Ruel Smith - The Rival Campers Afloat - or, The Prize Yacht Viking

Again the combined assault on “Old Black Joe” began.

Then they paused again.

The snoring of young Joe was broken off abruptly, with one particularly loud outburst on his part. There was, also, the creaking of a bed in another room, and a sound as of some one sitting bolt upright.

“Here, you Joe! Quit that! What on earth are you doing?” called out the voice of George Warren, in tones which denoted that he had awakened from slumber, but not to full consciousness of what had waked him, except that it was some weird sound.

Then another voice, more sleepily than the other: “What’s the matter, George? Keep quiet, and let a fellow go to sleep.”

“Why, it’s that young Joe’s infernal nonsense, I suppose,” exclaimed the elder brother. “Now, that will be enough of that, Joe. It isn’t funny, you know.”

“That’s it! always blaming me for something,” came the answer from the youngest boy’s room. “You fellows are dreaming – gracious, no! I hear a voice down-stairs.”

It was the voice of Henry Burns saying solemnly, “Repeat.”

“Old Black Joe,” out of time, out of tune, turned inside out and scarcely recognizable, again arose to the ears of the now fully aroused Warren brothers.

There was the sound of some one leaping out of bed upon the bare chamber floor.

“Now you get back into bed there, Joe!” came the voice of George Warren, peremptorily. “Let those idiots, Tom and Bob, amuse themselves till they get tired, if they think it’s funny. We are not going to get up to-night, and that’s all there is about it. Say, you fellows go on now, and let us alone. We’re tired, and we are not going to get up.”

“Too dictatorial, altogether,” commented Henry Burns, softly. “Give them the full band now, good and lively.”

So saying, he seized the huge dinner-bell; Harvey took up the great fog-horn; Tom and Bob, the pot-covers and serving-tray, respectively. A hideous din, that was the combined blast of the deep horn, the clanging reverberation of the tray beaten upon by Bob’s stout fist, the bellowing of the dinner-bell and the clash of cymbals, roared and stormed through the walls of the Warren cottage, as though bedlam had broken loose. The rafters fairly groaned with it.

Down the stairway appeared a pair of bare legs. Then the form and face of young Joe came into view. He stared for a moment wildly at the occupants of the Warren easy chairs, and the next moment let out a whoop of delight.

“Oh, hooray!” he yelled. “Come on, George. Come on, Arthur. Hurry up! Oh, my! but it’s Henry Burns.”

A small avalanche of bare feet and bare legs poured down the stairs, belonging in all to Joe, Arthur, and George Warren. Three sturdy figures, clad in their night-clothes, leaped into the room, whooping and yelling, and descended in one concerted swoop upon the luckless Henry Burns. That young gentleman went down on the floor, where he afforded a seat for two of the Warren boys, while young Joe, with pretended fury, proceeded to pummel him, good-naturedly.

The three remaining boys were quickly added to the heap, dragging the Warrens from off their fallen leader; and the turmoil and confusion that raged about the Warren sitting-room for a moment might have meant the wreck and ruin of a city home, adorned with bric-à-brac, but resulted in no more serious damage than a collection of bruises on the shins and elbows of the participants.

Out of the confusion of arms and legs, however, each individual boy at length withdrew his own, more or less damaged.

“You’re a lot of villains!” exclaimed George Warren. “Wasn’t I sound asleep, though? But, oh! perhaps we are not glad to see you.”

“I tell you what we will do,” cried young Joe. “We will hurry up and dress and go out in the kitchen and cook up a big omelette – ”

The roar that greeted young Joe’s words drowned out the rest of the sentence.

“Isn’t he a wonder, though!” exclaimed George Warren. “Why, he had his supper only three hours and a half ago, and here he is talking about eating.”

“I don’t care about anything to eat,” declared young Joe. “I thought the other fellows would like something.”

“He’s so thoughtful,” said Arthur.

Young Joe looked longingly toward the kitchen.

“Well, we are not going to keep you awake,” said Henry Burns at length, after they had talked over the day’s adventures. “We thought you would like to have us call. We’ll be round in the morning, though.”

But the Warrens wouldn’t hear of their going. There were beds enough in the roomy old house for all, as the rest of the family had not arrived. So up the stairs they scrambled. Twenty minutes later, the fact that young Joe was sleeping soundly was audibly in evidence.

“He can’t keep me awake, though,” exclaimed Harvey. “I have had enough for one day to make me sleep, haven’t you, Henry?”

But Henry Burns was asleep already.

The next afternoon, as the crowd of boys sat about the Warren sitting-room, talking and planning, the tall figure of a man strode briskly up the road leading to the cottage. He was dressed in a suit of black, somewhat pretentious for the island population, with a white shirt-front in evidence, and on his head he wore a large, broad-brimmed soft hat. In his hand he carried a cane, which he swung with short, snappy strokes, as a man might who was out of temper.

George Warren, from a window, observed his approach.

“Hello!” he exclaimed. “Here comes the squire. Doesn’t look especially pleasant, either. I wonder what’s up.”

That something or other was “up” was apparent in the squire’s manner and expression, as he walked hastily across the piazza and hammered on the door with the head of his cane.

“Good morning, Captain Ken – ” began young Joe.

But he got no further. “Here, you stop that!” cried the squire, advancing into the room and raising his cane threateningly. “Don’t you ever call me ‘Captain Kendrick’ again as long as you live. It’s no use for you to say you mistake me for him, for you don’t.”

Young Joe disappeared.

“Confound that Joe!” said Arthur. “He always says the wrong thing.”

Captain Kendrick was the squire’s bitterest enemy; and it was a constant thorn in the squire’s side that they really did resemble each other slightly.

“Good morning, squire,” said George Warren, politely. “Won’t you have a seat?”

“No, I won’t!” said Squire Brackett, shortly. “I don’t need any seat to say what I want to say. I want to talk with those two young scamps over there.”

Squire Brackett pointed angrily toward Jack Harvey and Henry Burns.

“What can we do for you, squire?” inquired Henry Burns, quietly.

“Do for me!” repeated the squire, his voice rising higher. “You have done enough for me already, I should say. What do you mean by running down my sailboat in the bay yesterday? Hadn’t you done enough to annoy me already, without smashing into the Seagull and tearing a brand-new sail and ripping things up generally?

“What can you do for me, indeed! Well, I’ll tell you what you can do: you can pay me forty dollars for a new sail; and you can pay for a new boom to replace the broken one. And there’s some rigging that was carried away. That is all I think of now.”

The squire paused for breath.

“Yes, I guess that is about all,” remarked Henry Burns.

But Jack Harvey was on his feet and facing the angry squire. “See here,” he began, “do you mean to say that that young chap we helped out of his scrape blames us for the wreck? Just bring him – ”

“Hold on, Jack,” said Henry Burns. “Take it easy. We were not to blame, so let’s not get into a quarrel with the squire. Perhaps he has not heard just how it did happen.”