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THE LIBRARY
OF THE


CLASSK8l5t695
BOOK


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\ \ \ ‘41 11'11‘1411111n‘1i41 311:1 fIJIJIai .1.
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Shot after shot replied.
- (See page 238.)


COPYRIGHT, 1898,
B! D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
Printed in the United States of America,


CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGI
I.—A SWIM FOR LIFE . . . . . . . . 1
II.—THE CRUISE OF THE RAFT . . . . . . . 18
III.—THE HALF-WATER FARM . . . . . . . 31
IV.—AFTER DARK . . . . . . . . . 45
V.——THE TANDEM TEAM . . . . . . . . 62
VL—STEYE’S FIRST LUCK . . . . . . . . 74
VIL—STEYE’S TRIBULATION . . . . . . . . 87
VIII.—A NIGHT AND A DAY . . . . . . . . 110
IX—SHUTTLYO OUT THE TIDE . . . . . . . 128
X.—THE SUSPECTED PIRATES . . . . . . . 143
XI.—STEvE AND HIS ORABS . . . . . . . . 155
XII.—-STEVE’S MYSTERY . . . . . . . . . 171
XIII.—A DARK NISHT’S WORK. . . . . . . . . 195
XIV.—A LITTLE TOUCH OF LAW . . . . . . . 210
XV.—THE cAPTURE OF THE PIRATES . . . . . . 227
‘ XVI.—THE END OF SOL AND JIM . . . . . . . 248
XVII.—TEE GREATEST SCHOOL OF ALL . . . . . . 261
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1—1


SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
CHAPTER I.
A SWIM FOR LIFE.
“ THAT wreck hasn’t begun to break up yet.
All this stuff came ashore from out at sea. It was
the biggest kind of gale, though.”
He was a tall, strong-looking young fellow,
with a sunburned face and a pair of very brilliant
black eyes. He was barefooted. He wore a check
shirt and a pair of coarse woolen trousers, and on
his head was a felt hat that was itself somewhat of
a wreck.
He stood upon a sandy beach, and he was
glancing from something that lay at his feet, half
afloat, to something else at a considerable distance
seaward.
Here, partly resting on the sand, was a raft,
made of planks, boards, and bits of broken timber,
1


2 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
all fastened pretty strongly together and to a cen-
tral piece of spar about twenty feet long, the whole
seeming to tell of storms and disasters upon the
ocean. At all events, these were seashore waifs, of
no great apparent value, and by»all coast law and
usage they were the property of any man who
would give the time and toil to gather them.
Away out yonder, just outside of a line of
breakers and boiling surf, stood bolt upright the
hull of a stranded schooner. Her masts were
standing, and there was no sign of human life
upon her or about her. She had plunged her
nose so deeply into the hidden sand bar indicated
by the surf, however, that she could not get away
without help. That sort of bar is one of the dan-
gers to be encountered in approaching the south
coast of Long Island. The beach upon which the 7
boy stood belonged to another sand bar, that
reached many a mile up and down the coast, mak-
ing a long, narrow island, upon which the wind-
blown sand was heaped into ridges and little hills.
Nothing could grow there, and it was a desolate
thing to look at, even under the bright sun of April.
As for the raft, it must have cost a deal of hard
work to put it together.


A SWIM FOR LIFE. 3
“Now,” he said, “this job’s done. Next tide’ll
float it. I’ll be all right if I can get it through
the inlet and into the bay. After that I can get it
home with a good wind and when the tide’s with
me. If I can get it to our place I’ll find out what
to do with it. Timber is timber.”
He did not consider his work finished, evi-
dently, for he ceased staring at the wrecked
schooner and began to tinker the raft here and
there with hammer and nails.
The bar was very narrow at this point, and be-
tween it and Long Island lay the broad, shallow
bay. There are several such sounds between Mon-
tauk Point and Coney Island.
About a quarter of a mile inside the bar, and
in the bay, at low tide, there had been a very low,
flat island of sand, containing about two acres. It
was smaller now, for the tide was rising. On the
bayward shore of it lay a trim white-painted sail-
boat. Her sail was down, and from her mast-
head fiuttered a long blue pennant with a white
star. Nobody was on board of her, but in the
middle of the rapidly disappearing patch of sand
island there stood, or stepped restlessly hither and
thither, a full half dozen of very well-dressed girls.


A SWIM FOR LIFE. 5
“I’ll go and get my boat and bring it around
through the inlet.”
Hammer in hand he set off straight across the
bar, but he was not really going after a boat, what
ever he thought about it. One was there, indeed, a
small but stout-looking yawl boat. He had hauled
it up at low tide upon the bayside beach of the
bar, but it was not now exactly as he had left it.
It had been anchored by a rope to a heavy stone,
carried farther up on shore. It had seemed secure
enough, but there had been a defect in the shape of
the stone, for it tapered and its rope had been too
loosely tied. It lay with its smaller end toward the
boat, and a south wind came and With it the rising
tide. The boat floated, but there need have been no
harm in that. It was expected to do so. The wind
took hold of the boat, pushing and tugging, aided
much by the continual jerky actions of the waves.
The rope slipped and slipped until it slipped oif
altogether over the small end of the three-cornered
stone. Then the boat was free to drift across the bay.
This was the reason why the boy should have
been there sooner, and he discovered it as he came
in sight of it, from the top of a ridge of sand not
far from the shore.


6 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“Loose,” he shouted. “ She’s loose ! How’d it
happen 2 I’ll go for her !”
He was a little excited, of course, but he paused
for a moment by the stone, as if to inquire how the
rope got away. Then, however, he waited for no
undressing, but made a quick run to the beach. It
was wading out for a little distance to deeper
water; then a dash, a splash, and he was swim-
ming vigorously.
“Co-old I” he exclaimed. “Oh, how cold the
water is ! ”
The sun had done very little for it so early in
the spring, and it made him shiver all over until he
grew somewhat accustomed to it. He was a prime
good swimmer and he made fair headway, but there
was a danger before him. The south Wind had
taken a firm hold of his boat and was now urging
it on, over wave after wave, with steady, persistent
shoving. There was a kind of heartless mockery
about it, as the swimmer’s head arose above the
billows, so that he could see his rocking little craft
carried away.
“ It’s going to be a long tug, but I’ll reach
her!” he exclaimed aloud. “I couldn’t swim
across the bay, though. If this isn’t rough!”


A SWIM FOR LIFE. 7
His sunburned face had a strong-willed, reso-
lute expression, and his dark eyes had a brave light
in them. Somehow or other he looked handsomer,
as he reached out so courageously, with his bril-
liant eyes fixed upon his fugitive yawl.
The small sand bar island upon which the Six
girls had been stranded lay somewhat easterly, and
at first he took no note of it. He was not thinking
of islands or of girls or of anything else but his
boat.
The very wind was warm and kindly ; the sun-
shine was bright, the blue waves danced and
laughed; but all the while the tide—the pitiless,
heartless tidewwas rising steadily. The sand area
was lessening, and the youngest of the girls knew
as well as did the older precisely what was meant
by the creeping inward and upward of the lapping,
foaming, Shining lines of water.
On swam the boy.
“ The waves are rougher out here,” he said.
“It’s harder swimming. I’ve been head under half
a dozen times. I don’t know how, much longer I
can stand this. Glad mother doesn’t know. It’d
be rough on her if I shouldn’t come back home.
I won’t drown! But how that boat does go 1 ”


8 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
’Twas the wind that was doing it—the warm
south wind from the tropics that was blowing so
pleasantly over all the farms and villages of Long
Island.
Less than half an acre now remained of the
little island, and that must soon be covered. Some
of the larger waves. were pushing their long,
white fingers threatenineg toward the feet of the
girls.
“ Look ! look!” suddenly shouted one of them.
“ There’s a boat ! ”
“ Where—where is it ? ”
“There! Yes, I see it. But there’s nobody in
it. It’s adrift!”
“We shall all be drowned!”
“Somebody’s got to come pretty soon,” whim-
pered the smallest girl. “I wish they’d come right
away. I don’t see what we’re going to do.”
“0 mother! mother!” almost screamed the
tallest of them all.
The runaway yawl had now drifted well out
into the bay, but it was also nearer their island.
So was the swimmer who was going after it.
“See that boy!” shouted the little girl.
“There goes his head! He’s swimming. He’ll


A SWIM FOR LIFE. 9
come for us as soon as he gets his boat. But he
ought to hurry up.”
“Oh dear! \Vhat if it should get away from
him!” came from the tall girl. “Then he’d be
drowned, too.”
They were all watching him now, and their
first chorus of excited exclamations was followed
by an almost breathless silence as their eyes fol~
lowed the slow, toilsome, all but desperate eiforts
0f the brave young swimmer. Neither the wind
nor the water showed him any favor. Higher and
rougher rolled the billows of the bay. Cold spray
dashed over his dripping head. Still the light
shone steadily in his eyes and his brown face was
as resolute as when he had plunged into the chilly
sea. .
“ Steve Hendricks!” shouted the little girl.
“He’ll get it if anybody can. He can swim first-
rate. There! Oh dear! He went under! N0,
he’s out again. Oh my!”
“ I’m getting tired,” was the thought that just
then was uppermost in the mind of Steve. “If I
should tire out I’d go down like a stone. One
more push!”
His head went under a wave for a moment,
2


10 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
and when he came out again a flaw of the Wind
had whirled the boat.
“Got her!” he hoarsely exclaimed. “ Hold
hard now. I mustn’t upset her. Hurrah ! ”
The hurrah was husky, and now the hardest
elfort yet made was that of getting into the boat.
A kindly wave helped him, lifting him, and on its
crest he struggled for a moment with all his re-
maining strength. Over the gunwale he scram-
bled, and he had to lie still upon the bottom of
the boat to recover his breath before doing any-
thing more.
“I’m here,” he thought. “I didn’t but just
make it out. I almost gave it up. Now I’ll take
the oars and work this chill off.”
He staggered up to a seat and put the oars into
the rowlocks.
“Hello!” he almost instantly exclaimed.
“What are those girls doing? There’s a reg’lar
crowd of ’em.”
What were they doing? They were absolutely
cheering him, and they were swinging their para-
sols and handkerchiefs. At the same time they
were calling to him, at the top of their voices, to
come and help them, but he could not make out a


A SWIM FOR LIFE. 11
word of what they said. Still he could see that
they were behaving remarkably and that they
were keeping it up.
“I don’t know what to make of it,” muttered
Steve. “Wonder if they’re in any kind of scrape.
I hate girls, but I’ll pull near enough to find out if
they want anything of me. Girls are kind 0’ silly
on the water.”
He had begun to ply his oars, but at first it
seemed as if his chilled hands had no grip in them,
Pull after pull aided in restoring Warmth and cir-
culation, however, and in a minute or so he was
rowing very well in spite of a chattering tendency
in his jaws.
“ That raft of mine can’t float away to sea
against a southerly wind,” he remarked. “It’ll
be there when I come for it. But I’ve got to
see what’s the matter with those girls.”
He was rapidly drawing nearer to the fast-van-
ishing island. It did him good to row his boat,
and the south wind also was warming him.
“ I shouldn’t wonder if something’s the mat-
ter about their sailboat,” he muttered. “Just as
likely as not they think it wouldn’t be sate for
them to try and manage it in this wind. I can


A SWIM FOR LIFE. 13
“ Can you mend her so she’ll float ? ” asked the
taller girl.
“Of course I can,” replied Steve. “That
sprung strip’s away up on the larboard side.
You were on that tack when it broke loose. If
you’d ha’ been on the other tack that hole would
ha’ been up out 0’ water. I’ll fasten it and bail
her out and you can sail right home. Guess I’d
better sail her myself, though. This Wind’s com-
ing on to blow right fresh.”
“Oh, we wish you would. We wouldn’t dare
to try it,” she said. “But can’t we get over to
the bar now in your boat? See how the tide is
rising!”
“ That boat!” he exclaimed ruefully. “ It isn’t
safe with more than three in it with the water as
rough as it is. I’ll take two of you now when I
go for the hammer.”
They all went with him to his yawl, for not
one was willing to remain another minute upon
that vanishing island.
“Steve had better take Hatty Robbins and
Sarah Jenks this time,” remarked the little girl.
“ They’re awful scared. I ain’t; that is, I ain’t
scared now Steve’s got here.”


14 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“You’re safe enough,” said Steve, “but it’s a
good thing for you that I caught up with my boat.
There wasn’t any need of your drowning either.
The fact is, girls don’t know anything about
boats.”
They resented that assertion sharply, declaring
that they had been out in sailboats on the bay
hundreds of times.
“ But you didn’t know enough,” he said, “to
swing the boat to the other tack and lift that leak
out 0’ water.”
“ No, we didn’t!” snapped the tall girl. “It
makes me mad to think of it. Such gumps! To
drown for nothing ! ”
Steve did not try to change the selection of
passengers made by little Letty, but the two girls
who were to go had to get into his boat without
any help. He seemed to be afraid to touch them,
and they found their own way to the back seat.
In a moment more he was rowing vigorously.
“I must be looking like a scarecrow,” he said
to himself. “But this Wind’s drying me. I don’t
care a cent how I look.”
Nevertheless one of the girls he had left be-
hind him was just then remarking:


16 suoonss AGAINST onus.
“It may leak some, but not much,” he said.
“That isn’t the worst of it. She’s stuck now, but
she’ll float pretty soon. How this tide is rising!
Those girls ! ”
“Don’t stop to bail her out!” exclaimed the
tall girl. “Can’t I take your boat and go——”
“Not now,” said he sharply. “Water’s too
rough. Get into her, some of you. Oh, what’ll I
do? You mustn’t all try to get in.”
“Stephen,” said a shorter, dark-eyed girl, who
as yet had hardly said anything, “take Lou and
Mary and Letty; I’ll stay by the sailboat till you
come back. I can bai .”
“Good!” shouted Steve. “Hester \Varren,
you’re a trump!”
“Hester,” said Lou, the tall girl, “I don’t want
to leave you here.”
“ You must!” replied Hester. “ It won’t hurt
me. Go right along.”
She was two years younger than either Lou or
Mary, but she was red-cheeked, with a resolute
pair of red lips, and her eyes were flashing a
little.
“Don’t wait,” she said. “I’m going to stand
by Stephen.”


CHAPTER II.
THE CRUISE OF THE RAFI‘.
A LONG- mile away easterly on the ocean side
of the great bar, at the hour when Steve set out
with his first boatload of rescued girls, a heavy-
looking fishing boat lay half pulled up among heaps
of seaweed. At her prow sat a man who gazed
listlessly along the bar all the while as if he were
waiting for somebody. He was a long, thin, sal-
low-faced man, and he sat leaning over, half sug-
gesting the idea that it was his nature to be
crooked.
“What on yearth Sol went away fur, I don’t
know,” he remarked. “Time he was back ag’in.
Sol’s est the slowest, laziest, good-for-nawthin’ ”
There he stopped, for he now could see another
man plodding along the hard sand of the ocean
beach.
This was a short, squarely built, round-shoul-

18


THE CRUISE OF THE RAFT. 19
dered man, with shaggy black hair and a gray-
black, bushy beard. His eyes had a half-shut
look under his jutting brows, as if the sunshine
were too much for them. His hands were in his
pockets as he walked, and he laughed aloud as if
something pleased him very much.
“Some feller’s put in a heap 0’ work,” he solilo-
quized, “a-getherin’ of that stuff all along shore.
It’s put together good enough, too. Now, he’d
never know them timbers ag’in if they got away
from him—leastwise he couldn’t swear to ’em if
they was took somewhere else an’ scattered. It’ll
float at high tide. Jim an’ me can hitch on an’
tow it inter the bay and anywhere we like. We
must git to it in short order, though. It’s worth
goin’ fur, and it’s as much our’n as it is his’n if we
kin git away with i .”
The man at the fishing boat was not an impa-
tient fellow, for he sat and waited as if time were
of small account, now that he knew that somebody
was really coming. The boat itself was a good
one, and on the bottom of it lay several bushels of
clams, as if to tell what these two men were there
for; but the turn of the tide had ended their clam
hoeing.


20 succEss AGAINST onns.
Sol drew gradually nearer, but he was at least
six rods away when he began to tell his partner
about the raft.
“Jim,” he shouted, “I’ve been there. It’s jest
awaitin’ fur us all ready. This tide’ll float it.
Nobody to hender. Not a soul at the schooner
wreck that I kin see. We kin run that .raft
through the inlet and across the bay a-kitin’.”
“That’s what you went away for, is it 2 ” re-
sponded Jim. “It’s kind 0’ risky for you or me to
be seen around about there these days.”
“They can’t suspect us no more’n they kin any-
body else,” said Sol. “Why, you know we kin
prove we were away over in Turneyville. That’s
right. Come on. It makes me laugh, though, to
think 0’ what he’ll say when he comes after the
raft. He’s been and gone and saved you and me
a heap 0’ hard work.”
“ Heave ahead!” said Jim. “I’m with ye.
Timber’s timber nowadays. On’y you and I had
best keep shy o’ the neighborhood 0’ that there
wreck for a while.”
“We don’t want to go anigh it,” responded
Sol. “There’s goin’ to be the biggest kind 0’ stir
made about the stuff they missed.” ‘


THE CRUISE OF THE RAFT. 21
Some secret they seemed to have between them
that related to the schooner on the bar, but they
exchanged more of nods and winks than they did
of spoken words concerning it. Whatever may
have been the nature of that secret—whether good
or bad—they were planning now an out and out
theft. They shoved off their clam boat and took
the oars, but they needed to be the very good boat-
men that they were. The surf line, as it is some-
times called—the line of high-dashing breakers
where the Atlantic billows begin to foam away—-
was nearly a mile to seaward, but good-sized
“rollers” were coming from it toward the beach,
and some of them were quite large enough to have
rolled a fishing yawl over and over.
“The more I think on it,” said Jim, “the better
I like it. We was needin’ timber.”
“ Wait till you see that raft,” replied Sol.
“Pull, then!” shouted Jim. “Time’s worth
sumthin’. If we ain’t prompt the feller may come
and hitch on to it before we git there.”
The other fellow of whom he spoke, the boy
who had so toilsomely gathered and put together
that raft, was not coming for it right away. He
was going forward with his more important task


22 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
of rescuing six girls from drowning. Five of them
were already on the great bar and the sixth was
in the sailboat. She had ceased trying to bale out
water, and she sat in the stern holding on hard,
and watching Steve as he pulled toward her in his
boat.
“The water’s pretty rough out in the bay,” he
was thinking. “But Bob Matthews’s yacht ought
to be safe enough. She used to be the Sally, but
he named her the Sea Gull when he traded for
her. I can sail her, but I’ll have to leave my raft
for to-day. I’ll just run over, though, and take a
look to make sure it’s safe.”
“Steve! Stephen!” shouted Hester Warren
from the Sea Gull. “Do come! This thing is
pitching around so I can’t bail. I got out some of
the water.”
“We won’t try to bail her clean till we get her
to the bar,” shouted back Steve. “She won’t
pitch so after the sail’s up.”
Hester’s red cheeks were as rosy as ever, but
she drew a long breath of relief when Steve
reached the Sea Gull. He came to the stern of
her, but it was only to throw the long hitching
rope of his yawl on board the sailboat.


24 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“Glad it held,” he said, “or she’d ha’ been
swept away. Now for that tiller! Quick!”
He was at the stern like a flash, for the Sea
Gull was leaning over dangerously in a strong
puff of wind. Hester had shut her lips hard, and
had gripped the boat rail with all her might, but in
a moment more the really stanch little craft
obeyed her rudder. Away she went shoreward,
while all the girls on the beach were trying to
hurrah.
“ He’s bringing all the water in her,” said Letty,
“but I’m glad he’s bringing Hester too. Now we
can all go home.”
“I don’t know how to thank him,” said Lou,
thoughtfully. “We’d have been drowned—Letty
and l and all of us. Mother’d have been left all
alone, and Mrs. Robbins too. Mrs. Warren has
four other children, but Hester’s the best of ’em
all. Wasn’t it awful, though, to stand right there
waiting, and almost expecting to be drowned!”
“Don’t!” exclaimed Hatty. “I don’t want to
think of it. Here they come!”
The Sea Gull swept nearer rapidly, but Steve
was careful, as he said, not to run her nose into
the sand so deep that he couldn’t shove her ofi.


THE CRUISE OF THE RAFT. 25
“ She’ll do—soon as she’s bailed,” he told the
girls. “But I want to run across the bar and
take a look at my raft.”
“We’ll bail while you’re gone,” they all said,
and as he hurried away it was Mary Robbins who
added:
“There! I’m glad he went! I won’t try to
thank him just yet.”
“I won’t,” said Letty. “Not till after we get
home. Mother knows how.”
Time had gone by, a great deal of it, while all
this rescuing went on, and S01 and Jim had rowed
their best. They had found Steve’s raft all afloat,
rocking uneasily at its moorings, as if it wished to
get away.
“Bully!” exclaimed Jim. “Hitch on. We’ll
git ketched if we don’t push out 0’ this kind 0’
speedy.”
Sol stepped out upon the raft, with his long
iron-pointed “setting pole” in his hand, and a
rope.
“Hitched!” he shouted shortly. “Row, Jim.
I’ll pole her ofishore. Now for the inlet. The
water’s smoother along here, or we couldn’t do it.”
The inlet, or passage through the bar, was at
a


26 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
no great distance. Steve himself had remarked of
it, when he was considering what to do with his
raft, that it was a new opening which had been
stormed through the bar during the previous win-
ter. Some other storms might close it up again,
or else it might be washed wider and deeper, and
become a permanent channel, like a number of
others between the ocean and the bay. At pres-
ent it had a breadth of about thirty yards at the
narrowest. It was a crooked, shallow little strait,
but just now the tide was rushing through it like
a millrace.
Sol kept his footing upon the plunging, teeter-
ing raft remarkably well, like the experienced
boatman that he was. Part of the steering of it
was done by Jim and his towing, but more by the
long pole by which the clumsy structure was kept
from swinging ashore. It was a task plainly
which no fellow like Steve could possibly have
managed unless in quieter water. The south
wind and the waves would have been too much
for him. They were almost too much for Jim and
S01, strong as they seemed to be, but the head of
the inlet was reached. After that there was little
need for towing. The swift rushing of the cur-


THE CRUISE OF THE RAFT. 27
rent swept the raft along rapidly, and her two
thieves laughed aloud with exultation.
“ We’ve hooked it,” said Sol. “Prime lot 0’
timber.”
“ Oh, but won’t somebody be mad,” responded
Jim, “ when he comes pokin’ along after his raft.
Once it’s in the bay he kin say good-by to it.
Nobody livin’ kin tell him where it’s gone to.”
Not so much “mad ” as terribly grieved and
astonished was poor Steve when he reached the
ocean beach.
“ Just one look,” he said, “and then I’ll hurry
back and sail those girls home. What? Gone?
All in a minute! Who on earth could ha’ been
mean enough to steal that raft? How’d they
do it Q ”
He stood still a whole minute more, staring at
the spot where it had been. It had not broken
to pieces, he was sure, for not a fragment could be
seen along the beach.
“Whoever did it,” he said at last, “ took it
through the inlet. Now! I’m going to follow it
up. I won’t say a word, not even to the girls,
but I’ll get it again. You see if I don’t!”
Steve’s blood was up thoroughly, and his eyes


28 SUCCESS AGAINST onns.
were brighter than ever as he turned away to re-
cross the bar. Not another word did he utter,
however, until he reached the Sea Gull and looked
into her.
“Why!” he exclaimed. “If you girls haven’t
bailed her free ! That’s tiptop. Now get in and
I’ll shove her off. We’ll just tow my boat.”
In they went, and they did not seem inclined
to talk. After all that had happened that day
the bay before them had a very wide billowy look,
and they had about lost their confidence in the sea-
going qualities of the Sea Gull.
Steve had not lost his, perhaps, but he kept the
reef in the sail, and he was evidently disposed to
do his tacking and steering with the greatest care.
“I won’t upset ’em,” he thought; “but those
fellows away to leeward yonder have my raft in
tow. They’re heading right across the bay. I
mean to keep sight of ’em just as long as I can.
They can do my towing for me, but I’ll beat ’em
somehow.”
Sol and Jim believed they were towing for
their own benefit, and it looked as if they were
reasoning pretty correctly. The tide was not help-
ing them a great deal now, but the wind was in


THE CRUISE OF THE RAFT. 29
their favor. S01 had returned into the boat, so
that two oars were going. Of course they saw
the Sea Gull, but they could not care much for a
yacht load of girls out a-pleasuring. Nobody in
that sailboat, they knew, could possibly have had
anything to do with a raft picked up by them on
the ocean side of the great bar. Neither did they
think it noticeable for such a craft to tack about
frequently and to fly past them several times at no
' great distance.
“ We’re just having a splendid sail,” Letty re-
marked, “but the boat might leak again. I want
to go home.”
So they all felt and so they all said, but Steve
was silent.
“I know who those fellows are,” he was think-
ing. “ They’ll head for our creek. They won’t
get there much before night. How to get it away
from them I don’t see. I will, though. They’re
the meanest pair alongshore! Both of ’em have
been in jail. It’s my raft, not theirs.”
At all events he had now settled an important
point in his own mind. His next tack was not at
all like the others. Out came the reef from the
sail and away sped the Sea Gull at her best rate,


30 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
flying along in a way that made some of the girls
utter exclamations.
“We’re headed right for the creek now,” was
Steve’s explanation. “We’ll be there in no time,
safe as a drum.”
“ Sol,” said Jim, “ this ’ere’s the most like hard
work that you and I’ve done this long time, but
I guess it’s worth it.”
“’Twill be as soon’s we git to the creek,” re-
sponded Sol, “but I don’t feel quite safe till we’re
clean across the bay. We’d better pull our level
best.”
“We won’t take it in by daylight,” said Jim.
“ We might git sighted and told on. Say next
high tide tonight. We can’t handle it in the
creek on a low tide.”
“We’ll kind 0’ think it over,” came slowly
back from his partner, “but this ’ere’s awful hard
pullin’.”


CHAPTER HI.
THE HALF-WATER FARM.
THERE was a very light-hearted party now in
the dancing Sea Gull. The girls had recovered
their spirits. As for Steve at the tiller, he was
conscious of two very strong feelings. One was
of exhilaration, for he was really glad to have
rescued such a fine lot of girl passengers. Side
by side with that sensation, however, was a
kind of nervous shiver, for the thought would
come——
“ Their folks’ll be waiting for ’em and they’ll
all tell on me. Everybody’ll know just what has
happened. Guess I can get away, though. I can
land ’em at the wharf, and I can have my boat
ready. They shan’t catch me. And perhaps they
won’t be there. It’s awful !”
He could see, moreover, as he glanced behind
him, that Jim and Sol were making very good
31


34 succnss AGAINST cons.
a width of sixty feet, whatever it might dwindle
to when the tide was out of it.
In a minute or so a watcher on the bay could
have seen only the upper half of the sail of the
Sea Gull as she followed the many crooks and
twists of that channel. Somewhat less than a mile
beyond her in a straight line there actually was a
solid shore—the shore of Long Island. Here, too,
there was about an acre of open water, making a
place for a little harbor at the head of the creek.
A long wharf, decayed and old and rickety-look-
ing, lined the shore. From it extended for a dozen
yards an equally ancient pier of logs and cobble-
stones. Several sailboats, larger and smaller, were
moored here and there, and there must have been
more than a dozen rowboats of all sorts and sizes.
Beyond the wharf the shore rose pretty steeply,
and it was covered by the scattered houses and
gardens of a great, straggling village. There was
but one main street, and it came down through the
middle of the village to end at the wharf.
This was Turneyville, and there were many
other villages very much like it all along the coast.
There were farms also, and a road ran along
crookedly out of the village both ways to visit


THE HALF—WATER FARM. 35
those farms. One mile, that wound a good deal,
east of Turneyville there was another wharf,
another pier, and another smaller patch of open
water. This wharf consisted mainly of a few old
logs, and the pier was a long plank, the outer end
of which rested on a crosspiece nailed between a
couple of fence rails driven down into the mud.
Behind this wharf and pier there was no vil-
lage—nothing but one dingy, tired-out-looking
house, with some tumble-down barns, a pigpen, a
hencoop, an orchard of scrawling apple trees, and
an old wagon sound asleep this side of the biggest
barn. In all directions landward were fields with
tattered fences and yet more tattered hedges of
trees, brambles, and brushwood. There was a
wide reach of what seemed to be only another
kind of swamp, and the whole picture was framed
with dense woods, which now were leafless. The
soil, too, wherever there was no grass, seemed
to consist more of sand and gravel than of any-
thing else. On the whole, the idea presented was
that if this was to be called a farm, then the more
of it there might be the poorer would be the
owner. It was a Long Island ’longshore sand
farm, and the size of it could hardly be guessed at,


36 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
for, if the swamp and all was to be reckoned in,
there might be a thousand acres, not to speak of
the sea marsh that extended to the bay and that
belonged to this farm. Right up to the open
water at the wharf there came one end of a narrow,
black-looking channel, all the rest of which was
hidden by the rushes.
The house was on a knoll a hundred yards
back from the wharf. It was a queer affair, a
story and a half high in front toward the land,
one story only in the rear, with a steep roof that
slanted back more and more gently until it ended
almost level. There were three chimneys, one on
each side and one at the rear, all outside of the
woodwork, and at every lower window there were
solid shutters, which had once been painted green.
The little windows in the upper story had no
shutters, and their panes of glass were not only
small but very much mended, excepting two or
three that were entirely out.
The back door of the house was open. On one
side of it stood all that was left of an ancient cook-
ing stove; on the other side a washtub sat on a
bench, and in front of that stood a tall, dark-eyed,
middle-aged woman gazing out at the sea marsh.


THE HALF—WATER FARM. 37
“ What on earth has become of that boy 2 ” she
exclaimed; but the expression of her face was
more of weariness or sadness than of energy.
“ His father’ll be home pretty soon. But what
are he and I to do with Steve? He’s growing,
growing taller and taller, but he isn’t going to have
any chance in life. I do so want him to be some-
thing.”
There was a great deal of refinement in her
voice and manner, rough as were her hands and poor
as was her dress. Her eyes were very like Steve’s,
and there was some of the same brilliancy in them.
“ I’m glad the girls are married,” she said aloud,
“even if they did go West. I wish they weren’t
quite so far away sometimes. Things have been
against Fred and me year after year. Poverty isn’t
any disgrace, but it’s awful that we can’t even
send Steve to school. I don’t care! I’ve taught
him everything that I know. Let me see. Have
I? Is there anything else that I know that I
haven’t taught him? No, there isn’t. His father
has done all he could, too, but it isn’t like real
schooling. It won’t give him any chance in life.
Oh dear! I don’t wonder that Fred is discour-
aged. Such a farm as this is!”


THE HALF-WATER FARM. 39
gals have her ag’in and ag’in. She’s a right good
boat, unless they upset her.”
“There wasn’t any too much wind to-day,” re-
marked his mate. “We jest kem across the bay
a-kitin’. Best seine haul there’s been made this
spring, too. Look at ’em! Sam Fox’ll have a
heapin’ load to haul to Brantford, an’ to-morrer’s
Friday.”
“There’s loads 0’ Friday religion into Brant-
ford,” responded the man indicated as Sam Fox,
and Bob Matthews added :
“But I know fellers there that’s pious enough
to eat fish every day in the year if they kin get
credit for ’em. Tell ye what, though, fish is fetchin’
good prices jest now.”
The demand was to be met by a pretty good
supply evidently, even after each of the four fish-
ermen had taken out his own home allowance and
presents had been made to some of their neighbors.
These apparently were for the most part small-
sized—the fish, not the neighbors.
Sea bass, blackfish, bluefish, weakfish, porgies,
flounders, and miscellaneous small fry made up
the remarkable haul. Any such actual trash as
had been in the net had been picked out at the


4O SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
ocean beach where the net hauling had been
done.
“That’s for you, Hendricks,” said Bob, as he
threw a last blackfish upon one of the four home
piles. “We mostly hev good luck when you’re
along. I’m comin’ for ye next time we go.”
Only a nod replied, but as Hendricks stooped
to string his fish for carrying he muttered to him-
self:
“ Luck? What’s luck? I never had any since
I was born. Everything has always gone against
me, no matter what I did or what I tried to do.”
His three associates, with help from bystanders,
were already transferring the cargo of fish, assorted
for sale in Brantford, into a wagon which had been
backed down toward them. The horse in front of
the wagon had also been backed down with some
difliculty.
It might have occurred to a critic, however,
that too good and lucky a haul of the Turneyville
seine would hardly be good luck for that turnout.
Too much fish might threaten ruin entirely to one
or more of those wheels, or to the spring-kneed
. fore legs of that nag.
Hendricks arose from stringing his fish and


THE HALF—WATER FARM. 41
stood looking out toward the harbor. He was
dressed very much as were the other fishermen,
but his face was not exactly in accord with his
dress. Their faces were even happy in consider-
ation of their good luck. Such a haul as that was
all that their ideas of the earthly success belong-
ing to them demanded. His face was anything
rather than happy or contented, but it brightened
a little at that moment.
“This is getting dreadful!” he heard. “I’m
almost sure something’s happened to those girls !”
“Awfulest thing that ever happened in Tur-
neyville !” added a somewhat thunderous, but sol-
emnly mournful voice. “ Six of the most promising
girls of the whole community! All drowned in
the bay, and not even their bodies can be recov-
”

ered, most likely. Melancholy occurrence
“ Dr. Kedzie ! Don’t—”
“ There they come,” interrupted Hendricks.
“ Shut up, Dr. Kedzie. You’re a humbug. That’s
the sail o’ the Sea Gull, Mrs. Mott. She’s coming
right in, girls and a .”
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed Mrs. Mott, and
the woman next her added :
“Hester was with ’em, too.”
4


42 succnss AGAINST ODDS.
“You don’t know yet, not surely, but that some
of ’em perished in the sea,” said Dr. Kedzie en-
couragingly. “You never can quite account for
these catastrophes, but they must come.”
He was an enormously large man, and he wore
a tall stovepipe hat which increased him. So did
the extreme dignity of his manner and the somber
gravity of his smooth, round, closely shaven face.
He had on a very long, loose black overcoat, and
he was cloudy, if not chilly, to look at.
“ Hullo !” shouted Bob Matthews. “If that
there isn’t Steve Hendricks a-steerin’. The young
snipe! How on yearth did he git to ’em? But
he’s a prime good hand with a boa .”
“They don’t seem to be all there,” remarked
Dr. Kedzie. “ We shall soon know how many are
missing.”
“ Six ! That’s all ! ” replied Hester’s mother,
smiling all over her face. “ Mrs. Mott, there’s
Letty.”
“Guess they’ve been havin’ a good time,” said
Bob, “and they was real smart to take Steve along;
but how they got him I don’t know.”
“Nor I either,” remarked Steve’s father. “But
there they do come.”


THE HALF-WATER FARM. 43
Up the channel steadily the Sea Gull had sailed,
and she had been deftly handled by Steve around
all the many windings. There were other channels
branching off on either side of the main creek, and
some of them were quite respectable in size. Prob-
ably the marshes along the Long Island coast were
all laid out, with their branching creeks and their
tides and the bay, for the convenience of the dwell-
ers along the solid shore.
“ I say,” suddenly exclaimed Steve, but not to
any girl in particular, “ we’re ’most in. Soon’s we
get to the pier I must take my boat and hurry
home. Mother wants me ”
No direct reply was made, for the Sea Gull
was shooting out into the harbor in front of
the Turneyville wharf, and Letty shouted at
once:
“ There they are ! Your mother and my mother
and lots of folks. I guess they were afraid about
us. They needn’t ha’ been. We were all safe as
soon as Steve got there.”
The other girls were silent, as the sail came
down and the Sea Gull, more slowly, swept along
to the side of the pier. Quite a number of people
were on it now, and among them was Bob Mat-


44 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
thews, ready to catch the painter of his yacht when
Steve threw its end to him.
“ She’s all right, Bob,” he said. “But you’ve
got to fasten that strip forward 0’ the mast. It’s
sprung. I coopered it up for to-day, but it needs
nailing and caulking.”
“ All right,” replied Bob. “ Glad you was
with ’em in so fresh a wind.”
In an instant Steve was in his own boat, and as
he picked up an oar he sang out a little anxiously:
“ Father, fetch your fish around to t’other side
0’ the pier. I want to see you right away.”
Curiously enough, some of the people on the
pier were cheering and some were swinging hand-
kerchiefs.
“ Girls !” exclaimed Letty. “Now I know they
were scared. Oh, but haven’t we lots to tell ’em !
We’d all ha’ drownded if it hadn’t been for Steve.
Mother ! here I am 1”
And her mother on the pier held out a pair of
open arms and said : -
“ Thank Heaven ! You little blessing! I was
almost afraid you wouldn’t ever come.”


CHAPTER IV.
AFTER DARK.
THE load of fish was about to move in the di-
rection of Sam Fox’s house, where ice and boxes
were awaiting its arrival, when a boat came hurry-
ing, hard-pulled, toward the pier.
“ Sam! Sam Fox!” shouted one of its two
rowers. “Clams! Bushels of ’em. Hold on!”
“ Fetch ’em to my house or leave ’em at the
wharf,” shouted back Sam. “It won’t do to stop
this ’ere hoss at the bottom of the hill. He’s jest
gettin’ started.”
“They couldn’t start him ag’in,” was the com-
ment of more than one bystander.
“ Sol,” said Jim, “that’s good enough. Now
they all know we’re here. Load ’em over into
his clam box and get ’em to his house in the
mornin’.”
“ Jesso,” replied S01, “and we needn’t stir to
, 45


46 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
that raft till everything’s quiet and all the boats
are safe tied up. We’re safe then.”
So they believed, but there were sharp eyes
upon them. Steve had tumbled into his boat and
had pulled it around to the head of the pier while
the girls were making their explanations and being
hugged by their mothers. Here was his father
now, carrying the handsome string of fish.
“ Father,” exclaimed Steve, “get in quick!
Some 0’ those women’ll be after me.”
“Stephen,” replied his father sternly, “what
have you been doing? No; I must wait and hear
their account of it. I am ashamed of you! Girls,
too! I’ve brought you up the best I could, situ-
ated as I’ve been. You knew better ”
“Steve! Stephen! Steve! Don’t go!” came
loudly from voices on the pier at the moment,
while Mr. Hendricks was taking down his fish
into the boat.
“ Hester’s been telling me ”
“ I want to go !” exclaimed Steve.
“You shall not stir a peg,” said his father with
grim determination. “ Mrs. Warren, I am exceed-


ingly sorry for his conduct. I wish you would
tell me just how it was.”


AFTER DARK. 47
“Steve!” shouted Letty from a little behind
Mrs. Warren. “I told ’em! Here’s Mrs. Robbins
and Mrs. Mott and lots of ’em. They feel awful
”

good toward you
“ O Mr. Hendricks!” exclaimed the woman in-
dicated by Letty as Mrs. Mott. “Only to think
of it!”
“ Stephen, I’ll attend to you for this when we
get home,” came savagely from his father.
“They’d all have been drowned but for him,”
half sobbed Mrs. Robbins.
“Steve’s a trump,” shouted a man’s voice.
“ He swam halfway ’cross the bay to save them
77

there gals
“ Father,” groaned Steve. “Come right along.
It wasn’t anything.”
“We’d ha’ drownded! ” added Letty. “But I
wasn’t scared a mite !”
“ I won’t stay!” declared Steve, and his father
nearly went overboard, so sudden and so vigorous
was his son’s pull at the oars.
“ Ah l—oh ! ” he said. “It’s better than I
thought it was. Mrs. Warren, I’d really like to
know. Hold on, Steve. There. I’m glad I didn’t
77

pitch over in


48 suocnss AGAINST onus.
Something like a volley of thanks and praise
was firing away at poor Steve from the skirmishers
on the pier, but he heard Mrs. Mott remarking
loudly:
“Oh dear me! I want to get Letty home.
Tell Steve I’ll see him again.”
“That’s it, father,” said Steve. “Let’s go. I’ll
tell you. Come on. I’ve a grist of things to tell.
There are Jim and S01. We must get olf before
they do.” .
Mr. Hendricks was puzzled, but he made no
further objection, and Steve rowed his best. They
could hear Mr. Robert Matthews, however, inform-
ing that entire assembly:
“Why, don’t ye know? Steve’d ruther be shot
at than stay to be talked to by women folks. He’s
awful bashful.”
Many tongues were busy with the story of the
sand bar island and the dreadful escape. In some
of the shapes that it was made to take it appeared
as if Steve had swam across the great bar, waded
out into the bay, held up the Sea Gull while he
mended her, or else had paddled around her,
hammer in hand, to remedy her defects. It was
mixed.


AFTER DARK. 49
“Tell me just how it happened,” his father
said to him, half across the little harbor. “I
don’t wonder you wanted to get away, though. I
would. Glad the seine haul was a good one, too.”
“ Pretty good luck,” said Steve, “but mine’s
just as good if we can get hold of that raft again.
They ran it into the creek somewhere, and we can
find it. I know we can.”
“What raft?” asked his father, and then the
entire story came along rapidly.
“Well!” exclaimed Mr. Hendricks at last. “If
I ain’t glad you saved those girls! Everybody
will think well of you for that. But about that
raft. I hardly know what use we can make of it.
S01 and Jim might put in a claim on it.”
“ No, they can’t, father,” said Steve. “It’s
mine. I gathered it. It’s out here somewhere.
Now’s our time. Let’s go for it. The side chan-
nel to their place is away beyond ours. They
pulled in to put their clams ashore.”
Mr. Hendricks was disposed to doubt and to
argue, but Steve was all the while rowing and
asserting the great value of the lot of timber he
had gathered.
“That’s the mouth of their creek,” his father


5O SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
was saying. “There isn’t a sign of any raft. Of
course, they took it home, first thing.”
“Didn’t have time,” exclaimed Steve, as he
swung the head of his yawl out of the main
creek into a narrow channel which branched
away westward. “ They couldn’t ha’ taken it far.”
“That’s so!” suddenly shouted his father.
“Yonder it is. Blocks the way. They thought
they’d hidden it. Quick, Steve, I’m with you!
It’s ours ! ” '
The first actual sight of Steve’s prize had
awakened all the ’longshore wrecker spirit within
him. So it had in Steve.
“Take the oars, father,” he said. “Hitch on.
I’ll take the pole and shove her off. She isn’t
stuck hard.”
He was on the raft in a twinkling, and then
their hard work began. It had indeed been a
great saving to have employed Sol and Jim, the
south wind, and the tide to bring that raft all the
way across the bay. It was already growing dark,
however, and careful poling was called for. Still,
it was nearly high tide, and the creek was at its
best width. So was the farther side channel
toward the Hendricks place when they reached it.


AFTER DARK. 51
“Safe now!” said Mr. Hendricks, “but I
reckon we’ve made a pretty close shave of it.
Shove her along!”
Steve was poling steadily, and all he replied
was:
“Keep still, father. Seems to me I can hear
oars. It might be them. They’d follow us sure.”
Slow enough was the movement of the raft,
but it was a hundred yards inside of the Hen-
dricks creek and around a bend, when the sound
of those rowlocks went by in the main channel.
“We mustn’t lose this tide,” said Jim to Sol.
“The more I think on it the more I know we was
right to fetch that raft in to oncet and not to leave
it outside, and not to go for those other things jest
now.”
“ J esso,” replied Sol. “Now, you see, the other
traps’ll be there when we come for ’em. We’ve
got this all safe right into our own creek, and no-
body on yearth knows it’s there. It’ll be hard
work, though, towin’ it on to our place.”
All this was happening out there in the dark-
ness and among the creeks, but all over the village
of Turneyville there was a growing fever of ex-
citement. The Mott homestead and the Robbins


52 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
place and Mrs. Warren’s were swarming with
neighbors, mostly women and girls, who were
eager to be scared half to death by the thrilling
story of the sand bar. That kind of shore village
hardly ever gets anything to stir it up, and a real
genuine scare without any harm done was refresh-
ing. On the whole, as the telling repeated itself
the palm of heroism began to be divided somewhat
between Letty and Steve in the first place, and
then with Hester Warren for sticking to the Sea
Gull and bailing her out. Through all the many
conversations, in whatever house or place they
were held, there was an important feature which
might perhaps have been expected. Each of the
several mothers of the rescued girls had remarked
to herself first and then to somebody else
“What can we do for Steve? The Hen-
drickses are dreadfully poor, but then they’re too
independent to take anything.”
All the remaining population had expressed

somewhat the same idea in another form by asking:
“Now, I’d like to know what those girls’ folks
are agoing to do for Steve. He doesn’t know
anything to speak of. They ought to do some-
thing. But then the Hendrickses are that kind 0’


AFTER DARK. 53
folks; they wouldn’t take no odds from anybody.
They’re the old sort, ye know. Kind 0’ high-
strung.”
The family had a pretty well-established repu-
tation, therefore, and it was not known exactly
what to do with them or how to take them. As it
was, the only important variation in the general
programme had been made by Dr. Kedzie. Hardly
had Steve and his father pulled away in their boat,
and hardly had the first version of the wreck of
the Sea Gull been sent ashore, before the tremen-
dous form of the doctor turned away and began to
move dignifiedly up the hill.
“I must carry the tidings to Mrs. Hendricks,”
he remarked. “I shall be the first to do so. I
think it is my duty. No, I’m not afraid of Fred
Hendricks’s dogs, even at night. I think they
know me. I will go.”
He was going, and he was really sure to be
there before anybody else, but the entire story was
not going with him. Part of it was still being
toilsomely manufactured by Steve and his father
and the raft. Another part was taking shape a.
little suddenly a short distance inside of the small
creek that led toward the homes of S01 and Jim.


AFTER DARK. 55
They could row on up their own creek, how-
ever, peering uselessly among the shadows as they
went, and even exploring side shoots and branches
of their channel. It was sad work and dreadfully
disappointing. They were on their way from one
disappointment to another, while Dr. Kedzie was
stalking dignifiedly along the pretty dark shore road
which led from Turneyville to the Hendricks farm,
or past it. He had occasional remarks to make
concerning dogs, drowning, girls, sailboats, and fish,
but his mental exercises seemed to center upon
Steve Hendricks.
“The poor, ignorant, uneducated young savage,”
he remarked of him. “The wild Indians who in
former generations used to roam the Long Island
coast in their bark canoes were hardly more unciv-
ilized than are a part of the present population.
Still, there are lingering remnants of the abor-
iginal red men, but they are——ugh !—Heavens!
How I did stub my toe! Those dogs! Hear
them!”
It was so. He had nearly conquered his
crooked mile of walking, and he had stumbled in
the half dark against an ugly chunk of wood in
the road.


AFTER DARK. 57
“ Come right in; they will not hurt you.”
She knew their names, too, and as they listened
to her they at once began to whine apologetically
at the open gate.
Dr. Kedzie caught those names with the prompt-
ness of a man of high culture somewhat afraid of
dogs, and he talked politely to both of them as he
walked on toward the house.
“Dr. Kedzie ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Hendricks as
he drew near. “What on earth—”
“Sad occurrence, madam,” he interrupted.
“The sailboat Sea Gull was wrecked on the bay,
77

with no less than six young women
“Oh, dreadful! Were they all lost? I hope
not.”
“ The boat sank with them just as they landed
upon an isolated bar of sand,” he continued.
“ Were none of them saved?”
“My dear madam,” he said, with his tall hat in
his left hand and his handkerchief in the other, as
he strode into the house, “that is where the story '
properly begins, so far as you are concerned.
Your son Stephen ”
“ Doctor? Doctor? Has anything happened
to Stephen?”

5


58 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“He swam for his life ! ” said Dr. Kedzie, with
energy. “But the tide was rising, and the sand
7)

bar was speedily submerge
“Oh! This is dreadful! Six young women
and my Stephen ! ”
She was very white, although her really refined
face was taking on a brave and noble expression,
but there was danger that she might faint, and the
bringer of awful tidings hurried to say:
“No, madam. Be calm. Stephen reached
them in time. He rescued the sunken sailboat.
He conducted the young women to the shore. In
my opinion, and, I think, in the opinion of the
public generally, he is entitled to much cred-
it. He behaved with a certain degree of intel-
ligence ”
“Why! You old humbug!” burst from the
quivering lips of poor Mrs. Hendricks. “If he
didn’t know more than you do ! Did they all get
ashore?”
“ All of them!” he emphatically responded.
“The Sea Gull arrived at Turneyville. Your hus-
band and your son are on their way home in their
boat. I thought it my duty to precede them with
so important a matter of information.”


AFTER DARK. 59
There she came to his help, and his small stock
of positive knowledge relating to the sinking of
the island and the swamping of the Sea Gull had
to furnish answers for a number of rapidly put
' questions.
“ Do sit down,” she said in the first place.
“ Stephen is just the right boy to have been there.
He always seems to know exactly what to do.”
“It is to be regretted,” replied the doctor,
“that he has been so entirely deprived of the intel-
lectual advantages of a liberal education.”
Upon that point, oddly enough, her lips quiv-
ered again, but she turned steadily away from the
schooling subject to that of tides and sand bars and
drowning.
During all that time, however, Steve and his
father were toiling along with their raft.
“We’ve beat ’em,” exclaimed Steve, as Mr.
Hendricks pulled the yawl out into the patch of
‘ open water before their wharf. “They’ll never
think of looking for it away in here.”
“ Glad we’re here with it, anyhow,” replied his
father. “But I wonder what your mother’ll say
about the wreck of the Sea Gull ? ”
“I don’t mind telling her,” said Steve; “but


60 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
if any of those folks are coming up here to-mor-
row I’m going to get away.”
“I would if I were you,” replied his father
sympathizingly. “Suppose you cut! out early and
go to Brantford with Sam Fox and his fish
load.”
“Just what I’ll do !” exclaimed Steve. “I’d
like it, anyhow. And I kind 0’ feel a’most sure
some of ’em’ll come to see mother.”
“Of course they will,” said Mr. Hendricks.
“I’d ruther be shot ! ” exclaimed Steve, but the
dog duet was now being uproariously performed
upon the logs of their own wharf. In the house,
too, Mrs. Hendricks sprang to her feet, shouting
enthusiastically :
“There! They’ve come! O Steve! I want
77

to see him
“He has returned to your arms in safety,” said
Dr. Kedzie, as he arose and followed her through
the house to the rear, but she went five feet to his
two.
In a moment more he heard in the darkness
ahead of him:
“Margaret, splendid seine haul—finest string
of fis ”


AFTER DARK. 61
“Never mind the fish, Fred! 0 husband!
Steve? Is that you?”
“All right, mother ”
“ Come along with me to the house! Your
father can bring the fish. Tell me all about it!”


CHAPTER V.
THE TANDEM TEAM.
AFTER every storm there comes a calm. There
had not been any storm at all that day or evening
on the Atlantic, or on the bay, or in or about Tur-
neyville ; nevertheless, quite a number of people
felt and acted as if they had been through some
kind of cyclone and were glad that it was over.
Two men were sitting on the doorstep of a
cabin a couple of miles or so west of the village.
Both of them were smoking short pipes, but neither
of them seemed to enjoy the smoke.
“ Sol, this ’ere has jest gone crooked.”
“Fact is, Jim, there’s fellers round this ’ere bay
that’s mean enough to do ’most anything. Think
of their stealin’ 0’ a raft like that after we’d gone
an’ towed it ’cross the bay!”
“Awful mean!” said Sol. “Some fellers with-
out no conscience whatever.”
62


THE TANDEM TEAM. 63
“It’s lyin’ somewhere ’longshore,” slowly re-
sponded his mate. “There hasn’t been time yet
for anybody to break it up and land it.- We’ll hev
a hunt fer it.”
“We’ll klem it, too, when we set eyes onto it,”
said Sol. “I don’t keer where they’ve took it to.
That timber’s our’n.” _
Their feeling of ownership was very strong.
So, too, had seemed to be Steve’s, and a similar
conviction had deepened rapidly in the mind of
Mr. Hendricks himself while rowing and towing.
Still, he had strongly cautioned his son that noth-
ing had better be said about it “until it had blown
over.” Whatever was to be blown he had not ex-
plained, but Steve had assented with a fair degree
of promptness. Now they were in the house,
therefore the conversation was permitted to con-
tract itself around the other events of the day.
Dr. Kedzie lingered. He was collecting a fund
of positive information, to be afterward distributed
in Turneyville and elsewhere, nor did his present
informers fully gather the extent of what they
were doing. They were yet to learn what it is to
furnish raw materials for a man of liberal educa-
tion. He spoke about that sort of thing more than


64 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
once, and Mrs. Hendricks seemed disposed to push
the subject out of sight, but at last, as he arose to
take leave regretfully, he remarked:
“Madam, it is my wish that your son should
come and see me. I heartin approve of his con-
duct during the stirring events on the bay. It is
my desire to have a further conversation with
him, and he must come and advise with me upon
his return from Brantford. I shall be there my-
self during the earlier hours of the coming mor-
row.”
“So’ll I,” said Steve. “I’ll come and see you,
doctor, but I don’t know anything.”
“I am fully aware of that,” responded Dr. Ked-
zie. “We will inquire into the extent of it, and
ascertain if there are yet possibilities.”
Precisely what he meant they did not try to
find out, but the two house dogs followed him
closely all the way to the gate, with an apparent
disposition to satisfy their own minds whether or
not it were safe to allow him to halt short of the
road. He must have understood them, being a
man of cultivation and intelligence, for he made no
pause whatever.
Hardly had they lain down at the gate, how-


THE TANDEM TEAM. 65
ever, to watch his further going, before he re-
marked:
“ Canine instincts ! How strong is that of the
watchdog! How devoted they are to their own
domain! They are unusually large dogs, and it
seems to me that Mr. Hendricks ought to keep
them tied up. They might have mistaken me for
a stranger to the family.”
If they had done so, he gave it to be under-
stood that the consequences might have been dele-
terious.
“Steve,” exclaimed his mother, as soon as the
door closed behind their visitor, “I’m so glad he’s
gone. Go to bed! I feel just as you do. I don’t
want to have you thanked. I’ll see that you have
an early breakfast, and then do you go over to Sam
Fox’s.”
“They’ll start early,” said his father. “ Go,
Steve!”
He and his wife were alone then, and the first
thing she said was :
“We are out of everything. I shall be glad of
every cent we get from those fish.”
He was staring round the room as if he were
taking a mental inventory of the old, old furni—


66 succnss AGAINST ODDS.
ture, the marred wall paper, and the worn-out
paint.
“Something’s got to come,” he said. “Some-
thing more’n a haul of fish. But we don’t owe
anything. I’m glad of that.”
“We can hold our heads up,” she said. “ I can.
bear almost anything so long as we’re honest.”
“\Ve have always been that,” he responded;
but his next remarks drifted away toward Dr-
Kedzie.
“He doesn’t seem to have much practice,” she
replied, “but he writes a great deal for the press.
He is a learned man.”
“ Yes,” said the husband, “he likes to be called
scientific and to see his name in print. Knows
more than is good for him. I do wish Steve
had books. We’ve tried to teach him. Not
much use.”
“School! school!” she exclaimed. “Some kind
of training! He is fit for nothing but farm work—-
and fishing. I get almost wild about him.”
“Farm work?” groaned his father. “And on
this farm! But that boatload of girls!”
“He behaved splendidly,” she exclaimed.
At about that point the talk ended, and soon


THE TANDEM TEAM. 67
afterward all, or nearly all, of the people of Long
Island were asleep.
One of the first of them to arise on the follow-
ing morning was a man who began by lighting a
kerosene lamp in a room behind a doctor’s office in
Turneyville. No sooner was the lamplight added
to that of the growing dawn than Dr. Kedzie was
at his writing desk. He was doing double work
there, too, for he was dealing not only with pen
and paper, but with some kind of cold breakfast.
“The Brantford Eagle,” he remarked aloud,
“goes to press this afternoon and comes out to-
morrow. I shall be in time. I shall undoubtedly
be the first to render a full and accurate account,
with all the particulars, of this truly thrilling
affair upon the bay. I shall have to walk going,
but I may catch a ride returning. I must obtain
another horse at the first opportunity. The un-
timely loss of that disgusting animal has been to
me a serious inconvenience. What did he die
for?”
Sheet after sheet was covered with lines of a
very peculiar penmanship. It could be seen that
he was proud of the large-lettered even manu-
script. He loved it as being beautiful and worthy


THE TANDEM TEAM. 69
main street, and they had nearly overcome the hill,
but here was the hotel, and in front of it the hoofs
and wheels stood still. They may have previously
acquired a habit of pausing before houses of enter-
tainment for man and beast, but if so the habit
was very strong this morning.
“ Hullo !” shouted Jim. “We was ’most too
late. Glad ye pulled him in. Best lot ’0 clams ”
“ Ye-es,” shouted Sam angrily, “we wa-ant

clams, but it’s no use. We’ve got on more now
than he’ll dra-aw. He’d balk all the way to town
if we’d put one solita-ary clam behind him.”
“ He won’t know it,” responded Sol, pufling
and blowing in the shafts of his barrow. “Don’t
ye go without ’em.”
The horse was now leaning back instead of
forward.
“ What on earth’ll we do?” groaned Sam.
“ We’ve jest got to git there.”
“Tell you what,” came from a younger voice
on the sidewalk, “you’d better borrow Uncle
Abe Secor’s horse and hitch him on ahead. He’s
a-coming up the street now.”
“That’s so!” exclaimed Sam. “Just the
thing. Pay him in fish. Heave in your clams,


7O SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
boys. Count ’em. But I wish that there hoss
didn’t know they was comin’.”
He was bound to know, for he had half turned
round in the thills, too wide for his size anyhow,
to watch what they were doing, and he neighed
sarcastically.
Further up the street a tall man in a very long
overcoat also turned and looked.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “ I must be off. I must
get there before they do. I shall have the start
of them, and I think I can outwalk that quad-
ruped.”
Dr. Kedzie’s conviction upon that point seemed
to be pretty well grounded, and he strode rapidly
away. He was gaining his required advantage,
but here now was Steve once more just in time

to hear
“Abe’s critter? Well, now, J I dunno if
two sech hosses is better’n one.”
“Here we are, Sam,” said Steve.
“We’ll hitch him on, Abe,” said Sam. “You
want some fish?”
“All right, Mr. Fox,” was cheerily responded.
“ I’ll take a dollar’s worth. Let’s see what ye got.
You jest can’t git there without him.”


THE TANDEM TEAM. 71
The two horses were now side by side for a
moment. It looked as if they were a pair for size
and age and general features, but Sam’s horse was
yellow and Abraham’s was black. Their knees
were bent at about the same angle, however, and
their ribs were equally ready for easy counting.
“Dollar’s worth!” exclaimed Sam.
Abe Secor’s face, even darker than that of his
horse, was now peering into the wagon, but most
of its contents were covered with wet seaweed.
“Ort to hev more’n that,” he said. “You
won’t ever git to Brantford.”
“Fish is awful high,” said Sam. “Flounders ? ”
“On’y part in flounders !” replied Abe vigor-
ously. “ Blackfish! Bass! You can’t git no
other help this mornin’.”
He knew his opportunity, and he was display-
ing genuine commercial ability.
“Well,” said Sam. “Whatever’s fair.”
Steve was fastening the black horse in front of
the yellow.
“What ye doin’?” shouted Abe. “He’ll hev
to pull Sam’s hoss an’ the load too. You might
jest kill him!”
“I’ll pay you five dollars if we do,” said Sam.


72 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“But the strain’ll come onto my hoss. Your’n’ll
only hev to walk ahead.”
“I’ve hitched him on,” said Steve. “Now let’s
set ’em goin’. I’ll drive this one.”
He was getting more and more eager to escape
from Turneyville. Already some of the bystand-
ers were beginning to ask him dangerous questions
concerning the doings of the Sea Gull and her pas-
sengers. He was painfully aware that any mo-
ment one of those girls, or one of their mothers,
or a company of grateful aunts and grandmothers,
might come upon him. It was time for him to flee
from the thanks to come, and he encouraged the
black horse gently with a whip.
“Hole on!” exclaimed Abe. “He won’t stan’
no whippin’. I ain’t agoin’ to hev him overdruv.
Put yer string onto Sam’s hoss. He’s gettin’
ready to set back.”
There was a storm of remarks from the increas-
ing crowd of spectators just then, and their sayings
were full of doubt as to that team’s ever getting to
Brantford.
Steve withheld his lash, but Sam pitched a
two pound fish into Abe’s basket.
“That’s it,” said the black man. “I’ll fix them


THE TANDEM TEAM. 73
hosses. I’ll go ahead and yank mine, and jest you
give your’n a cut. Git his head oncet p’inted up
the road and he’ll go. He’s got to go if mine
does.”
Slowly, with all his might, Sam shoved around
the head. of the yellow horse, and Abe tugged at
the bit of the black.
“Now, Steve!” shouted Sam.
Down came the whip sharply upon each in
quick succession. S01 and Jim shoved behind the
wagon. There was a man at each wheel trying to
turn it. They all whooped together. It was too
much for any beast to bear, and the yellow rebel
leaned reluctantly forward.
“Hit ’em ag’in, Steve!” yelled Sam. “Give it
to ’em ! ” /
Crack Went the whip. Around went the
wheels, and the journey had begun, for the tandem
team went over the hill, and there was nothing be-
fore it but the dead level road to Brantford.
Sam and Steve and a man by the name of Jake
walked beside the wagon, but neither of them had
any wild idea of adding his own weight to that of
the fish. Probably if one had done so both horses
might have turned to look at him.
a


CHAPTER VI.
srnvn’s Fmsr LUCK.
THE April day had made its beginning remark-
ably well and early, but as yet there was no tell-
ing what there might be in it. S01 and Jim ex-
perienced a strong feeling of relief as soon as they
saw the tandem team move away, but they were
otherwise troubled in their minds. They walked
rapidly back to the wharf, and neither of them
said a word hardly until they were in their
boat.
“We’ll try the creek first, every side hole in it,
as we go along,” said Jim.
“Then we’ll take a look at the bay,” replied
Sol, “but I ain’t agoin’ to give up that there
raf .”
“ It didn’t run away,” remarked his mate. “It
didn’t travel fast nor far. We won’t go for no
clams this tide. We’ll grapple for timber.”
74


STEVE’S FIRST LUCK. 75
They went at once to their boat, but the
swamp country in which they were to hunt for
their missing prize was a wide one.
In Steve’s own home there was a fire of logs
in the old-fashioned fireplace of the sitting room.
Everything the fire light fell upon was scrupu-
lously clean and in good order, but there was a
kind of gloom in the atmosphere. On one side of
the fireplace, with neglected knitting in her lap,
sat Mrs. Hendricks. On the other, with his chin
upon his hands, sat her husband.
“Only one horse, Margaret,” he said despond-
ingly. “All the plowing to do, and no team, no
seed, no fertilizer, no anything. Not even enough
to eat.”
“No cow,” sadly responded his wife. “And
if the crops are to fail again, as they did last year,
what’s the use of putting them in Z ”
“Most likely they will,” he said. “The poor-
est land! All this shore land needs about its sell-
ing price in fertilizers every year. Where are we
to buy any ? ”
It is a matter of record that the Long Island
farmers are forced to buy twice as much of the
favorite crop stimulants as are required for any


76 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
other equal area. Their prosperity comes from
their nearness to the best markets.
Mrs. Hendricks made no reply, and he arose
and walked to the door for a sweeping survey of
his barren domain.
“What to do I don’t know!” he groaned.
“Frederick!” she exclaimed, letting her knit-
ting fall as she stood erect. “We must do some-
thing! But for those fish there’d be no dinner in
this house. We ate the eggs this morning. We
were never so hard pushed as we are just now.”
“The seine haul won’t bring much,” he said.
“ I’ll go for a look at Steve’s raft.”
“ So will I,” she exclaimed. “I’m glad he had
the pluck to gather it. Those thieves ! ”
“They towed it for him,” he replied, almost
cheerfully.
They and the two dogs were quickly at the
landing, and there floated, in seeming security, the
fruits of Steve’s seashore industry.
“I couldn’t sell that stuff for much,” remarked
Mr. Hendricks. “I don’t see that we have any
use for timber just now. I’m afraid Steve has
thrown away his time.”
“Humph!” she said. “He hadn’t anything


STEVE’S FIRST LUCK. 77 ‘
else to do with it. His time isn’t bringing him
in anything.”
“ I never had any luck,” he muttered.
“Luck!” she said inquiringly. “ Some people
seem to have it. What is it? Was it luck that
took Steve to that sand bar in time to save the
girls? Or was it first-rate swimming?”
“He saved them, anyhow,” was all the reply
he could think of. “But I won’t try to do any-
thing with it till he comes home.”
“If any people from the village are coming
here to-day,” she said, “I’m glad he’s away. He
does look so dreadfully, and he knows it, too. It’s
a good thing for him that warm weather’s coming.
He really suffered all winter, but he never com-
plained. Not a word. Not when his feet were
frost-bitten and his hands, too.”
A great many people in and around Turney-
ville were discussing Steve and his qualities and
his family that morning. There were four pairs
of fathers and mothers in particular that thought
very well of him, and to each pair, and to their
friends in council, had come the same difficult
problem: “What shall we do for Steve? We
must do something.”


78 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
In every case the one reply had been made
that Mrs. if not also Mr. Hendricks would never
consent to receive presents. It almost looked as if
he were to rescue six girls and get nothing for it
but fame and gratitude, like a great poet or a
statesman. Slowly, however, as the day rolled
along, purposes and plans began to take shape
here and there, and about some of the plots con-
trived there was even an air of darkness and of
mystery.
The busiest plotter of all, so far as could be
seen, was little Letty Mott, for she went from
house to house among the benefited families, and
to each in turn she confided the secret propositions
of all the others.
I “Six girls are worth a good deal,” she had re-
peatedly asserted.
Neither she nor anybody else, however, had as
yet carried tidings of this kind to the Hendricks
place. As for Steve himself, he was not aware
that any kind of compensation was getting ready
to come after him. All he really feared was
women and girls and gratitude.
Moreover, he was beginning to experience a
sense of temporary safety, for he and the tandem


STEVE’S FIRST LUCK. 79
team were now on the outskirts of the town of
Brantford.
“You needn’t go round sellin’ fish with us,”
Sam had told him. “Jake and I can ’tend to all
that. You kin kite ’round town and see what’s
goin’ on.”
It was a flourishing place and very old. It
contained several thousand inhabitants. There
were business streets and others that were lined
with fine residences, telling of wealth. Steve saw
a number of elegant carriages as he and his friends
went in, but among them all he saw not one that
was to be compared, on some accounts, with the
remarkable outfit he was leading. Nor was he
aware that the rich people who allowed the char-
iots of other rich people to go by unnoticed all
turned to send inquiring, admiring glances after
the black and yellow tandem team and the ancient
fish wagon. Probably they had never before seen
anything just like it.
Steve, on his part, was admiring a span of
spirited horses and a splendid barouche at the
very moment when the Sam Fox turnout suddenly
came to a standstill.
“Whoa there! Team ahoy!” The team had


80 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
heard and perhaps they even knew that they
halted in front of old Peter Olevis’s fish market.
There he stood in the doorway, and he might
have sat to any painter for the ideal model of an
ancient pilot.
“I say, shipmate,” he roared again, “you
must ha’ made a big ketch. Did it call for both
0’ them crabs to tow it in?”
“ Biggest single haul o’ the season, Cap’n
Clevis,” responded Sam. “Good lot 0’ clams,
too. We’re goin’ to peddle ’em ’round town.
You’re stocked, most likely?”
“Dunno,” said Captain Clevis. “We’ve some
cargo aboard, but there’s room in the hold. Now
you’ve come to anchor, take off your hatches. Give
us a look at what you’ve got.”
He stepped forward while speaking, and his
hands were now busy with the seaweed, the ice,
and the fish. Two stalwart young men, wearing
tremendous white aprons, but otherwise strongly
resembling him, had closely followed their father,
but he and they had now something to hear be-
sides fish stories.
Perhaps Sam Fox was helping himself along
toward a bargain by talking of other things first,


STEVE’S FIRST LUCK. 81
but he at once struck out into a spirited account
of the cruise of the Sea Gull. He knew a great
deal about it, and he certainly did tell as much as
there ever had been in it, but at the first word of
his beginning Steve moved quickly around to the
other side of the wagon out of sight.
“ You don’t say!” exclaimed Captain Olevis,
at the first chance given him by Sam. “They
was all under water. Don’t know jest what I
can offer ye. There’ll be more fish in by and
by. Saved all the gals, did ye say? Had to
swim ’round and pick ’em up? Guess he was
yarnin’ some. Good-sized bass. Six gals? I’ll
fetch a hook scale and weigh some 0’ them big
ones. There was little critters, too. Humph!
Did ye keep ’em on ice all night? They heven’t
been out 0’ the water too long?”
The crew and passengers of the Sea Gull were
being curiously mixed up with the finny passen-
gers of Sam Fox’s wagon, but the old pilot was
really interested in both of the affairs set before
him, and he at last remarked :
“That there boy 0’ your’n was spinnin’ yarns;
so was the gals. Glad they wasn’t drowned, any-
how. Sime, you run over to the Eagle office and


82 succnss AGAINST onns.
tell Smith. Tell him to come right along and git
some fresh shore news just arrived. He hasn’t
hed any for a long time—not thet was worth
readin’. Then you ken go and tell the Standard.
I want to see which on ’em can spread it out the
thinnest. Up to now they’re about even on lyin’.”
“No lie about it,” said Sam angrily. “There’s
Steve Hendricks now. That’s the very boy.”
“That’s him, is it?” roared Captain Clevis.
“That there bare-legged crawfish? I say, sonny,
git under the waggin. I don’t want them two fool
editors to sight ye. But if I don’t stufi ’em !”
Sime had marched at once, but the front door
of the Eagle office opened on the street, and it was
nearly half full at that very moment, for in it tow-
ered the overcoat and hat of Dr. Kedzie.
“The Eagle will be ahead of the Standard this
time,” he had loudly remarked to somebody in the
room behind him, and now he added in a very
much lower tone:
“Sam and his team! They have arrived.
There they are. There is Stephen also. Bless
me! They have also brought the news. I must
speak to Stephen at once. He must go home.
The Standard’ll get him, and any account written


STEVE’S FIRST LUCK. 83
by that fellow Hooker
come out the same day.”

Besides, the papers
He was apparently a partisan of the Eagle,
and in a moment more he was standing beside
Steve.
“Don’t say a word about it to anybody,” he
began.
“I don’t want to,” interrupted Steve.
“Dr. Kedzie,” shouted Captain Clevis, “let him
alone! There comes the Standard man. Sonny,
don’t you tell Kedzie a thing. Sime’s got him.”
Sime Clevis had put his head inside of that edi-
torial door to give his father’s message, but a sharp
voice had responded:
“The Eagle has it already, sir. Always ahead
of our contemporaries. Whole account now going
into type.”
“ Young Hendricks is here—”
”

“Don’t need to see him
“What is it, Sime?” This last inquiry came
from editor Hooker, of the rival sheet, on the side-
walk, and to him Sime, somewhat nettled by his
first rebufi, began to unfold his tale, or what he
knew of it.
“ Come along,” he said.


34, succnss AGAINST ODDS.
“Guess I will!” shouted Hooker, and the two
hurried back across the street.
Captain Clevis had now walked around to the
rear of the fish wagon.
“Kedzie,” he said, “you can’t hev him. Cast
him loose. Let him drift away to loo’ard. I want
to stuff ’em.”
“The Eagle has it,” said the doctor.
“Well,” said the captain, “if you told ’em the
yarn there’ll be all the lies I want into it ’thout
my help. Sonny, you git. Them editors are com-
in’ after ye to take yer picter. Take ye right to
the doggerytype, and then you’d be in both papers.
I’d run if I was you. There they come. There’s
the doggerytype man.”
Steve had heard enough. All his blood was
getting into his face. Never before in his life had
he experienced so keen a sense of being barefoot,
of being down poor, of being unfit to talk with
well-dressed people. It seemed to sting him like a
snake bite. He felt as if there was not enough
money in Brantford to hire him to face those edi-
tors. The additional threat of having to Sit for
his portrait thrilled him from head to foot. It
was enough to make him dizzy. He stared for an


STEVE’S FIRST LUCK. 85
instant into the widely open mouth of the largest
sea bass in the end of the wagon; then he wheeled
in his tracks and ran. He was a good runner, too,
and nobody followed him.
“ Gone!” chuckled Captain Clevis. “ Sime,
you know young Mr. Stephen Hendricks, only son
of old Colonel Frederick Hendricks, that owns that
thousand-acre farm? Just tell Mr. Hooker. Fine
young gentleman is our friend Stephen, Mr.
Hooker. The young ladies also were of our very
best families. Brave fellow! Risked his life
heroikilly.”
Dr. Kedzie was evidently about to put in some-
thing, but Sam Fox took the matter up. The
other Clevis youth was already weighing fish of
the bargain and sale made for that catch with his
father. Sam Fox could watch and tally fish while
he talked just as well as not, and he saved Dr.
Kedzie any necessity for talking.
“There he goes!” growled the doctor. “I’ll
go. I do not really wish to communicate with Mr.
Hooker. But how Sam Fox is yarning! Bless
me! And Hooker is taking it down in shorthand.
But the Eagle account will be the best, and it will
be entirely truthful. That is ”


36 succnss AGAINST onns.
There he ceased to speak, but he was walking
away up the street.
Steve also was walking now, but in an opposite
direction, for his main thought and hope was to
escape from Brantford and its wicked editors.
“They can print what they please,” he said
aloud, “but I won’t let them put in any descrip-
tion of me. Oh! What a looking fellow I am!”
So far as his clothing went that was not un-
called for, but even the crusty old pilot had re-
marked of him:
“ Kind 0’ good-lookin’. But can’t he run!
Steerin’ a straight course for hum, I reckon.”


CHAPTER VII.
sTEvn’s TRIBULATION.
UP to this very hour the stranded schooner had
been standing motionless just outside of the more "
dangerous breakers of the surf line. A change had
come, however. No sails were up, no wind could
do anything with her, and yet she was moving.
She was actually backing out of her sticking place
in the deep sand of the Long Island shoals.
From her stern, upon which were painted the
words “Orinoco, of Boston,” a long, strong cable'
stretched out to seaward. At the other end of this
hawser there tugged and puffed as if it were per-
spiring one of the large, strongly made propellers
that are employed by the New York underwriters
or marine insurance companies to rescue such mis-
guided vessels as may blunder ashore without g0-
ing to pieces. It had been a long pull and a strong
pull, but the sand had at last let go, and the
87


STEVE’S TRIBULATION. 89
“I’d like to gather them then,” growled the
mate. “We’ll pull into Turneyville anyhow and
make a beginning. There was altogether too much
plundering.” ’
They were not after Steve’s raft, therefore, and
they did not say exactly what they had lost or
what they hoped to find. All that could be under-
stood was that valuable property had been boated
ashore from the Orinoco, and that part of it had
mysteriously disappeared.
Steve himself had nothing to do with all this.
He was not even thinking of his raft, much less
of S01 or Jim, at this moment. .' Behind him now
were the editors of Brantford, with Dr. Kedzie and
Captain Clevis. Before him, at a few miles dis-
tance, was the village of Turneyville, full of girls
and women. He had to go somewhere, but he felt
that things were against him.
“Some of ’em may be at our house,” he
thought; “but if I could sneak through the vil-
lage and get hold of a boat I could keep clear of
all of ’em for a while.”
That thought was uppermost when he reached
Turneyville, and he showed some courage, for
he went straight down the main street on his
7


90 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
way to the wharf. He was doing well and feel-
ing better, for nobody stopped him, minute after
minute.
“Guess they’re all in at dinner,” he was think-
ing. “I’ll get through if I can get past J enks’s
clothing store. Sally J enks was one of ’em, but
she hardly said a word to me. Her folks won’t
care much, anyhow ”
“ I’ve got ye ! Hold on, Steve!”
A strong hand was on his shoulder at the in-

stant. Heavy feet had been pursuing him closely.
He turned and looked up to exclaim:
“ Oh! It’s Mr. Jenks. Let me go! I want
to get to the landing.”
“ No, you don’t,” said Mr. J enks. “You’re
’ coming right in here with me. Come along now,
Steve. It’s no use. Sam Holden, take his other
arm. I won’t let any young snipe like him get the
better of me.”
“I’ve got him,” said the other man. “We’ll
take him right in.”
So they did, and it was all in vain for Steve to
demand: '
“ What’re you going to do?”
“Do?” replied Mr. J enks, with a sort of grim


STEVE’S TRIBULATION. 91
humor all over his bearded face. “I’ll show you.
Now you just put them on!”
“I won’t,” said Steve, struggling hard. “ I
didn’t do a thing. It was only patching Bob’s
boat and sailing the girls home.”
But there on the counter lay a complete outfit,
or several of them, for a boy of his size, underwear
and all. The suit of clothing was of good blue
flannel, better than Steve had ever worn. Two of
the clerks came to help. Resistance was in vain.
OE came the old and on went the new after the
right sizes had been measured for, and Steve gave
it up.
After all there was a strange sense of comfort
in it, and a still queerer idea of being suddenly
older and of having a piece of prosperity happen.
“I suppose it’s the way rich people feel,”
thought Steve. “But what’ll father and mother
Bay ? ”
Stockings and shoes came next, and a felt hat
and a collar and a necktie, while Steve’s old things
were done up in a bundle for him to carry home.
“I’ll teach you better than to save a girl of
mine!” said Mr. J enks ; and another idea got into
Steve’s head—that this man knew just how he felt.


STEVE’S TRIBULATION. 93
things on. Sally, the next time he saves you and
the girls he’ll be a better-looking fellow.”
“Father,” exclaimed Sally, “I’m so glad you
did! He was just ragged. And what will his
mother say, ? ”
“I don’t care!” replied Mr. J enks. “I can
settle it with Fred. The fun of it’s worth a suit
of clothes any day. They can’t bring ’em back
now he’s got ’em on.”
Steve did not meet with any one that proposed
to interfere with him. He reached the wharf in
safety and he walked out upon the pier.
“I don’t exactly know what to do,” he was
thinking. “There doesn’t seem to be a boat on
hand. Hullo! Abe Secor’s canoe. He’ll drown
out 0’ that some day, but it’s big enough for me.
I can’t guess how he came by it.”
“ Steve, is that you?” came from behind him.
“I wouldn’t ha’ knowed ye. Guess yer folks won’t.
Yer mother’ll hev to put a label on ye.”
“Abe Secor !” exclaimed Steve, “ I want your
canoe.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Abe, “ you kin take it ef
you’ll keep it at your landin’. It’ll be handy for
me to get it there. J es’ the place. Don’t ye ever


94 succnss AGAINST onns.
show it heah ag’in. Git right in. You was run-
nin’ away for suthin’. I saw ye.”
Down the side of the pier went Steve into the
canoe. A pretty bit of a thing it was, made of
canvas and light wood framing. Steve, however,
had no idea of how many others had asked his
own question of how the old colored man came
by it. Just now he seemed only too willing that
Steve should take the little craft and paddle
it away. A very good paddle it was, too, that
lay in the bottom when Steve so carefully
stepped in. -
“Only a teeter,” he remarked, “and over she’d
go. Must ha’ cost something to finish her up, but
they say she upsets every half hour.”
He felt better, at all events, now that he was
in her, and she certainly did run away with him
from that pier with the greatest ease.
“Runs as if she was greased,” he said to him-
self, but the dark Mr. Secor, looking after him,
was remarking:
. “ Now! If any fool feller asks ag’in whar I
pick up that ar’ kinnew I’ll tell him I guess the
owner must ha’ come fur it. That’ll shet ’em up.
I don’t know if they is any owner.”


STEVE’S TRIBULATION. 95
Steve was just as ignorant, and he was now
out in the creek making swift headway toward
his own branch of it. He began to breathe more
freely, but he did not know what was going on at
his own home. His mother was there, so was his
father, and they were looking at something which
had been deposited at their front door by the regu-
lar Turneyville expressman. He had said that he
did not know where it came from, but it was a
good-sized package and heavy. Mr. Hendricks
hoisted it to the table and again they both stood
still and looked at it.
» “It’s addressed to Steve,” said his father. “ I
wonder what it is.”
“Well,” exclaimed Mrs. Hendricks, “we won’t
open it till he comes. But you know as well as I
do it’s something sent him for saving those girls.
I don’t like it. I wish they wouldn’t.”
“ I don’t want anybody to give me anything,”
said Mr. Hendricks a little slowly. “ I never
took a from any living man. But Steve—
why, mother, he’s only a boy.”
“That isn’t the whole of it,” she said, with
something hurt sounding in her voice. “We’ve
always held our heads up. No; they don’t know


96 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
how we are pushed just now. But Steve ought
not to be allowed to lose his independence. He
mustn’t take gifts! ”
“ He did save ’em,” replied her husband.
“Now, if I was the father of one of those girls,
or if you were her mother ”

“I wish he were home!” she snapped, “then
he could open it, and we’d know whom we are to
send it back to.”
Too much of wounded pride, therefore, was ris-
ing in the minds of the Hendricks family. Suc-
cessive disasters had made them sorehearted and
unreasonable. Steve himself had the full share
of the unnecessary soreness, and he was paddling
along more slowly.
“I’m glad there’s no danger of meeting the
owner of this canoe,” he said to himself. “I
could explain, of course, but then, a ragged
youngster like me—men think they can say any-
thing they please to such a fellow.”
There his thoughts changed so suddenly that it
startled him and he paddled fiercely for a moment.
Then he stopped and sat still, looking at himself
all over.
“ Ragged!” he exclaimed. “ No I’m not. I’m


STEVE/S TRIBULATION. 97
as well dressed as any boy in Turneyville. But
what’ll mother say? It’s awful!”
“Boat ahoy ! ” suddenly sounded loudly not
many yards away. “ Hullo, boy, are you going
to sleep?”
Steve looked up from his clothing inspection,
but before he could breathe twice a sort of sharp-
nosed ship’s cutter was back-watered and held still
by its four oarsmen nearly alongside of his canoe.
“ Hullo?” he replied inquiringly, for he was
more than a little taken by surprise.
“ Do you live hereaway ? ” he was asked.
“Yes, sir. Born alongshore. I’m Steve Hen-
dricks. What do you want of me?”
“ Humph! I’m the captain of the Orinoco and
this is her mate.”
“Oh!” said Steve. “The schooner that was
wrecked. The tugs were at work ”
“ She’s 01f,” interrupted the captain. “ There
was a pair of fellows gathering driftwood. Made
a raft of it. We saw ’em take it away.” i
“ Was it your timber?” asked Steve.
“Why, no, floating stuff, anybody’s prize. But
I want to find those two men.”
“I saw them towing it,” said Steve. “I put


98 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
it together and they stole it. But I got it away
from ’em. They can’t have it, and you can’t have
it. It’s mine ”

“Of course it’s yours,” said the captain, “ but
you don’t look like a driftwood picker. Tell us
about it.”
Steve told frankly the whole story, putting in
the Sea Gull and the girls as a very commonplace
affair, but at the end of it all the captain leaned
back on his seat and laughed right heartily.
“You’ll do!” he shouted. “You’re a Yankee.
Made ’em tow it cross the bay for ye and then
hauled it home. Picked up six gals, too. Well,
now, youngster, promise me one thing. Don’t let
on that you met us or told us a word, but we’ve
good reason of our own for wanting to see S01 and
Jim. Shut up.”
“I won’t say a word,” replied Steve, “but
they’re loose fish. Look out for ’em.”
On swept the cutter and Steve again began to
work his paddle.
“They didn’t tell me right out,” he said to
himself, “but I know how it is. S01 and Jim
have been stealing something from the Orinoco.
Hope he’ll catch them.”


STEVE’S TRIBULATION. 99
Not a great many minutes later he and his
canoe were cruising around his raft at his own
landing.
“It’s mine!” he exclaimed loudly. “But it’ll
be safer on shore. I can haul it out, too, if
father’ll help me, but it’ll take a horse and tackle.
I wish the owner of this canoe would come for
it. Abe’s not exactly a thief, but it’ll pay to
watch him.”
He fastened the canoe and stepped on shore.
At that very moment his mother, in the house,
turned from a kind of study of the still unopened
package to exclaim: “Husband, hear those dogs!
They are down at the landing. It must be Steve.”
“Perhaps it is,” he said. “He’ll be here in
a minute if it is. But what a racket they’re
making!”
“Shut up!” Steve had shouted at his canine
friends, but they poured out another loud volley
of barking at that strange canoe before they left it
to come and inquire of Steve what had happened
to make him look so. They knew him evident-
ly, but they were not satisfied, and they barked
severely at that new suit of clothes. The like of
it, in their opinion, had not been seen on the


100 SUCCESS AGAINST onns.
Hendricks place in their day. They followed
him closely, seriously, as he went toward the
house, and each of them whined with curiosity
and dissatisfaction as he and they halted at the
kitchen door.
It had been shut, but now it suddenly swung
open before them.
“Steve! Come right in.”
“Father, is mother ”
“O Stephen, my son! What have you been
doing? Do you just come in, sir, and tell me What
this means. There’s a package, too.”
“Package, mother? I don’t know ”
There he had to wait for a moment, for the
two dogs understood that things were going wrong
at their house and they barked savagely, winding
up with a howl and a whimper. With the last of
their racket was mixed up Steve’s account of his


new rigging, and of his adventures in Brantford,
and also with quick, sharp questionings from his
father and mother.
“Margaret,” said the former, “it’s no use. He
couldn’t help it. He’s got to keep ’em.”
“Well,” she said, “I suppose Mr. Jenks was
glad about Sarah. No, I don’t care, Steve. You


STEVE’S TRIBULATION. 101
need ’em. Keep ’em. I do wish we had bought
’em, thoug .”
“ That package, mother, where is it?” asked
Steve.
The dogs made a dash into the house as if they
had an idea that something was to be searched for,
and sure enough they found it, for it was the only
new thing in the room. ‘
“Cut it open,” said Mr. Hendricks.
“ No,” said Steve, tugging at a knot with his
fingers, “I want to save the string. It’s a long
one. I’m ’most out of string.”
The knot yielded quickly, and then off came
the wrapping papers.
“Stephen!” shouted his mother. “Books! I
declare I’m glad of ’em! Mrs. Warren knew just
what to send. I saw some of ’em at her house.
Now I know where it came from ! ”
“O mother!” gasped Steve. “I never had
any books in my life ! ”
They made a good-looking pile, and on the top
of it lay a letter envelope which his mother took
and opened. She read it, so did Mr. Hendricks,
and then so did Steve. It was a very neatly
worded letter of thanks, but, after all, Steve did


102 succsss AGAINST onns.
not give it a great deal of attention. He was
quite willing to leave all that to his mother,
while he picked up and examined volume after
volume.
“I want to stop right here!” suddenly ex-
claimed Mrs. Hendricks. “ I must think of this
business. Come in to supper, both of you. I
don’t know what to write back to Mrs. Warren.
She and I used to go 'to school together.”
There was a great deal more to be said, but
not much of it by Steve, for he took one of those
books to the table with him, and had to be com-
pelled to put it down and eat. He was like a boy
in a dream—a first-rate, new dream.
It was not yet time for people to go to bed,
but if any of the residents near the Turneyville
landing had at that hour been dreaming they
might have been awakened. They might have
been disturbed by a loud and angry scream. In
fact, by scream after scream, larger and smaller.
It was terrible, for they were the indignant out-
cries of a mother and her four children—espe-
cially of the mother—as she and they, fettered
hand and foot, or hoof and hoof, were lowered
from the wharf into a large rowboat. The noise


STEVE'S TRIBULATION. 103
made by this family might also explain the curious
fact that so few living pigs are ever stolen. Once
on board the boat, nevertheless, they gave it up
and expressed their further feelings only by small
squeals and dissatisfied grunts.
“Bob,” remarked the man who got into the
boat last, “this’ll be the easiest way to get ’em
there, after all.” ‘
“You bet,” replied Bob, “but I tell ye what,
Mr. Robbins, it’ll take all four of us fellers to h’ist
that there she porker onto Hendricks’s wharf.”
Away was rowed the cargo of pork, but at
that same hour there was a battle going on in an-
other place. If it was not a battle, there was one
skirmish after another, some of them sharp ones,
and there was wheeling and charging. There were
also advances, retreats, flank movements, and hand
to hand struggles, for Mr. Mott, of Turneyville,
with two small boys and three dogs, was forcing
a very lively Jersey cow to change her quarters at
night, which no cow is ever willing to do. She
was a good fighter, so far as Mr. Mott and the
rope around her horns were concerned, for she
could jerk him 0E his feet, but the guerrilla
warfare of the three dogs and the boys proved


104 SUCCESS AGAINST onns.
to be too much for her. Therefore Mr. Mott re-
gained his rope every time he lost it, and he
tugged onward, sturdily, after the small boy who
carried the lantern. The cow made stands at
places where the road crooked or where it nar-
rowed among bushes, but at last the lantern
ahead of her walked through a gap in an ancient
rail fence. She knew the meaning of a gap in a
fence and she followed, making low-toned remarks.
Once beyond that barrier, however, she was on
Hendricks’s land, and every step she took brought
here nearer to the Hendricks barn. At all events,
her hoofs were upon plowed ground again, and
with the knowledge of that fact she surren-
dered.
“Mother!” exclaimed Steve, getting up from
the table. “Just hear those dogs now! Glad I
77

tied ’em up
So was Mr. Mott, at that moment, and so were
the boys who were with him, but Steve was at the
front door, followed by his father.
“ Somebody with a lantern,” said Mr. Hen-
dricks. “Wonder what they’re here for.”
_ “ Stephen,” whispered his mother at his elbow,
“that’s a cow bellow! I do believe something else


' STEVE'S TRIBULATION. 105
is going to happen. What did you save those girls
for?”
No answer came back, for he dashed out to go
and meet that lantern and to shout.
“Our dogs are tied! They can’t hurt you!”
“Is that you, Steve?”
“Father!” exclaimed Mrs. Hendricks, “it’s
Mr. Mott. Oh dear!”
But he, too, was stepping forward, and she
heard Mr. Mott continue his remarks to her son.
“My boy! We got here. She’s your cow.
She’s a good one. I’m ever so much obliged to
you for what you did. Guess it’s worth a
cow.”
Steve’s mouth opened, but no words of any
kind came out. It was his father who began
with:
“Well, now, Mr. Mott, Steve didn’t—”
“Mr. Mott!” sharply interrupted the voice of
his wife behind him. “ I can’t let him take her.
He only did his duty. Of course I’m glad he
did it.”
“She’s his cow, anyhow,” said the grateful
giver as she hesitated, but all the dogs together
suddenly opened a barking, yelling chorus, as if in
s


106 succnss AGAINST onns.
reply to a tempest of shrill if not painful screams
that seemed to come from the boat landing.
“Mother!” shouted Steve, “hear ’em! That’s
! 77
“It can’t be,” she said. “There are no pigs
out there. Dear me ! ”
The music continued, notwithstanding her de-
nial, and through it all came a stentorian human
voice.
“ Steve, ah-oy! Come here and git yer po-ork.
It’s landed.”
“That’s Bob Matthews,” said Mr. Hendricks.
“\Vhat’s he up to?”
“ I’m coming ! ” shouted back Steve.
“Go!” said his mother. “I heard Mr. Rob-
bins, too. There are more of ’em there.”
“I’ll put this cow into the barn,” said Mr. Mott,
“and then I’ll come. ' I want to know about that
pig business.”
“ Do! do!” replied Mrs. Hendricks excited- q
1y. “I give up. We did need a cow. I don’t
care. Thank you, Mr. Mott, I’m glad Steve
owns her.”
Her pride of independence was actually being
worried to death, and the cow had become so en-


STEVE’S TRIBULATION. 107
tirely a prisoner of war that she even made haste
to get into the stable where they tied her.
The landing was now the place of deepest in-
terest, for there the pigs had rallied round their
mother and she was standing resolutely at bay.
“Got a pen, Steve?” asked Bob. “ If we could
get her into it she’d be all right.”
“ It’s pretty much' torn down,” said Steve.
“But it might do. What ”
“ Steve,” broke in Mr. Robbins, “that’ll give
you a start in pork. She’ll make a good begin-
ning. My wife and the girls wanted me to say——
well, I guess you know what it was without my
saying it. The critters are your’n.”
“Don’t you see,” said Bob, “when you thought

you swam after the gals you was a-swimtnin’ for
pigs. Glad you got ’em all, anyway.”
Just what his father said, or what he himself
said after that, Steve never clearly knew, but Mr.
Mott came with his lantern, and all of them to-
gether succeeded in persuading the sow and her
family into what was left of the Hendricks pen
over by the barn.
Mrs. Hendricks met them as they came back
near the house and Steve was proud of her.


STEVE’S TRIBULATION. 109
sponded Steve. “What I’m worried about is the
cow.”
“ Go to bed!” exclaimed his mother. “I think
we’ve had worry enough for one day.”
“ Longest day I ever saw,” said Steve.
“ Humph ! ” muttered Mr. Hendricks. “I wish
I had one more horse. What I’m to do with this
farm I don’t know.”


CHAPTER VIII.
A NIGHT AND A DAY.
LATE that evening a high hat and a long over-
coat came striding into Turneyville along the road
from Brantford. As it came, a sort of one-voiced
conversation went on intermittently, and a part of
it was very emphatic.
“What could those editors mean!” exclaimed
Dr. Kedzie at the last turn of the road, and as he
stalked into the main street of his own village.
“ To think of the Eagle taking such liberties with
my communication! I am glad that none of the
inhabitants of Brantford saw Stephen or conversed
with him. And the Standard! That man is a
lunatic. I am not at all responsible for his insani-
ties. At all events, I must payan early visit to
the Hendricks family. That poor, uneducated boy
arouses my sincere commiseration.”
Four miles behind him, in the town of Brant-
110


A NIGHT AND A DAY. 111
ford, and in the midst of a strong flavor of fresh
fish, a stout old seafaring man, with a short pipe
in his mouth, sat and perused a newspaper that
was yet damp from the press.
“Thunder!” he exclaimed. “ To-morrer mornin’
this ere’ll be distributed all over the country. One
feller said it was telegraphed to York and it’d git
inter print there. Boys, isn’t it queer how some
men will yarn it? I never told a whop in my
life.”
“ Sime,” remarked a young man who held a
somewhat different printed sheet, “did you or
father tell old Kedzie what to write? He’s been
and gone and beaten the Standard all holler. But
who ever heard that old Fred Hendricks was a
colonel? Won’t the Turneyville people open their
eyes!”
“ I wouldn’t be Steve for something,” re-
sponded Sime. “ I didn’t tell ’em anything that
wasn’t so. What they did was to paint it up.”
Steve was feeling diflerently concerning him-
self. He had only half obeyed the order given
him to go upstairs and go to bed. He went,
but he went through the front room, and he
picked up one of those books that were on the


112 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
table. His own room, when he reached it, was
as dark as a pocket—as dark as the pocket out
of which he now pulled about three inches of
candle and some matches. A scratch upon the
sole of one of his new shoes, a flash, a glimmer,
and then the bit of candle threw out light enough
to almost fill a room of that size. His mother and
father slept on the lower floor, and he had this
part of the house to himself. The ceiling over his
head slanted both ways, one side slanting more
and farther than did the other, and his bed half
filled the floor space. He stuck his candle on a
small table near the window, drew up a chair, sat
down, and almost timidly opened his book.
“Every boy I know says he’s read Robinson
Crusoe,” he remarked. “I guess I’ll look at the
pictures first.”
There were a number of them, and he stared
at one after another, while his candle flickered and
flared beside him and. all the house grew utterly
still. Or else it had disappeared from under him,
for he was reading now, and he was not there at
all. He had gone to sea with a man he had never
before been acquainted with. Hour after hour he
sailed on with that wonderful mariner, Crusoe.


A NIGHT AND A DAY. 113
He had already been shipwrecked, and had made
his Way to the shore of an uninhabited island with
Robinson Crusoe when he heard a faint sputter,
and the room was dark.
“Gone out!” he exclaimed. “Oh dear! I
wanted to know what he was going to do next.
There isn’t another inch of candle in the house.
It’s no use.”
He could do no more with his island that
night and so he went to bed, but he did not at
once go to sleep.
“Read,” he said to himself at last, as he lay
and looked at the moonlit window. “I’ll read
’em all. But to-morrow I’ve got to see about
that raft. Bully! First thing in the morning I
must milk the cow.”
He said more and more and then less and less,
for his eyes were slowly closing and his long day
was over.
It seemed to him, however, almost as if another
day began at once, so early did the sun shine into
his room, and so quickly was he on his feet the
next morning.
“Those clothes?” he exclaimed. “No sirree!
Not to haul raft timber in. I must keep them


114 succsss AGAINST cons.
to go to the village with. They’re just beautiful.
First good clothes I ever had. N o! I mustn’t
even stop to read. I want to pull over those
other books, too.”
It was evident that a strong feeling of respon-
sibility was upon him, and with it came a kind
of nervousness as to what might be coming next.
He was afraid of something or other and he could
not have said what.
He hurriedly put on his old clothes, and now
that he was once more barefooted he became aware
that his new shoes had tired his feet.
“ I’ll break ’em in,” he remarked, “but I ain’t
exactly used to shoes.”
All the more silently could he go down stairs.
Nobody else was stirring, and he paused for a
whole minute over his pile of books.
“Book of poetry,” he said of one of them.
“ Don’t know anything about poetry. History of
the United States. Boy’s Own Book—the girls
didn’t care for that, I guess. Geography, spelling
book, Fourth Reader, hymn book, Bible, Battles
on the Ocean. Lots of others. Hullo! Pilgrim’s
Progress, with pictures. I’ve heard of that. Guess
I’ll read it next. Oh my!”


A NIGHT AND A DAY. 115
It was too much altogether, and he shut it up
to hurry out and make his way to the barn, taking
his milk pail with him.
The cow was really glad to see him, for he
brought her something to drink, and he found
quite enough in the barn to provide. her with a
breakfast. The dogs also were now with him, and
she got acquainted with them. They were good
to her as soon as they understood that she was
their own cow.
The pigpen was also attended to, but part of
Steve’s care at that point consisted in turning the
old lady and her children out of their rooms.
They were to do something with their own noses
upon the Hendricks farm.
The sun was getting higher now, and Steve
went to the house carrying with him his pail of
milk in one hand and a small battered basket in
the other. There were two persons standing in
the kitchen doorway.
“Mother,” said Steve, “the hens are laying
first-rate.”
“Stephen,” she said, “the cow?”
“That’s what she can do,” he replied, trying
to hold up his pail of milk for her to look at.


116 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
There was too much of it for him to lift very
high and she stepped forward to look
“Steve,” she whispered, “I won’t say a word.
This thing has come just in time. Your father
was almost broken down. We must keep right
on working and he’ll wake up.”
Mr. Hendricks himself had come nearer. He
was staring at the eggs and the milk, but when
she said to him and Steve, “Come on in to break-
fast,” instead of answering or obeying he walked
away toward the barn.
“Get yours,” she said to her son. “I took
a look at the books. Seems to me you might
learn something more out of them, teacher or no
teacher.”
“I read Robinson Crusoe ’most all night,” re-
sponded Steve, “but the next thing for me is that
raft.”
Before she could say anything more there came
a brace of sharp raps upon the outer door, and it
swung open wide, as if the rapper thought he had
given warning enough.
“ Mornin’, Miss Hendricks. Mornin’, Steve,”
said a deep, mellow voice.
“ Secor ! ” she exclaimed.


A NIGHT AND A DAY. 117
“What is it, Abe?” asked Steve, getting up
from the table.
“ I was down to the village,” he said. “Sam,
he fetched my hoss back from ahaulin’ them fish.
Hope it won’t jest kill him, but he’s lookin’ poorly.
I want that ar’ kinnew, Steve. It isn’t edzacly safe
to leave it here. It’s a kinnew I got away up the
bay a-floatin’, and I’m awaitin’ fer the right owner.
’Pears like more’n forty men hev said it was their
kinnew, an’ boned me for it. I’d best kind er hide
it in the swamp—”
“You can have it,” said Steve. But the black
man had more on his mind, and he talked right
along to unburden it.
“I kem by the Widder Warren’s an’ she told
me ’bout sendin’ ye some books from the gals, but
I tole her I was out er work an’ was lookin’ for
suthin’ to do, an’ my hoss, an’ she said Mr. Hen-
dricks loss a hoss an’ he might be the man, an’ I
tole her I’d been werkin’ for Mr. Bakum that was
agint for them new patent fertilizers all las’ year,
an’ he ran away an’ never paid me a cent, an’ I’ve
got ter take out my pay in fertilizers that they
was lef’ behind, an’ I hain’t no land to put it on,
an’ nobody wants to buy any, ’cause they don’t


118 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
know what it is, an’ it isn’t the same ole kind
they’ve been usin’.”
There his mental burden seemed to be relieved
a little and he paused, but not because he was out
of breath.
“Fertilizer, Steve?” said his mother. “That’s
just what we were wishing for. Your father
said ”
“Why, mother!” exclaimed Steve, “our land
isn’t worth a cent without something on it. Guess
I’ll talk with Abe while he and I are going
after the canoe. Hullo! Come on, Abe, let’s
hurry!”
Something had startled him, and even his

mother arose with a more serious face.
“Good morning, Dr. Kedzie,” they heard Mrs.
Hendricks saying. “ I didn’t know there was any-
body sick orit in this direction.”
The doctor himself did not seem sick, but he
was not looking very well.
“ No,” he said. “It’s a healthy season. More
so than usual. My present call is not professional.
I deemed it my duty to come and see you about
those remarkable newspapers and make a suitable
explanation.”


A NIGHT AND A DAY. 119
“ Mother,” exclaimed Steve, “that’s what I was
afraid of. They put it all in, and they tried to
get my photograph, too. O mother!”
“Dr. Kedzie,” said Mrs. Hendricks hastily,
“let me see those newspapers.”
“Yes, madam. There they are. The Eagle
and the Standard. That’s what I came for.
They garbled and mutilated my report. They
listened to unauthorized versions.”
“O heavens!” exclaimed poor Mrs. Hendricks,
for her eyes were glancing swiftly down a column
of the Standard. “What scamps they are! My
husband is a colonel, and Stephen is a tall, athletic
young gentleman. Daring exploit. Remarkable
endurance. Romantic episode. Beautiful young
ladies. Struggling in the billows. Piteous cries
for help. Almost exhausted. Heroine clung to
the wreck. Hero struck out again. Resuscita-
tion. O Steve! How ridiculous!”
“The Eagle is worse than that, mother,” he
murmured. “ Those two editors bid against each
other, and you can’t say which won it. I don’t
ever want to go to Turneyville again.”
“ But that ar’ fertilizer,” began the black man,
“ an’ the kinnew.”


120 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“Come right along,” shouted Steve. “Dr.
Kedzie, you talk with father and mother. I just
don’t care !”
He felt desperate, but he managed to hear
about the fertilizer on the way to the landing.
It was in bags. It was stacked away in a barn.
It was all the black man had to show for a whole
season of hard work, and it was “the mos’ wonder-
ful kind 0’ fertilizer. Make the hair grow on a
pine stump. Bring wheat right out of a sand-
heap. Bes’ thing for corn. Put a han’ful in a
hill 0’ corn an’ raise a peck on that hill. Wish
I had a patch 0’ land l”
“Tell you what,” exclaimed Steve. “I can fix
it. We’ll let you have all the land you want and
take pay in fertilizer; We’ve land enough. I’ll
speak to father.”
“That’s it,” responded Abe with a mellow
chuckle. “It’s better’n I’d looked for. I Was
just achin’ to git a chance to try it on. Bakum,
he said it was the bes’ in the world. Then he
got in debt, an’ he got hole of some money, an’
he ran away, but I stuck to the fertilizer. Ye
see, he had to pay the fertilizer comp’ny, an’ they
won’t come fer it, an’ it’s fairly mine. I ain’t no


A NIGHT AND A DAY. 121
thief, but I guess I’ll borrow your boat while I go
an’ stick away this ’ere kinnew.”
He was hastily getting into it then, and it was
a credit to him the way he kept his balance until
he could sit down and paddle. He even seemed
to prefer towing Steve’s boat that he took along
to return with. ' ‘
“Yes,” remarked Steve, “he’s honest enough,
but it’ll pay to watch him. We’ve five times as
much sand as we know what to do with. I wish
the tide didn’t rise every now and then over that
meadow. The soil there’s two feet deep, and it’s
as black as tar. It’d grow anything if you could
keep the water out. It was drained once, too.
I’ll go and take a look ”
“ Ste-ephen ! ”
It was the voiCe of his father summoning him
to the house.
“Oh dear!” said Steve. “Old Kedzie! I
was afr_aid something else was going to happen.
It’s awful!” v -
He had to obey, however, and in a few mo-

ments more he was standing in the front room of
the house. Dr. Kedzie stood by the table with
one hand resting on the pile of books.
9


122 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“Young man,” he remarked with something of
solemnity and a little more of his usual dry humor,
“ I deeply regret your deficiencies of early educa-
tion. Here, however, you have treasures. Peruse
them. Avoid the works of imagination and em-
ploy your time upon those which convey solid in-
struction. Here, now, is a spelling book.”
“Mother and I,” interrupted Steve, “ used to
spell together an hour at a time. Father, too. I
know what’s in that book and the grammar, but I
can read ’em over.”
“ Do so,” said Dr. Kedzie. “And the arith-
metic. Acquire an acquaintance with numbers
and with the primaries of mathematics and with
geography. I will not expatiate—”
He said he would not but he did, and the
Hendricks family had to listen, for he was in a
great gush of genuinely neighborly friendship as
well as fun. At the end of it all he said to Steve:
“One week from to-day I will come again and
ascertain more minutely what progress you have
been able to make.”
“ Dr. Kedzie, thank you,” said Mrs. Hendricks.
“ I don’t really know how far Steve has gone. I
wish you’d come and find out. Oh, the papers!


A NIGHT AND A DAY. 123
I don’t really care what they said. You’re not to
blame. I only hope the folks in the village won’t '
care.”
“I must see them at once,” he replied, but he
' left the house and strode away, leaving behind
him a curious understanding that he wished it
was not needful for him to appear that day in
Turneyville.
“ Steve,” said his father, “did you look out for
J eff this morning? I forgot.”
“Of course I did,” said Steve. “I always do.
I want him now. I wish you’d come along and
help ’bout the raft.”
“ Steve,” said his mother, “what did Secor tell
you about Bakum ? ”
“That’s what I was going to say,” he began,
and before he ended his parents knew the whole
of his suddenly formed dream of fertilization.
His father stood still and looked at him, now
and then asking a question.
“Land?” he said. “Of course he can have
the land. Bakum’s stuff must be good for some-
thing. But about the break in the dike at the
meadow. We could mend it if we had timber.
It’d take some heavy plank ”


124 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“Raft!” shouted Steve. “Come on. I’ll go
and get Jeff.”
“Margaret,” said Mr. Hendricks to his wife as
Steve darted away, “I don’t know. What if we
should really be able to do something. I kind 0’
think I was losing my grip.”
“ Get it again!” she said courageously. “ But
I didn’t begin to think there was so much in
that boy. He mustn’t work so hard on the farm,
though, that he can’t give time to his books. It’ll
be almost like going to school. I’ll teach him all
I know every day.”
“So’ll I,” said her husband. “And Dr. Ked-
zie—I wish he could teach Steve all he knows.”
“ Humph ! ” She said; “ He knows so much he
doesn’t half know what to do with it. But he’s a
dry old joker, and you don’t know half the time
how to take him.”
However that might be, all Turneyville was
thinking of the learned doctor that morning, and
all sorts of opinions and comments were going out
after him. Every last word of the marvelous edi-
torial work of the Eagle and the Standard had
been credited to his flowing pen and fertile genius.
His reputation as a writer had never before been


A NIGHT AND A DAY. 195
what it now became in a sudden blaze of popu-
lar appreciation. Half the people of Turneyville
were ready to believe that he could write a novel
—-a novel of the sea.
J eff, the surviving horse of the Hendricks team,
was a good enough brown cob, and he had a well-
fed look when Steve led him out of the stable, but
he may have wondered for what kind of farm work
he was at once led down to the landing. By the
time he and Steve reached it Mr. Hendricks was
there, and he seemed to be examining narrowly
the timber of the raft. .
“Stephen,” he remarked, as he turned toward
his son, “I know what you mean. It’s just the
thing. We can stop the gap in the dike. How
did you ever come to think of it?”
“I didn’t,” replied Steve, “but old Captain
Clevis, over in Brantford—I heard him telling
once how the folks in Holland kept the sea out of
their land. He used to sail to Holland. I asked
him a lot 0’ questions. Then I came home and
looked at our dike. I ’most forgot it afterward.
I didn’t even think of it when I was making the
raft. Then this morning there on the table was
a book about the Dutch, and some pictures. I


A NIGHT AND A DAY. 127
“Now!” exclaimed Mr. Hendricks, “I can saw
the planks and boards. We can drive ’em down
in front of the spar. We can bank ’em in with
earth and sand at low tide when the water’s all
out. After that’s done the whole patch’ll get as
dry as a bone. By all odds the best land along
shore for miles. Doesn’t need any fertilizer, not
this year; Sure crop 0’ corn or potatoes. Steve,
your head’s level, but it’ll take days 0’ hard work
to do it all.”
“I don’t care,” replied Steve. “But I’m glad
we’ve got so far. Guess there’s a storm coming.”
“There, you go about something else,” said his
father. “Fetch me the saw first. I’ll work right
here till dark. It’s the best I can do. I kind 0’
feel better. Maybe we can do something. But
things are pretty black yet. You and I’ve got a
tough year before us.” ‘


CHAPTER IX.
SHU'I'I’I'NG OUT THE TIDE.
“I MUST go to Turneyville, but oh ! how I
hate to !”
Mrs. Hendricks was in the ln'tchen and she
held in her hand the very moderate cash proceeds
of her husband’s share of the lucky seine haul.
“It won’t go far,” She said, “but it is a help.
I don’t want to meet anybody—not with these
old things on. How I must look! Dear me,
Steve ! Those newspapers ! ”‘
She had evidently been trying to “fix up” a
little, and the result had not been very encourag-
ing. Going to the village grew more dreadful as
she thought about it, but she walked around the
house, putting things to rights as if she were about
to leave them. At last she climbed the stairs and
went into Steve’s room for the first time that day.
She glanced around it listlessly, but there on the
128


SHUTTING OUT THE TIDE. 129
bit of a table lay the Robinson Crusoe, and just
beyond the book was a thick grease spot, with a
bit of black wick in it.
“I declare!” she exclaimed. “That boy! He
read till his candle end burned out! I’ll go! I’ll
take J eif and the buckboard wagon. Candles?
No, he shall have a lamp! I’ll get kerosene; it’s
cheaper than candles, and I’ll have wicks for every
old lamp in the house. Steve shall read if we
have to go without something. I do believe his
father’s waking up, too. I can hear him sawing
and hammering. I wonder what it is.”
Downstairs she went, and before long Steve
came in to give her an explanation. He ended
with:
“Father doesn’t need J elf any more. You can
. have him. I’ll hitch him to the buckboard.”
“Steve!” her arms were around him in a very
tight hug. “ To think of what you’ve done, just
by saving those girls! I am proud of you. But
about that dike and Captain Clevis and H01-
land. I don’t believe any of his yarns ever did
any good before. Get Jeff as quickly as you
can.”
“I’m glad you can drive him,” said Steve.


130 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“There are loads of things for me to do all ’round
the farm.”
Away he went, and J eif and the backboard
wagon came promptly enough.
“Dear fellow!” said Mrs. Hendricks, glancing
back at Steve as she drove out into the road.
“How I wish he had nothing to do but read his
books! Now I’ll drive straight to Burns’s store,
and I won’t stay there a minute. I do hope I
shan’t see anybody that knows me, eXcept the
clerks.”
Her husband was very hard at work. Some-
thing seemed to be driving him. He had begun by
getting the long spar into position upon the ridge
and across the gap. Digging under it and sinking
it several inches, he had settled it firmly. Sawing
and fitting planks came next, and when Steve
came from a finished job of fence mending to take
a look at his father’s work, he shouted:
“Why, you’ve shut the gap already !”
“ Well,” said his father, pausing to take breath,
“ you didn’t suppose, did you, that it would take for-
ever to sledge down less than twenty feet of plank-
ing? I’m spiking them to the spar now. When
that’s done we can shovel dirt in front and behind


SHUTTING OUT THE TIDE. 131
them. It’s queer I never thought of it before.
But, then, I didn’t have any timber and didn’t
know where I could get any.”
“Bully for the raft!” said Steve. “You’ve
about half used it up. I’ll take some of the boards
to mend the pigpen. Hullo ! Who’s that? If it
isn’t S01 and Jim! Father I told you about ’em.”
“I won’t say a word,” growled Mr. Hendricks.
“Don’t you let on.”
The clam boat had approached in silence, but
it was now within twenty yards of them.
“ Hullo ! ” shouted Jim. “Have any of ye seen
a raft anywhere’s ’round yer? ”
“Yes,” returned Steve, with a bright thought
flashing into his mind. “I did. I saw you two
fellers a-towing one across the bay when I was
bringing Bob Matthews’s boat home. \Vas that
the one you mean?”
“That’s the very raft we’re huntin’,” said Sol.
“It was our’n. We had it in our creek an’ some
feller stole it. What are you doin’ to your dike?”
“ Mending it,” said Mr. Hendricks. “But
where could you fellows have found timber enough
to make a raft? If I should hear that anybody
had lost any timber ”


132 ' SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“ Oh ! ” said Jim. “ Ours was only a lot 0’ drift-
wood. Gethered ’longshore. I guess it hasn’t
crawled this way. Come along, Sol.”
They had no good reason for suspecting any-
thing wrong, although they did see a pile of
boards farther up on the shore. Every old farm
has its pile of old boards. Nothing there really
looked like a raft. Nevertheless, there had been
something peculiar in the words and manner both
of Steve and his father, and Jim whispered to Sol:
“Pull away. Don’t say nothin’.”
As soon as they were out of the creek, how-
ever, he added angrily :
“Steve saw us towin’ it. He and the old man
know suthin’. Sol, what I say is that things don’t
look right. I don’t feel safe ’bout anything.”
“They wasn’t there,” replied Sol. “ It was jest
an awful dark night. No other Turneyville boat
was on the bar. Why, we was all but swamped
comin’ home.”
“Yes,” said Jim, “but I don’t feel as if that
there stuff was safe. We must git it' away as soon
as we kin.”
“I’m with ye,” said Sol. ,
Mr. Hendricks was just then glancing from his


SHUTTING OUT THE TIDE. 133
timber work toward the increasingly threatening
sky overhead.
“Steve,” he remarked, “we can shovel some
to-day. Then it’ll have to lie by till the nor’-
easter’s over. It’s coming.”
“Husband! Steve!”
They turned their heads and there was Mrs.
Hendricks. She had driven J efi in, almost at a
run, but she had not lost any of her cargo.
“Mother!” shouted Steve, “what is it?”
“Oh, do come here!” she said, for they were '
indeed coming. “Help me to unload. Hope I
haven’t spilt the kerosene.”
“ No, mum,” put in a very much quieter voice
near her. “I watched ye as ye come. Ye did
jest come a-kitin’. Mr. Hendricks, I was a-talkin’
to Steve about the lan’ an’ the fertilizer, an’ I
stuck away that there kinnew, an’ its plumb safe,
I reckin, an’ Bakum, he run ”
“Secor,” exclaimed Mrs. Hendricks, “do shut
up! You may have all the land you can plow ”
“ So he can,” said her husband, “but Steve and
I have mended the dike.”
“And the fence,” said Steve.
“Do get rid of Secor,” she gasped. “I’ve ever


134 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
so much to tell. Steve, get that old lamp out
of the cupboard. I want to fill it for you to
read by.”
“Oil?” said Steve. “ Better’n candles. Your
big lamp, too ”
Secor and Mr. Hendricks closed their bargain
while the lamps were filling, but Steve led J elf to
the barn with a new idea in his head. There were

several sacks of corn on the buckboard, and he
knew that small parcels had been carried into the
house.
“It didn’t all come from the fish money,” he
said to himself; “but I’m glad to have some feed
for that cow—and for Jeff.”
At the house a kind of struggle was going on,
for Mr. Hendricks had engineered Secor as far as
the door and there he seemed to stick.
“Grow taters on a sandbank,” he persisted.
“Bully for watermellions. Nothin’ like it for
to make cabbitches come early. Ten-pounders and
crinkly. Bakum, he run away, but he used to
77
“ All right! All right!” said Mr. Hendricks.
“ Send it along. We’ll use it. And if your horse
can pull a plow ”


SHUTTING OUT THE TIDE. 135
“ You bet he kin,” said Abe. “ Plowin’ in sof’
groun’ is his bes’ holt. But I dasn’t overwork him,
ye know. Sech sile as your’n, with nothin’ into it,
he kin pull a plow right through. An’ your hoss
can do your sheer if you don’t foolish with puttin’
in the nose 0’ your plow too deep.”
“ Secor,” interrupted Mrs. Hendricks, “ you
go right along now. I want a talk with Steve and
his father.”
“Yes, mum,” he replied. “ An’ I’ll have loads
0’ that stuff into your barn ’fore night if you’ll
len’ me Steve an’ your hoss an’ the buckboard.
You see, Miss Hendricks, how it is: Bakum, he
run away ”
“Go! go!” she said. “ Steve’ll come. It’ll be
safe in the barn.”
“Unless the cow gets it,” came suddenly from
Steve himself in the doorway, for he had made
quick time coming from the barn.
“Kill her sure if she does,” chuckled the
black man. “ Mek her horns grow twenty feet
high and sprout. I’m agoin’. You jes’ fetch
along the buckboar .”

He was really gone.
“Oh, what a time I’ve had!” exclaimed Mrs.


136 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
Hendricks. “Seems to me I saw everybody. Mr.
Mott sent the corn. Burns wanted to sell me
things on credit, but I wouldn’t. This house is
going to pay cash for everything that comes
into it.”
“That’s what I say,” responded her husband.
“ But I’m afraid we’re in for a regular nor’easter.
Wish the dike was finished.”
She turned away without a word to get some
kind of dinner ready, for it was time, but her
husband, and even Steve, understood that some-
how her pride had been hurt. Perhaps people
had been too good and kind and sympathizing.
If so, she said no more about it until she had
finished her dinner. Then she arose before they
did and went to the door for a long stare at the
desolate-looking fields.
“What’s the matter, mother?” asked Steve.
“Fertilizer?” she said, but not as if answer-
ing him. “I wish something would grow. It has
been such a terribly long time to wait. I’ve al-
most felt as if we were going to stop living. We
hadn’t anything left to hope for, but now—”
“Margaret,” exclaimed her husband, “I’ll go
right out and shovel on the dike. I won’t leave


SHUTTING OUT THE TIDE. 137
A . A m.i_ A A_A,A_._..____J_M-.w‘u—A-ML-_._a-:x.‘t_ ~__ _ : -‘ _ .-
it till it’s safe. Steve, take Jeff and go after the
stuff. But I’m going to have near thirty acres of
prime good land if I can keep the tide out.”
Perhaps the fact that he had not obtained it
before was a kind of explanation of the bad suc-
cess of his old-time farming. However that might
be, he was not seen at the house again until
dark.
Mrs. Hendricks found enough to do, but part
of it concerned Steve’s books. There were not
so very many of them, but they required much
wiping and dusting and arranging upon a shelf
in the sitting room. She looked into every one
of them, and among them evidently were old ac-
quaintances.
“Father,” said Steve, when at last they were
at the supper table, “Abe and I brought four
loads. Four fifty-pound bags to each load. Abe
says he’s a ton of it.”
“If it’s worth anything,” replied his father,
“we’ll need all we can get.”
“But hear the rain,” said his mother. “I’m
glad you ’tended to the cow and all the chores.
No farm work to-morrow.”
“The nor’easter got here,” replied Mr. Hen-
10


13s SUCCESS AGAINST onns.
dricks. “Can’t say I’m sorry. I haven’t done so
very much, but I’d like a rest.”
“Mother,” said Steve, “there won’t any visit-
ors come in a storm. I was thinking of that. I
can read, too.”
Before any kind of literature, however, came
an excited family council concerning agriculture.
All the land had to be laid out, in imagination
at least, as to What was to be done with it, but
at last Mrs. Hendricks remarked wearily:
“We needn’t gather our crops yet. It’s a long
time since we’ve had a good one.”
“We’ll have one this time,” said Steve. “I’ll
look out for chickens right away. Six hens a-set-
ting and they pay first-rate. We can feed the
chicks now.”
“I don’t care,” she exclaimed. “ Seems to me
I’m thinking more about what you’re to get from
those books. I want you to study. I want you
to know something.”
He went to the shelf While she was speaking.
His Turneyville friends had been very liberal in
old schoolbooks. Among them were atlases and
geographies, and a pair of these came to the center
table, where now was burning a large, old-fashioned


140 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
lish coast and the Channel, and about Africa and
China and the Mediterranean? Well, mother, if
old Captain Clevis, and all the other old sailor
fellows he runs with weren’t such yarn spinners,
I’d know a heap. They’re always ready to sit
down and tell what’s in their heads about the
places they’ve sailed to. That’s where I picked
up my French and German, too, and I got some
words of Spanish and Italian. It’s just fun to
pump a sailor.”
“Mother,” said Mr. Hendricks, “that’s what
he’s been doing. He’s been learning sailor’s
geography. It isn’t exactly what they teach at
school ”
“Better than nothing,” she snapped. “Steve,

do you go through that atlas and get things into
their right places. What’s the matter with you?
The world is all mixed up in your mind.”
“ Guess I can get it arranged right,” he said,
“ but I was all twisted about England and some of
the other islands. I thought England bordered on
the Mediterranean. I was wrong about Africa, too,
and South America, but I know what’s in ’em.”
“ Go up to bed,” she commanded. “I want to
think about this thing. You’ve been picking up


SHUTTING OUT THE TIDE. 14:1
too much from your sailors. I hadn’t any idea
of it.”
That order was precisely what Steve had been
wishing for. His new lamp was burning on the
mantel and his hands had ached to get hold of
it. These books here were all very well in their
way, but there was another up in his room that
was worth any ten of them. What was any geog-
raphy, for instance, or any continent it told about,
compared to the island that Crusoe found in the
far South Sea? _
“Tiptop !” was all he could say as he entered '
his room, and in a moment more he was busy with
Robinson and his man Friday and their wonderful
big canoe. .
The rain beat on the roof over his head, the
surf roared upon the Atlantic beaches, the whole
world rolled upon its axis, but Steve knew nothing
about it. He was busy with the first book of fic-
tion he had ever read, and it was something like
the beginning of a new life. He did not know it,
but he could never be the same boy again, for all
the old, dull, monotonous, narrow, seashore life
that he had been compelled to live year after year
had that day passed away from him.


142 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“Husband,” said his mother downstairs, “ who
would have thought it! He is not so ignorant,
after all.”
“He doesn’t really know much,” he answered
gloomily, “and I don’t see What he can do with
what he does know. He’s got to stay right here
and hoe corn and dig potatoes.”
“A lamp doesn’t burn out like a candle end,”
remarked Steve, two hours later, “but mother
would say I ought to be in bed. I guess any
storm didn’t trouble old Crusoe much after he
got awav back into his cave.”


CHAPTER X.
THE SUSPECTED PIRATES.
STEVE stood by the window in the very dim
and gloomy dawn of the next morning and there
was a shadow on his face.
“Cow, pigs, Jeff,” he said. “Yes, I can ’tend
to them. Glad I’ve got ’em. But it’s kind 0’
rough that we can’t do anything on the farm
to-day.”
He had his old clothes on and he left the
house Without meeting anybody. When he came
in to his breakfast he was pretty damp, but he
brought a pail of milk with him and some
eggs. There was a great deal of silence at the
table, for there were shadows also on the older
faces.
“Come,” said Mr. Hendricks, when at last he
pushed back his chair. “I’ve been to look at the
dike. The rain’s letting up a little.”
143


144 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“ Why, you can’t work there to-day,” said his
wife. '
A“ I’m going to save that land,” was all the re-
ply he gave her, and he and Steve hurried away.
“Tide’s out,” said his father. “Before it’s in
again these timbers have got to be covered up
deep. You get J elf soon as you can, and haul all
the other lumber over by the pigpen. Mend that,
too. I’ll ’tend to this job.”
“Sol might come, or Jim,” thought Steve, “but
I don’t see what they could do. It was never
their raft, anyhow.” -
An hour or so later they knew that Abe Secor
had borrowed a wagon, for a pretty good load of
the patent fertilizer was landed in the barn. It
had been hauled by the black man’s own horse,
and here were he and Abe now at the dike.
“He ken stan’ it,” he said. “It won’t kill him.
But I want you and your boss, Steve, soon’s you
kin come. You see, Bakum, he run away, an’ he
owed money, an’ I want to get to plowin’. They
might take it away from me if it was in Bakum’s
barn. It’s mine by good rights, an’ it’ll grow
taters on a stone heap ”
He would have gone right along with the


THE SUSPECTED PIRATES. 145
merits of the stuff in his sacks, but Mr. Hendricks
interrupted. j
“ Go ahead, Secor. Steve’ll come pretty soon.”
“I’m goin’ fishin’ too,” replied the black
man. “Folks must eat, an’ how I’m to farm
it I don’t know, an’ I mustn’t kill my hoss to start
on. If Steve’ll haul all he ken ” I
With some difficulty he was persuaded to drive
away for another cargo, and as soon as he was
gone all that was left of the raft was taken away
from the landing. All the while, too, Mr. Hen-
dricks was busy at his gap, and it now looked as
if it had really never been any gap at all.
“There!” he said at last. “I’ll go for that
fertilizer instead of Steve. “I’d like to find out
and feel sure that Secor has a right to it. I s'up-
pose he has. Bakum did cheat him. But that
sort of thing’ll bear looking into.”
That was the reason why, not a great while
after midday, Steve was working at his pigpen all

alone, when the usual outcry of excited dogs arose
in the direction of the landing.
“ Somebody’s come,” he said, “and Pomp and
Leo won’t let ’em land. I’d better go and see
about it.”


146 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
The dogs had indeed been on guard when a
swiftly pulled cutter came in through the channel.
They had not really hindered anybody, however, for
the boat had been steered to the freshly mended
dike. The dogs came there, too, and so did Steve.
“ Hullo ! ” said a man who stood up in the boat.
“ You’re the boy. You’ve changed your rig awful-
ly, but I’d know ye.”
“Well, captain,” replied Steve, “you know a
fellow doesn’t put on his good clothes to mend a
hogpen.”
“Well, now, my young feller,” said the cap-
tain, “where was you the night the Orinoco came
ashore? The other chaps can prove that they
were somewhere else.”
“So was I,” said Steve. “I don’t know just
what night she was wrecked.”
“Come, now,” put in the mate, for he was the
other boatnian, “you gethered that raft. Where
is it now ? ”
“Yes, sir,” said Steve. “Here it is—most of
it. We put it into this gap \ in the dike. I
did gather it, as I told you, and S01 and Jim
stole i .”
“With you a-lookin’ on, after you saved them


THE SUSPECTED PIRATES. 147
gals,” said the captain, with something like admira-
tion in his face. “ You watched ’em, and you
never let on while they was doin’ your towin’ for
ye. You beat ’em, that’s all.”
“ Do you claim any of this timber?” asked
Steve. “Did it come from your schooner? ”
“No,” said the captain. “What do I care
where it came from? Rubbish! But I do care
for other things that are missing—I told you so
t’other day. Is that your boat? ”
“That’s my boat,” said Steve sturdily. “I
never had any other.”
“Captain,” said the mate, closely scrutinizing
Steve’s yawl, “that’s about all we want to know.
Our stuff never came across the bay in that little
thing. The boy couldn’t ha’ moved one o’ the
chests. But I wanted to see him again.”
“He’s all right,” exclaimed the captain heartily.
“They can’t throw off onto him. But it jest takes
me, the way he let that pair 0’ pirates tow his raft
for him. I like a joke, I do. It’s worth telling.
Now, young feller, you mind your eye, and if you
light onto anything about our stuff keep your
mouth tight. Don’t say a word to anybody but
to me or the mate, or the Sun Insurance Company


148 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
or its lawyer. His name’s Blackstone, and he lives
in New York.”
“That’s what I say,” growled the mate. “A
real ’cute young ’longshore spider like him might
find out what these here country constables’d never
get hold of.”
“Steve Hendricks you said your name was?”
added the captain. “They gave ye a good char-
acter in the village. But don’t you say a word;
keep mum.”
Away was pulled the cutter, but not a word
from Steve followed her.
Keep mum ?—why, he knew nothing whatever
to tell. Had he really been suspected of thieving
from the Orinoco?
“ S01 and Jim put them up to it,” he remarked
angrily. “If there’s anything stolen they’re none
too good to have taken it; but I’ll write down
those names when I go to the house. IVhy didn’t
I think to ask the captain and the mate for their
names ? ”
He had not done SO, and they were gone he
could not guess where.-
He learned one thing mere, however, about
abandoned property and what might be called


THE SUSPECTED PIRATES. 149
“ wreckage ” when his father returned with the
first cargo of fertilizer that he himself had hauled.
Secor was still at the barn unloading when Mr.
Hendricks reached the house.
“Just as I thought,” he said to his wife. “ That
black man! He isn’t entitled to another pound,
and he was going to take it all.”
“He told us he’d earned it,” she said.
“ So he had——some of it, but Bakum’s creditors
own the rest, unless Abe Secor was earning twenty
dollars a day. We shall have enough, anyhow.
What troubles me is what we are to eat while
things are growing.”
“ Milk,” suggested Steve. “ Wasn’t I glad
when the cow came! Mother and you and I were
tired of broiled fish and water.”
“That’s what we were down to at one time,”
burst from Mrs. Hendricks against her will——
“ sometimes not even the fish. Husband, we’ve
stood it out so far, and we can pull through. Did
you get seed corn and seed potatoes? Tell me
tha .”
“Margaret,” he said, glancing at Steve—“ old
Mott. We can have all the seed corn we want ”
“But I won’t run in debt at the stores or any-


THE SUSPECTED PIRATES. 151
I saw the captain of the Orinoco and S01 and Jim.
Don’t they feel sweetened! Steve, did you say I
gave ye the notion of how to Dutch your swamp?
Glad I did. But I’ve got some coast marsh of my
own, and I want to see how you calk the sea edge
of it ”
I “Mr. Hendricks,” put in the doctor, “ your son
has exhibited unexpected intelligence and a capac-
ity for imitation—or invention ”
“ Steve,” continued Captain Clevis, “ the Dutch-
ers have ten times as high tides as we do. When
a dike there breaks and the water pours in at the
_ leak it drowns millions of ’em. And I’ve seen a
tide at the Bay of Fundy that was higher’n a
meetin’ house. We don’t have more’n six feet 0’
tide, except in the spring and fall and with a
south wind. Where’s your dike?”
Right on past the house he stumped, followed
by the doctor and the others, all the while letting
out more and more of what he knew or did not
know concerning foreign countries.
“That’ll do,” he asserted, as soon as he saw
what had been done for the dike. “ H’ist it a foot
or so higher and it’ll make a water-tight bulkhead.
But, Steve, if you go a-crabin’, I want all the


152 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
crabs you can fetch me. ’Specially shedders.
They’re scarce. That’s part 0’ what I kem for,
77

an’ to know how much timber you stole
“Didn’t steal it,” insisted Steve. “There it
was ashore—” ‘
“And you helped yourself,” dryly remarked
Dr. Kedzie. “But I was over this way to see a
patient. What I want, Mr. Hendricks, is to have
Steve come and see me every Tuesday evening,
after his daily tasks are accomplished. It is my
design to impart to him a certain amount of
instruction.”
“Doctor!” exclaimed Mr. Hendricks, “if he
doesn’t thank you I do. Steve, tell him you’ll
be there every time.”
“I will,” said Steve. “I guess he can teach
me no end of things. Captain Clevis, I’ll bring
you some crabs. I don’t know how often I can
go for them, but I know where.”
“Glad you do,” replied the fish merchant.
“Why, when I was a boy we used to bring ’em in
by the bushel and nobody’d buy ’em. Down
in South America, now, I saw crabs as big as lob-
sters, and the lobsters there are as big as dogs.
Steve, just you keep an eye out for S01 and Jim.


THE SUSPECTED PIRATES. 153
If they could lay hands onto any loose cargo o’
your’n, they’d say it was pay for that raft. I
know you got it back.” .
“I’ll watch out,” said Steve, but both the doc-
tor and Captain Clevis had seen enough and they
were going.
Mrs. Hendricks did not come out of the house
until the two visitors were beyond the road fence.
_ “Mother!” said Steve, and he told her about
the doctor’s very kind invitation.
“ Go ! go ! ” she said. “But I don’t want any-
body else to come here. I don’t want them to go
by the house and see how everything looks between
this and the gate.”
“ No gate there,” said Steve. “It doesn’t need
any. But we can clear away the rubbish and fix
the path and the fence, and trim the bushes. It
does look awfully ragged just now.”
Country lawns are apt to look badly in April,
especially if they had on them only weeds and
brambles the previous year, and there was a vast
opportunity for improvement in front of Mrs. Hen-
dricks’s homestead. No wonder it made her half
sick to look at it, but Steve heard his father say :
“She shall have her way about it. I mean to
11


CHAPTER XI.
STEVE AND HIS CRABS.
“THERE!” exclaimed Steve, two mornings
later, “mother’s fence is done. I wish it could be
painted; but it’s better than it was.”
The length of fence he had been tinkering was
near the gateway, and he knew it had been an
eye-sore, leaning forward as if it were about
to fall.
It was a fine spring morning. At a little dis-
tance in one direction Mr. Hendricks was plowing
with J eff. Somewhat farther away, in the oppo-
site direction, Abe Secor and his bony black were
at work.
“ Father’ll have to go too far to get there,” said
Steve, walking away from his fence; but what he
meant by it did not at first appear. He had an
idea, nevertheless, and whatever it was it took
him to the margin of the old channel. This was
155


156 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
now closed at the seaside gap, through which the
sea water used to come in and cover the flat.
“The tide doesn’t rise and fall in it any more,”
he remarked, “but enough leaks in to keep the
hollow half full. Father can’t get J elf across.
He’ll have to go away around by the road.
Bridge? I’m going to see if I can’t make one;
Hurrah!”
The dogs considered themselves called for and
they came. They went with him to the house.
“Robinson Crusoe,” he remarked, “would have
gone for his axe. But I wish I had a man Friday.
We might about as well not have that patch of
good land as to have to travel a mile every time.
Best thing I can do, and J elf can haul the sticks.”
He reached the woodshed in the rear of the
house and took out the axe; but at that moment
a voice called him.
“Stephen, come here a moment.”
“What is it, mother?” he shouted back, as he
ran around to the front.
“I’m so tired!” she said. “I’m not used to
spading. Finish this piece along the border.”
“ Why, mother,” he said, “you mustn’t spade;
it’s father’s work and mine.”


15s SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
He was spading fiercely now. Not all his
shabby clothes, nor his being kept out of school,
nor his hard work had ever stung him like this.
The family had not starved. There had always
been something—that is, almost always. Some-
times the table had been set with hardly anything
on it; he remembered that.
“I’m going into the house,” she said. “I don’t
feel well. I think I want a glass of milk. Work
away, Steve.”
He did so, but before long he was hailed again.
“That garden patch is for your mother, Steve.
I did a good piece of plowing, but I’ve got to rest
awhile. I don’t seem to stand hard work as I
used to. Maybe I was out too long in that nor’-
easter. We’ve got agoing—”
There he ceased and sat down on the doorstep,
but Steve knew what was the matter. A strong
man must eat, and he must eat heartily and regu-
larly if he is to keep his muscles in good order.
Then Steve saw another thing that seemed to
burn him. Both of them had pinched themselves
that he might have enough, if he could, and he
recalled that he more than once had heard his
mother whisper to his father:


160 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
pieces.” On these was rapidly placed about all
that was left of the raft, with some other bits of
lumber, and Steve exclaimed :
“Mother! you could drive a loaded wagon
right across.”
To be sure, the channel was less than ten feet
wide at that point, but both he and his father
were proud of their engineering.
“I never thought of i,” muttered the latter.
“Fact is, I hadn’t anything to do with. I was
broke.”
“ Bes’ kine of bridge,” chuckled the black
man. “You kin plow on t’other side the creek
now. Meks your farm bigger’n ’twas. You kin
git right over into the swamp.”
Swamp? There no longer was any. The wind
and the sun were doing as much for that as for
any other land, and it was nearly dry enough to
put a plow into.
“ That’s Where the garden’s to be, mother,”
said Mr. Hendricks. “Peas and beans and early
potatoes are going in Within three days. Lettuce,
radishes, beets—anything that’ll come up right
away. Early corn, melons—all sorts of things’ll
grow on that soil.”


STEVE AND HIS CRABS. 161
She looked and nodded her head and she
smiled at Steve, but he turned suddenly and
walked away.
“Fish!” he said to himself. “There isn’t a
thing in the house but milk. Bait? I can get
crabs in the creek. Clams outside. They won’t
see me again till after the tide turns.”
Pomp and Leo remained ’to study the new
bridge, and Mrs. Hendricks walked wearily to
the house. So Steve was all alone when he got
to the landing, taking with him a bushel basket.
If it was too large it made no difierence, for he
had no other to take.
“ Crabs are curious,” he remarked. “ Some-
times no kind 0’ bait’ll take ’em. Then they’ll
grapple anything you throw in. It’s luck and
chance. I’ve been for ’em when I didn’t bring
home a crab.”
He pulled his boat out into his own channel
and along that to a place where it widened near
the main creek. Here he came to an anchor and
began to busy himself with several long bits of
twine. It was nearly low water and the tide
was not running fast. Small bits of lead fast-
ened to his lines made good sinkers. Beside


STEVE AND HIS CRABS. 163
“Yes, I do,” he said hoarsely. “The boat’s
gone. I ought to have gone with him.”
“Fishing?” she said. “After all the hard
work he’s done today? That boy’ll kill himself.”
“He knows more than you think he does,” re-
plied her husband. “ He doesn’t say anything, but
he has felt it, just as we have. Margaret, we’ve
got to live ! ”
“We will somehow,” she told him. “But
Secor mustn’t get an idea of just how things
are with us. I’m going to fix that ground in
front.” '
“I say so,” he replied. “We won’t let any-
body know. Not if we die for it ! ”
The place where Steve had anchored was a
kind of marsh-bordered cove, and he in his boat
was almost hidden from view from the creek be-
yond. At that very moment, however, while he
was pulling up a brace of crabs he was also lis-
tening, somewhat excitedly. There was a sound
of lazy rowing along the main channel, and with
it were voices.
“ No, Sol, the raft’s gone. I do reckon the
Hendrickses got it, but we couldn’t ever prove it
on ’em.”


164 SUCCESS AGAINST onns.
“No good if we did,” said Sol; “but the cap-
tain won’t suspicion you an’ me any more ’bout
that other stufi. More’n a foot deep 0’ sand over
part of it.”
“Wish we could git shut o’ the rest of it,” said
Jim. “ It’s dangerous to hev it ’round.”
“We’ll move it soon’s we kin,” rasped Sol,
“ but we won’t stir any sand now. We kin find
it. Nobody else’ll ever take note of a stick and
,7

a ra
Steve lost the remainder of that remark, but
all that he had heard seemed determined to stick
in his memory.
“They are the thieves, after all!” he said to
himself, and he came near saying it aloud. “But
wasn’t it mean for them to try and throw it off on
me? What did they say about a stick and a rag?
Hullo !”
He could not give that matter any more at—
tention just now on account of the crabs. It
appeared, from what he said about it, that the
Turneyville butcher, not long since, had dumped
a quantity of ofial at this place instead of carrying
it away out into the bay, as was his duty.
“That’s what draws so many crabs,” said


STEVE AND HIS ORABS. 165
Steve, “but it must be used up or they wouldn’t
be hungry enough to bite.”
There is never an effect of any kind without a
sufficient cause, but it was well that Steve knew
all about his own creek branch.
“Pretty nigh a bushel of ’em ! ” he said at last.
“It’s getting darker. I know what I’ll do. Sam
Fox! Old Captain Clevis ! ”
In a moment more his anchor was up, and he
was at the oars. He might have guessed that at
his own home his mother was at the kitchen win-
dow, staring out toward the landing and saying
to herself softly:
“The plucky boy! Dear fellow! I hope he’ll
get something; it’ll almost break his heart if he
doesn’t.”
Sam Fox, a little later, down at the Turney-
ville wharf, remarked to Bob” Matthews:
“Pretty good cargo, after all. I’ll haul it to
Brantford to-night. I’ve got Southard’s hoss in-
stead of mine. If we only had some crabs, now,
I’d call it a business day.”
“Somebody’s pulling in,” said Bob. “Hold
on, Sam. Hullo! I say, what you got?”
“Crabs!” came back from the boat that was


166 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
out in the shadows. “Heap of ’em ; but they’re
for old Captain Clevis.”
“ So’s this cargo,” shouted back Sam. “Fetch
’em along. I’ll give yer all they’re worth to make
up my lot. I said I’d bring him some.”
“ Here they are,” said Steve.
“You did have prime luck!” remarked Sam,
peering down into the basket. “Pitch ’em out and
have ’em counted. What do you want for ’em ? ”
“Why,” said Steve, coloring, but they could
not see that in the light of Bob’s lantern, “ you
fix it with Ziegler, the butcher, for a good roast
0’ beef.”
“I’ll do that,” said Sam. “Throw ye in a
pound 0’ ground coffee and a paper 0’ buckwheat.
Ziegler owes me and so does the store. It’s a
trade all ’round. Glad you didn’t want any cash.
Haven’t a cent. Bob, you heave the crabs into
my basket. I’m goin’ with Steve, an’ be right
back.”
“I don’t want to see anybody,” said Steve,
“and I’m in an awful hurry to git home.”
“ Good appetite,” suggested Sam, and precisely
the same idea was at work in the mind of Steve’s
mother.


STEVE AND HIS CRABS. 167
The longer he remained away the slower the
time went for her and the more she thought of
him. She tried to read Dickens, but she gave it
up; and his father attended to all the chores twice
over.
Sam Fox and his friends were in a hurry, for
the Brantford trip was before them, and Steve
was as eager as they were to have his crab bar-
gain completed. He had another on his hand,
however, for Billy Mott met him at the butcher’s
shop.
“Steve,” said Billy, “tell you what I’ll do. If
you’ll let on where you got your crabs, I’ll load
you up with sandworms. \Ve fellers were out to-
day, and we gathered twice what we want. Sam
won’t buy ’em neither. He’s got all he needs.”
“Just what I want,” said Steve. “I’m out o’
bait. I’ll tell you where to go.”
That was every way a fair swap among the
village boys, and Steve pulled away from the land-
ing a successful merchant.
“Biggest cut of beef!” he said. “’Tisn’t the
highest priced they had, but it’s heavy. Coffee,
too, at fifteen cents. The Java was thirty. They
wouldn’t go that. And the buckwheat’s all right.


168 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
I
What’ll mother say, and father? Now! There’s
night fishing in the creek sometimes. Glad Billy
sold me the sandworms.”
From other remarks of his it was made plain
that these reptiles were considered the right bait
for quite a variety of salt-water fishes, but the best
places to use them were miles away.
“I’ll just stop and try,” he said, “and if I don’t
make a catch I can go on home.”
Once more his boat was anchored, but not on
the crab pasture. It was in the main creek, against
a reedy bank, and the boat was only a darker spot
in some other darkness.
Out went three lines, as fast as he could bait
them; but after they were out there they lay.
“Slow business,” he was thinking. “ Guess
nothing worth while comes in as far as this. Bite 1
Bully I Here he comes.”
One fish was something, and again he waited;
but he knew that he was also waited for at
home.
“Once more. Not so big, but he’ll do. That
first blackfish’ll weigh a pound and a half.”
_ Not for the fun of it was he fishing. It was
dreadfully serious business, and every bite counted.


STEVE AND HIS CRABS. . 169
“Four,” he said, after standing it——or sitting
down to it—as long as he could. “That isn’t big
luck, but it’s all we can eat in two days. Besides,
there are the beef and the pancakes. We weren’t
quite out of coffee, but mother’ll be glad of some
more. I’m going home.”
Down at the Hendricks landing there were
shadows, standing still or moving round. All of
a sudden one of the shadows lifted its head and
sent out a long-drawn howl, and instantly another
shadow began to bark furiously.
“ Husband, Steve’s coming ! ”
“All right, mother. I can’t hear the oars yet,
but Pomp and Leo can.”
“Trust a dog’s ears,” she said. “He’ll be here
in a minute. Husband, if he hasn’t had good luck
don’t mind it.”
“I won’t,” he responded. “There he comes.
Stephen!”
“That you, father?” came back across the
water. “Don’t tell mother.”
“ Steve, has anything happened? You haven’t
hurt yourself? ”
“Mother,” he shouted, “no! But I caught a
bushel of crabs ! Traded ’em for beef and things.
12


172 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“ What was it? he now inquired of himself,
“that I heard those fellows in the boat saying to
each other? I can’t put it into shape, somehow,
but they’ve been hiding something. A stick and
a rag? I heard that, but they know what it
means and nobody else does. I’ll go down and do
the chores. Then for the garden.”
Farm work began with vigor, but the black
farmer did not make his appearance. Mr. Hen-
dricks took Jeff over the new bridge, and begun
upon the rich black loam which had been res-
cued from the sea.
“An acre for a garden,” he shouted. “We’ll
hurry in the seeds. No matter what comes first.
I want to see something growing.”
As soon as Steve’s chores were done he went
to the front where his mother was working.
“If I don’t look out for her,” he said to him-
self, “there’s no telling how much she’ll do.”
They were as busy as two bees about the
middle of the forenoon, when a horse and buggy
came in at the road gate.
“ Sakes alive!” exclaimed Mrs. Hendricks,
“Mrs. Warren and Hester. Well, things do look
better.”


STEVE’S MYSTERY. 173
The rubbish had been taken away. That was
something. The walk was clean. The borders of
it were spaded and looked fresh. The front fence
was in better order. Besides, there was a cut of
beef in the kitchen, ready to roast, and it some-
how seemed to have an effect on the house—she
could not say what.
“ Steve!” shouted Hester, as her mother pulled
in their pony, “we took out loads of strawberry
plants. They’re right here. So are the peony and
tulip bulbs, and the asters and the other things.
Come and get ’em.”
“ Sally Warren!” exclaimed Mrs. Hendricks.
“Just what we wanted.”
“ Oh,” replied Mrs. Warren, “ you always have
to thin out strawberry runners. We hadn’t any
room for ’em.”
She and Hester were out of the buggy now,
and Steve forgot all about his looks until he
caught Mrs. Warren glancing at his bare feet.
Then he tingled all over, but he cared for the
plants courageously. Probably Mrs. \Varren saw
something in his face, for he heard her say to his
mother:
“ Steve’s growing splendidly. guess you’re


17A SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
going to get a good deal from your farm this year.
I heard about the dike, and Secor’s working for you.”
Talk about crops did Steve and his mother a
great deal of good, for there was a reason, and
they knew it, why the extra plants from the
Warren place and elsewhere were coming to them
rather than to anybody else.
“I don’t care,” thought Mrs. Hendricks. “I’d
want to help people, too. I will some day.”
It really was not a good time for false pride
or soreness, but Steve’s own pride about his
mother and her manners was altogether of a dif-
ferent sort.
“She ought to live in a better place than this
is,” he thought, looking at her. “Nothing would
be too good for her.”
The visitors completed their neighborly errand
and drove away, but the rest of that day was
given to setting the strawberry plants.
When noon brought Mr. Hendricks to the
house, almost the first thing he said was:
“Steve, Billy Bullard came to see me. He
was one of Bakum’s creditors. I let him have
land on shares ”
“Put in every acre you can,” interrupted Mrs.


STEVE’S MYSTERY. 175
Hendricks. “I don’t care how. Seems to me the
strawberries have made me feel better.”
“The new ones won’t bear much this year,”
said her husband, “but I’m glad you have them.
What I’m thinking about is the garden. It’s an
early country.”
The meaning of that was that parts of the
south shore of Long Island are remarkable for
hurrying crops to market in advance of less fa-
vored localities.
“This is Steve’s evening at Dr. Kedzie’s,” re-
marked his mother. “ We mustn’t let him get too
tired.”
“ Garden work won’t hurt me,” he said, and his
father seemed to agree with him, but his heart was
not in the garden that day. He went out after
dinner, and he put in seeds diligently, but one of
the sticks he put in to mark a radish row with
had a tatter of rag hitched to it, and he exclaimed
“Hullo !” so loudly that his father turned from his
plowing to ask:
“What’s the matter, Steve? Have you found
anything!”
“Not a thing,” replied Steve,” but I guess I’ve
got the row straight this time.”


176 suoonss AGAINST onns. ,
“ Pitch in,” said his father.
“ No sign at all,” thought Steve, “ and yet I be-
lieve I did see one. It looked like it. Yes sir.
I’m going to try it on the first chance I can get.
Maybe ’tis, maybe ’tisn’t. The only way to find out
is to go and see.”
He was thinking, thinking, and the time went
by without his knowing it, until he heard his
mother calling to him.
“ Come, Stephen; you and your father have
worked long enough. Bullard was at the house.
He said he would begin in the morning. Come.”
“ Tired? No, I’m not tired, my dear,” he heard
his father say, “but I’ll come in. I’m feeling
better, but it’ll take a good deal to make me all
right again.”
“ I know just how it is,” she murmured. “Don’t
let Steve know too much. I’m going to feed you up.”
“He’s got to be,” thought Steve, and on the
way to the house he said to them :
“I’m going fishing again to-morrow night, as
soon as work’s over.”
“ No, you won’t,” replied his father. “ You’ll
take the afternoon to it. Neither you nor anybody
else can stand digging and rowing too.”


STEVE’S MYSTERY. 177
“ You may go,” added his mother. “ But I
wish it wasn’t so long a walk to Dr. Kedzie’s.”
“ All I hope is that there won’t be anybody
else there,” said Steve. “I’m going away around
the village, and I’ll come to his place from the '
other side.”
His mother made sure that his new rig was at
its best after he put it on, and then all he was per-
mitted to do until it was time to set out was to sit
still and turn over the leaves of his many school-
books.
“ Mother,” he said of them, “ I wish I’d had ’em
all along. But it seems to me you and father have
told me pretty much all of it.”
“If you could remember it,” she said. “But
there’s nothing like learning things the right way.”
An hour or so later he was sitting in Dr. Ked-
zie’s office, while that learned man walked slowly
up and down, propounding questions and uttering
words of wisdom. _
“Take your slate,” he said at last, putting one
and a crayon into the hands of his pupil. “I wish
to ascertain your proficiency, or the reverse, by
means of practical examples. Put down the fol-
lowing arithmetical problem.”


178 SUCCESS AGAINST onus.
It was nothing very serious after all, and Steve’s
figures made the doctor open his eyes.
“ Remarkable !” he said.
“Yes, doctor,” responded Steve. “But I’ve just
had to do such things. Mother told me how, but
she made me do most of them in my head.”
“ She—ah—did so? She—ah—did well to pur-
sue that method,” he declared. “We will proceed,
then we will touch upon other branches.”
They did so, and at the close of the evening the
doctor sent Steve away, ordering him to come again
a week later, but remarking, as soon as the door
closed upon the young scholar :
“ Innate ideas ! I must prepare an essay upon
that subject. It is sometimes marvelous how much
of what we suppose to be taught only in text-books
may also be discovered in the minds of the un-
taught. Here, now, is an utterly ignorant young
savage, a mere waif of the seashore, and his young
brain is already largely stored with miscellaneous
information.”
If that was really the condition of Steve Hen-
dricks’s head there might be less vacant space there
to stow in a fresh cargo.
Information? Miscellaneous? That, or some-


180 SUCCESS AGAINST onns.
whatever blowed ashore belonged 0’ rights to the
shore men. But the captain and the crew of that
three-master got back in time to save the keel.
This here Orinoco, now, the insurance men saved
her solid, if her crew hadn’t been fools enough to
pitch a lot 0’ things to the bar. That was where
you Turneyville people could get at ’em. We
don’t have any wreckers or pirates in Brantford,
and I don’t feel exactly safe here. I’ll go home.”
“Then they haven’t found anything yet,”
thought Steve. “If they had, Captain Clevis
would know it. I’m glad our folks are going to
let me go fishing to-morrow. I’ll go right across
to the bar. Now you see if I don’t. But I wish
I knew just where the Orinoco sailors landed their
stuff. I’ll have to guess.”
There was nothing to keep him any longer in
Turneyville, but after he reached home even his
books were neglected. His father and mother
may have deemed it well not to ask him too many
questions concerning his evening with Dr. Kedzie,
and they let him go to his room.
It was not a night for lamp burning for a
young fellow whose head was so full of realities
that he did not care for fiction. Sleep came in


STEVE‘S MYSTERY. 181
spite of him, however, while he was staring at the
Window and wishing that the next day had al-
ready come.
He was out of his bed while yet the dawn was
gray, but there was no great use in such early ris-
ing, for all the forenoon had to be spent upon the
widening garden, and upon his mother’s flower
seeds and the remainder of the strawberry plants.
It was a thin dinner to which the Hendricks
family'sat down at noon.
“Fish,” thought Steve. “I must bring back
something. Glad I’ve plenty of clams and sand-
worms. It’s clouding up, too, and I hope the
fish’ll bite.”
It was anything but a warm day, but there was
not much wind stirring when Steve pulled away
from his own landing. His last word from his
mother had been, “I do hope you’ll make a good
catch,” and something seemed to tell him that if
he did not do so it would hurt her.
She was depending upon him more than he
knew, and so was his father, for it looked as if all
their small encouragements had come by his means,
somehow.
Very sober, therefore, was he when he put up


182 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
his bit of a mast and sail and shot out of the
swamp into the bay.
“Roughening,” he remarked. “I’ll go right
across and fish at the inlet, under the lee of the
bar. That’s a pretty good place, anyhow.”
Here and there, at varying distances, he saw
the sails of other boats, but they were all in mo-
tion, for to other eyes than his the weather wore
a threatening aspect, and almost everybody was
hastening home.
Not absolutely everybody, however, for away
behind him, in the Turneyville channel, a larger
boat than his was venturing out. Only two
men were in it, and one of them said to the
other:
“We needn’t hurry ourselves, Jim, but I want
to see if them things is there yet.”
” replied Jim; “but
we’d best up with ’em and put ’em down deeper
farther along up the bar. ’Twon’t do for us to
fetch ’em ashore jest now.”
“We’ll do suthin’ with ’em some day,” was
drawled in a kind of cadence, with the pulling of
an oar, and their boat swept on.
Roughening very rapidly was the water of
“Nobody’s come for ’em,


STEVE’S MYSTERY. 183
the bay, but the wind was about right for Steve
and what was now his catboat. It sent him along
finely, save that now and then the scattering crest
of a wave flew over his windward gunwale, as if to
warn him of what the bay could do with a craft of
that size.
“She’s cutting it,” he exclaimed. “I guess
there won’t be anybody around when I get there.
Hullo ! ”
He was glancing behind at that moment, and
he saw something. More than half. a mile away it
was, but he stared at it anxiously.
“S01 and Jim,” he muttered, “if I’m not mis-
taken. I must get there before they do. Hope
they won’t see me.”
They must have seen him, but his was only one
boat among many, and they could not have the
slightest suspicion that he was out for anything
but fish. Moreover, rowers do not look for-
ward much without a reason for it, and the two
“pirates,” as the captain of the Orinoco had called
them, were just now forced to do their best rowing,
stout as was their fishing boat.
“Nearer,” thought Steve. “There’s the mouth
of the inlet. They’ve stopped for a talk with


STEVE’S MYSTERY. 185
I cut straight across. Then I had my swim,
and there were those girls getting ready to be
drowned.”
Breathlessly, eagerly, holding his hat on with
his hand, Steve pushed along the low sand hills
and hollows.
“Not a thing yet,” he exclaimed, “but I do be-
lieve I saw something. There! A rag on a stick.
’Tisn’t half as big as my hand, but somebody
stuck it there. S01 and Jim are coming. I know
what to do first! ”
Up came the stick, a mere splinter of pine, less
than a foot and a half long, and in a moment more
it was down again, six yards to seaward and as
many to the left.
“Just the same looking kind of a hollow,”
gasped Steve. “I’ll only drop a couple of those
clam shells here, so I’ll know how to find it when'
I come again. That’s it. N ow I’d better be back
in my boat fishing.”
It was time, for S01 and Jim had not gone to I
the inlet. They had rowed directly to the bar,
and even now they were hauling up their boat.
Steve stooped as he went, for he had a clear idea
that there was danger in being seen. Such men
13


STEVE’S MYSTERY. 187
was not near enough to hear him, but he sat in his
boat feeling sure that the pair of men he was
afraid of could not be far away.
There were sand ridges between, or he might
have seen with what sudden eagerness they sprang
forward.
“There it is!” shouted Sol. “We’re all right
now. \Ve’ll move them things a good half mile
east on the bay side.”
Jim chuckled loudly but said nothing. He
had a hoe in his hand, and he began at once to
make the sand fly from the spot indicated by the
rag stick.
“Go it, Jim,” said Sol. “We buried it deeper’n
I thought we did.”
“The wind has drifted the sand over it,” re-
sponded Jim plying his hoe. “I’m down a foot.
Sand drifts awful.”
He had a right to think so five minutes later,
for the hollow he had scooped out was not a small
one.
“Sol,” he inquired solemnly, “what does this
’ere mean? Are we right down sure that was our
stick?”
“Couldn’t be any other,” said Sol. “You kin


188 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
hunt the bar for twenty mile an’ not find anything
jest like it.”
“There ain’t nothin’ here,” groaned Jim. “I
don’t know what to make of it.”
“Let me take the hoe,” said Sol. “I’ll dig
around aways in each direction.”
Over in the inlet Steve was sitting in his boat
remarking to himself:
“How the fish do bite! Three whopping big
flounders already. Don’t I wish I knew what
those fellows are doing! But won’t the bay be
rough! There comes the rain. What will mother
say?”
It was only just beginning to come, and all
fishermen know that precisely such a moment, at
the turn of the tide, is the time chosen by many
fish for their hardest biting. Up came a heavy
blackfish and then three weakfish in quick suc-
cession. After that Steve had an exhilarating
fight with a four-pound bass, and all the while
Sol was anxiously exploring that patch of sand.
Deeper, deeper he dug, and wider grew the hollow
he was making.
“Sol,” said Jim at last, “ you needn’t hoe up
the hull bar. Them things is gone.”


STEVE’S MYSTERY. 189
Sol dropped his hoe and sat down upon the
sand as if to consider the matter. So did Jim,
and for a moment they were silent. Beyond a
doubt in their minds they were at the right spot.
Here they had buried their treasure, whatever it
might be, rescued from the crew of the Orinoco
rather than from the Atlantic Ocean. Here it still
should be, and here it was not.
“Sol,” groaned Jim, “that ain’t the wust
of it. Somebody knows more ’bout this business
than we thought they did. What had we best do
next?”
“Cut it,” said Sol. “I don’t want to be seen
anywhere near the place. It kinder looks like a
mouse trap. On’y nobody kin swear to anything
onto us.” '
“We’d best light out,” said Jim angrily. “I’ll
take a scoutin’ look all ’round an’ then we’ll git.
But it’ll be tough crossin’ the bay.”
“Up he comes!” Steve exclaimed, concerning
another healthy-looking blackfish. “But I’ve
caught enough—twice as many as I expected to.
Wish I was in a bigger boat.”
One more consideration suggested itself un-
pleasantly. The day was going fast, and it would


190 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
be dark early. The little gusts of rain which came
first were changing for others that were larger.
“I won’t show any sail till I’m out of the in-
let,” he thought. “ They’d see it, sure.”
He took in his anchor with some care as to
silence, and all that while the two partners in
sand digging were scouting uselessly toward the
ocean beach. They did not hear the low sound
of Steve’s oars in the rowlocks, and he had near-
ly gained the bay when they turned to recross
the bar to the place where they had left their
boat.
“This ’ere rain’s goin’ to be a soaker,” they
said ; _“ but it’s awful ’bout that stuff. It’s a heap
wuss than losin’ our raft the way we did. There’s
thieves ’round this bay.”
There were white-capped billows tossing all
over it, at all events, and Steve put up his sail
with a feeling of dismay.
“ I daren’t stay till they get here,” he said.
“ If the wind hadn’t veered from east to south-
east I couldn’t get home at all. I’ll take one long
tack easterly, and then I’ll steer for our creek. I
might fetch it in that one tack, if I’m not cap-
sized.”


192 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
lieve those two chaps would stick at anything. I
dare not let them catch me ! ”
Things were looking very doubtful, for he was
absolutely forced to tack again, so that the wind
was a little more astern. Even then it required
good management, wave after wave careening him
and pitching him dangerously.
Heavier rain came then; but as the hoarse
hails of Sol and Jim drew nearer, a bank of mist
came drifting down with the wind.
“I’m in it!” exclaimed Steve. “It’s almost
pitch dark. It’s my last chance. Let the sail out
and scud. It’ll carry me almost straight back
again.”
It was like a game of hide and seek.
“Pull, Jim!” he heard. “We’ve pretty nigh
reached him.”
“Put in your best!” shouted Jim. “Clean
out his boat and upset him! They’ll call it an
accident.”
He could not see them through the blinding
sheets of rain, the evening glooming, and the mist.
He only knew that they swept by within five
boat lengths of him, bending to their oars with
all their might.


STEVE’S MYSTERY. 193
“My boat’s half full,” he muttered. “I mustn’t
veer her against these rollers. Hullo I I’m ashore.
Down with her!”
That meant the sail. But now his angry pur-
suers were at a considerable distance to the east-
ward, and they were peering uselessly in all direc-
tions after the vanished sail. The fog bank had
blown away, but it had taken Steve with it.
“ Sol,” said Jim, “that fellow’s capsized.”
“You bet,” replied Sol. “And if he did,
mebbe that stuff’s at the bottom of the bay.”
“Too bad if it is,” said Jim. “I’d ruther ha’
drowned him myself than had this happen. I say,
let’s go home.”
“Got ter,” replied his partner; “but we’ll be
out ag’in the first thing to-morrer.”
“His boat’ll float ashore further down the
bay,” said Jim. “ He won’t be in it, neither.”
Steve was not in his boat indeed, for he had
stepped out of it upon a beach of wet sand.
“I know where I am,” he exclaimed. “It’s
about half tide, and this is the very bar that the
Sea Gull landed those girls on. Right over yonder
is the inlet. Guess I’ll bale my boat.”
He evidently felt better, in spite of being so


CHAPTER XIII.
A DARK NIGHT’S WORK.
THAT had been a dark evening at the Hen-
dricks place. Steve had hardly been expected to
return at an early hour, and all the miscellaneous
chores had been attended to by his father, with
the assistance of Billy Bullard, who seemed to con-
sider that his contract for land almost made him
a member of the family. But when the rain be-
gan to come and the wind to whistle around the
house, things grew darker in more ways than
one.
“I never felt so lonely in my life,” thought
Mrs. Hendricks. “Oh, where can he be?”
“Mother,” said her husband, “I’m glad he
took the boat. He spoke of going in the
canoe.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “ that nutshell! In
such a night as this is going to be.”
195


196 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“He’s a first-rate boatman,” replied her hus-
band, “but it appears to me that this is risking too
much for one mess of fish.”
That was not exactly what Steve had been
doing, although he had run greater risks than
they were at all aware of. At the present mo-
ment he cared very little that the tide was rising,
for the very breakers themselves had helped him
to drag his boat farther up on the sand from time
to time.
“There are lulls every now and then,” he said
to himself. “The wind is going down a little.
I might get over to the bar. The water between
this and the inlet would be almost safe, if I could
see a little better.”
Before many minutes he was able to do so, and
the fast rising tide floated his boat. He did not
try to put up the sail.
“Tough rowing,” he more than once exclaimed,
“but I’ll get there.”
He did not know that a bit of tired-out nap that
he had taken had lasted so long as it did, or that
it was now past midnight. Neither did he know
that while his father was asleep on the settee in
the sitting room, his mother was weamily watching


A DARK NIGHT’S WORK. 197
at the kitchen window, With Pomp and Leo at
her feet.
“Almost over that time ! No, here’s the mouth
of the inlet. Safe! And the clouds are breaking
away!”
He pulled on steadily, until he reached the
place where he had caught his fish.
“Right ashore!” he said. “I’m going to see
if Sol and Jim found the rag.”
The moonlight was fairly plentiful now, but
there was hardly enough of it for stick hunting.
Steve walked back and forth several times to the
ocean beach, where the great rollers were coming
in. It was not easy to get the right line, and he
was almost ready to give it up when suddenly he
tripped upon something and fell full length on
the sand.
“I declare!” he grumbled. “What is it? I
caught my foot on it. Hoe! Those fellows left it
here. My stars, what a hole! Half full of water.
Whatever was here they took it out. I’m beaten.”
For a minute or so he stood still, hoe in hand,
looking disappointedly down into that watery hol-
low in the sand, but then he raised his eyes and
saw something white.


198 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“The rag stick!” he shouted. “This is the
place I stuck it in! Now I know what to do, if
I can walk it right.”
Six paces toward the inlet, that made one line
of direction. Then six paces toward the sea, and
Steve forgot his weariness in his excitement, as he
began to ply Sol’s hoe.
“ Better’n a clam shell to dig with,” he was
saying, when the hoe struck something harder
than sand.
There was a chink as of metal, and it made
him hoe with care, lest he might break something.
The very moonlight seemed to grow brighter, as
if the moon took an interest in that digging. Still
the sand did fly.
“It’s a bag,” he said, “ on top of a whole lot
of other things.”
It was a pretty heavy bag, too, made of canvas
and tied with a string. Steve lifted it to one
side for a moment, while he explored a little
further.
“Big tin box,” he said. “Leather valise; two
mahogany boxes. Slnall ones. If So] and Jim
didn’t make a haul of it! Why, they must have
had lots of time for digging and covering while


A DARK mom’s WORK. 201
“Steve!” came anxiously from the bedroom.
“Husband, go quick! I’m coming!”
Open flew the door, but the dogs were first at
the landing. How could they have known that
Steve was there, his boat safely hitched, pitching
out a lot of fish?
“Most of ’em are good ones, father,” he called
out, “ but I couldn’t cross the bay While it was so
rough. I’ll tell you when we get to the house.”
It was really beautiful the way his mother
scolded him as soon as she could get her arms
around his neck, but the story of his adventures
refused to wait till they were in the house. Of
course, the fish went into the fish car at the land-
ing, all but a large flounder for breakfast, but the
faces of Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks grew more and
more grave every moment as Steve’s pretty long
recital went on.
“Took five dollars!” exclaimed Mr. Hendricks.
“ I don’t know about that.”
“ It’s their business, father,” said Steve. “ I’ve
got to pay my way to New York.”
“ It’s awful!” exclaimed his mother. “It isn’t
your money!”
“ ’Twon’t be paid out for me but for them,”
14


A DARK NIGHT’S WORK. 203
so far from home, and he knew nothing at all of
the great city.
“I’m as green as grass,” he said first to himself
and then to his father.
“ I can’t go with you,” was the gloomy reply.
“ It’s a great while since I’ve been there. Go and
see Dr. Kedzie.”
“ First thing to-morrow morning!” said Steve.
“He’ll know just what I ought to do. S01 and
Jim’ll be digging round.”
The thought of that came to him every now
and then, but he would have felt worse about it
if he had been upon the bar that evening. There
they were again, with shovels and lanterns, for S01
had contended with his partner:
“Jim, I say it ag’in. We buried that stuff a
fathom or so to the right of where we stuck the
stick.”
“Mebbe we did,” groaned Jim. “I ain’t so
sure but what I’ll try for it.”
They were trying, and the sand flew right and
left as they plied their shovels.
“Hard work ! ” said Jim.
“ It’s here somewhere,” replied Sol, “ for we
left it here. Nobody could ha’ found it.”


204 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“ Hullo ! What’s that ? ”
Jim dropped his shovel as he spoke and stood
still listening toward the sea. *
It was not the sound of the surf upon the
beach which had startled him. First had reached
his ears the almost unnoticed creak of oars in the
rowlocks, but that had now been followed by
vorces.
“ Somebody’s coming,” whispered Sol.
“ Rough !” said Jim. “We musn’t let ’em find
us here. Let’s get out.” i
“The lanterns!” exclaimed Sol. “ Take the
tools! The boat!”
Out went their lights, indeed, but not quickly
enough, for they had been seen. Boat loads of
fishermen returning late from hauling a seine net
had had their curiosity aroused by the unexpected
glimmers on the bar. Why they should care they
hardly knew, but there had been vague rumors in
the village, set afloat by the constables who had
worked with the captain and the mate of the
Orinoco. It was understood there had been foul
play of some kind, and that a search for stolen
goods was going on. Swiftly to the shore came
the fishing boats, three of them, and their stalwart


A DARK NIGHT’S WORK. 205
crews sprang out to hurry toward the spot where
they had seen the tell-tale radiance. Of course
they brought their own lanterns with them.
“ Gone ! ” shouted the foremost of them sud-
denly. “They were at work right here. I say,
what a hole they’ve made ! Look !”
“ Feller ’em! Foller ’em! Catch ’em !” came
loudly from several voices, but not a man failed to
pause for a brief stare into the hollow where the
runaways had been vainly digging.
It was that hesitation that had enabled S01
and Jim to reach their boat on the bay beach in
safety and to shove 05, carrying their tools. Once
more they had been beaten, and they said so fu-
riously.
As for the fishermen, the whole thing was plain
enough to them upon a careful examination of the
hole.
“ Chists and chisis 0’ stuff was buried here,”
they said. “It’s deep enough and wide enough to
hold half a cart load. They’ve kerried it off. Come
on, boys ! Let’s foller ’em across the bay ! ”
It required several voices to say it all, and they
said a great deal more after chasing in the dark all
the way over the bar. Then they went after their


206 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
boats, and rowed rapidly around through the inlet,
entirely satisfied that nothing remained to be digged
for.
Nevertheless, here was a clew which could be
followed up, and they believed themselves to be a
force of ready made detectives, pretty sure of find-
ing out whoever had been seen on the bay at a late
hour that evening.
As for Sol and Jim they were in no special fear,
for they felt sure that they had not been seen by
any one near enough to recognize them, but they
were an angry and disappointed pair of wreckers
when they reached their own landing. At an early
hour the next morning all Turneyville knew the
story, and more than one boat set out across the
bay with eager rowers who were curious to see the
place where the stolen goods had been hidden.
The village constable was a wise man, for he started
on a trip to Brantford to consult the county sheriff.
Dr. Kedzie was a deeply interested but very much
dissatisfied man, for he did not get any of the news
until after breakfast, and even then he failed to get
hold of it in such shape that he could write a full
account for the newspapers of this thrilling night
adventure. He was standing at the corner where


208 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
lars. You should have come to me or to some man
in the village. Give me the silver. I will give
you five dollars in bills. We will start for New
York at once. It is needful for me to be there,
for I am printing a book and I must see my pub-
lishers. We will go straight to the office of Judge
Blackstone. Don’t say a word in Turneyville. We
can get to the American House now before the
omnibus sets out for Brantford. It’s a quick run
from there to New York by rail.”
“I’m ready,” said Steve, and so he was, in his
best suit, and with a great deal of courage, now
that he was not to go to the city alone.
His spirits rose yet higher when they entered
the omnibus, and he saw the doctor pay their fare
with one of the Orinoco half dollars. After that
he had a strong impression that the doctor now
and then grew red in the face, as if it might be a
tremendous lot of fresh news that he could not tell
were swelling within him. It was a full load, and
it was hard to hear all the other passengers discuss-
ing wrecks, holes in the sand, and midnight boat
chases after thieves, without being able to tell them
all that they did not know anything about it.
The Brantford halting place of the omnibus


A DARK NIGHT’S WORK. 209
was at the railway station, and there was no
chance for the true story to escape in that town.
It was safely carried into a railway car and again
tickets were paid for in silver.
“They won’t care,” thought Steve, “ if I hand
over these five dollars right away. Anyhow, it
is paying my way to go and see them about it.
Seems to me it’s only the fair thing.”
That was what his mother was saying, defend-
ing him to his father, and she added:
“Steve meant exactly right, and he hadn’t the
least idea of keeping any of the money.”
“Margaret,” replied her husband, “no boy, or
man either, can be too careful about what he does
with that which belongs to other people. I don’t
know What the law is.”
“I don’t care what it is,” she said. “Honesty
is law enoug .”
“Sometimes it is,” he muttered, “and some-
times it isn’t. If it’s another man’s money I
don’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.”


A LITTLE TOUCH OF LAW. 211
of the shrubbery. Over beyond the little bridge
there were a number of acres of plowed and
planted land. An acre in the near corner of it
already testified for itself that it was a garden. ‘
Billy Bullard and Abe Secor had done a reason!
able amount of work upon the land assigned to
them, and every day Mr. Hendricks had been
getting all the plowing he could out of Jeff. He
was now about to begin upon land that called for
Bakum’s fertilizer, or some other, if corn was to
be expected of it. None had been wasted on the
black flat, and no water to hurt anything had as
yet leaked through the dike. Steve’s raft had
been a success up to this point, but inside of the
house there was more than a little doubt and
anxiety concerning his present adventure. His
father and mother knew that he intended get-
ting to the city and back if he could, but they
were low-spirited about it.
“Oh! how I wish you could have gone with
him!” said his mother.
“I could not,” replied her husband. “I
wouldn’t have used any of those half dollars on
any account.”
“Of course not,” she said, “ and what are we


A LITTLE TOUCH OF LAW. 215
brass cannon. Boys, I never knew till now just
what went with Captain Kidd’s treasures.”
“I say,” added Sam Fox, “old Kedzie ought
to have that yarn. He’d write it out and print
it. Folks ought to know.”
“Well,” exclaimed the captain, “if you don’t
believe me I ken prove it. There’s one of the
lanterns hangin’ up there now, and I kin show ye
the shovels.”
“ Kedzie isn’t in town,” said one of the by-
standers, “but I can tell you what I do know.
He and Steve Hendricks went off on the early
train to-day, and they took tickets for New York.
Steve’s been out on the bay a good deal lately.”
“ You don’t say,” exclaimed the old pilot.
“You ought not to ha’ 'told that. Steve was
lookin’ on while them chaps was diggin’ up the
Orinoco gold an’ diamonds, and that’s What took
him to the city. He had some 0’ the diamonds
with him.”
The extraordinary fact that he and Dr. Kedzie
had passed through town in such a manner did
indeed add a new feature to the general excite-
ment, but Captain Clevis positively refused to
tell any more of what he knew. The newspaper


216 SUCCESS AGAINST oons.
editors, however, would have given almost any-
thing for an hour’s talk with the son of “ Colonel
Hendricks.” He himself was once more in some
trepidation over the fact that he must soon have
a very disagreeable encounter with somebody—
lawyers, insurance men—he could hardly guess
whom. The railway run from Brantford to the
city required only an hour or so, and almost be-
fore he expected it he was crossing the East River
upon a huge ferryboat. There was plenty to see
in all directions—ships, steamers, tugs, and ferry-
boats—but what interested him most were the
wharves and piers and the great buildings as he
drew near them.
“I could never have found my way alone,”
was the thought that came up all the while, and
he had never before been conscious of such a tre-
mendous sense of ignorance.
The doctor, however, strode manfully ashore
as soon as the ferryboat was moored on the New
York side, and he seemed to Steve a larger, more
learned man than ever. He knew his way, too,
and he made no pauses, marching through street
after street, until he came to a dead halt in front
of a vast white building and began to study it.


A LITTLE TOUCH OF LAW. 217
“Stephen,” he said, “Judge Blackstone’s oflice
is up there somewhere. We will go in and take
the elevator.” '
“ Hullo !” he heard Steve exclaim. “You’re
the captain. He’s the mate.”
“Well, I am,” said another voice, “and you’re
the chap from Turneyville.”
The doctor turned around very quickly for
him, and there was Steve face to face with a
pair who could hardly have been mistaken for
anything but seafaring men.
“Silence, Stephen,” commanded Dr. Kedzie
sternly. “You will hold no conversation with
any persons except in the presence of Judge
Blackstone.”
“Reckon he will, though,” sturdily returned
the captain. “I told him to come and hunt me
up if he learned anything. It’s my business.”
“ Cap,” put in the mate, “ maybe the old duifer
is right. Let’s take him upstairs. This isn’t any
place for him to spin his yarn in.” '
“Good,” said the captain. “ Heave ahead,
mister. We’ll go aloft with you. Have you
caught anything, youngster?”
“ Well; I have,” replied Steve. “Dr. Kedzie


218 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
knows it all, though. I’ll let him tell it when
we get upstairs.”
They did not go up any stairs, but into the
box of the elevator, and he heard the mate re-
mark the moment it was in motion:
“ These elevators h’ist first-rate, but if their
tackle should part aloft we’d all go to Davy
J ones’s locker.”
Before anything further could be said about
it, however, the box had stopped and Steve knew
that he had walked out into a narrow hall. He
felt as if he had walked out of Turneyville into a.
new world.
The doctor was once more master of the situa-
tion, even after a door opened, and they all walked
into an office which had evidently been constructed
for the storage of law books. There were men in
it also, and one of these, a bald-headed, middle-
aged gentleman behind a desk, looked up at them
over his spectacles.
“Captain Halliday ? ” he said—“ Orinoco? N0,
gentlemen, I can’t say anything more about that
case in the absence of further discoveries. I
haven’t the time.”
“Judge Blackstone, I suppose,” broke in Dr.


220 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“ Dr. Kedzie’ll tell you,” began Steve.
“ No, he won’t,” replied the lawyer. “I don’t
care for second-hand witnesses. Where did you
first see or meet the captain and the mate? ”
“That’s the place for you to begin at Steve,”
remarked the doctor. “Judge Blackstone really
seems to be a man of some intelligence. I had
hardly supposed so.”
Where to begin was what Steve had been think-
ing of, but he did not obey the lawyer. He
went back to his raft and to his first sight of the
wrecked Orinoco.
Question after question was pitched at him
across the table behind which Judge Blackstone
was now sitting, in a small room behind the one
they had first entered, but Steve stuck to his own
way of telling his story.
“Let him alone,” suggested Dr. Kedzie. “You
were not there, Blackstone, and he was. He’ll
come out all right.”
Steve only had to go a little further—to his
meeting the captain and mate in the creek, and to
his hearing the talk of S01 and Jim as they passed
him while he was catching crabs—before the lawyer
began to lean farther over the table.


A LITTLE TOUCH OF LAW. 221
“Bully boy!” he muttered. “ Sharp as a
needle.”
“ Saved the gals, too,” remarked the mate.
“Made those pirates tow his raft across the
bay,” added the captain.
“One of our brightest and best-informed young
citizens,” said Dr. Kedzie. “Son of old Colonel
Frederick Hendricks.”
“ Go on, Steve!” exclaimed the lawyer. “I
want to hear it all now.”
Inch by inch the remainder of the story came
out, and all that Dr. Kedzie could think of at the
end of it was:
> “Now, Blackstone, you old humbug, what do
you think of that?”
Here and there during the discussion it had
leaked out that the doctor and the man of law
were by no means strangers. They had been class-
mates at some college or other, and were conse-
quently somewhat free in their speeches and man-
ners.
“Think,” said Judge Blackstone. “Why, we
must put him in jail in New York and hold him
for witness.”
“Put me in jail ? ” thought Steve in dismay.


A LITTLE TOUCH OF LAW. 225
tion him while the detectives are at work. His
information is of the utmost importance.”
“ Good afternoon, Blackstone,” calmly re-
sponded Dr. Kedzie. “Stephen has been denied
the advantages of an elaborate academical educa-
tion, but he can show you a point or two in boat-
ing and that sort of thing.”
“ So can that mate of mine,” remarked the cap-
tain quietly. “He and the youngster are across
the East River by this time.”
It was of no use whatever for the man of law
to be indignant. Dr. Kedzie was wonderfully
polite to him, except that he accused him of igno-
rance and of failure to develop his perceptive fac-
ulties, but he almost suddenly vanished out of the
room upon his literary errand.
As for the captain of the Orinoco, a clerk
brought the judge a law paper to inspect, and even
while he was making marks upon it with a pen the
captain also was among the missing.
“I declare!” exclaimed the judge. “I believe
they intend to take the search entirely out of my
hands. I never can consent to that. A mere
boy! But what an old fox Kedzie is. I didn’t
suppose there was so much in him.”


CHAPTER XV.
THE‘ CAPTURE OF THE PIRATES.
THERE were only three persons in the Hen»
dricks’ sitting room at a little before sunset. Steve
sat closely hugged up to his mother, and he was
telling her all that had happened.
“The mate wouldn’t stop a minute in Brant-
ford,” he said. “He hired a buggy and he
wouldn’t let me speak to a soul. He landed me at
our gate and he said he guessed he’d be here early
to-morrow.”
“Lock you up I ” exclaimed his mother. “The
wicked villains! And after all you’ve done for
them.”
“Just what I told you,” remarked Mr. Hen-
dricks. “ It’s the worst kind of luck to have any-
thing to do with law. That’s where my troubles
began, and it was no fault of mine. It cost me
pretty much all I had just to get out.”
227


228 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“But they let me keep the five dollars,” said
Steve. “Mother can buy things.”
“I’m glad of it!” she exclaimed. “We want a
sack of flour and some bacon. It looks as if we
were just lifted along.”
Steve ate his supper, talking all the while
about the wonders he had seen in the city. Then
he and Pomp and Leo went out for a look at the
dike and at the garden. All the while, however,
Dr. Kedzie was “enjoying himself among his friends
in T urneyville. - It surely was not any fault of his
that they somehow obtained a strong impression
that Steve Hendricks was now immured in a deep
dark dungeon in New York, watched by a force of
armed policemen. At all events, that was what
prevented any of them from coming out to the
farm to poke questions at him. The one individ-
ual who actually did come did so with a dignified
step and a darkly clouded face. Neither was his
mind occupied with the hidden treasures of the
Orinoco.
“ Hullo, Stephen!” he remarked, as he came
across the little bridge to where his young friend
was staring at the agricultural improvements.
“Hullo, Secor!” replied Steve. “There’s a


232 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
attended in the most friendly way by Pomp and
Leo.
“ Dr. Kedzie !” was the loud welcome given him
at the door by Mr. Hendricks, but the first re-
sponse was not to him.
“Steve!” he shouted, “got ’em already! The
mate and the captain and the constable and a
dozen men went right to Jim’s place. Trunks,
valises, bags—I don’t know what. All hidden
away upstairs. All gone to Brantford. S01 and
Jim were off somewhere, but they’ll be found.
They’ll be after you in the morning, but they be-
lieve the rest of the plunder has been dug up and
carried away.”
Never before had they heard him say so much
at a time, but he was manifestly excited. It was
really necessary that he should unload his news.
“Doctor,” exclaimed Mrs. Hendricks, “after
Steve? He hasn’t done anything that was
wrong.” -
“He won’t run away, either,” added Mr. Hen-
dricks. “ Tell them that my son will be here wait-
ing for them. His course has been absolutely
_ honest.”
“Honest?” said the doctor—“ of course it has.


234 SUCCESS AGAINST onns.
for a few more. I’m glad to get the seeds, anyhow.
Glad it’s all new, fresh, too, so they’re likely to
grow, but all the squashes’ll be Hubbards when
they come, just the same.”
“Every one of them,” remarked the doctor, “an
entirely new squash that was never seen before. It
is pleasant to know that Captain Clevis was
1y truthful.”
“He always is,” said Steve, “but he has curious
ways of telling it.”
“Then Steve is safe?” asked his mother.
“Perfectly, madam,” replied the doctor; “ but
I must go now. I mean to try to get up early
enough to accompany the antipiratical expedition
to the bar.”
In a minute more he was gone, and Mrs. Hen-
dricks began to talk to Steve as if she imagined he
must be utterly exhausted by his eventful journey
to the city.
Tired? Not by any means. He was entirely
willing to go to his own room, but he felt as if
he could go and see two or three more cities. He
took his lamp and went up, and there on the table
lay Robinson Crusoe, but he did not seem to be
hungry for fiction. He was having adventures of


236 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
The dawn had not arrived, but a somewhat
anxious voice came up the stairs to tell him:
“Stephen, they are here. The kettle’s boiling.
I’ll have cofiee and eggs for you in a minute.
Hurry down.”
Mr. Hendricks was ready to go to the door and
hail the captain.
“ Guess father and mother were more worried
than I was,” thought Steve, “but I’ll eat break-
fast before I go.”
Only the captain and the mate were there
quite willing to take a cup of coffee while they
were waiting. They were not willing to say much,
however, after the mate had growlingly informed
Steve:
“We got a lot 0’ plunder, but not the best of
it, and we missed S01 and Jim. They are out
somewhere. I reckon we’d better make good time
getting across the bay.”
“ Be careful, Steve,” said his mother, “ and come
home as soon as you can.”
It was little better than dark when Mr. Hen-
dricks went with them to the landing, and a boat
with two seamen in it was waiting for them.
“ No-o,” he slowly muttered. “I won’t go.


238 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
It was only a faint glimmer in the fog before
them, and it instantly went out, as if somebody
had extinguished a torch or a lantern.
“Keep away!” roared a hoarse angry shout
the next instant. “Keep away or I’ll shoot ye ! ”
Bang ! bang! bang !—but one of the pistols
making the quick reports had been drawn by the
captain as he sprang ashore.
“Come on, men!” he said loudly. “ Give ’em
cold lead! Fetch ’em down, every man of ’em.”
Shot after shot replied, but the bullets went
wide in the fog, while Steve said to the captain:
“That was Sol’s voice. If his boat’s over in
the inlet we’d best get that first.”
“Good idea !” shouted the captain. “Let’s
head ’em off. Ii‘lIl I ”
It was not a long run, but the inlet was reached
none too soon. There lay the yawl of the two
clam diggers, with nothing in it but the oars, and
here they came, racing across the sand.
“ Out with the oars,” thought Steve. “I’ll see
to that.”
He stepped into the yawl, but just as he did
so away went his hat. A bullet had stripped off
the brim from one side of it close to his head.


242 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
\
Brantford,” said the doctor. “Come along, boys.
Those fellows can’t get away.”
But Steve was not with them. He was now
running toward the bay beach, for still another
whistle had summoned him.
“Get in, quick!” said the captain. “They
mustn’t see these things,” and in a moment more
the boat was out upon the waves, from which the
fog was lifting.
An excited crowd of men had now gathered
around what the doctor called the excavation, and
not one of them seemed to enjoy the occasion
more than he did. Nevertheless, when they all
had looked in and had expressed their minds and
began to inquire, “What has become of Steve and
those Orinoco fellows?” Dr. Kedzie very cheer-
fully responded:
“ The captain, and so forth? Why, they went
off with the recovered goods. All we have to do
is to take care of S01 and Jim. The business was
done before our opportune arrival.”


244 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
even curious as to how his friends were to get
their recovered valuables to New York. They
were old enough to manage that. All he wanted
was to get home.
“Stephen!” exclaimed his mother, as he and
the dogs walked hurriedly into the sitting room at
the farmhouse, “what is the matter with your
hat?”
“Been shot in it,” said Steve. “But just look
here.”
She snatched the damaged hat to examine it,
anxiously, but Steve plumped down his handker-
chief money bag and untied it. Then he began
to unload his pockets.
“Stephen! What have you been doing?
Where did the money come from?”
His father was leaning over his shoulder and
staring down at the coin.
“It’s ours!” shouted Steve. “ Now we can
run this farm till the crops come.”
“ Stephen,” gasped his mother, “do you mean
to say it’s honestly yours?”
“Yes, mother,” he said, and then, while her
eyes glanced frequently from the fifty-cent pieces
to that rip in the hat brim, he told his story.


246 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
As for S01 and Jim they were indeed cornered
and caught, but they were by no means repentant.
On the contrary, they were simply furious, for they
were possessed with an idea that, instead of acting
as thieves, they had but exercised a time-honored
privilege of the shore wreckers of Long Island.
Somehow, moreover, they angrily connected this
invasion of their rights with Steve Hendricks
and his raft. He had been the occasion of their
misfortunes, and they declared that they would
pay him for it as soon as they could get their
liberty. Very different was the vein taken by
the Eagle and the Standard, and by Steve’s many
admirers in Turneyville. All the girls of the
Sea Gull adventure, and all their families, older
and younger, deemed it their duty to make the
most of this fresh exhibition of his heroism. Be-
fore night Mrs. Hendricks had had more than a
dozen buggy loads of callers besides some who
came on foot, but they were all more or less
disappointed. As soon as they began to come
Steve’s mother let him escape, and he passed his
dangerous hours in utter safety in his boat out in
the Hendricks creek, catching a very respectable
string of small fish.


THE END OF SOL AND JIM. 247
Not long after supper, nevertheless, he put on
his good rig and remarked to his mother:
“It’s getting good and dark now. I can go to
Dr. Kedzie’s and back without being seen, if I’m
careful.”
“You’d better go,” she said, but at that very
moment there came a knock at the front door.
“ I’ll bet it’s the doctor,” exclaimed Steve.
“ Hope nobody came with him.”
The doctor was there, larger than ever, and he
was alone, but he was overflowing. How he had
enjoyed himself that day! And how ready he
was to act as counselor for his young pupil, or
client, or ward, or whatever he considered Steve.
“ Madame,” he said to Mrs. Hendricks, “ I am
proud of your son. He has enabled me to formu-
late an entirely new theory of primary education.
Human intelligence is less dependent upon what
we call instruction than is generally imagined.
He knows absolutely nothing, and yet he is brim-
ming full of coagulated information. But he must
keep right along with me and with his books. All
his innate ideas must be worked into order and he
will beat the schools all hollow.”
Whatever he meant, Mrs. Hendricks was en-


THE END OF SOL AND JIM. 253
upset. Spin your yarn right along, and whenever
they stop you, jest tack.”
Precisely what he meant Steve did not gather,
but he felt encouraged and he stepped forward,
The judge was listening to some remarks from
a lawyer, whom Steve knew to be the district
attorney, and there were a few seconds for a
glance around.
“ Guess there are dozens of women here,”
thought Steve. “All of ’em dressed up. Glad
mother didn’t come, but she’s handsomer than any
of ’em.”
Miles and miles away Mrs. Hendricks remarked
to her husband :
“ It was kind of Mrs. J enks to offer to take me.
She said she would take you, too, if you wanted to
go. But, husband, I couldn’t.”
“Of course not,” he responded with energy.
“Mother, I’m not afraid about Steve. He’s plucky.
He’ll tell the truth. No, I wouldn’t have you
there for anything.” ‘
“Not looking as I’d have to look,” she said
despondingly. “ It’s been a long time since ”

There she paused, and he too was silent, for he
was looking down at his ragged boots.


254 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
“A good crop this year,” he was thinking.
“Am I to have a good crop? The chances have
always been against me, but one may come now.”
“Boy,” said a lawyer in the court room to
Steve, “ do you understand the nature of an
oath?”
“ Yes, sir,” said Steve.
“That’s all right,” said the judge with empha-
sis. “ Swear him. He’ll tell the truth.”
“I will, sir,” said Steve. “That’s what I came
here for.”
No objection was made and Steve took the
legal oath in the usual way, not even yet under-
standing what the lawyer meant or why Captain
Clevis was laughing.
Question after question was asked and answered
straightforwardly. 'The greatest importance of his
testimony was to prove, if possible, that S01 and
Jim, and not somebody else, buried those things
in the sand. Steve had gone to that spot because
of what he knew of their doings and because of
what he had heard them say. It seemed to be
pretty clear, but there was a bitch in it some-
where.
“ Now, my young wrecker,” said the lawyer


THE END OF SOL AND JIM. 259
that day obtained for his theory of self-education.
Curiously enough, however, he did not attempt to
enter the house, but unloaded Steve at the gate
and drove away as if he were relieved. If Steve
were any part of the doctor’s mental burden he
had also a great deal upon his own mind.
The dogs had told of his arrival and the door
was open. In it stood his mother with his father
at her side, and he was holding up a lantern. The
light of it fell upon the face of Mrs. Hendricks,
and Steve thought aloud :
“ Isn’t she beautiful! ”
“Stephen! Oh, I am so glad! Come in.
Tell us all about it.”
That was what he had come home for, and he
began it immediately. It was the first time in his
life that it had clearly entered his mind that his
mother was proud of him.
“Seems to me I can see just how you looked
on the witness stand,” she said, and her thoughts
added: “I don’t care if he is poor and ignorant;
there isn’t a boy in Turneyville that could have
done it as well—nor in Brantford either.”
That was very much what Dr. Kedzie said to
some of his neighbors that night and during the


260 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
next day, and once more Steve’s name came out
tremendously in the Brantford newspapers. With
Dr. Kedzie’s help, not to speak of Jim and Sol and
Captain Clevis, the ’longshore boy was in danger
of becoming famous. He himself felt it so deeply
that he begged off from farm work and spent the
next day crabbing. He could all the better afford
to, if he could have good luck, because his witness
fees had been advanced to him in cash, more than
ten dollars, by the district attorney.
Alas for S01 and Sim ! They were to be
locked up for three years each, and all the clam-
mers along the coast received a sharp warning as to
what liberties could not be taken with a wreck.
After that there were days when everybody,
everywhere, was too busy with gardens and farming
to care for anything else. Steve was really having
a pretty quiet time during those days, but there
was a great deal of work in them.
It was not easy sometimes even to obey his
mother and go regularly to Dr. Kedzie’s, when at
the end of a day’s hard hoeing she would come
and sit down by him and place before him one of
the schoolbooks.


THE GREATEST SCHOOL OF ALL. 263
band told her for how much he had sold his hay.
The field had been large enough, but that grass
had more than once disappointed them.
“You must have some more dresses,” he began
to say after he led her into the house.
“Nonsense!” she exclaimed. “You want an-
other horse. Besides, Stephen must go to school
in the fall.”
“Of course,” he said. “But the other
77

crops
“ No, we must save money now. I won’t have

him an ignorant, uneducated ”
“He isn’t. He won’t be,” said Mr. Hendricks.
“But I’ll buy something for you.”
Three days after that J eff had a new mate,
as good a horse as he was, but Mrs. Hendricks
was forced to wear her new bonnet and some
gloves.
“Steve,” she said, trying on the gloves, “you
mustn’t kill yourself in that potato field. You
are fighting the potato bugs all day.”
“I’ve beaten ’em,” said Steve. “ Going to have
a prime crop. All on the black land. No Bakum.
It was the dike that did it. We rafted those
potatoes.”


264 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
It was dreadfully commonplace and countri-
fied, all of it, but the very dogs had discovered
that the days of half-satisfied hunger had passed
away.
The corn looked better and better, and Steve
knew what was coming, but he was by no means
ready to believe it or agree to it.
“ Brantford High School?” he said to himself
again and again. “All next year? What can I do
in a high school?”
It was growing to be a kind of bugbear, and he
hated to have anything said about it. It was
drawing nearer, too, after the big potato crop was
gathered, and his father began to use the price of it
in putting in an extravagant field of winter wheat,
remarking:
“If it’ll yield twenty-five bushels an acre, I
might send you to college.”
Steve shivered, but he responded doubtfully:
“Mother says that if those Hubbard squashes
sell for anything we can have the house painted.”
“Humph !” said his father. “Paint! I was
thinking about how you were to come and go after
you begin at Brantford. Board’s high, or you
might live there.”


THE GREATEST SCHOOL OF ALL. 265
“ And let you do the chores—you and mother?”
shouted Steve. “ I won’t do any such thing. Chop-
ping wood——”
“ It’ll all be chopped and hauled before win-»
ter,” said his father. “ The school term begins next-
week, and Dr. Kedzie thinks you had better go and
be examined at the high school, to see what class
you are in.”
Steve had been afraid of that, and for a moment
he almost hated Dr. Kedzie.
The next Monday was a magnificent September
day. There was something absolutely rich in the
way the corn was looking. The grass was still
green and so were the leaves on the trees, and in
front of the house, all the way to the road, the.
flowers and shrubbery told of the work that had
been done.
“Steve,” exclaimed his mother, not long after
breakfast, “what are you dressed up for?”
“I’m going to Brantford, mother,” he said. “I
want to see the academy building again, and find
out all about the school.”
“That’s right,” remarked his father. “I saw
Mr. Allen, the principal. But let Stephengo and
inquire for himself.”
18


266 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
She did not say any more, but he believed he
knew what was in her mind when she went to the
door with him. She did not tell what it was till
he was gone.
“ Husband,” she then exclaimed, “he can’t get
to Brantford and back every day. Even if he
goes and comes by the omnibus it’ll cost some-
thing. And the road from here to the village, in
the mud or in the deep snow. And who is to do
the chores? I don’t see. And yet he must go.
We couldn’t pay board for him in Brantford and
have him gone all the time.”
“Wait. I don’t know,” responded her hus-
band. “It’s the queerest year. And somehow
Steve did it. Yes, Margaret, this is all his do-
ing.”
Some of it was his and some of it was hers,
but the beginning of it was a boy by the sea
shore, putting a raft of broken timber together.
Or was it a boy in the water of the bay, swim-
ming desperately on after a boat which floated
from him?
The boy was on his way to Brantford now,
and as he went he made, over and over again, the
very calculations which had been troubling his


THE GREATEST sonoon or ALL. 267
mother. Every mile of the road was a kind of
argument and explanation, although the walking
was good. He knew what it would be, late in
the autumn and in the winter and in the early
spring.
“It can’t be done,” he said aloud at last, but
he had entered Brantford then, and a little more
walking brought him to the fish market.
“Hullo !” shouted Captain Clevis from the
doorway. “ Come in. I was talkin’ with Dr. Ked-
zie about ye. What yarns that feller will spin.
He said you didn’t need schoolin’. You jest
sucked it in. That’s what I did. All around
the world. Never went to school in my life.
Come in.”
“ I wish you’d tell me about the high school,”
said Steve, as he entered the “market.”
“High school?” said the old pilot. “You
don’t want any.”
“Yes, I do,” replied Steve. “But I’m afraid
I can’t make it out. It’s going to cost too much,
and I’m needed at home.”
“You shet up!” said the captain. “I knew
of a feller once. He was poorer than ever you
were. Lived in a log cabin in the woods. Hadn’t


272 SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.
all events, but Steve knew that this was largely
the work of Dr. Kedzie, and he felt exceeding-
ly grateful. He tried to say so, and so did Mr.
Hendricks, but the man of learning would not
hear of it.
“He did it himself,” he insisted. “He will
find Blackstone an ignorant sort of person. He
was so when I first knew him at college. But
I shall feel grateful to Stephen if he will
prove the correctness of my theory that every-
body knows enough naturally, if they will only
bring it out and develop it and make use
of it.”
There the home council ended and the two
visitors went away. A wonderful evening fol-
lowed, and after that came days of preparation,
Then came a day of going to the city and of getv
ting over the first bewilderment of living in a new
world.
But the doctor must have been correct in
his theory. Steve Hendricks must have discov-
ered a vast deal in his mind as he continued
to explore it, for that was years ago, and at
this day his name is on a small tin sign, under