The Corner House Girls Growing Up

by Grace Brooks Hill

  CHAPTER XI

  AFLOAT ON THE CANAL

  Dot Kenway might have been much more frightened, shut into the canalboathold in the dark, had it not been for two things. She was more afraid ofthe thunderstorm raging overhead than she was of the dark. Secondly, shehad Sammy Pinkney with her.

  That savage pirate might shake with nervousness, but he certainly couldnot be afraid!

  "Don't you mind, Dottie," he said to her. "They don't know we're hereyet."

  "And if they do find out?" she asked.

  "Why, if they _do_-- Well, ain't we pirates?" demanded Sammy boldly. "Iguess when they find that out they'll sing pretty small. Besides,there's only one man and a dog."

  "But isn't there a girl!" asked Dot doubtfully.

  "Pooh! what's a girl!" demanded Sammy loftily. "Girls don't count. Theycan't fight."

  "No-o. I s'pose not," admitted the smallest Corner House girl, who knewvery well that she could not fight. She was willing to cook, wash andkeep house for pirates; but Sammy must do the fighting.

  However, Sammy Pinkney was to learn something about the canalboat girlthat would open his eyes. Just at this time something occurred thatstartled both runaways so greatly that they even forgot the thunder thatrolled so threateningly.

  The canalboat began to move!

  "Oh, dear me! what can have happened?" gasped Dot as the boat rocked andswayed in being poled out from the bank by the boatman, and the mulesstarted along the towpath.

  "Je-ru-sa-lem!" murmured Sammy.

  "Oh, Sammy!"

  "We're going," said the boy, gulping down his first surprise.

  "But where are we going, Sammy Pinkney? You know very well Ruthie willbe scared to death if I'm not back to supper. And your mother--"

  "Huh!" exclaimed Sammy, with returning valor, "didn't I tell you if weran away to be pirates that we couldn't go home again?"

  "Yes! but! you! didn't ever _mean_ it!" wailed Dot, with big gulpsbetween her words.

  "Of course I meant it. Aw, shucks, Dot! What did I tell you? Girls can'tbe pirates. They're always blubbering."

  "Not blubbering!" snapped Dot, too angry to really cry after all.

  "Well, you started in to."

  "No, I never! Just the same I don't want to be shut up in this oldboat--not after it stops thundering and lightering," declared Dot, who,as Tess was not present, felt free to misuse the English language justas she pleased.

  Certainly Sammy Pinkney had something more important to think of thanthe little girl's language. Here he was, a pirate chief, on abuccaneering expedition, and somebody had come along and coolly stolenhis piratical craft, himself, and his crew!

  If anything would rouse the spirit of a pirate chief it was such anemergency as this. He looked around for something with which to attackthe villains who had boarded the _Nancy Hanks_, but he found not a thingmore dangerous than his pocketknife and the fishhooks.

  "And that's your fault, Dot Kenway," he declared, stricken by thisstartling discovery. "How am I going to fight these--these pirates, if Ihaven't anything to fight 'em with?"

  "Oh, Sammy!" cried Dot, in amazement. "Are they pirates, just the sameas we are pirates?"

  "They must be," frankly admitted Sammy. "Else they wouldn't have comealong and stolen this canalboat."

  "Oo-ee!" gasped the little girl. "And do pirates _steal_?"

  "Huh!" ejaculated the boy in vast disgust. "What did you suppose theywas pirates for? Of course they steal! And they murder folks, and loottowns, and then bury their money and kill folks so's their ghosts willhang around the buryin' place and watch the treasure."

  Horror stricken at the details of such a wicked state of things, Dotcould not for the moment reply. They heard faintly a shrillvoice--evidently of the "Lowise" formerly addressed by the canalboatman.

  "Look out, Pap! Low bridge! Goin' to stop at Purdy's to git that mess of'taters he said he'd have ready for us?"

  There was a grumbling reply from the man.

  "Dunno. It's rainin' so hard. Might's well keep right on to Durginville,I reckon, Lowise."

  "Durginville!" murmured Sammy. "My! that's a long way off, Dot!"

  "And are you going to let 'em carry us off this way?" demanded thelittle girl in growing alarm and disgust. "Why, I thought you were apirate!"

  If pirates were such dreadful people as Sammy had just intimated, shewanted to see him exercise some of that savagery in this importantmatter. Dot Kenway had not considered being kidnapped and carried awayfrom Milton when she set forth to be a pirate's mate. She expected himto defend her from disaster.

  Sammy saw the point. It was "up to him," and he was too much of a man toshirk the issue. After all, he realized that, although actually led awayfrom home by this determined little girl, he was the one who had fullyunderstood the enormity of what they were doing. In his own unutteredbut emphatic phrase, "She was only a kid."

  "All right, Dot," he declared with an assumption of confidence that hecertainly did not feel. "I'll see about our getting out of this rightaway. Of course we won't want to go to Durginville. And it's stoppingraining now, anyway, I guess."

  The sound of the thunder was rolling away into the distance. But othersounds, too, seemed to have retreated as Sammy climbed the ladder toreach the hatch-cover. The hatchway was all of six feet square. Theheavy plank cover that fitted tightly over it, was a weight far toogreat for a ten year old boy to lift.

  Sammy very soon made this discovery. Dot, scarcely able to see him frombelow, the hold was so dark, made out that he was balked by something.

  "Can't you budge it, Sammy?" she asked anxiously.

  "I--I guess it's locked," he puffed.

  "Oo-ee!" she gasped. "Holler, Sammy! Holler!"

  Sammy "hollered." He was getting worried himself now. It was bad enoughto contemplate facing a man who might not be fond of pirates--even smallones. But if they could not get out of the hold of the canalboat, theywould not be able to face the man or anybody else.

  The thought struck terror to the very soul of Sammy. Had he been alonehe certainly would have done a little of that "blubbering" that he hadjust now accused Dot of doing. But "with a girl looking on a fellowcouldn't really give way to unmanly tears."

  He began to pound on the hatch with his fists and yell at the top of hisvoice:

  "Lemme out! Lemme out!"

  "Oh, Sammy," came the aggrieved voice of Dot from below. "Ask 'em to letus both out. I don't want to be left here alone."

  "Aw, who's leavin' you here alone?" growled the boy.

  In fact, there seemed little likelihood of either of them getting out.There was not a sound from outside, save a faint shout now and then ofthe shrill-voiced girl driving the mules.

  The man had gone aft and was smoking his pipe as he sat easily on thebroad tiller-arm. Sammy and Dot had descended into the canalboat hold bythe forward hatchway and only the hollow echoes of their voices drummedthrough the hold of the old barge, disturbing the man not at all, whilethe girl was too far ahead on the towpath, spattering through the mud atthe mules' heels, to notice anything so weak as the cries of theyouthful stowaways.

  Exhausted, and with scratched fists, Sammy tumbled down the ladderagain. There was just enough light around the hatch to make the gloomwhere the boy and girl stood a sort of murky brown instead of theoppressive blackness of the hold all about them.

  Dot shuddered as she tried to pierce the surrounding darkness. Theremight be most anything in that hold--creeping, crawling, biting things!She was beginning to lose her confidence in Sammy's ability, pirate orno pirate, to get them out of this difficult place.

  "Oh, Sammy!" she gulped. "I--I guess I don't want to be pirates anylonger. I--I want to go home."

  "Aw, hush, Dot! Crying won't help," growled the boy.

  "But--but we can't stay here all night!" she wailed. "It's lots wusser'nit was when Tess and I was losted and we slept out under a tree tillmorning, and that old owl hollered 'Who? Who-o?' all night--only I wentto sleep and didn't hear him. But I cou
ldn't sleep here."

  "Aw, there ain't no owl here," said Sammy, with some dim idea ofcomforting his comrade.

  "But mebbe there's--there's rats!" whispered the little girl, voicingthe fear that had already clutched at her very soul.

  "Wow!" ejaculated Sammy. But his scornful tone failed to ring true.There really might be rats in this old hulk of a barge. Were not ratssupposed to infest the holds of all ships? Afloat with a cargo of ratsin the hold of a ship on the tossing canal was nothing to laugh at.

  "I--I believe there are rats here," sobbed Dot again. "And--and we can'tget out. If--if they come and--and nibble me, Sammy Pinkney, I'llne-never forgive you for taking me away off to be pirates."

  "Oh, goodness, Dot Kenway! Who wanted you to come! I'm sure I didn't. Iknew girls couldn't be pirates."

  "I'm just as good a one as you are--so now!" she snapped, recoveringherself somewhat.

  Sammy found something just then in his pocket that he thought might aidmatters. It was a bag of "gumballs."

  "Oh, say, Dot! have a ball?" he asked thrusting out the bag in the dark.

  "Oh, Sammy! Thanks!" She found one of the confections and immediatelyhad such a sticky and difficult mouthful that it was impossible for hereither to cry or talk for some time. This certainly was a relief toSammy!

  He could give his mind now to thinking. And no small boy ever had a moredifficult problem to solve. Two youngsters in the hold of this huge old,empty canalboat, the deck planks of which seemed so thick that nobodyoutside could hear their cries, and unable to lift the cover. Query: Howto obtain their release?

  Sammy had read stories of stowaways who had wonderful adventures in theholds of ships. But he did not just fancy climbing around in this blackhold, or exploring it in any way far from the hatch-well. There might berats here, just as Dot suggested.

  Of course, they were in no immediate danger of starvation. His twodollars so lavishly spent drove the ghost of hunger far, far away. But,to tell the truth, just at this time Sammy Pinkney did not feel asthough he would ever care much about eating.

  Even the gumballs did not taste so delicious as he had expected. Anxietyrode him hard--and the harder because he felt, after all, that theresponsibility of Dot Kenway's being here rested upon his shoulders. Shewould never have thought of running away to be pirates all by herself.That was a fact that could not be gainsaid.

  Meanwhile the canalboat was being drawn farther and farther away fromMilton. Sammy did not wish to go with it, any more than Dot did. Thesituation was "up to him" indeed--the boy felt it keenly; but he had noidea as to what he should do to escape from this unfortunateimprisonment.