"Home again! Here we are!"

Such a ringing volley of cheers answered him!

It was heard and understood away there in the parlor of the Morris house, and brought every soul of that anxious circle right up standing.

"Must be it's Dab!" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer.

"O mother!" said Annie, "is Ford safe?"

"They wouldn't cheer like that, my dear, if any thing had happened,"

remarked Mr. Foster; but, in spite of his coolness, the city lawyer forgot to put his hat on, as he dashed out of the front gate and down the road towards the landing.

Then came one of those times that it takes a whole orchestra and a gallery of paintings to tell any thing about: for Mrs. Lee as well as her husband was on the beach; and within a minute after "Captain Kinzer"

and his crew had landed, poor d.i.c.k was being hugged and scolded within an inch of his life, and the two other boys found themselves in the midst of a perfect tumult of embraces and cheers.

Frank Harley's turn came soon, moreover; for Ford Foster found his balance, and introduced the "pa.s.senger from India" to his father.

"Frank Harley!" exclaimed Mr. Foster. "I've heard of you, certainly; but how did you--boys, I don't understand"--

"Oh! father, it's all right. We took Frank off the French steamer, after she ran ash.o.r.e."

"Ran ash.o.r.e?"

"Yes. Down the Jersey coast. We got in company with her in the fog, after the storm. That was yesterday evening."

"Down the Jersey coast? Do you mean you've been out at sea?"

"Yes, father; and I'd go again, with Dab Kinzer for captain. Do you know, father, he never left the rudder of 'The Swallow' from the moment we started until seven o'clock this morning."

"You owe him your lives!" almost shouted Mr. Foster; and Ford added emphatically, "Indeed we do!"

It was Dab's own mother's arms that had been around him from the instant he had stepped ash.o.r.e, and Samantha and Keziah and Pamela had had to content themselves with a kiss or so apiece; but dear, good Mrs. Foster stopped smoothing Ford's hair and forehead just then, and came and gave Dab a right motherly hug, as if she could not express her feelings in any other way.

As for Annie Foster, her face was suspiciously red at the moment; but she walked right up to Dab after her mother released him, and said,--

"Captain Kinzer, I've been saying dreadful things about you, but I beg pardon."

"I'll be entirely satisfied, Miss Foster," said Dabney, "if you'll only ask somebody to get us something to eat."

"Eat!" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer. "Why, the poor fellows! Of course they're hungry."

"Cap'n Kinzer allers does know jes' de right t'ing to do," mumbled d.i.c.k in a half-smothered voice; and his mother let go of him, with--

"Law, suz! So dey be!"

Hungry enough they all were, indeed; and the supper-table, moreover, was the best place in the world for the further particulars of their wonderful cruise to be told and heard.

d.i.c.k Lee was led home in triumph to a capital supper of his own; and as soon as that was over he was rigged out in his Sunday clothes,--red silk necktie and all,--and invited to tell the story of his adventures to a roomful of admiring neighbors. He told it well, modestly ascribing every thing to Dab Kinzer; but there was no good reason, in any thing he said, for one of his father's friends to inquire next morning,--

"Bill Lee, does you mean for to say as dem boys run down de French steamah in dat ar' boat?"

"Not dat. Not zackly."

"'Cause, ef you does, I jes' want to say I's been down a-lookin' at her, and she ain't even snubbed her bowsprit."

CHAPTER XIV.

A GREAT MANY THINGS GETTING READY TO COME!

The newspapers from the city brought full accounts of the stranding of the "Prudhomme," and of the safety of her pa.s.sengers and cargo.

The several editors seemed to differ widely in their opinions relating to the whole affair; but there must have been some twist in the mind of the one who excused everybody on the ground that "no pilot, however skilful, could work his compa.s.s correctly in so dense a fog as that."

None of them had any thing whatever to say of the performances of "The Swallow." The yacht had been every bit as well handled as the great steamship; but then, she had reached her port in safety, and she was such a little thing, after all.

Whatever excitement there had been in the village died out as soon as it was known that the boys were safe; and a good many people began to wonder why they had been so much upset about it, anyhow.

Mrs. Lee herself, the very next morning, so far recovered her peace of mind as to "wonder wot Dab Kinzer's goin' to do wid all de money he got for dem bluefish."

"I isn't goin' to ask him," said d.i.c.k. "He's capt'in."

As for Dab himself, he did an immense amount of useful sleeping, that first night; but when he awoke in the morning he shortly made a discovery, and the other boys soon made another. Dab's was, that all the long hours of daylight and darkness, while he held the tiller of "The Swallow," he had been thinking as well as steering. He had therefore been growing very fast, and would be sure to show it, sooner or later.

Ford and Frank found that Dab had forgotten nothing he had said about learning how to box, and how to talk French; but he did not say a word to them about another important thing. He talked enough, to be sure; but a great, original idea was beginning to take form in his mind, and he was not quite ready yet to mention it to any one.

"I guess," he muttered more than once, "I'd better wait till Ham comes home, and talk to him about it."

As for Frank Harley, Mr. Foster had readily volunteered to visit the steamship-office in the city, with him, that next day, and see that every thing necessary was done with reference to the safe delivery of his baggage. At the same time, of course, Mrs. Foster wrote to her sister Mrs. Hart, giving a full account of all that had happened, but saying that she meant to keep Frank as her own guest for a while, if Mrs. Hart did not seriously object.

That letter made something of a sensation in the Hart family. Neither Mrs. Hart nor her husband thought of making any objection; for, to tell the truth, it came to them as a welcome relief.

"It's just the best arrangement that could have been made, Maria, all around," said he. "Write at once, and tell her she may keep him as long as she pleases."

That was very well for them, but the boys hardly felt the same way about it. They had been planning to have "all sorts of fun with that young missionary," in their own house. He was, as Fuz expressed it, to be "put through a regular course of sprouts, and take the Hindu all out of him."

"Never mind, though," said Joe, after the letter came, and the decision of their parents was declared: "we'll serve him out after we get to Grantley. There won't be anybody to interfere with the fun."

"Well, yes," replied Fuz, "and I'd just as lief not see too much of him before that. He won't have any special claim on us, neither, if he doesn't go there from our house."

That was a queer sort of calculation, but it was only a beginning. They had other talks on the same subject, and the tone of them all had in it a promise of lively times at Grantley for the friendless young stranger from India.

Others, however, were thinking of the future, as well as themselves; and Joe and Fuz furnished the subject for more than one animated discussion among the boys down there by the Long Island sh.o.r.e. Ford Foster gave his two friends the full benefit of all he knew concerning his cousins.