Harry's Island/Chapter 7

M not grumbling,” denied Chub. “I’m only—only stating my position.”

They had been on Fox Island just one week; had bathed, canoed up and down the river, explored the country on each side of them to some extent, had eaten three generous meals every day, and had slept nine hours every night; and now Chub had given the first expression of dissatisfaction. They had finished dinner and were still sitting about the scanty remains of the feast. Harry was not present, to-day being one of the two days in the week when piano practice kept her an unwilling prisoner at the Cottage. Yesterday it had rained from morning until night, keeping them close to camp, and to-day, although the rain had ceased after breakfast, the clouds hung low, and there was an uncomfortable rawness in the east wind. The square of canvas over the stove flapped dismally, and the camp fire smoldered smokily, as though it were depressed by the cheerlessness of the leaden sky and the gray river.

“What do you expect in camp?” asked Roy, almost irritably, tilting back on the soap-box which had served him for a dining chair. “A parade in the morning, circus in the afternoon, and theater in the evening?”

“Maybe he’d rather have a garden-party this afternoon and a concert to-night,” suggested Dick, sarcastically.

“Now, look here,” answered Chub, warmly, “you fellows needn’t jump on me. I only said that life was growing dull, and it is, and you know it is—only you’re afraid to say so.”

“Who’s jumping on you?” asked Dick.

“You, you old lobster; and Roy, too. I’m bored to death, if you want to know; and I don’t care who hears it. I say let’s do something. We’ve stuck around the camp here for two days and played cards till I can’t tell a king from a four-spot. I want excitement!” And in proof of the assertion Chub rolled over backward off his box and flourished his legs in air. The others laughed and good nature returned to Camp Torohadik.

“Well, what is there to do?” asked Dick. “You suggest something and we’ll do it. If the launch was only here—”

“You and your launch!” jeered Chub. “It was going to be here in six days, and it’s eight now. I don’t believe you bought it.”

“It may be at the Cove now,” answered Dick. “Suppose we go down and see?”

“Oh, there’s no fun paddling around in this sort of weather,” said Roy. “We’ll go up to the Cottage and telephone. Then if it is there we can go down in the canoe and get it and we won’t have to paddle home.”

“Won’t we?” asked Chub, ironically. “How do you propose to get the launch up here?”

“We’ll get you to push it,” answered Dick. “Well, let’s go over and telephone, then. That’ll take Chub’s mind from his troubles.”

“And, say,” added Chub, “while we’re there, let’s have a couple of sets of tennis. Harry and I will play you two.”

“Harry won’t be through practising until three or half past,” answered Roy. “Besides, it doesn’t seem quite fair, somehow, to play tennis when you’re camping out.”

“Fair be blowed!” said Chub. “If it will keep me from growing dippy, it’s all right, isn’t it?”

They agreed that it was, and after the dinner things were cleared up they tumbled into the canoe and paddled over to the landing. As they neared the Cottage the dismal strains of the piano, suffering an agony of scales and five-finger exercises, reached them.

“Poor Harry!” sighed Roy. “She’s worse off than we are.”

They stole up to the window and rapped on the pane, and when Harry looked startledly up she was confronted with a row of three grinning faces whose owners applauded silently with their hands.

She flew across to the window and threw it open.

“What is it?” she demanded eagerly.

“Nothing. We came up to telephone to the Cove to see if the launch has come. How much longer have you to torture that piano?”

“About—” Harry looked doubtfully at the little gilt clock on the mantel—“about half an hour—or twenty minutes.”

“Make it fifteen,” said Chub, “and come on out and play tennis. Dick and Roy against you and me. A cinch!”

“I can’t,” faltered Harry. “I have to practice two hours, you know. Mama’s away. If she were here I might skimp a little, but I don’t like to cheat when she’s gone.”

“That’s a noble sentiment,” said Dick. “Go ahead and do your worst, Harry; we’ll wait for you.”

“We’ll get our rackets and go over to the court,” said Roy.

“You’ll have to put the net up,” said Harry. “But don’t you go and begin to play till I come. Promise!”

“We promise!” answered the three in unison. Then they went around to the door, and as Harry closed the window, laughing, she heard them stampeding into the hall.

The launch had not arrived, the freight agent at the steamboat wharf informed them. There followed a council and Dick returned to the telephone and sent a message to be forwarded by wire to the boat-builder.

“When he gets that I bet he’ll sit up and take notice,” growled Dick.

“He will be scared to death,” agreed Chub. “I didn’t know you could be so stern and masterful, Dickums. It becomes you, though, ’deed it does, Dickums!”

Half an hour later they were all four engaged in mighty combat on the tennis-court. Chub forgot his boredom and, with Harry at his side, played splendid tennis. But the first set went to the opponents, none the less, six games to four. They changed courts and the contest was renewed. This time Chub performed so well that the first two games went to them before the others had found themselves. Then, at two games to one, Harry, encouraged by their success, won on her serve, and they had a lead of three; and, although Dick and Roy fought doggedly and brought the score up to 3—5, Chub and Harry went out brilliantly on the next game. At that moment, as though in applause, the sun burst through the bank of clouds in the west and lighted the damp world with a soft, golden glow.

“Come on, Harry!” cried Chub. “That set made even the sun sit up! Let’s take the next one now.”

But Roy was on his mettle and made his service tell every time, which is equivalent to saying that he had things his own way. But it was no walkover at that, and when the quartet threw themselves down on the bench under the apple-tree the score was 6—4.

“If you’d serve like a gentleman,” grumbled Chub, good-naturedly, “we might have a show. But I’d like to know how any fellow can be expected to take those fool twisters of yours that never leave the ground after they ’light!”

“When Roy came here two years ago,” said Harry reminiscently, “he couldn’t play hardly at all. Could you, Roy? Why, I used to beat him all the time!”

“That’s so,” answered Roy. “Harry taught me the game.”

“I didn’t teach you that serve,” said Harry. “I wish I could do it.”

“Well, I’ve tried to show you,” Roy laughed.

“Wish I could play as well as Harry,” remarked Dick disconsolately.

“Oh, you can, Dick, and you know it!” cried Harry.

“Indeed I can’t!”

“Well, there’s only one way to settle it,” said Chub. “You two get up and have it out.”

“Are you too tired?” asked Dick. Harry assured him that she wasn’t a bit tired, and they took their places. Roy and Chub made a very appreciative “gallery,” applauding everything, even mis-strokes. In the end Dick proved his assertion by getting himself beaten seven games to five, and the four, stopping at the Cottage for Harry to get her coat, raced down to the landing and paddled across to camp in the highest of spirits. The camp-fire had gone out in their absence, but Dick soon had it going again. And then the stove was lighted and he set about getting supper, Harry, as usual, volunteering to assist and becoming wildly enthusiastic over the frying of the potatoes, so enthusiastic that she allowed them to burn under her nose. It mustn’t be imagined from this, however, that her culinary efforts always ended in disaster, for there had been several batches of doughnuts—unflavored—which had turned out excellently, and even now the party was finishing a recent baking of vanilla cookies. Doughnuts and cookies, however, were prepared at the Cottage; when it came to camp cookery Harry wasn’t an unqualified success; perhaps there was too much to distract her attention.

Chub declared that he preferred his potatoes well browned and the others said that it didn’t matter a bit. Harry, who had been suddenly plunged into deepest woe by the calamity, recovered her spirits sufficiently to suggest tentatively that perhaps it was better to have them too well done than not done enough. Dick and Roy were about to agree heartily to this sentiment when a shout from Chub who had been sent to the “larder” for the butter interrupted them.

“Somebody’s swiped almost half the butter,” he called, “and left a piece of poetry.”

“Swiped the butter!” exclaimed Dick.

“Left a piece of poultry!” cried Roy.

“Yes,” answered Chub as he came up, a plate of butter in one hand and a very dirty slip of paper in the other, “helped himself to about half a pound of it, and left this in the tub.” And he fluttered the paper.

“What is it?” asked Harry, as they crowded around him.

“Poetry, verse,” answered Chub, “and the craziest stuff you ever read.”

“Oh, I thought you said poultry,” said Roy. “What does it say?”

“Well, what do you think of that?” gasped Roy when Chub had finished reading. “Of all the cheeky beggars!”

“Let’s see it,” said Dick. He took the paper and looked it over carefully. It appeared to be the half of a page from a pocket note-book. It was traversed by pale blue lines and the lower corners were curled as though from much handling. The writing was small and the letters well formed.

“Do you reckon it’s a joke?” asked Chub.

“Who could have done it?” inquired Roy. “We don’t know any one around here, now that school is closed.”

“Wait a bit,” exclaimed Dick. “Here’s something on the other side; it’s been rubbed out, but I can see the words ‘set’ and ‘Billings,’ and there are some figures, I think.”

“‘Seth Billings,’” pondered Roy. “It isn’t ‘Seth Billings,’ is it?”

“No, I don’t think so; I can’t see any h. Here, you see what you can make of it.”

Roy took the paper and scrutinized it closely, but was unable to decipher any more than Dick.

“Well, ‘Seth Billings’ wants to keep away from this camp in future,” said Chub, “or he will get his head punched.”

“I don’t think his name can be Seth Billings,” said Harry, “because he signed that verse ‘N. W.’”

“‘W. N.,’” Chub corrected. “Not that it matters, though. He was probably going by in a boat and saw the camp and just naturally snooped around and helped himself to—say, do you suppose he’s taken anything else?”

There was a concerted movement toward the tent and a rapid inventory of their property. Nothing was missing, however; or so, at least, it seemed until Dick raised the cover of the tin bread-box. Then:

“Bread, too,” he said dryly; “and here’s another sonnet in the bottom of the box. Listen to this:

Chub burst into a laugh and the others joined him.

“He’s a joker, he is!” he gasped. “As far as I’m concerned he’s welcome. But I wouldn’t want him to visit us every day; we’d be bankrupt in a week!”

“But who is he?” puzzled Roy. “Any one know a ‘W. N.’?”

They all thought hard but without solving the riddle.

“Oh, he’s probably a tramp or—or something like that,” said Roy.

“Tramps don’t usually pay for what they take with verses,” Chub objected; “and his rhymes aren’t bad, you know, all except ‘butter,’ and ‘debtor’; that’s poetic license with a vengeance.”

“Well, we’ll call him the Licensed Poet,” said Dick, “and have our supper. We ought to be thankful that he didn’t take more than he did. There were two whole loaves of bread there besides the half loaf; it was decent of him to take the half.”

“For that matter,” observed Roy, “it was decent of him, I suppose, not to swipe the tent and the cook stove. After this we won’t dare to leave the camp alone.”

“Supper! Supper!” cried Chub. “We can talk about it just as well while we’re eating. Come on, Harry; take the head of the table, please.”

“No, I’m not going to sit at the head,” Harry declared. “There’s a horrid old root there. I’m going to sit here, right by the preserve.”

Of course there was just one all-absorbing topic of conversation, and that was “W. N.,” “Seth Billings,” or “The Licensed Poet,” as he was variously called. Harry advanced a theory to account for the difference between the initials signed to the verses and the name on the reverse of the paper which found instant favor. The theory was that there had been two visitors, that “W. N.” had written the verses, and that “Seth Billings” had supplied the leaf out of his note-book. That explanation was very plausible, and, while it didn’t begin to explain all they wanted to know, it brought a measure of relief.

As the twilight fell Harry became fidgety and evinced a disposition to start abruptly at slight noises and to glance continually over her shoulder toward the edge of the woods, and long before her accustomed hour for leaving she decided that she would return to the Cottage, pleading that the tennis had made her very tired and sleepy. Chub grinned skeptically but said nothing, and he and Roy took Harry home, accompanying her all the way up the hill and only turning back when the lights of the Cottage were in sight across the campus.

“Shall we fasten the tent-flap?” asked Roy when they had undressed under the swinging lantern and were ready to dispense with its feeble radiance.

“What’s the use?” yawned Chub. “If Seth Billings wants to steal us I guess he will do it anyhow.”

“I’d like to see what he’d write after he’d stolen you and had a good look at you,” said Roy as he blew out the lantern. For once Chub made no retort, for he was already fast asleep.

They awoke the next morning to find the sky swept clear of clouds and the sunlight burnishing the green leaves. There was a dip in the blue waters of the cove and a race back to the tent where three tingling bodies were rubbed dry and invested with clothing. Then Dick, who could dress or undress while Roy or Chub were getting ready to do it, went whistling out to start the fire. In a moment the whistling ceased abruptly and there was silence. Then the tent flap was pushed back and Dick appeared in the opening holding forth a square of birch bark on which lay four good-sized fish.

“Pickerel!” exclaimed Roy. “Where’d you get them?”

“Found them on top of the stove.”

“Seth Billings, I’ll bet!” cried Chub. “Was there any poetry?”

“Not a line,” answered Dick. “If Seth left them, we’re very much obliged to him, but I’d just like to catch a glimpse of him; he’s too plaguey mysterious for comfort.”

“I tell you!” said Roy. “He’s camping out here on the island! What’ll you bet he isn’t?”

“I’ll bet he is!” answered Chub. “Let’s go and look for him!”

“All right. But it was careless of him not to write a poem this time,” said Dick.

“Are you sure there wasn’t one?” Chub asked. “Did you look around? It might have blown off.”

“Yes, I looked. What I like best about these fish is that they’re already cleaned. All I’ve got to do is to slide them into the frying-pan.”

Roy and Chub followed him out and watched while the pickerel were transferred from the birch bark to the pan. Dick tossed the bark aside and Chub rescued it out of curiosity.

“It made a pretty good platter,” he said. Then, “Here it is!” he cried delightedly.

“What?” asked the others in a breath.

“The verse! He wrote it on the other side of the bark! Listen!