. Peering down, he caught the gleam of the lantern. He clung rigidly on his perch, till every bone and muscle in his body seemed to be aching. ”

“ Plunging desperately along through the rough pasture, following an uncertain path as it wound in and among clumps of cedars and alders, the man all at once ran full tilt into another man, or, rather, a large, heavy-set youth, and, clutching at each other, they both fell sprawling upon the ground.
“Hulloa!” exclaimed Jack Harvey, for he it was, “you seem in a confounded hurry, my friend, and that’s something new on this island, I’ll be bound. ”

“ You sail up in your bay, summers, don’t you?”
“I should say we did,” answered George Warren. “Jack Harvey and Henry here own a fine yacht together. Jack Harvey’s gone to Europe this winter. And we fellows have a craft of our own, too. We keep them going lively in summer. We’d just like to try that canoe of yours, Ed. Do you mean it?”
“Why, certainly,” said Edward Warren. “She’s all ready; nothing to do but get sail on, and go. I keep her moored in the cove, to run over to Drum Point occasionally in, and to Solomon’s Island. It’s a fine afternoon for a sail, if you get some oil-skins on. ”

“ What’s it to us? Leave Haley to work it out. And don’t you go to getting down on Artie Jenkins. He knows his lay. He wouldn’t have shipped this fellow unless he knew it was all right. He’s no fonder of trouble than we are.”
Jack Harvey, the innocent subject of the foregoing remarks, was, in the meantime, getting into a better frame of mind. There was no great fault, surely, to be found with the grub aboard the schooner. Nothing that he had ever cooked and eaten at his camp by the shore of Samoset Bay tasted better than the corn flap-jacks handed out from the galley by the boy, Joe. ”

“ It was Saturday, and, about the middle of the afternoon, he and Jim Adams took the skiff again and went ashore. They were out of sight in the fog before they had gone two rods, but the wind sufficed to give them their direction for the distance they had to go.
“Tom,” said Jack Harvey that night, as they turned in, “keep your shoes on, and don’t go to sleep.”
Tom Edwards looked at his young companion, in surprise.
“We’ve got a chance,” explained Harvey, “as good as we’ll ever get, perhaps. We’ve got to break away from here some time. ”

“ He was avenging Jack Harvey—and he had a most extraordinary control of his temper. Artie Jenkins was smarting and furious.
“Get to work there,” bawled Haley, swinging the rope.
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They were at it again in earnest. But the advantage even now was with Henry Burns. He was wiry and athletic; a strong runner, and a baseball player; and he had boxed with George Warren and Tom Harris by the hour, in the barn they used as a canoe club in Benton. Artie Jenkins’s training had consisted largely of loafing about the docks, smoking cigarettes. ”

“ The man sprang back, in terror, and, the next moment, the three started running for the shore toward the vessel.
“Tom,” cried Jack Harvey, “get your wind for a run now. We’ve got to get out of here before they bring the captain and mate and his men after us. We’ll have to run and trust to luck.” ”

“ They can handle a boat as well as any skipper on the island. And as for fear, they don’t know what it means.”
“Look!” he cried. “Do you see what they are doing?” as the yacht was suddenly brought, quivering, into the wind and headed away from the island on the other tack. “There’s nothing in the world Jack Harvey’s doing that for except to frighten the hotel guests. He sees the crowd on the piazza watching him, and is just making game of their fright. He’ll sail out there as long as he dares, or until his topmast goes, just to keep them watching him.” ”

“ So, to avoid suspicion, the Mollie ran in past the Brandt for some rods, and came to anchor ahead of her. Quickly, sails were made snug and lights doused in the cabin, a single small lantern being set for a harbour light. Then the crew of the Mollie gathered for a conference in the cabin.
Jack Harvey, eager to be avenged for his wrongs, was for standing over boldly and attacking the bug-eye then and there; but Will Adams and Edward Warren, older and wiser, were for waiting.
“We’ll never let him sail away,” said Will Adams, reassuringly; “depend on that. But every minute we wait, saves a blow. ”

“ A few days of dredging along Hoopers, and, by the early part of December, she was fully laden. There were a thousand and more bushels of good oysters in her hold. The time for the ending of the first trip was nigh.
Jack Harvey slapped his friend, Edwards, on the shoulder.
“We’ve stuck it out, old chap,” he said, “and we’re alive to tell the tale, in spite of Haley. We’ll get back inside of the month. There’s one thing that that scoundrel, Jenkins, didn’t lie about. Hooray! Why, you’re a better man than when you came aboard, Tom Edwards. You’re stronger, if we have had awful grub.” ”

“ The same smartness that led him to take such advantage of his mother made him very sure that no one on the boat, except, maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. One learns a great deal from a mere tone. Long Jack called over half a dozen more ropes, and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel at ebb-tide, one eye on Tom Platt. ”

“ Ma doesn’t want to leave you behind. If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s to see a woman cry.”
The boy, in return, gave a somewhat contemptuous glance toward the steamship.
“I don’t want to go,” he said. “What’s the fun going to sea in a thing like that? Have to dress up and look nice all the time. If it was only a ship—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish the sentence.
“Jack Harvey!” exclaimed his mother, eying him with great disapproval through her tears, “why did you wear that awful sweater down here, to see us off? If you only knew how you look! I’m ashamed to have folks see you.” ”

“ And so the old crowd—Harvey felt like the most ancient of mariners dropped into the old schooner among the battered dories, while Harvey slipped the stern-fast from the pier-head, and they slid her along the wharf-side with their hands. Every one wanted to say so much that no one said anything in particular. Harvey bade Dan take care of Uncle Salters's sea-boots and Penn's dory-anchor, and Long Jack entreated Harvey to remember his lessons in seamanship ”

“ You’re caught. I’ll shoot the first man that tries to escape.”
The answering voice of Tom Edwards came from the hold.
“I’m down here—Tom Edwards. I’ll come out, all right. Don’t shoot. I’m wedged in here, though. I can’t be quick.”
“Well, the lubber!” exclaimed Haley, in surprise. “You’re the last one I’d have expected—” He broke off and stooped, to peer into the hold.
The next moment, the cook felt himself thrown violently backwards on the deck. The revolver was wrenched from his hand, and Jack Harvey stood over him.
“Don’t you make any cry,” muttered Harvey, “or you’ll get hurt. ”

“ Then it happened that Jack, here,—Jack Harvey,—captured the man, Chambers, in this yacht, down in a thoroughfare below Grand Island. Jack’s boat, the Surprise, was sunk there, when the two yachts crashed together, bow on.”
“Poor old Surprise!” interrupted Jack Harvey.
“Well, then,” continued Henry Burns, “there is a man over at Southport, Squire Brackett, that hates all us boys, just because he is mean. He told Witham, the hotel proprietor, that he had seen us boys in the hotel basement, shortly before the fire ”

“ But he added, as he surveyed the muscular frame of the man forward, “He’s a sure enough good man at the winders, I reckon. I’ll make him earn his board and lodgin,’ if he stays.”
Jim Adams grinned, and showed his fine, white teeth.
“You’re the boy to do it,” commented Haley.
It was afternoon, and the bug-eye, Brandt, was coming up to the Patuxent for a night’s harbour. Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards, eyeing the stranger, who remained sullenly by himself, felt a depression of spirits as they noted the appearance of the man. ”

“ The old house isn’t much to look at, but it don’t leak rain, and it’s warm. You keep the fire going, and I’ll promise you’ll have a dinner that beats dredgin’ grub by a long sight.”
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He went out and left them alone. They sat for a moment in silence. Then Harvey laughed, as he surveyed the dingy room.
“Merry Christmas! Tom,” he said.
It was Tom Edwards’s turn to smile now.
“The same to you, Jack, old boy,” he exclaimed, heartily. “I guess the old cove is right, after all. It does beat Haley’s dredger—but not by such a big margin.” ”

“ It was some moments before either of them could find breath to speak.
“Oh, the brutes!” murmured Tom Edwards, after a time. “How could any human being do a thing like that? They left us to drown, Jack, and didn’t care.”
“Of course they did,” answered Harvey, “and good reason. I know why. Don’t you? Did you see the load they had aboard? They’d been lifting an oyster dump. Some fellow’ll find his week’s tonging of oysters gone, when he looks for them. They were poachers. They’d have killed us in a minute if we’d stood between them and getting away. Cheer up, old Tom. ”

“ Tom Edwards sat up and looked at his friend in astonishment.
“Queer!” repeated Tom Edwards. “Of course I haven’t. You’ve been just the same as ever. Why, what’s the matter, Jack? Are you sick?”
“I guess perhaps I am,” replied Harvey, dully. “I’ve heard about sailors seeing mirages and things that didn’t exist. I saw something on a steamer, as we came in, that couldn’t have been true. I thought I saw some friends of mine that live way up in Benton in the state of Maine. They can’t be down here in winter—hold on, though. They might be, after all. ”

“ But he knew naught of that, nor that the schooner in which he was about to take up his quarters for the night was no more like the Z. B. Brandt than a Pullman is like a cattle-car.
It was with his mind filled with a picture of the voyage soon over and done, and a proud return to Henry Burns and his cronies, that Harvey turned in shortly, on one of the bunks, wrapped himself snugly in a good warm blanket, and went off to sleep. ”

“ Harvey looked closely, and as the fellow came toward him, he recognized him as one of his former employes. He was Jack Hansell—a brother of Tom, and like him a close associate of Hugh O'Hara, the leader.
"You are out late, Jack," remarked the superintendent, as the other left the log. To his surprise, Jack did not answer, but quickly disappeared up the path by which the superintendent had reached the spot.
"He is surly and ill-mannered, like all of them; no doubt he is on his way to the cabin to plot mischief with the others." ”

“ At the end of an hour Harvey would have given the world to rest; for fresh, wet cod weigh more than you would think, and his back ached with the steady pitching. But he felt for the first time in his life that he was one of a working gang of men, took pride in the thought, and held on sullenly.
"Knife oh!" shouted Uncle Salters, at last. Penn doubled up, gasping among the fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple himself, and Long Jack leaned over the bulwarks. The cook appeared, noiseless as a black shadow, collected a mass of backbones and heads, and retreated. ”

“ Harvey and Tom Edwards followed. What they saw was the figure of a man, or youth, lying on a little patch of underbrush, where he had evidently fallen.
The heavy breathing of the person told the three, as they bent over him, that he still lived; but he seemed to be in a sort of stupor. Mr. Stanton turned him over and looked at his face.
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“I knew it,” he said. “He’s a stranger; some poor chap from a dredger, sure as you live. He’s not the first one that’s been put ashore down here. We’ve got to get him into the cabin and give him something hot pretty quick, or we won’t save him.” ”

“ He whistled a tune as the liner went down the harbour, watched the smoke pour in black clouds from its funnel, then turned and walked away from the pier.
A glance at the sturdy figure, as he went along, would have satisfied anyone of the truth of the assertion of Harvey’s father, that he was able to take care of himself. The black sweater, albeit it rested under the disapproval and scorn of Mrs. Harvey, covered a broad, deep chest that indicated vigorous health; his thick winter jacket hung upon shoulders that were rounded and muscular. ”

“ Himself a good sailor of bay craft, and fond of the water, the picturesqueness of these boats attracted Harvey greatly.
They were of an odd type, for the most part, unlike anything he had ever seen in Maine waters, or anywhere else. They were long, shallow, light draft fellows, with no bulwarks; so that as they lay, broadside to the float, one might walk across from one to another, without difficulty. Most of them were sharp at bow and stern. ”