A SURPRISE

The lordly Hudson looked inviting after their two days and a half on land. It seemed to call and beckon the way-worn travellers to its glinting expanse. Cars might go wrong, engines lie down, gates refuse to work, but the quiet river hurried on, on, on, between its fair green hills forever. Seeing it as they did then, it seemed removed from all the commonplace and sordid troubles of the road. It was so quiet. The few boats upon it made no noise. It had a solemn dignity that the grandest high-road knows not.

“Looks nice, hey, Kid?”

“Sure, and I bet you’ll like Black Lake, too; it’s all kind of dark all around it and you can see the stars in it.”

“I wish half of them were in it,” laughed Townsend. “Posy Brazen and—”

“They’re inserted in it,” said Pee-wee.

“You mean inverted in it,” Townsend said. “Well, we’ll be there to-morrow if all goes well. As long as we can’t get Liz till five o’clock we’ll camp to-night, what do you say?”

“I say yop,” said Pee-wee.

“Yop it is then,” said Townsend. “Say it with yops.”

“Maybe we’ll have another dandy delay too, hey?” said Pee-wee.

“Very likely,” said Townsend. “I wouldn’t care to knock Liz, though she seems to be knocking herself.”

“Is it a—a—loose bearing?” Pee-wee asked hopefully.

“I can’t promise you that,” said Townsend; “but she’s knocking. I hope it’ll be a five-cent repair, if any. Otherwise we’ll have to use a couple of dozen resources.”

They found a little cottage down by the river, occupied by an old woman who hobbled out with a cane to look at them. She was smoking a pipe and looked very funny. She talked with such an Irish brogue that they could hardly understand her but they made out from what she said that an old punt which was drawn up on the shore belonged to no one in particular.

It had belonged to “Meemon” they gathered, and they supposed that Meemon was her departed husband. She seemed perfectly willing that they should use it and watched them with curious intentness as Townsend rowed out with the pair of old broken oars which had been leaning against a tree nearby. Then she hobbled into the house again, puffing furiously. It seemed as if she were glad for the slight diversion.

They rowed all the way across the river, in sight of the great Poughkeepsie bridge. At the Poughkeepsie wharf, a big Hudson River boat was admitting passengers and the boys rowed about near it while the passengers waved to them, and one man threw an apple which Pee-wee caught. Girls, too, from the security of the mammoth decks, called to the tiny craft below, and giggled and chatted with Townsend as he rested on his oars. He might have looked rather attractive from up there; at all events, the usual pleasantries were exchanged.

“Come on down.”

“No, you come up.”

“No, you come down.”

“No, you come up.”

“Catch this?”

Pee-wee missed a piece of candy.

“You can’t throw,” he shouted.

“You can’t catch,” called a girl. “Doesn’t he look little down there?” she said to her companions.

Sound travels plainly over water and Pee-wee heard them. “It’s on account of the distance,” he shouted.

“If we come down will you take us for a row?” (giggling).

“Positively,” said Townsend (more giggling).

And so on, and so on. They flopped lazily around on the river until mid-afternoon, when Townsend realized to his surprise that the ebbing tide had carried them far down-stream. It was aided and abetted now by a freshening breeze against which it was almost hopeless to struggle. Rowing against wind and tide is a thankless task.

Townsend could have made shore easily enough, but it is the scout way to leave a thing where one finds it. He did the only thing he could do striving against such odds, which was to keep close in shore where the current was less strong, and pull the boat along by clutching the overhanging foliage where there was any. It was slow work, but of such a nature that Pee-wee could assist.

At last, by dint of rowing and pulling, they reached the spot where they had embarked. The Irish woman was not in evidence but the smoke was curling up out of the chimney of her little house, which reminded the returning voyagers that it was getting on toward suppertime, unless indeed, the smoke was from her trusty pipe.

“It’s six o’clock if anybody should ask you,” said Townsend, looking at his watch.

“And we’ve got more than two miles to walk,” said Pee-wee.

“Well, the sooner we get about it, the sooner it’s done,” said Townsend. “The water makes you hungry, doesn’t it?”

“You said it,” said Pee-wee. “The land makes you hungry, but not so much as the water. Gee whiz, I got all sunburned.”

“Look at my arms,” said Townsend. “I’m good and tired, I know that.”

“I’m going to make rice cakes, you like those,” said Pee-wee. “We’ll find a good place in the woods to camp, hey? And I’ll fry some bacon too, hey?”

“Go as far as you like,” said Townsend; “I’ll eat anything. I could eat a bale of hay.”

“We’ll make an omelet with some egg powder too,” said Pee-wee encouraged. “We’ll have a banquet, hey? Because maybe this’ll be our last supper alone together. Maybe I’ll make hunter’s stew too!” he shouted in sudden inspiration.

“It will sure be our last supper together if you do that,” said Townsend.

But he would probably have eaten even that weird specialty of Pee-wee’s without complaint, so hungry was he. As for Pee-wee, he could have eaten the Ford with a relish.

They trudged wearily back to the village and past it toward the little garage beyond. The two miles seemed to have stretched out to an appalling length like the neck of Alice in Wonderland. They were ready to drop with each step they made. All their recent bodily exertion on the river seemed to take effect in their weary limbs and they stumbled along, dog-tired and silent.

“Don’t you care,” said Pee-wee; “we’ll start a fire and lie down and have supper—gee whiz, I can eat lying down as well as sitting up, can’t you?”

“I could eat standing on my head,” said Townsend.

“Not soup,” said Pee-wee.

“Well, rice cakes and bacon,” said Townsend.

“Yum, yum, m, m, m, m, m!” said Pee-wee.

As they approached the little garage it had a strange, uninviting look; it looked different. There was not that suggestion of open hospitality which it had shown when Lizzie rolled majestically in and awoke the dim echoes of the interior with her rich, modulated voice. In plain fact the garage was closed, its two big doors linked together by a huge, cold-hearted padlock. And no sign of human life was there anywhere about the place.