Four Afoot: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Highway

by Ralph Henry Barbour

  CHAPTER XIV

  TOM SWIMS IN THE OCEAN AND DIPS INTO POETRY

  They were sitting on the big broad veranda of the hotel reading theirletters. It was eleven o’clock of an ideal September day, and theguests, of whom there were many left despite the fact that the seasonwas almost at its close, were strolling or lounging in the sunlightand making the most of what was likely to be summer’s last appearance.Beyond the road and the broad crescent of dazzling white beach layGreat South Bay blue and tranquil, the points of the little wavestouched with gold. Three miles away, a line of gleaming yellow dunes,Fire Island stretched athwart the horizon.

  The boys had donned clean clothes and, in their Sunday attire, lookedquite respectable. After breakfast they had inquired the way to thepost office and had reached it just in time to get their mail beforeit closed. Then, having purchased Sunday papers, they returned to thehotel veranda and settled down to read. Presently Nelson glanced upfrom the letter in his hand.

  “Look here, fellows, this doesn’t sound very promising, does it?”

  “What’s that?” asked Bob, looking up from his own epistle.

  “Why, it’s a letter from dad. You know I wrote him about Jerry, andhere’s what he says. Let me see.... Oh!... ‘Now, about that _protégé_you tell of. The matter of seventy-five or a hundred dollars doesn’tscare me, Nelson, but do you think your plan is feasible? Three hundredwould probably carry the boy through one year at school, supposinghe was able to pass the examinations, but what’s going to happen thenext year? Of course he might get a scholarship to help him along, andit’s possible he might make some money doing some sort of work in thevillage, but he couldn’t count on these things. We might do the boymore harm than good, it seems to me. Presumably he is fairly contentwith his present lot, and it is a question in my mind whether it wouldnot be advisable to let him go his own gait. If it was certain that hewould not have to give up after a year or two and return to the farmand the life he is leading now, it would be different. But I don’tsuppose the fathers of your friends would care to undertake to providefor him for the next four years. Certainly a good deal depends on theboy. You’ve seen him and I haven’t. Perhaps he’s got it in him to getthe better of difficulties and work out his own salvation after thefirst year or two. That would make a difference. Supposing you thinkthis over and let me hear from you again. Or we might talk it overafter you return. And let me know what the other gentlemen say. Mind,this isn’t a refusal, and I shall be glad to donate a hundred or twoif I can be sure that it is going to accomplish some good; but I don’tthink it wise to go into anything of this sort without looking over itpretty thoroughly. There is a great deal of harm done by ill-advisedcharity.’”

  “That’s just about what my father says,” said Tom.

  “You’d almost think they’d got together and talked it over,” said Danruefully. “My dad gives me just about the same song and dance. Howabout yours, Bob?”

  “He says: ‘Would advise placing the sum, say four hundred dollars, inthe hands of some one, perhaps Mr. Speede, for disbursement on thelad’s account. Don’t believe it would be wise to pay the money over tohim or his relatives. If you decide to go ahead with the propositionthink I can interest Warren Chase, who is one of the trustees atHillton. He might be able to afford assistance to the lad. Am taking itfor granted that the lad is worthy of the assistance you propose; amwilling to trust your judgment in this. One hundred is all I can affordat present, though it is possible that I might be able to help putHinkley through a second year when the time came. Let me know when youwant the money and I will forward check.’”

  “Now, I call that businesslike,” said Dan approvingly. “My dad seemsto think it’s all a bally joke; wants to know if Jerry had _his_ moneystolen too!”

  “Well, let’s talk it over,” Nelson proposed. “Now, supposing we getenough money to pay one year’s expenses at Hillton, can Jerry passthe exams? He’s had no languages at all except one year’s Latin in avillage school.”

  “He ought to go to school this winter,” said Bob, “and take Math andLatin--hard.”

  “Of course he ought! And he ought to have some coaching next summer.How’s he going to do it?”

  “We need more money,” said Tom.

  “Look here,” said Dan. “Talk sense. What’s to keep Jerry from going toschool this winter? If we provide the money for the first year at thatbum school of yours, why can’t he spend this winter and next summerstudying?”

  “That’s so,” said Nelson. “But how about the second year, and the thirdand the fourth?”

  “What’s the use of troubling about that now?” asked Dan cheerfully.“Let’s get him started and I’ll bet you anything he’ll pretty nearlylook after himself. As for next summer, it wouldn’t cost much to find atutor for him. Why, we could see to that ourselves. I know two or threefellows in New York who would be mighty glad to coach him and do itcheap.”

  “That’s the stuff!” cried Tom.

  “What do you think, Bob?” Nelson asked.

  “I think what Dan says is sense. Education never hurt any chap, andeven if Jerry didn’t get more than two years at Hillton--and I guess wecould see that he got that much--it would make a difference to him allhis life. But I think, as Dan does, that if we give Jerry a start he’llbe able to find his own way after the first year. Could he get anythingto do at Hillton that would bring him in some money?”

  “Yes,” answered Nelson, “he could. There are lots of fellows there nowwho are almost putting themselves through. Look at Ted Rollins! Tedcame there three years ago with three dollars in his pocket and a handsatchel. And he’s going to graduate next spring. I know for a fact thathis folks have never sent him a penny; they can’t; they’re poor aschurch mice.”

  “Well, as far as I can see,” answered Bob, “our dads are ready togive the money as soon as we can convince them that we are in earnestand that Jerry deserves it. And I vote that we go ahead. You ask yourfather, Dan, if he’s willing to take the money and pay it out for Jerryas it’s required. We’ll all write home this evening and tell just howthe matter stands and ask to have the money sent to Mr. Speede aboutthe fifteenth of this month. Have you got Jerry’s address, Nel?”

  “Yes; and I think the best thing to do, after we’re certain thateverything’s all right, is to see him on the way back and tell him allabout it, just what we propose to do, and all. He said he’d probably bethere by the fifteenth.”

  “That’s right,” said Dan.

  “But, look here,” exclaimed Tom, “if we don’t need the money until nextfall, what’s the good of having it sent to your father now?”

  “Because,” Bob answered, “four hundred dollars put in the savings bankor invested at four per cent means sixteen dollars a year from now. Andthat will be enough to pay his railway fare to Hillton and back again.”

  “That’s so,” acknowledged Tom. “Bob, you’re a regular Rothschild.”

  “He’s a regular Yankee!” said Dan.

  “Besides,” continued Bob, unheeding of compliments, “if Dan’s fatherhas the money we’ll know where it is, and so will Jerry. There’snothing like being certain, you know. It beats promises.”

  “Right again, O Solomon!” said Dan. “I’ll ask dad about it. I guess hewill be glad to look after the Jeremiah Hinkley Fund and see that it iswell and safely invested. That’s settled, then. We’ll each of us writeto-night and get the thing all finished up ship-shape, eh? Now who’sgoing for a swim?”

  There was no dissentient voice, even Barry proclaiming loudly andenthusiastically in favor of the suggestion. And a quarter of an hourlater they met in front of the bath houses ready for the plunge. Theyfound the water surprisingly warm. Barry splashed and leaped, bitingat the tiny breakers and then running away from them as though for hisvery life. For a long while there was scarcely a breaker fortunateenough to reach the beach without first having a hole bitten in it!After some twenty minutes of diving and swimming the Four returned tothe warm sand and stretched the
mselves out. By this time the beach hadbecome well peopled, and from the surf came the shrieks and laughter ofthe women and children. Some of the larger boys had started a game ofscrub baseball and were having an exciting and hilarious time. The Foursat up and looked on for a while. Then, after the ball had taken Dan invarious parts of his anatomy three times, he arose disgustedly.

  “Those fellows think I’m a backstop,” he said. “Maybe I am, but I don’twork for nothing. Come on, and let’s go in again.”

  So back to the water they went and mingled with the throng of bathers.A group of men and older boys were arranging a swimming race out to asloop anchored about a quarter of a mile offshore and back. One of thenumber, a muscular-looking fellow of about twenty-two with a Mercury’sfoot on the breast of his jersey, was evidently the best performer, forthe others were calling on him for handicaps.

  “You?” he asked of an inquiring youth. “Oh, I’ll give you halfway tothe yacht.”

  “I don’t want that much,” objected the other.

  “Oh, very well, don’t take it,” laughed the crack. “It isn’tcompulsory, you know.”

  “Is this an open race?” asked Dan smilingly.

  The crack turned.

  “Surely,” he answered heartily. “Come on. Want a handicap?”

  “Want to give me one?”

  The other looked him over carefully and pursed his lips in a doubtfulsmile.

  “You look sort o’ good, my friend. What’s your record for the quarter?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been timed for two or three years. Give me acouple of hundred yards.”

  “All right, but I don’t like your looks.”

  “How about me?” asked Tom, joining them. He looked like a good-natured,pink-and-white barrel, and the crack smiled as he looked him over.

  “Well, how much do you want?” he asked.

  “Three hundred yards,” was the prompt reply.

  “I’ll give it to you!”

  “All right, put my name down,” said Tom.

  The youth with the Mercury’s foot gravely wrote in the water with hisfinger, and the onlookers laughed. Then the contestants, of whom therewere about a dozen, set off to their places. There was a good deal ofgood-natured argument as to the distances taken up by those receivinghandicaps, but at last all were in position. Some one shouted “_Go!_”at the top of his lungs, and the race began. They were to swim to thesloop, pass around it, and return to the beach. Dan, who had no hopeof winning, since he conceived the Mercury’s foot chap to be unusuallygood at the work, took things leisurely enough. But Tom, quite unawedby the crack, set off as though he meant to win the race. As a resulthe was the first to reach the sloop, having passed three competitors onthe way out to it, and turned toward home still swimming strongly.

  The sea was quite smooth, and what tide there was was setting towardshore. Some eighty or a hundred yards back from the sloop he passedthe crack swimming almost under water with long deliberate strokes ofhis powerful arms. He smiled across at Tom in a brief moment when hishead was out of water, and that smile, at once amused and confident,gave Tom a foretaste of defeat. Still, he was, perhaps, two hundredyards ahead of the other, and if he could only keep his present speedup for the rest of the distance he thought he might win. Tom wasn’ta sprinter, but in a half mile or even a quarter he was no meanantagonist. In spite of his rotundity of build he was strong of muscleand, moreover, had learned the science of making every ounce of efforttell. Presently Dan passed, fighting hard with another contestant.Then, back of them, came the tag end of the procession. But Tom waspaying strict attention to business now and had no time for watchingothers. Only once, while still halfway between sloop and finish, didhe let up for a moment and strive to see his principal rival, and thenhe saw enough to set him frantically at work again. For the crack hadrounded the sloop and was hot on Tom’s trail and scarcely a hundredyards in the rear. Tom struck out again with long, even strokes,swimming hand over hand and pushing the water back from him with everybit of strength in his body.

  Among the breakers and just beyond them the spectators were watchingeagerly. Some few swam out to speed the winner over the line. Two menand a young lady in a rowboat, which had mysteriously appeared on thescene, shouted encouragingly to Tom.

  “Go it, kid!” cried one of the men. “You can beat him! You’re holdinghim!”

  “Kid, eh?” thought Tom disgustedly. “I’ll show them!”

  And now, with a little more than a hundred yards to go, Tom eased hisstroke a bit, for his muscles were aching terribly and his breaththreatened every instant to fail him and leave him rolling helplesslyabout out there like a plump porpoise. And behind him, perhaps fortyor fifty yards back, the crack was coming along hard and fast, stillswimming with practically the same stroke he had started with.

  Well, it was no disgrace to be beaten by a chap six or seven years yoursenior, even if you had been given three hundred yards out of ninehundred, thought Tom, in an effort to console himself. But the argumentdidn’t satisfy him, and he took a deep breath of the good salt air andforgot for a moment that his arms and legs felt as though they belongedto some one else. Then the breakers were forming about him in littlehillocks of green water, the encouraging cries of the watchers reachedhim when his head came dripping above the surface, and--and, almostupon him, sounded the quick and regular splash of the pursuer! Tomclosed his eyes tight and tried to forget everything save the man inthe blue bathing suit, who, just where the breakers paused before thecurve, stood to indicate the finish line. A long swell shot him forwardfor an instant. Then the returning undertow made it hard fighting.

  And now he was in a wide lane formed by the splashing audience andthere was but another dozen yards to go. For a moment he began to hope.But for a moment only. The steady strokes of his opponent were loudin his ears now, and as he looked for an instant a brown hand reachedforward almost beside him and disappeared, burying itself in thegreen, froth-streaked water. It was all up! thought Tom. He hated tobe beaten, did Tom, and for an instant he felt rather bad. And in thatinstant two things happened: the crack swimmer drew abreast of him andTom had an idea. He suddenly remembered that he had always been ableto swim faster under water for a short distance than on top, and likea flash he acted on that knowledge. Down went his head and shoulders,his heels kicked in air for a moment like a steamer’s propeller out ofwater, and then he vanished from the gaze of the laughing, shoutingwatchers.

  One, two, three, four, five strokes he took down there with the palegreen, sunlit waters about him; then up he came, thrashing desperately.His foot struck the knee of his opponent, for a moment he had a glimpseof a drawn, set face seen across the surface of the little wavelets,and then it was all over, and he was struggling to his feet and gaspingpainfully for breath.

  “Who won?” was the cry.

  The man in the blue bathing suit shook his head ruefully.

  “No one,” he answered. “It was the deadest kind of a dead heat. Theywere side by side. We’ll have to divide first money, I guess,” headded, with a laugh.

  The youth with the Mercury’s foot on his jersey came up to Tom withoutstretched hand.

  “We finished together,” he said smilingly. “But don’t you ever talk tome again about a three-hundred-yards handicap! That was the hardestrace ever I was in. My boy, you can certainly swim, and if you’ll keepat it and train off some of that flesh of yours, you’ll have us allbeaten by the time you get to college. What’s your name?”

  Tom struggled for breath. His heart was beating like a sledge hammerand his lungs were doing what he called afterwards “a double shuffle.”

  “Tu-tu-tu-tu--” he began. But for the life of him he couldn’t get anyfarther. The audience tried hard not to laugh, and the crack smiledin spite of himself. He might never have received an answer to hisquestion if Nelson hadn’t come to the rescue.

  “His name’s Ferris, Tom Ferris,” said Nelson. “He’s a pretty goodswimmer for a fatty, isn’t he?”

 
; That insult summoned Tom’s lost breath.

  “Hope you ch-ch-ch-choke!” he stammered.

  “Well, you’re all right, my boy,” said the crack admiringly. “We’llhave a talk after dinner, if you like.”

  Nodding, he moved off to the beach and disappeared into his bath house.Nelson took Tom by the arm and led him in the same direction. Bob andDan, the latter having just finished fifth in the race, joined them.

  “You were a cheeky beggar, Tommy,” said Bob, “to try and beat thatfellow!”

  “Why?” gasped Tom, stretching his arms in the hope that they would stoppaining.

  “Why, because he’s Woodbury, of”--here Bob mentioned a well-known NewYork athletic club--“and he holds the quarter-mile and half-mileamateur records, my boy.”

  “Well, I could beat him next time,” said Tom stoutly.

  “Yes, with three hundred yards,” said Dan derisively.

  “Huh! You had two hundred yourself,” said Tom scathingly, “and you camenear not finishing at all!”

  “You kicked up such a sea I couldn’t get my bearings,” answered Dangravely. “Swam straight out to sea for half a mile or so before Idiscovered my mistake.”

  “If you could swim as well as you can lie--” began Tom.

  “Tommy! Tommy!” warned Bob.

  “Well, wha-wha-what’s he tu-tu-tu-talk that way for?” asked Tomaggrievedly. “I can swim better than he can, anyway. I’d be ashamed ifI couldn’t!”

  Dan accepted the gibe in smiling silence, and the Four retired totheir two bath houses with chattering teeth. For a while nothing wasto be heard but hoarse breathing and the tread of scurrying feet asbath towels were fiercely applied. Then, warmth returning to thechilled bodies, the Four began to whistle and sing at the top of theirlungs. Dan went through everything he knew and then began on his owncompositions:

  “Tom, Tom, the Piper’s son, Swam a half a mile, by gum!”

  It was necessary to sing it very loudly and several times over in orderthat the subject of the song should hear it. When satisfied by thehowls of derision which came from next door that Tom and Bob had heard,he gave his attention to the latter:

  “Mr. Bob, of Portland, Maine, Wouldn’t he give you a pain?”

  More howls, dismal and prolonged, from the opposition. Then Tom’svoice, eager, triumphant:

  “Du-du-du-Dan, Dan, su-silly old Dan! Eats blue paint out of a can!”

  This reference to an episode of the preceding summer when Dan, playingsign painter, had got himself very thoroughly mixed up with a halfgallon of bright blue paint, brought laughter from all.

  “Let’s have a rhyme on Nelson,” suggested Bob.

  “All right; you do it,” said Dan.

  “Oh, I’m no poet. And I haven’t got my rhyming dictionary with me.”

  “Oh, never mind the rhymes,” said Nelson. “Don’t let those bother you;Dan doesn’t.”

  “My rhymes are always faultless,” answered the other.

  “Oh, yes; like ‘son’ and ‘gum’!”

  “Those rhyme!”

  “Get out!”

  “Of course they do! Don’t they, Bob?”

  “They may to you.”

  “Not every one can be a poet, Any more than a sheep can be a go-at,”

  quoted Nelson.

  “I’ve gu-gu-gu-gu-got it!” stammered Tom.

  “You have; bad,” was Dan’s cruel reply.

  “Listen!” cried Tom, unheeding.

  “There was a young fellow named Nelson--”

  “Bet you can’t find a rhyme for it,” jeered Nelson.

  “Shut up and let me tell it!

  “There was a young fellow named Nelson, Who sometimes got foolish spells on--”

  “O-oh!” groaned the rest.

  “‘--It’s quite plain to see,’ Said his friends, ‘you would be A clown if you only had bells on!’”

  “Tommy, you’re a regular Alfred Austin!” cried Dan. The rest cheeredand applauded noisily, and Tom was so pleased with his effort thathe repeated it at intervals for the next few days on the slightestprovocation.

  After dinner they sat for a time on the broad front veranda with Mr.Woodbury, who was quite taken with Tom, and afterwards took boat overto Fire Island on an exploring expedition. They found lots to interestthem on that barren expanse of sand dune and beach, not the least ofwhich was the life-saving station which they visited.

  It was a square two-story building standing just above high water onthe seaward side of the island. A neat white-washed fence inclosed it,and it was fronted by a plot of grass of which the members of the crewwere very proud. There were beds of flowers, too, geraniums mostly,bordered with beach stones. The lifeboat and apparatus were kept in aone-story addition to the dwelling house. The boys asked permissionto look about and were cordially welcomed. They were shown over theplace from top to bottom, inside and out. They saw the big, squaredormitory with its white iron beds, each flanked by a chest or trunkcontaining the member’s clothes, the pleasant living room, the kitchen,and the well-stocked storeroom. Their guide, a big blond-haired Swede,explained that in the winter time communication with the mainland wassometimes cut off for a week or more at a time, and therefore it wasnecessary to keep a good supply of food on hand.

  In the living room were several charts, and Tom in examining oneof them made the discovery that there were twenty-nine life-savingstations along the south shore of Long Island, an interesting factwhich he brought to the attention of the others. Then they all hadto count, and each one got a different result, Dan making it as highas thirty-four. After that they visited the boathouse and saw the biglifeboat, the mortar used for shooting the lifeline out to a wreck, thebreeches buoy--which Tom wanted very much to get into--and many otherinteresting objects. At last, thanking their host, they crossed theisland to the landing and returned to the hotel just in time for supper.

  After that meal was over--and it took some time to satisfy theirappetites, which had been sharpened by the salt breezes--they devotedthe evening to letter writing. Even Tom was able to think of somethingto say without having to call for suggestions from his friends. Beforeretiring they took up the matter of their route for the next two days.

  “I think,” said Tom, “it would be mighty jolly to go over to FireIsland and walk along to the eastern end of it. We could see thelife-saving stations and--and there might be a wreck!”

  “Tommy, you’re a regular ghoul!” said Bob.

  “What’s that?” asked Tom.

  “Don’t you know what a ghoul is, you ignoramus?”

  “A football goal, do you mean?” asked Tom innocently.

  When the laughter had died away, they decided to keep along the southshore until they reached Peconic Bay. Then they would cross theisland to the north side and return along the edge of the Sound toBarrington, where they hoped to find Jerry.

  During the last five minutes of the conference Tom had been noddingshamelessly. They woke him up, disposed of Barry for the night, andwent to bed.