Reube Dare's Shad Boat: A Tale of the Tide Country Read online

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  BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

  THE RAID FROM BEAUSEJOUR, and How the Carter Boys Lifted the Mortgage. Two Stories of Acadie. Illustrated $1 00

  REUBE DARE’S SHAD BOAT

  A Tale of the Tide Country

  BY

  CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS

 

  NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS 1895

  Copyright by HUNT & EATON, 1895.

  Composition, electrotyping, printing, and binding by HUNT & EATON, 150 Fifth Ave., New York.

  CONTENTS.

  PAGE CHAPTER I. The _Dido_ Goes Adrift 9

  CHAPTER II. The Red Bull 21

  CHAPTER III. The Chase of the _Dido_ 32

  CHAPTER IV. The Cave by the Tide 41

  CHAPTER V. A Prison House 53

  CHAPTER VI. The Blue Jar 63

  CHAPTER VII. Mart Gandy Hacks the Shad Net 75

  CHAPTER VIII. A Midnight Visitor 86

  CHAPTER IX. The _Dido’s_ First Fishing Trip 96

  CHAPTER X. Besieged on the Sand Spit 107

  CHAPTER XI. Foiling the Sharks 115

  CHAPTER XII. The Shot from the Rocks 125

  CHAPTER XIII. Gandy is Rescued from the Honey Pots 135

  ILLUSTRATIONS.

  “She’s adrift!” he shouted. “Come on! Come on!” The bull swerved slightly and shot past Will marched ahead, carrying the torch It was coin—all coin! Then came the shining, silvery sides of a dozen shad “I think we’ll make it,” he said to himself Will and Reube bent their bodies to the pull

  REUBE DARE’S SHAD BOAT. A Tale of the Tide Country.

  CHAPTER I.

  The “Dido” Goes Adrift.

  THE road from Frosty Hollow to Westcock, after climbing the hill bythe red creek and passing Mrs. Carter’s yellow cottage, ran through apiece of dark and ancient fir woods. With the sighing of the firs theremixed a deeper sound, the voice of the wild tides of the changingTantramar, unseen and far below. Turning sharply to the right, the roadpresently emerged from the woods and came upon a very different picturefrom that which it had left behind. It traversed the face of a long,wide, steep slope of upland, set here and there with a gray or whitecottage, here and there a little grove. From the upland foot a mile-widebelt of marsh stretched to the waters of the open bay. The pale-greenmarsh was divided sharply from the yellow and flashing waves by the longlines of the dike, to which it owed its existence as good dry land. Atintervals could be seen small creeks winding through the grassy level.Every creek mouth formed a little haven, clustered about with net reels,and crowded with the boats of the shad fishers.

  Out from the whispering wood and into the fresh June sunlight of theopen came two tallish youths, walking slowly and talking with the joyouszest of old friends who had been long parted. The older-looking of thetwo was Will Carter, just home from college for the summer vacation. Twoyears of college life had changed him little. He was the same slim,thoughtful, discreet, yet blithely dauntless lad who had lifted themortgage from his mother’s farm and punished the ruffian Baizley, andsoftened the hard old heart of Mr. Hand.[A] College study had increasedthe somewhat scholarly pallor of his face, but college athletics hadadded poise and grace to the movements of his well-knit muscles. He hadhastened home to his mother immediately on the close of the college,leaving his brother Ted to take a month’s canoe trip through the inlandwaters.

  Will’s present companion, Reuben Dare, was a chum only second to Ted inhis love. Reube Dare was just eighteen. He was about the same height asWill, but of a much heavier build. His was also a heavier and slowernature, but one of faithful loyalty and courage combined with strongcommon sense. His hair was light like Will’s, but his face was round andruddy. At a hasty glance one might fancy that he was good-natured to theverge of being “soft,” but there was a steady, controlling gleam in hislight gray eyes which made folk very slow to presume on his good nature.In fact, his eyes gave one the peculiar impression of having reachedfull manhood before the rest of his face. He swung his long arms looselyas he walked, and occasionally he stumbled in the ruts, being too muchabsorbed in watching his comrade’s words to note just where he wasstepping.

  It had long been Reube Dare’s keenest ambition to put himself throughcollege, but the poverty of his widowed mother—the population of thatland of sailors and fishermen is largely made up of widows—had stoodsternly in the way. The success of the Carter boys, however, inreclaiming that rich marsh by the creek had proved a strong stimulus,and given him new hopes, with results which this story will show.

  All at once Will Carter, who had been talking eagerly for the last halfhour, stopped short, wiped his forehead, and perched himself on the railfence under a shady roadside maple. Reube leaned against the fence, andtook off his round straw hat.

  “Now, Reube,” said Will, “it’s your turn. I’ve talked myself dry, andgabbled right along like the ‘crick’ at low water. Your letters, you oldoyster, have told me mighty little. What have you been up to allwinter?”

  “Building my shad boat,” answered Reube.

  “Mother told me something about it. It’s great, old man!” said Will.“But you don’t mean to say you built her all yourself.”

  “Well, pretty near,” replied his friend. “Old Chris Boltenhouse helpedme with the frame, and set me right whenever I got in a muddle. It washard work, but I tell you, Will, it was so interesting I could hardlytake time to eat. I’ve thought of nothing else for months, except when Iwas worrying over mother’s eyes, and now—”

  “I heard about your mother’s trouble with her eyes,” interrupted Will,sympathetically. “I do hope it’s not going to be serious.”

  “Worries me a lot,” said Reube, gloomily. And then, his face brighteningagain, he went on, “But now I’ve got her done, and rigged and tarred andafloat at Wood Creek landing.”

  “Reube,” interrupted Will again, and this time in a tone of severesurprise, “what a singular way to treat your mother! I cannot imaginethat dignified lady in any such absurd situation as you speak of.”

  “Come off!” retorted Reuben, ver
y literally, as he caught at Will’sankle and, with a quick twist, jerked him from his perch. “I’m nottalking of mother, but of the _Dido_, and I say there’s not a trimmercraft will go shad fishing from Westcock this season. I tell you, Will,I’ve just put my heart into that boat. If it were not for that grove ofBarnes’s we could see her now, lying with the others, in the mouth ofthe creek; and even at this distance you could pick her out from therest.”

  “Well,” said Will, “let’s get along and inspect her as soon as possible.I’m as tickled about her as if I’d built her myself; and I’m going tohelp you with the fishing all I can, as my holiday diversion. Did shecost you much? Is she going to _pay_, like _new marsh_?”

  “If she has a lucky summer,” answered Reube—“and they do say there’sgoing to be a great run of shad this season—I’ll have her all paid forand quite a lump of money in the bank this fall.”

  “And then!” said Will, in a voice of joyous anticipation. “What then?College with us, for the winter term, anyway! And maybe a scholarshipthat will still further simplify matters!”

  “No!” exclaimed Reube, shaking his head gravely. “No college for me tillI have had mother away to Boston or New York, to get her eyes properlyseen to.”

  Will’s face fell a little. “That’s so, old man. The eyes must be fixedup first of all, of course. But if the boat’s a success, another seasonwill straighten it all out, eh? And when you come to college you’ll be afreshman, while I’m a senior! Won’t I haze you though?”

  “Come and practice a bit now!” said Reube, grimly.

  Will ignored this invitation.

  “What did you say you called the boat?” he queried.

  “The _Dido_,” answered Reube.

  “Imagine the stately queen of Carthage going out shad fishing!” chuckledWill. “What struck you to choose that for a name?”

  “O,” said Reube, gravely, “it will serve to keep my aspirations beforemy mind’s eye, even when I am occupied in the prosaic task of splittingshad.”

  At this moment a long, shambling figure was seen climbing a fence somedistance down the hill, to the left of our pedestrians. Long, lank blackhair fell on his shoulders from beneath a black and greasy slouch hat.Immediately the fellow disappeared in a choke-cherry thicket, afterturning a furtive, swarthy face for one moment toward the road.

  “How’s your hereditary enemy behaving himself these days, Reube?”inquired Will.

  “Well,” said Reube, “Mart Gandy’s Mart Gandy, same as he always was. Butit seems to me that of late he has been troubling his neighbors less andhimself more than he used to. They say he’s seldom quite sober. He’sleft us alone pretty much all winter, though he did shoot one of my bestsheep in the upper pasture along in the first of the spring.”

  “But didn’t you punish him for it?” asked Will, indignantly, glaringback at the cherry trees wherein Gandy had vanished.

  “I didn’t actually catch him, or I would have,” said Reube. “And Ididn’t want to have him taken up, for, bad lot as he is, he does lookafter his mother and sisters in a kind of a way, and he is all they haveto depend on; for his drunken old father has become a regular idiot,doing nothing but sit in the sun, pick at his beard, and whimper for adrink.”

  By this time they had reached the top of a knoll, whence the whole shoreline was visible.

  “There’s the _Dido_!” exclaimed Reube, proudly, turning with a sweep ofthe hand toward the mouth of Wood Creek. But the words ended in a cry ofanger and anxiety. “She’s adrift!” he shouted. “Come on! Come on! Wemust catch her before she gets out of the creek. The wind’s right downthe bay!”

  As he spoke he vaulted over the fence and started on a run across thefields. Will was at his side in an instant.

  “How can it have happened?” he asked.

  “Gandy’s work, I’ll be bound!” muttered Reube, between his teeth; andhis eyes grew pale and bright like steel.

  -----

  [A] Professor Roberts has already told the spirited story of “How theCarter Boys Lifted the Mortgage,” in a volume, _The Raid fromBeauséjour_, which is published by Hunt & Eaton, New York.

  “She’s adrift!” he shouted. “Come on! Come on!”]