Flood Tide Part 7

Robert Morton, too, was silent.

"You would have to see that the wheel was kept free," he mused aloud after an interval.

"I know it."

"And not check the speed of the boat."

"Right you are, mate!" exclaimed Willie with delight.

"And not hamper the swing of the rudder."

"You have it! You have it!" Willie shouted, rubbing his hands together and smiling broadly. "It's all them things I'm up against."

"I believe the trick might be turned, though," replied young Morton, rising from the nail keg on which he was sitting and striding about the narrow room. "It's a pretty problem and one it would be rather good fun to work out."

"I'd need to rig up a model to experiment with, I s'pose," reflected Willie.

"Oh, we could fix that easily enough," Bob cried with rising enthusiasm.

"_We_?"

"Sure! I'll help you."

The announcement did not altogether rea.s.sure the inventor, and Bob laughed at the dubious expression of his face.

"Of course I'm only a dry-land sailor," he went on to explain good-humoredly, "and I do not begin to have had the experience with boats that you have. I did, however, study about them some at Tech and perhaps--"

"Study about 'em!" repeated Willie, unable wholly to conceal his scepticism and scorn.

Again the younger man laughed.

"I realize that is not like getting knowledge first-hand," he continued with modesty, "but it seemed the best I could do. As to this plan of yours, two heads are sometimes better than one, and between us I believe we can evolve an answer to the puzzle."

"That'll be prime!" Willie e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, now quite comfortable in his mind. "An' when we get the answer to the riddle, Jan Eldridge will help us. You ain't met Jan yet, have you? He's the salt of the earth, Janoah Eldridge is. Him an' me are the greatest chums you ever saw.

He mebbe has his peculiarities, like the rest of us. Who ain't?

You'll likely find him kinder sharp-tongued at first, but he don't mean nothin' by it; and' he's quick, too--goes up like a rocket at a minute's notice. Folks down in town insist in addition that he's jealous as a girl, but I've yet to see signs of it. Fur all his little crochets you'll like Jan Eldridge. You can't help it. We're none of us angels--when it comes to that. Hus.h.!.+" broke off Willie warningly.

"I believe that's him now. Didn't you see a head go past the winder?"

"I thought I did."

"Then that's Jan. n.o.body else would be comin' across the dingle. Now not a word of this motor-boat business to him," cautioned Willie, dropping his voice. "I never tell Jan 'bout my idees 'till I get 'em well worked out, for he's no great shakes at inventin'."

There was an instant of guilty silence, and then the two conspirators beheld a freckled face, crowned by a ma.s.s of rampant sandy hair, protrude itself through the doorway.

"Hi, Willie!" called the newcomer, unmindful of the presence of a stranger. "Well, how do you find yourself to-day? Ready to tackle another pump?"

With simulated indignation Willie bristled.

"Pump!" he repeated. "Don't you dare so much as to mention pumps in my hearin' fur six months, Janoah Eldridge. I've had my fill of pumps fur one spell."

The freckled face in the door expanded its smile into a grin that displayed the few scattered teeth adorning its owner's jaws.

"No," went on the inventor, "I ain't attackin' no pumps to-day. I'm sorter takin' a vacation. You see we've got company. Tiny's nephew, Bob Morton from Indiana, has come to stay with us. This is him on the nail keg."

Shuffling further into the room Jan peered inquisitively at the guest.

"So you're Tiny's nephew, eh?" he commented, examining the visitor's countenance with curiosity. "Well, well! To think of some of Tiny's relations turnin' up at last! Not that it ain't high time, I'll say that. Now which of the Mortons do you belong to, young man?"

"Elnathan."

"I might 'a' known first glance, for you're like him as his tintype."

Bob laughed.

"Aunt Tiny thinks I am, too."

"She'd oughter know," was the dry comment. "She had the plague of bringin' him up from the time he could toddle. I'm glad some of you have finally got round to comin' to see her. You've been long enough doin' it. I ain't so sure, though, but if I was in her place I'd--"

"There, there, Jan," interrupted Willie nervously, "why go diggin' up the past? The lad is here now an'--"

"But they have been the devil of a while takin' notice of Tiny," Janoah persisted, not to be coaxed away from his subject. "Why, 'twas only the other day when we was workin' out here that you yourself said the way her folks had neglected her was outrageous."

"And it was, too, Mr. Eldridge," confessed Bob, flus.h.i.+ng. "Our whole family have treated Aunt Tiny shamefully. There is no excuse for it."

Before the honest admission of blame, Jan's mounting wrath grudgingly calmed itself.

"Well," he grumbled in a more conciliatory tone, "as Willie says, mebbe it's just as well not to go bringin' to life what's buried already.

Like as not there may have been some good reason for your folks never comin' back to Wilton after once they'd left the place. Indiana's the devil of a distance away--'most at the other end of the world, ain't it? You might as well live in China as Indiana. I never could see anyway what took people out of Wilton. There ain't a better spot on earth to live than right here. Yet for all that, every one of the Mortons 'cept Tiny (who showed her good sense, in my opinion) went flockin' out of this town quick as they was growed, like as if they was a lot of swarmin' bees. I doubt myself, too, if they're a whit better off for it. Your father now--what does he make out to do in Indiana?"

"Father is in the grain business," replied Bob with a smile.

"The grain business, is he? An' likely he sets in an office all day long, in out of the fresh air," continued Jan with contempt. "Plumb foolish I call it, when he could be livin' in Wilton an' fis.h.i.+n', an'

clammin', an' enjoying himself. That's the way with so many folks.

They go kitin' off to the city to make money enough to buy one of them automobiles. You won't ketch me with an automobile--no, nor a motor-boat, neither; nor any other of them durn things that's goin' to set me livin' like as if I was shot out of the cannon's mouth. What's the good of bein' whizzed through life as if the old Nick himself was at your heels--workin' faster, eatin' faster, dyin' faster? I see nothin' to it--nothin' at all."

At the risk of rousing the philosopher's resentment, Bob burst into a peal of laughter.

"But ain't it so now, I ask you? Ain't it just as I say?" insisted Janoah Eldridge. "Argue as you will, what's the gain in it?"

To the speaker's apparent disappointment, the citizen from Indiana did not accept the challenge for argument but instead observed pleasantly:

"I'll wager you will outlive all us city people, Mr. Eldridge."

"Course I will," was the old man's confident retort. "I'll be a-sailin' in my dory when the whole lot of you motor-boat folks are under the sod. You see if I ain't! An' speakin' of motor-boats, Willie--I s'pose you ain't done nothin toward tacklin' Zenas Henry's tribulations with that propeller, have you?"

The question was unexpected, and Willie colored uncomfortably. He was not good at dissembling.

"'Twould mean quite a bit of thinkin' to get Zenas Henry out of his troubles," returned he evasively. "'Tain't so simple as it looks."