The Rival Campers Part 21

"I can take one of you," answered Tom, pointing the canoe insh.o.r.e with a turn of his paddle.

Arthur caught the end of the canoe as it came up alongside a ledge on which the boys stood, and steadied the frail craft.

"Might as well let us both in," he said. "The more the merrier."

"The more the riskier, too," said Tom; "but if you fellows will take the chance of a ducking, I'm willing. Water won't spoil anything I've got on.

Climb in easy, now, and sit cross-legged, so if we tip over you'll slide out head-first, clear of the thwarts."

The canoe was brought to within nearly an inch of the water's edge by the addition of the two to its burden. Tom gave a strong push with his paddle, and the heavily laden craft glided away from the sh.o.r.e.

There was an extra paddle, which Arthur wielded after a fas.h.i.+on, and it did not take long to come within sight of the narrows. There upon the sh.o.r.e were gathered some fifty or sixty persons. Over against a ledge a fire of driftwood blazed. When they had gotten in nearer they could see a smaller fire at a little distance from the other. Over this was hung a monster iron kettle, and bending over it and superintending the cooking of its contents was a familiar figure. It was Colonel Witham, and he was making one of his famous chowders.

At the same time that the occupants of the canoe discerned the colonel, he in turn espied them, and also noted a circ.u.mstance which they did not.

A half-mile or more distant from them a big, ocean-going tugboat was pa.s.sing down the bay, without a tow and under full steam.

"There come those mischief-makers," said the colonel, muttering to himself. "I'm blessed if the canoe isn't filled with them. If there's an inch of that canoe out of water, there's no more." Then, as he noted the tug steaming past, an idea came to him that made him chuckle.

"Kicks up a big sea, that craft does,-as much as a steamboat," he said.

"Perhaps they'll see it and perhaps not. If they don't just let one of those waves catch them unawares. There'll be a spill." The colonel, chuckling with great satisfaction, went on stirring the chowder.

The possibility of a wave from a chance steamer had, indeed, not been thought of by Tom or any of the others. The water was motionless all about them, but rolling in rapidly toward them were a series of waves big enough to cause trouble, if they did but know it.

The colonel watched the unequal race between the waves and the heavily-laden canoe with interest. He looked out at them every other minute from the corner of his eye. He was afraid lest others on sh.o.r.e should see their danger and warn them.

"Let them spill over," he said. "They can all swim like fish, and a ducking will do them good." So he stirred vigorously, watching them all the while.

"That stuff won't need any pepper if he cooks it," remarked young Joe, looking ahead at the colonel.

"Lucky for us it's not his own private picnic," said Tom, "or we shouldn't get much of it. Even as it is, it sort of takes my appet.i.te away to see him stirring that chowder."

"I'll risk your appet.i.te-" The words were hardly out of Arthur's mouth when precisely what Colonel Witham had been hoping for came to pa.s.s. All at once Tom, seated in the stern, saw the water suddenly appear to drop down and away from the canoe. The canoe was for an instant drawn back, then lifted high on the ridge of a wave and thrown forward, with a sharp twist to one side. Tom gave one frantic sweep with his paddle, in an effort to swing the canoe straight before the wave, but it was too late.

The canoe was overloaded, and as the weight of the four boys was thrown suddenly to one side the sensitive thing lost its equilibrium and capsized.

In a moment the four boys were struggling in the water. Thanks to Tom's precaution, they all went out headforemost, and came to the surface clear of the canoe, blowing and sputtering. A cry went up from the sh.o.r.e, and for a moment Colonel Witham was seized with a sudden fear. What if any of them should be drowned, and he, to vent a petty spite, had given no warning? In his excitement he failed to notice that he had spilled some pepper into the ladle which he held in one hand.

Two rowboats were hastily started out from the beach, and, impelled by strong arms, surged toward the canoe.

Tom was prompt to act. He and Bob had had many a drill at this sort of thing. Each of the boys was a good swimmer, and soon they were all clinging to the canoe, which had completely overturned. The boys were in about the same positions as they had occupied in the canoe, Tom at one end, Bob at the other, and the other two clinging each to one side.

"Quick, boys, let's right her before the boats get here," cried Tom.

Under his directions the two Warren boys now took their positions both on the same side of the canoe, with himself and Bob at the ends. Then all four took long breaths, treaded water vigorously, and lifted. The canoe rose a little and rolled over sluggishly, two-thirds full of water.

While the others supported it, Tom bailed the canoe nearly dry with a bailing-dish, which he always kept tied to a thwart for just such an emergency. Then he climbed in over one end, and Bob followed over the other. The Warren boys clung to the gunwales until one of the boats from the sh.o.r.e picked them up. The paddles were recovered for Tom and Bob, and the three craft proceeded to sh.o.r.e.

There, stretching themselves out on the hot sands before the blaze, they waited for their clothing to dry on them. They were much liked by the boys and girls of the village, and were at once a part of a jolly group, each of which party had a separate detail to recount in the capsizing of the canoe as they had seen it.

All at once the picnickers were startled by a howl of rage from Colonel Witham. All eyes were turned upon him. He was executing the most extraordinary contortions and dance-steps that could be imagined. An Indian chief, excelling all his tribe at a war-dance, could not have outdone the grotesque movements of the colonel.

"What ails the man?" cried Captain Sam. "He must have gone clean crazy."

And he started for the colonel on the run.

But before he could reach him another accident happened. In his dancing about, the colonel trod most unexpectedly on a small log of wood, his heels flew out from under him, and down he came with a mighty splash in a little pool of sea-water that had been left in a hollow of rock by the last receding tide.

There the colonel lay, like an enormous turtle, helpless for a moment with rage and astonishment, and all the while sputtering fiercely and crying out.

"What on earth ails you, colonel?" asked Captain Sam, hurrying to his a.s.sistance. "You haven't gone crazy, have you?" And he helped the colonel to his feet with a great effort.

"Pepper!" roared the purple-faced colonel. "Pepper!"

"Pepper!" cried Captain Sam. "What about pepper?"

"Everything about it!" sputtered the colonel. "It's in the chowder! Taste it and see."

"What's that?" cried Captain Sam. "If those young scamps have peppered the chowder I'll thrash every one of them myself. Here, let me see," and, picking up the ladle which the colonel had dropped, he cautiously tasted the chowder.

"Why, there's no pepper in it," he said. "It's just right. I don't taste any pepper."

As, indeed, he did not, the colonel having got it all.

"You must have a strong imagination, colonel," he said.

"Imagination!" bellowed the colonel. "Imagination! I just wish your tongue was stuck full of a million red-hot needles and your mouth was filled with hornets, that's all I wish. Where's the boy that put that pepper into that spoon? Where is he? Show him to me and I'll make an example of him right here. I'll put him head first into the chowder by the heels."

As no one had put the pepper into the ladle, no culprit could be found to show to the colonel; and as the colonel could not select a victim out of a score or more of boys who were present, he could only vent his rage to no purpose, while the villagers, who had laughed themselves nearly sick over the colonel's antics, gave him what sympathy they could feign.

It ended in the colonel's taking himself off in a great fury, declaring that any one who pleased could make the chowder, and he hoped it would choke them all, and that fish-bones innumerable would stick in the throats of whoever ate it.

The colonel's departure, however, far from putting any damper on the occasion, seemed rather to afford the party a relief; and his mishap made no small part of their amus.e.m.e.nt, as they went on with the preparations for the feasting.

Captain Sam, who could turn his hand to anything, took the position left vacant by the colonel, and declared he could bring the chowder to completion in a way vastly superior to the colonel's. And indeed it was a decided improvement in the appearance of things to see the good-natured captain standing over the steaming kettle and cracking jokes with every pretty girl that went by.

The preparations for the clambake went merrily on. A huge pile of driftwood was brought up from the sh.o.r.e and heaped on the fire by the ledge. There were pieces of the spars of vessels, great junks of shapeless timber that had once been s.h.i.+p-knees and pieces of keels, timbers that had drifted down from the mills away up the river, now thrown up on sh.o.r.e after miles and miles of aimless tossings, and crates and boxes that had gone adrift from pa.s.sing steamers and come in with weeks of tides. The flames consumed them all with a fine roaring and crackling, and, dying down at length after an hour or two, left at a white heat beneath the ashes a bed of large flat rocks that had been carefully arranged.

Several of the boys, with brooms made of tree branches, swept the hot stones clean of ashes; clean as an oven they made it. Then they brought barrels of clams, big fat fellows, with the blue yet unfaded from their sh.e.l.ls, and poured them out on the hot stones, whence there arose a tremendous steaming and sizzling.

Quickly they pitched damp seaweed over the clams, from a stack heaped near, covering them completely to the depth of nearly a foot. Then on this, wherever they saw the steam escaping, they shovelled the clean coa.r.s.e gravel of the beach, so that the great broad seaweed oven was nearly air-tight.

Then they heaped the hot ashes in a mound and buried therein potatoes and corn with the thick green husks left on it.

The women, meantime, had not been idle, for in a grove that skirted the beach they had spread table-cloths on the long tables that always stood there, winter and summer, fastened into the ground with stakes driven firm. If all that great steaming bed of clams and the chowder in the mammoth kettle had suddenly vanished or burned up, or had some other catastrophe destroyed it, there would still have been left a feast for an army in what was spread on the snowy tables from no end of fat-looking baskets.

There were roast chickens and ducks, sliced cold meats, and country sausages. There were pies enough to make a boy's head swim,-apple, mince, pumpkin, squash, berry, custard, and lemon,-in and out of season; chocolate cakes and raisin cakes and cakes of all sizes and forms. There were preserves and pickles and a dozen and one other messes from country cupboards, for the good housewives of Grand Island were generous souls, and used to providing for a hearty lot of seafaring husbands and sons and brothers, and, moreover, this picnic at the Narrows was a yearly event, for which they made preparation long ahead, and looked forward to almost as much as they did to Christmas and New Year.

Never were tables more temptingly spread, and when, late in the afternoon, the benches around these tables were filled with expectant and hungry picnickers, it was a sight worth going miles to see.

Captain Sam p.r.o.nounced the chowder done, and the great kettle, hung from a stout pole, was borne in triumph by him and Arthur Warren to the grove near the tables. Somebody else p.r.o.nounced the clams done, and the gravel was carefully sc.r.a.ped off from the seaweed, and the seaweed lifted from the clams, and the great stone oven with its steaming contents laid bare.

The very fragrance from it was a tonic.