It was necessary for them both to sleep hard, after that; for more than half the night was gone, and they were to be up early. So indeed they were; but what surprised Mrs. Kinzer when she went into the kitchen was to find Miranda there before her.

"You here, my dear? That's right. I'll take a look at the milk-room.

Where's Ham?"

"Out among the stock. Dab's just gone to him."

Curious things people will do at times. Miranda had put down the coffee-pot on the range. There was not a single one of the farm "help"

around, male or female; and there stood the blooming young bride, with her back toward her mother, and staring out through the open door. And then Mrs. Kinzer slipped forward, and put her arms around her daughter's neck.

Well, it was very early in the morning for those two women to stand there and cry; but it seemed to do them good, and Miranda remarked at last, as she kissed her mother,--

"O mother, it is all so good and beautiful, and I'm so happy!"

And then they both laughed, in a subdued and quiet way; and Miranda picked up the coffee-pot while Mrs. Kinzer walked away into the milk-room. Such cream as there seemed to be on all the pans that morning!

As for Ham Morris, his first visit on leaving the house had been to the relics of the old barn, as a matter of course.

"Not much of a loss," he said to himself; "but it might have been, but for Dab. There's the making of a man in him. Wonder if he'd get enough to eat, if we sent him up yonder? On the whole, I think he would. If he didn't, I don't believe it would be his fault. He's got to go; and his mother'll agree to it, I know. Talk about mothers-in-law! If one of 'em's worth as much as she is, I'd like to have a dozen. Don't know 'bout that, though. I'm afraid the rest would have to take back seats as long as Mrs. Kinzer was in the house."

Very likely Ham was right; but just then he heard the voice of Dab, behind him,--

"I say, Ham, when you've looked at the other things, I want to show you 'The Swallow.' I haven't hurt her a bit, and her new grapnel's worth three of the old one."

"All right, Dab. I think I'd like a sniff of the water. Come on. There's nothing else I know of like that smell of the sh.o.r.e with the tide half out."

No more there is; and there have been sea-sh.o.r.e men, many of them, who had wandered away into the interior of the country, hundreds and hundreds of long miles, and settled there, and even got rich and old there, and yet who have come all the way back again, just to get another smell of the salt marshes and the sea-air and the out-going tide.

Ham actually took a little boat, and went on board "The Swallow," when they reached the landing, and Dab kept close to him.

"She's all right, Ham. But what are you casting loose for?"

"Dab, they won't all be ready for breakfast in two hours. The stock and things can go: the men'll tend to 'em. Just haul on that sheet a bit.

Now the jib. Look out for the boom. There! The wind's a little ahead, but it isn't bad. Ah!"

The last word came out in a great sigh of relief, and was followed by a chuckle which seemed to gurgle all the way up from Ham's boots.

"This is better than railroading," he said to Dabney, as they tacked into the long stretch where the inlet widened toward the bay. "No pounding or jarring here. Talk of your fashionable watering-places! Why, Dab, there ain't any thing else in the world prettier than that reach of water and the sand-island, with the ocean beyond it. There's some ducks and some gulls. Why, Dab, do you see that? There's a porpoise, inside the bar!"

It was as clear as daylight that Ham Morris felt himself "at home"

again, and that his brief experience of the outside world had by no means lessened his affection for the place he was born in. If the entire truth could have been known, it would have been found that he felt his heart warm toward the whole coast and all its inhabitants, including the clams. And yet it was remarkable how many of the latter were mere empty sh.e.l.ls when Ham finished his breakfast that morning. He preferred them roasted, and his mother-in-law had not forgotten that trait in his character.

Once or twice in the course of the sail, Dabney found himself on the point of saying something about boarding-schools; but each time his friend broke away to the discussion of other topics, such as blue-fish, porpoises, crabs, or the sailing qualities of "The Swallow," and Dab dimly felt that it would be better to wait until another time. So he waited.

It was a grand good time, however, to be had before breakfast; and as they again sailed up the inlet, very happy and very hungry, Dab suddenly exclaimed,--

"Ham, do you see that? How could they have guessed where we'd gone?

There's the whole Kinzer tribe, and the boys are with them, and Annie."

"What boys and Annie?"

"Oh! Ford Foster and Frank Harley. Annie is Ford's sister. They live in our old house, you know."

"What's become of Jenny?"

"You mean my boat? There she is, hitched a little out, just beyond the landing."

There was nothing on Dab's face to lead any one to suppose that he guessed the meaning of the quizzical grin on Ham's.

It is barely possible, however, that there would have been fewer people at the landing, if Ham and Dab had not been keeping a whole house-full of hungry mortals, including a bride, waiting breakfast for them.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW DAB WORKED OUT ANOTHER OF HIS GREAT PLANS.

There was a sort of council at the breakfast-table of the Foster family that morning; and Ford and Annie found their side of it "voted down."

That was not at all because they did not debate vigorously, and even "protest;" but the odds were too much against them.

"Annie, my dear," said Mrs. Foster at last, in a gentle but decided way, "I'm sure your aunt Maria, if not your uncle, must feel hurt at your coming away so suddenly. If we invite Joe and Foster to visit us, it will make it all right."

"Yes," sharply exclaimed Mr. Foster: "we must have them come. They'll behave themselves here. I'll write to their father: you write to Maria."

"They're her own boys, you know," added Mrs. Foster soothingly.

"Well, mother," said Annie, "if it must be. But I'm sure they'll make us all very uncomfortable if they come."

"I can stand 'em for a week or so," said Ford, with the air of a man who can do or bear more than most people. "I'll get Dab Kinzer to help me entertain them."

"Excellent," said Mr. Foster; "and I hope they will be civil to him."

"To Dabney?" asked Annie.

"Fuz and Joe civil to Dab Kinzer?" exclaimed Ford.

"Certainly: I hope so."

"Father," said Ford, "may I say just what I was thinking?"

"Speak it right out."

"Well, I was thinking what a good time Fuz and Joe would be likely to have, trying to get ahead of Dab Kinzer."

Annie looked at her brother, and nodded; and there was a bit of a twinkle in the eyes of the lawyer himself, but he only remarked,--