Part 23

"Yes," said Mr. Leicester, "but I can't do without her, my only Betsey!" and they all laughed, but Betty had a sudden suspicion that Aunt Barbara would try to keep her altogether now. This frightened our friend a little, for though she loved the old home dearly, she must take care of papa. It was her place to take care of him now; she had been looking over his damaged wardrobe most anxiously that morning, as if her own had never known ruin. His outside clothes were well enough, but alas for his pocket handkerchiefs and stockings! He looked a little pale, too, and as if he had on the whole been badly neglected in minor ways.

But there never was a more cheerful and contented papa, as they walked toward the river together hand-in-hand, in the fashion of Betty's childhood. They found that the packet had come in, and there was a group of spectators on the old wharf, who were looking eagerly at something which proved to be a large cat-boat which the packet had in tow. Mr. Leicester left Betty suddenly and went to the wharf's edge.

"Did you have any trouble bringing her up?" he asked.

"Bless ye, no, sir," said the packet's skipper; "didn't hinder us one grain; had a clever little breeze right astern all the way up."

"Look here, Betty," said papa, returning presently. "I went down this morning to hunt for a dory with a sail, and I saw this cat-boat which somebody was willing to let, and I have hired it for a while. I wish to look up the river shell-fish a bit; it's not altogether play, I mean you to understand."

"Oh, papa!" cried Betty joyfully. "The only thing we needed was a nice boat. But you can't have clutters in pots and pans at Aunt Barbara's, can you, and your works going on? Serena won't like it, and she can be quite terrible, you know!"

"Come on board and look at her," said Mr. Leicester, regardless of the terrors of Serena's disapproval. The cat-boat carried a jib beside a good-sized mainsail, and had a comfortable little cabin with a tiny stove and two berths and plenty of lockers. Two young men had just spent their vacation in her, coasting eastward, and one of them told Mr. Leicester that she was the quickest and steadiest boat he ever saw, sailing close to the wind and answering her rudder capitally. They had lived on board altogether and made themselves very comfortable indeed. There was a light little flat-bottomed boat for tender, and the white cat-boat itself had been newly painted with gilt lettering across the stern, Starlight, Riverport.

"I can ask the Out-of-Door Club one day next week," announced Betty, with great enthusiasm. "Isn't she clean and pretty? Won't Aunt Barbara like her, papa?"

"I must look about for some one to help me to sail her," said Mr. Leicester, with uncommon gravity. "What do you think of young Foster? He must know the river well, and his fishing may be falling off a little now. It would be a good way to help him, don't you think so?"

Betty's eyes shone with joy. "Oh, yes," she said; "they do have such a hard time now. Nelly told me so yesterday morning. It has cost them so much lately. Harry has been trying to get something to do in Riverport."

They were busy anchoring the Starlight out in the stream, and now Mr. Leicester helped Betty over the side into the tender and sculled her ashore. Some of the men on the wharf had disappeared, but others were still there, and there was a great bustle of unloading some bags of grain from the packet. Mr. Leicester invited one of his old acquaintances who asked many questions to come out and see the cat-boat, and as Betty hurried up the street to the house she saw over her shoulder that a large company in small leaky crafts had surrounded the pretty Starlight like pirates. It was apt to be very dull in Tideshead for many of the idle citizens, and Mr. Leicester's return was always hailed with delight. It was nearly tea-time, so that Betty could not go over to tell Mary Beck the good news; but one white handkerchief, meaning Come over, was quickly displayed on the pear-tree branch, and while Betty was getting dressed in a much-needed fresh gown for tea Becky kindly appeared, and was delighted with the good news. She had seen the Starlight already from a distance.

"My father used to have a splendid sailboat," said fatherless Becky with much wistfulness, and Betty put her arms round her and gave her a warm kiss. Sometimes it seemed that whatever one had the other lacked.

XVI.

DOWN THE RIVER.

THERE was a great stirring about and opening and shutting of kitchen doors early the next morning but one. Betty had been anxious the day before to set forth on what she was pleased to call a long cruise in the Starlight, but Mr. Leicester said that he must give up the morning to his letters, and after that came a long business talk with Aunt Barbara in the library, where she sat before her capacious secretary and produced some neat packages of papers from a little red morocco trunk which Betty had never seen before. To say truth, Aunt Barbara was a famous business woman and quite the superior of her nephew in financial matters, but she deferred to him meekly, and in fact gained some long-desired information about a northwestern city in which Mr. Leicester had lately been obliged to linger for two or three days.

It was a day of clear hot sunshine and light breeze, not in the least a good day for sailing; but Betty was just as much disappointed to be kept at home as if it had been, and after breakfast she loitered about in idleness, with a look of dark disapproval, until papa suddenly faced about and held her before him by her two shoulders, looking gravely into her eyes, which fell at once.

"Don't be cross, Betty," he said quietly; "we shall play all the better if we don't forget our work. What is there to do first? Where's 'Things to be Done'?"

Betty dipped into her pocket and pulled out a bit of paper with the above heading, and held it up to him. Papa's eyes began to twinkle and she felt her cheeks grow red, but good humor was restored. "1. Ask Seth to sharpen my knife. 2. Find Aunt Mary's old 'Evenings at Home' and read her the Transmigrations of Indur. 3. Find out what 'hedonism' means in the dictionary. 4. Sew on papa's buttons."

"Those were all the things I could think of last night," explained Betty apologetically. "I was so sleepy."

"It strikes me that the most important duty happened to be set down last," said Mr. Leicester, beginning to laugh. "If you will look after the buttons, I will tell you the meaning of 'hedonism' and sharpen the jack-knife, and I am not sure that I won't read the Transmigrations to Aunt Mary beside, for the sake of old times. I know where those little old brown books are, too, unless they have been moved from their old places. I am willing to make a good offer, for I have hardly a button to my back, you know. And this evening we will have a row, if not a sail. The sky looks as if the wind were rising, and you can ask Mary Beck to go with us to-morrow down the river, if you like. I am going to see young Foster the first time I go down the street. Now good-by until dinner-time, dear child."

"Good-by, dear papa!" and Betty ran up-stairs two steps at a time. She had already looked to see if there were plenty of ink in his ink-bottle, and some water in a tiny vase on his writing-table for the quill pens. It was almost the only thing she had done that morning, but it was one of her special cares when they were together. She gathered an armful of his clothes, and finding that Aunt Mary was in a hospitable frame went into her room for advice and society, and sat busily sewing by the favorite cool western window nearly all the morning.

In the evening, when the tide was high, Betty and Mr. Leicester went out for a little row by themselves, floating under some overhanging oak-boughs and talking about things that had happened when they were apart.

Now we come back to where we began this chapter,--the early morning of the next day, and Serena's and Letty's bustling in the pantry to have a basket of luncheon ready, so that the boating party need not lose the tide; the boating party itself at breakfast in the dining-room; Mary Beck in a transport of delight sitting by her window at the other side of the street, all ready to rush out the minute she saw Betty appear. As for Harry Foster and Seth, they had already gone down to the shore.

On the wide sofa in the hall was a funny old-fashioned leather satchel with a strong strap-handle. It seemed full to overflowing, and beside it lay a warm shawl neatly folded, and, not to make too long a story, Aunt Barbara's third-best bonnet was close at hand, and these were her provisions for spending the day on the river. Mr. Leicester had insisted that she should go with them, and that if she found it tiresome there was nothing to prevent her coming back by train from Riverport in the afternoon. Aunt Barbara felt as if she were being a little adventurous, and packed her small portmanteau with a secret foreboding that she might be kept out over night; still she had always been very fond of boating, and had seen almost none of it for many years, in fact since Betty's father had been at home sometimes, in his college vacations. There was a fine breeze blowing already in the elms and making the tall hollyhocks bow in the garden, and when they reached the wharf and put down the creaking wicker basket on the very edge the tide was still high, and Harry Foster had already hoisted the Starlight's sail with one careful reef in it, and was waiting to row them out two at a time in the tag-boat. Nelly Foster could not go, as she and her mother were very busy that day, but Harry's face looked brighter than Betty had ever seen it, and she was sure that papa must have been very good, and, to use a favorite phrase of his, opened a new gate for him. Mary Beck was strangely full of fears, considering that she was the granddaughter of a brave old sailor; but after she was out of the unsteady smaller boat, and had been decoyed by Betty to the bows of the Starlight, and shown how to stow herself away so that she hindered neither jib nor boom, she began to enjoy herself highly. Aunt Barbara sat under her every-day parasol, looking quite elegant and unseaworthy, but very happy. Harry Foster was steering just beside her, and Mr. Leicester, with Seth's assistance, was shaking out the reef; for the wind was quieter just now, and they wished to get farther down river as soon as possible, since here, where the banks were often high and wooded and the stream narrow, it was gusty and uncertain sailing for so large a boat. They slipped down fast with the wind and tide, and passed the packet, which had started out ahead of them. She carried an unusual number of passengers, and was loaded deep with early potatoes. The girls waved their handkerchiefs and the men on board the packet gave a cheer, while Mr. Leicester saluted with the Starlight's flag, and it was altogether a ceremonious occasion. Seth said that he "guessed folks would think old Tideshead was waking up." Of all the pleasure-boat's company Seth was perhaps the best satisfied. He had been in a state of torture lest he might not be asked to make one of the crew, and it being divulged that although of up-country origin he had once gone to the Georges Banks fishing with a seafaring uncle, Mr. Leicester considerately asked for his services. Seth had put on the great rubber-boots and a heavy red woolen shirt that he wore on shipboard in March weather. He was already obliged to fan himself incessantly with his straw hat, as they were running before the wind, and presently, after much suffering, made an excuse to go into the little cabin, whence he reappeared, much abashed, in his stocking feet and a faded calico shirt, which had been luckily put on under the red one. Aunt Barbara held her parasol so that it covered her face for a few minutes, and there was a considerate silence, until Seth mentioned that he "had thought he knew before what it was to be het up, but you never knew what kind of weather 't was to be on the water."

At the next bend of the river the wind made them much cooler, while the boat sailed even better than before. There had been plenty of rain, so that the shore was as green as in June and the old farm-houses looked very pleasant. Betty had not been so far down as this since the day she came to Tideshead, and was looking eagerly for certain places that she remembered. Aunt Barbara and papa were talking about John Paul Jones and his famous river crew, some of whom Aunt Barbara had known in their old age, while she was a girl. Harry Foster was listening with great interest. Betty and even Becky felt proud of Harry as he steered, looking along the river with quick, sure eyes. They did not feel so familiar with him as usual; somehow, he looked a good deal older since the trouble about his father, and there was a new manliness and dignity about him, as if he knew that his mother and Nelly had no one but himself to depend upon. It was plain to see that his early burden of shame and sorrow had developed a strong character in the lad. There was none of the listlessness and awkward incapacity and self-admiration that made some of the other Tideshead boys so unattractive, but Harry Foster had a simple way of speaking and of doing whatever had to be done.

There was a group of wooden pails on the boat, and a queer apparatus for dredging which Mr. Leicester had made the afternoon before with Seth's and Jonathan's help. They had implored a flat-iron from Serena for one of the weights, and she had also contributed a tin pail, which was curiously weighted also with small pieces of iron, so that it would sink in a particular way. It was believed that a certain uncommon little creature would be found in the flats farther down the river, and Mr. Leicester told the ship's company certain interesting facts about its life and behavior which made everybody eager to join the search. "I have been meaning to hunt for it for years," he said. "Professor Agassiz told me about it when I was in college; but then he always roused one's enthusiasm as no one else could, and made whatever he was interested in seem the one thing in the world that was of very first importance." Betty's heart glowed as she listened; she thought the same thing of papa. "He was such an inspirer of others to do good work," said Mr. Leicester, still thinking lovingly of his great teacher.

Sometimes the river was narrow and deep and the Starlight's course lay near the shore, so that the children came running down to the water's edge to see the pretty boat go by, and envy Betty and Mary Beck in the shadow of her great white sail. Some of them shouted Hollo! and the two girls answered again and again, until the little voices sounded small and piping and were lost in the distance. Halfway to Riverport, where the houses were a good way from any village, it seemed as if these old homes had remained the same for many years; none of them had bay-windows, and the paint was worn away by wind and weather. It was like stepping back twenty or thirty years in the rural history. Aunt Barbara said that everything looked almost exactly the same along one reach of the river as it did when she could first remember it. The shores were green with pines and ferns and gray with ledges. It was salt water here, so that they could smell the seaweed and the woods, and could hear the song-sparrows and the children's voices as they passed the lonely farm-houses standing high and fog-free above the water. From one of these they heard the sound of women's voices singing.

"They're havin' a meetin' in there, I expect," explained Seth. "Yes, I hear 'Liza Loomis's voice too. You know, Miss Leicester, she used to live up to Tideshead and sing in the Methodist choir. She's got a lovely voice to sing. She's married down this way. They like to git together in these scattered places, but 't is more customary up where I come from to have them neighborhood meetin's of an afternoon." Betty watched the small gray house with deep interest, and thought she should like to go in. There were little children playing about the door, as if they had been brought and left outside to amuse themselves. It was very touching to hear the old hymn as they sailed by, and Aunt Barbara and Betty's father looked at each other significantly as they listened. "Becky, you ought to be there to help sing," Betty whispered, as they sat side by side, but Becky thought it was very stupid to be having a prayer-meeting that lovely morning.