The water deceives your eyes. Drive the net under him quick, and then lift. I've got one--now just you see how I scoop."

Ford felt dreadfully disappointed over the loss of his first crab, but the rapidity with which he caught the "knack of it" after that was a great credit to him. He did not miss the next one he pulled up.

It was great fun; but it had its slack moments, and in one of these Dab suddenly exclaimed,--

"The young black rascal! If he hasn't gone and got a sheep's-head!"

"A sheep's-head?"

They were both staring at the old punt, where d.i.c.k Lee was apparently enjoying the most extraordinary good fortune.

"Yes, that's it. That's why he beats us so badly. They're a sight better'n clams, only you can't always get one. I wonder where he picked up that one."

"But how he does pull 'em in!"

"We're doing well enough," began Dabney, when suddenly there came a shrill cry of pain from the black boy's punt.

"He's barefooted," shouted Dab, with, it must be confessed, something like a grin; "and one of the little pirates has pinned him with his nippers."

That was the difficulty exactly, and there need not have been any very serious result of such an expression of a crab's bad temper. But d.i.c.k Lee was more than ordinarily averse to any thing like physical pain, and the crab which now had him by the toe was a very muscular and vicious specimen of his quarrelsome race.

The first consequence of that vigorous nip was a momentary dance up and down in the punt, accompanied by exclamatory howls from d.i.c.k, but not by a word of any sort from the crab.

The next consequence was, that the crab let go; but so at the same instant, did the rotten board in the boat-bottom, upon which d.i.c.k Lee had so rashly danced.

It let go of the rest of the boat so suddenly that poor d.i.c.k had only time for one tremendous yell, as it let him right down through to his armpits.

The water was perfectly smooth; but the boat was full in an instant, and nearly a bushel of freshly-caught and ill-tempered crabs were manoeuvring in all directions around the woolly head, which was all their late captor could now keep in sight.

"Up with the grapnel, Ford," shouted Dab. "Take an oar: we'll both row.

He can swim like a duck, but he might split his throat."

"Or get scared to death."

"Or those crabs might go for him, and eat him up."

"How he does yell!"

CHAPTER VII.

A VERY ACCIDENTAL CALL.

At the very moment when the angry crab closed his nippers on the bare big toe of d.i.c.k Lee, and his shrill note of discomfort rang across the inlet, the shriller whistle of the engine announced the arrival of the morning train from the city, at the little station in the village.

A moment or so later, a very pretty young lady was standing beside a trunk on the platform, trying to get some information from the flagman.

"Can you tell me where Mr. Foster lives?"

"That's the gimlet-eyed lawyer from New Yark?"

"Yes, he's from New York," said the young lady, smiling in his face.

"Where does he live?"

"He's got the sa.s.siest boy, thin. Is it him as took the Kinzer house?"

"I think likely it is. Can you tell me how to get there?"

"Thim Kinzers is foine people. The widdy married one of the gurrels to Misther Morris."

"But how can I get to the house?"

"Is it there ye're afther goin'?--Hey, Michael, me boy, bring up yer owld rattlethrap, and take the leddy's thrunk. She'll be goin' to the Kinzer place. Sharp, now."

"I should say it was," muttered the young lady, as the remains of what had been a carryall were pulled up beside the platform by the skinny skeleton of what might once have been a horse. "It's a rattletrap."

There was no choice, however; for that was the only public conveyance at the station, and the trunk was already whisked in behind the dashboard, and the driver was waiting for her.

He could afford to wait, as it would be some hours before another train would be in.

There was no door to open in that "carriage." It was all door except the top and bottom, and the pretty pa.s.senger was neither helped nor hindered in finding her place on the back seat.

If the flagman was more disposed to ask questions than to answer them, Michael said few words of any kind except to his horse. To him, indeed, he kept up a constant stream of encouraging remarks, the greatest part of which would have been difficult for an ordinary hearer to understand.

Very likely the horse knew what they meant; for he came very near breaking from a limp into a trot several times, under the stimulus of all that clucking and "G'lang, now!"

The distance was by no means great, and Michael seemed to know the way perfectly. At least he answered, "Yes'm, indade," to several inquiries from his pa.s.senger, and she was compelled to be satisfied with that.

"What a big house it is! And painters at work on it too," she exclaimed, just as Michael added a vigorous jerk of the reins to the "Whoa!" with which he stopped his nag in front of an open gate.

"Are you sure this is the place?"

"Yes'm; fifty cints, mum."

By the time the trunk was out of the carriage and swung inside of the gate, the young lady had followed; but for some reason Michael at once sprang back to his place, and whipped up his limping steed. It may have been from the fear of being asked to take that trunk into the house, for it was not a small one. The young lady stood for a moment irresolute, and then left it where it was, and walked on up to the house.

No bell; no knocker. The workmen had not reached that part of their improvements yet. But the door was open; and a very neatly furnished parlor at the left of the hall seemed to say, "Come right in, please;"

and in she went.

Such an arrival could not possibly have escaped the notice of the inmates of the house; and, as the young lady from the railway came in at the front, another and a very different-looking lady marched through to the parlor from the rear.

Each one would have been a puzzle to the other, if the elder of the two had not been Mrs. Kinzer, and the widow had never been very much puzzled in all her life. At all events, she put out her hand, with a cordial smile, saying,--

"Miss Foster, is it not? I am Mrs. Kinzer. How could he have made such a mistake?"