CHAPTER XVII.
DAB HAS A WAKING DREAM, AND HAM GETS A SNIFF OF SEA-AIR.
Sleep? One of the most excellent things in all the world, and very fewpeople get too much of it nowadays.
As for Dabney Kinzer, he had done his sleeping as regularly andfaithfully as even his eating, up to the very night after Ham Morriscame home to find the old barn afire. There had been a few, a very few,exceptions. There were the nights when he was expecting to goduck-shooting before daylight, and waked up at midnight with a strongconviction that he was late about starting. There were, perhaps, a dozenof "eeling" expeditions, that had kept him out late enough for a fullbasket and a proper scolding. There, too, was the night when he hadstood so steadily by the tiller of "The Swallow," while she danced,through the dark, across the rough billows of the Atlantic.
But, on the whole, Dab Kinzer had been a good sleeper all his life tillthen. Once in bed, and there had been for him an end of all wakefulness.
On that particular night, for the first time, sleep refused to come,late as was the hour when the family circle broke up.
It could not have been the excitement of Ham and Miranda's return. Hewould have gotten over that by this time. No more could it have been thefire, though the smell of smouldering hay came in pretty strongly attimes through the wide-open windows. If any one patch of that greatroomy bed was better made up for sleeping than the rest of it, Dab wouldsurely have found the spot; for he tumbled and rolled all over it in hisrestlessness. Some fields on a farm will "grow" wheat better thanothers, but no part of the bed seemed to grow any sleep. At last Dab gotwearily up, and took a chair by the window.
The night was dark, but the stars were shining; and every now and thenthe wind would make a shovel of itself, and toss up the hot ashes thefire had left, sending a dull red glare around on the house and barnsfor a moment, and flooding all the neighborhood with a stronger smell ofburnt hay.
"If you're going to burn hay," soliloquized Dabney, "it won't do to takea barn for a stove. Not that kind of a barn. But what did Ham Morrismean by saying that I was to go to boarding-school? That's what I'd liketo know"
The secret was out.
He had kept remarkably still, for him, all the evening, and had notasked a question; but, if his brains were ever to work over his books asthey had over Ham's remark, his future chances for sound sleep were allgone. It had come upon him so suddenly, the very thing he thought aboutthat night in "The Swallow," and wished for and dreamed about during allthose walks and talks and lessons of all sorts with Ford Foster andFrank Harley, ever since they came in from that memorable cruise.
It was a wonderful idea, and Dab had his doubts as to the way his motherwould take to it when it should be brought seriously before her. Littlehe guessed the truth. Ham's remark had gone deep into other ears as wellas Dabney's; and there were reasons, therefore, why good Mrs. Kinzer wassitting by the window of her own room, at that very moment, as littleinclined to sleep as was the boy she was thinking of. So proud of himtoo, she was, and so full of bright, motherly thoughts of the man hewould make, "one of these days, when he gets his growth."
There must have been a good deal of sympathy between Dab and his mother;for by and by, just as she began to feel drowsy, and muttered, "Well,well, we'll have a talk about it to-morrow," Dab found himself noddingagainst the window-frame, and slowly rose from his chair, remarking,--
"Guess I might as well finish that dream in bed. If I'd tumbled out o'the window I'd have lit among Miranda's rose-bushes. They've got theirthorns all out at this time o' night."
It was necessary for them both to sleep hard, after that; for more thanhalf the night was gone, and they were to be up early. So indeed theywere; but what surprised Mrs. Kinzer when she went into the kitchen wasto find Miranda there before her.
"You here, my dear? That's right. I'll take a look at the milk-room.Where's Ham?"
"Out among the stock. Dab's just gone to him."
Curious things people will do at times. Miranda had put down thecoffee-pot on the range. There was not a single one of the farm "help"around, male or female; and there stood the blooming young bride, withher back toward her mother, and staring out through the open door. Andthen Mrs. Kinzer slipped forward, and put her arms around her daughter'sneck.
Well, it was very early in the morning for those two women to standthere and cry; but it seemed to do them good, and Miranda remarked atlast, as she kissed her mother,--
"O mother, it is all so good and beautiful, and I'm so happy!"
And then they both laughed, in a subdued and quiet way; and Mirandapicked up the coffee-pot while Mrs. Kinzer walked away into themilk-room. Such cream as there seemed to be on all the pans thatmorning!
As for Ham Morris, his first visit on leaving the house had been to therelics of the old barn, as a matter of course.
"Not much of a loss," he said to himself; "but it might have been, butfor Dab. There's the making of a man in him. Wonder if he'd get enoughto eat, if we sent him up yonder? On the whole, I think he would. If hedidn't, I don't believe it would be his fault. He's got to go; and hismother'll agree to it, I know. Talk about mothers-in-law! If one of'em's worth as much as she is, I'd like to have a dozen. Don't know'bout that, though. I'm afraid the rest would have to take back seats aslong as Mrs. Kinzer was in the house."
Very likely Ham was right; but just then he heard the voice of Dab,behind him,--
"I say, Ham, when you've looked at the other things, I want to show you'The Swallow.' I haven't hurt her a bit, and her new grapnel's worththree of the old one."
"All right, Dab. I think I'd like a sniff of the water. Come on. There'snothing else I know of like that smell of the shore with the tide halfout."
No more there is; and there have been sea-shore men, many of them, whohad wandered away into the interior of the country, hundreds andhundreds of long miles, and settled there, and even got rich and oldthere, and yet who have come all the way back again, just to get anothersmell of the salt marshes and the sea-air and the out-going tide.
Ham actually took a little boat, and went on board "The Swallow," whenthey reached the landing, and Dab kept close to him.
"She's all right, Ham. But what are you casting loose for?"
"Dab, they won't all be ready for breakfast in two hours. The stock andthings can go: the men'll tend to 'em. Just haul on that sheet a bit.Now the jib. Look out for the boom. There! The wind's a little ahead,but it isn't bad. Ah!"
The last word came out in a great sigh of relief, and was followed by achuckle which seemed to gurgle all the way up from Ham's boots.
"This is better than railroading," he said to Dabney, as they tackedinto the long stretch where the inlet widened toward the bay. "Nopounding or jarring here. Talk of your fashionable watering-places! Why,Dab, there ain't any thing else in the world prettier than that reach ofwater and the sand-island, with the ocean beyond it. There's some ducksand some gulls. Why, Dab, do you see that? There's a porpoise, insidethe bar!"
It was as clear as daylight that Ham Morris felt himself "at home"again, and that his brief experience of the outside world had by nomeans lessened his affection for the place he was born in. If the entiretruth could have been known, it would have been found that he felt hisheart warm toward the whole coast and all its inhabitants, including theclams. And yet it was remarkable how many of the latter were mere emptyshells when Ham finished his breakfast that morning. He preferred themroasted, and his mother-in-law had not forgotten that trait in hischaracter.
Once or twice in the course of the sail, Dabney found himself on thepoint of saying something about boarding-schools; but each time hisfriend broke away to the discussion of other topics, such as blue-fish,porpoises, crabs, or the sailing qualities of "The Swallow," and Dabdimly felt that it would be better to wait until another time. So hewaited.
It was a grand good time, however, to be had before breakfast; and asthey again sailed up the inlet, very happy and very hungry, Dab suddenlyexclaimed,--
> "Ham, do you see that? How could they have guessed where we'd gone?There's the whole Kinzer tribe, and the boys are with them, and Annie."
"What boys and Annie?"
"Oh! Ford Foster and Frank Harley. Annie is Ford's sister. They live inour old house, you know."
"What's become of Jenny?"
"You mean my boat? There she is, hitched a little out, just beyond thelanding."
There was nothing on Dab's face to lead any one to suppose that heguessed the meaning of the quizzical grin on Ham's.
It is barely possible, however, that there would have been fewer peopleat the landing, if Ham and Dab had not been keeping a whole house-fullof hungry mortals, including a bride, waiting breakfast for them.
Dab Kinzer: A Story of a Growing Boy Page 17
