I.
ALL ADRIFT;
OR,
THE GOLDWING CLUB.
II.
SNUG HARBOR;
OR,
THE CHAMPLAIN MECHANICS.
III.
SQUARE AND COMPASS;
OR,
BUILDING THE HOUSE.
IV.
STEM TO STERN;
OR,
BUILDING THE BOAT.
V.
ALL TAUT;
OR,
RIGGING THE BOAT.
VI.
READY ABOUT;
OR,
SAILING THE BOAT.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE? DEMANDED PEARL."
The Boat-Builder Series
AUTHOR OF "YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD" "THE GREAT WESTERN SERIES" "THE ARMY AND NAVY SERIES" "THE WOODVILLE SERIES" "THE STARRY-FLAG SERIES" "THE BOAT-CLUB STORIES" "THE UPWARD AND ONWARD SERIES" "THE YACHT-CLUB SERIES" "THE LAKE-SHORE SERIES" "THE RIVERDALE STORIES" ETC. ETC.
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
BOSTON
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM
1883
Copyright, 1882,
By WILLIAM T. ADAMS.
All rights reserved.
TO MY GRANDSON
ROBERT ELMER RUSSELL
This Book
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
"All Adrift" is the first volume of a new set of books, to be known as "The Boat-Builder Series." The story contains the adventures of a boy who is trying to do something to help support the family, but who finds himself all adrift in the world. He has the reputation of being rather "wild," though he proves that he is honest, loves the truth, and is willing to work for a living. Having been born and brought up on the shore of Lake Champlain, he could not well avoid being a boatman, especially as his father was a pilot on a steamer. Nearly all the scenes of the story are on the water; and the boy shows not only that he can handle a boat, but that he has ingenuity, and fertility of resource.
The narrative of the hero's adventures contained in this volume is the introduction to the remaining volumes of the series, in which this boy and others are put in the way of obtaining a great deal of useful information, by which the readers of these books are expected to profit. Captain Royal Gildrock, a wealthy retired shipmaster, has some ideas of his own in regard to boys. He thinks that one great need of this country is educated mechanics, more skilled labor. He has the means to carry his ideas into practice, and actively engages in the work of instructing and building up the boys in a knowledge of the useful arts. He believes in religion, morality, and social and political virtue. He insists upon practice in addition to precept and theory, as well in the inculcation of the duties of social life as in mechanics and useful arts.
If the first volume is all story and adventure, those that follow it will not be wholly given up to the details of the mechanic arts. The captain has a steam-yacht; and the hero of the first story has a fine sailboat, to say nothing of a whole fleet of other craft belonging to the nabob. The boys are not of the tame sort: they are not of the humdrum kind, and they are inclined to make things lively. In fact, they are live boys, and the captain sometimes has his hands full in managing them.
With this explanation, the author sends out the first volume with the hope that this book and those which follow it will be as successful as their numerous predecessors in pleasing his young friends—and his old friends, he may add, as he treads the downhill of life.
Dorchester, Mass., Aug. 21, 1882.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
A Growling Passenger 13
CHAPTER II.
A Short And Decisive Conflict 24
CHAPTER III.
A Brilliant Scheme made Possible 34
CHAPTER IV.
In the Cabin of the Goldwing 45
CHAPTER V.
A Boat with a Bad Reputation 55
CHAPTER VI.
The Robbery at the Hotel 66
CHAPTER VII.
The Man that looked through the Keyhole 76
CHAPTER VIII.
The Colchester Club changes its Name 87
CHAPTER IX.
A Weather Helm and a Lee Helm 98
CHAPTER X.
The Missisquoi in Pursuit 109
CHAPTER XI.
The Beginning of the Chase 119
CHAPTER XII.
A Rough Time of it 129
CHAPTER XIII.
Safe under a Lee 140
CHAPTER XIV.
Early in the Morning 150
CHAPTER XV.
The Strategy of the Chase 161
CHAPTER XVI.
A Grave Charge against the Skipper 172
CHAPTER XVII.
Dory Dornwood decides to "face the Music" 183
CHAPTER XVIII.
Dory locks his Passengers into the Cabin 194
CHAPTER XIX.
Pearl Hawlinshed resorts to Violence 205
CHAPTER XX.
Mr. Peppers finds the Tables turned 215
CHAPTER XXI.
Another Element in the Contest 226
CHAPTER XXII.
The Game among the Shallows 237
CHAPTER XXIII.
Headed off on Both Sides 247
CHAPTER XXIV.
Through varied Strife and Struggles 257
CHAPTER XXV.
Wind South-South-West blowing Fresh 268
CHAPTER XXVI.
Dory Dornwood manœuvres to escape 278
CHAPTER XXVII.
Dory makes a Harbor for the Night 289
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Terrible Intelligence from Home 300
CHAPTER XXIX.
Captain Gildrock has Decided Objections 310
CHAPTER XXX.
Captain Gildrock dilates upon his Notable Scheme 321
"Boy, I told you to bring me some pickles," said Major Billcord, a passenger on a Lake Champlain steamer, to a boy in a white jacket, who was doing duty as a waiter at dinner in the cabin.
"Yes, sir; and I brought them," replied Dory Dornwood, as he took the dish of pickles almost from under the passenger's nose, and placed it quite under his nose.
"No impudence to me, boy!" exclaimed Major Billcord, as he bestowed a savage glance at the young waiter.
"I beg your pardon, sir: I did not mean to be impudent," replied Dory meekly.
"Waiter, bring me a piece of roast beef rare. Now, mind, I want it rare," said the passenger sitting next to the major.
"Yes, sir; in a moment, sir," added Dory, to indicate that he heard the order.
"When I send you for any thing, you should put it where I can see it," added Major Billcord sternly.
"I thought I put the pickles where you could see them," answered Dory, as he started for the pantry to obtain the roast beef rare.
"Here, boy, stop!" called the major. "Where are you going now? Bring me the boiled onions, and I want them well done."
"Yes, sir," replied the waiter, as he darted after the onions, and returned with them in an instant; for he found the dish in another part of the table. "The boiled onions," he added, as he placed them beside the snappy passenger's plate, so that he should be sure to see them.
"Isn't it about time for my roast beef, waiter?" asked the next gentleman.
"In a moment, sir."
"These onions are not half done, boy!" exclaimed the major. "I told you to bring me onions well done, and not raw onions."
"I don't cook them, sir; and I brought such as I find on the table," pleaded Dory, as he started to fill the order of the next passenger.
"Here! come back, boy! I want boiled onions well done, and I don't want any impudence," snarled the major.
Dory brought another dish of onions, and placed them by the side of the gentleman's plate. He repeated the order of the next passenger to assure him that he had not forgotten it, and was in the act of rushing for it, when Major Billcord broke out again.
"These onions are no better than the others: they are not half cooked. Now go to the steward, and tell him I want boiled onions well done."
"Get my roast beef first," added the next passenger.
"Here, waiter! bring me a sidebone of chicken, some green pease, string-beans, pickled beets, boiled cabbage, a plate of macaroni, and any other vegetables you may happen to have; and don't be all day about it," said the passenger on the other side of Major Billcord.
"In a minute, sir," replied Dory.
"Go to the steward at once, and tell him what I want," stormed the major.
"Waiter, bring me a plate of roast stuffed veal, with a specimen of all the vegetables on the bill of fare. Don't leave out any. If you leave out any of them, I will travel by railroad the next time I go north," shouted another passenger.
Dory did not wait to hear any more. He was not a waiter of great experience, and he found that the confusion of orders was rather trying to him. He went to the carving-table, delivered the message of Major Billcord to the steward, and called for the orders he had received. Before he had his tray ready, the steward brought him the onions; and he carried them with the other articles to the table.
"Your onions, sir," said he, as he placed the little dish where the irate gentleman could not help seeing them.
While Dory was serving the other passengers, whose orders he had taken, and while half a dozen others were clamorous for every item on the bill of fare, Major Billcord thrust his fork into one of the odoriferous vegetables brought to him.
"These are not a whit better done than the others were!" exclaimed Major Billcord, dropping his knife and fork in disgust. "What do you mean, boy, by bringing me such onions as these?"
"The steward gave me those onions for you, sir," pleaded Dory, who was certainly doing his best to please all the passengers at the dinner table; and the young waiter had already learned that this was not one of the easiest tasks in the world.
"Don't tell me that, you young rascal! You haven't delivered my message to the steward," growled the irate passenger.
"Yes, sir: I told him just what you wanted, and he sent the dish of onions to you, sir," Dory explained.
"The steward would never have sent me such onions as these. You haven't been to him as I told you. You are an impudent young cub, and you are no more fit for a waiter than you are for a steamboat captain."
"I brought the onions the steward sent; and it isn't my fault that they are not right," said Dory gently, though he did not always speak and act in just that way.
"Is my dinner to be spoiled by the stupidity and carelessness of a boy?" demanded Major Billcord. "If I have any influence on board of this boat, such blockheads shall not be employed as waiters."
"I will get any thing you wish, sir," added Dory, appalled at the remark of the important passenger.
"Don't come near me again! Go, and tell the steward to send another waiter to me," was all the reply the major would give him.
Dory Dornwood intended to deliver even this message to the steward; but he was kept very busy by the wants of the other passengers, so that he could not go at just that minute. He had been instructed to serve all persons at the tables alike; and he was not quite old enough and experienced enough to comprehend that his instructions were to be obeyed in a Pickwickian sense on certain occasions.
Major Billcord sat back in his chair, and watched the movements of the boy-waiter for the full space of fifteen seconds, which he doubtless interpreted as fifteen minutes. It was not to be expected that he could finish, or even go on with, his dinner without the boiled onions well done. Possibly he did not care so much for the aromatic vegetable as he did for his own sweet will. At any rate, he would not touch another morsel of food; and, when the fifteen seconds had fully expired, he was ready to make another demonstration.
"Boy, didn't I tell you to go and call the steward, and tell him to send me another waiter?" demanded Major Billcord, as savagely as though Dory had struck him in the face.
"Yes, sir, you did, and I am going; but we are all very busy, and the passengers want a great many things. I am going now, sir," replied Dory, who thought it might be safer to let the rest of the passengers wait than to anger so great a magnate as the major.
Dory delivered his message, and the steward uttered an exclamation which would have cost him his situation if Major Billcord had heard it. The head of the culinary department went to the place occupied by the important personage.
"If you don't discharge that boy before supper-time, there will be trouble," said the major when the steward presented himself. "He is stupid, careless, and impertinent. He had the presumption to tell me that he did not cook the onions, and it was not his fault that they were not properly done."
Possibly the steward might have voted on the same side of the question, if he had considered it prudent to express an opinion; but he apologized for the cook, and said nothing about the waiter. He explained that he had been to the kitchen for the onions, and had sent the best on the boat to the distinguished passenger.
"Then the young rascal gave them to some other person!" exclaimed Major Billcord. "The boy is not fit for a waiter."
"He is only serving for a week or two, while one of our regular waiters is away. He is the son of one of the second pilots."
"Which one?" demanded the angry passenger.
"Dornwood. He says the boy is a little wild, and he wants to get something for him to do," added the steward. "The boy is rather more than his mother can manage when his father is away, as he is all the season."
"This is not a reform-school, and we don't want any such scallawags on the boat. But you needn't tell Dornwood that I said any thing about his boy," added the major in a low tone.
Of course the steward would not say any thing on such a delicate subject. After dinner Dory Dornwood was called up and discharged. He tried to explain that he had done his best, and had not spoken an impudent word. The steward had been satisfied with him, but it was impossible to resist the influence of such a man as Major Billcord.
Perry Dornwood was the second pilot of one of the night boats for this week; and Dory could not run to his father with his grievance, for he felt that he had a grievance. Possibly it would have done no good if he had. His father had had some trouble with him, and he was more inclined to believe the worst that could be said of his son than the best.
Perry Dornwood the pilot had rather forced himself into the position he occupied. He was a good enough pilot; but he drank too much whiskey to be fully reliable. He was never drunk, at least not when on duty; but he was generally pretty well soaked in liquor. The captain of his steamer did not believe in him, and Perry's position had been nearly lost several times; but some kind of an influence still kept him in his place.
The pilot lived in Burlington. He had a wife and two children, a son and a daughter. Mrs. Dornwood was a most excellent woman, but she was almost discouraged under the trials and difficulties which beset her path in life. Her husband did not half provide for his little family; and it was all the poor mother could do to scrub along, feeding and clothing the boy and girl.
The pilot had work only a portion of the year on the lake, and he was not disposed to find other employment when not so engaged. Even the money he did earn did not all find its way into the expenditures for taking care of the family. It was feared by the good woman that her husband gambled.
Dory—his name was Theodore—was now fourteen years old. His mother had explained to him the condition of the family finances. They had nothing, and Perry Dornwood owed many debts. The boy had been wild, but those who knew him best said there was nothing bad about him. He had looked for work, and his father had found it for him. Now he had lost his place; and his discharge was a very heavy blow to him, though he was wild.
Dory Dornwood appeared to be in no hurry to get home after his discharge. The steamer stopped at Burlington after his fate had been decided, and the steward expected him to take his things on shore. The ex-waiter evidently had other views, for he kept out of sight until after the boat had left the wharf.
When the steamer reached Plattsburg, Dory Dornwood went on shore. He visited all the hotels in the place, and endeavored to obtain a situation as a waiter, or as any thing else—he did not care what—by which he could earn some money to help support the family. He could obtain no situation, though he heard of a place a few miles out in the country where a boy was wanted. Dory had no money,—not a penny; for his father collected his wages. He decided to visit the place at once, so as to be the first to apply for the position.
After he had walked a couple of miles, and had one more to go, he came to a piece of woods through which the road extended. He began to feel very tired, for he had done a day's work before he landed from the steamer. It was now nearly eight o'clock in the evening. He had eaten no supper, and not much dinner; for the events in the cabin had taken off his appetite. With no money and no friends, he was not very clear as to where his supper was to come from. The question of a lodging was involved in quite as much doubt.
The weather was warm; and, if he was compelled to lodge in the woods, it would not be the first time he had slept in the open air. Though he had rather more than his fair share of pride, any farmer would give him a meal of victuals for the asking. But just now he was tired, and he wanted rest. He walked a short distance from the road, and seated himself on a rock. It was not comfortable; and he stretched his body upon the ground, which was covered with a clean carpet of fine needles.
Of course he could not help thinking of the great event of the day; and, while he was considering it, he fell asleep. Possibly his slumber continued an hour; and it might have continued another hour, or even all night, if he had not been disturbed by footsteps near him. The nails in the heel of a heavy boot grated upon a flat rock, and this was the noise that awakened the tired sleeper.
Dory half rose from his reclining posture, and discovered a man moving stealthily towards the road. He was creeping with the utmost care: and probably the scraping of his boot against the rock had admonished him to be more careful; at any rate he acted as though such were the case.
The seeker for a situation was wide awake as soon as he was awake at all. He sat on the ground watching the stranger as he crawled towards the road. It was quite dark, but the opening made by the highway admitted some light from the stars. Dory thought the stranger had something in his hand. If the man had walked right along, the boy would have thought nothing of the fact that he was in the woods after dark; but he was creeping like a cat, and Dory's curiosity was aroused.
He got upon his feet, and walked after the mysterious stranger. He did not care to show himself, and he kept one of the big trees between himself and the man all the time. Near the road a fringe of bushes had sprung up, and in their foliage the man concealed himself. Dory had obtained a better view of what the stranger had in his hand; and, though he was not sure of it, he thought it was a gun. Was the man out hunting in the dark? There were no deer so near the town, and it was hardly likely that the person was gunning in the darkness.
Dory continued to creep from tree to tree until he could not have been more than a couple of rods from the concealed night wanderer. If he had not believed the man had a gun in his hand, he would have left his concealment and gone about his business; for he had come to the conclusion that the affair, whatever it was, did not concern him. But he felt a little bashful about leaving, lest the gun might go off, and the shot accidentally strike him.
The next minute he was confident that he heard footsteps in the road. Before he had time to satisfy himself fully on this point, the gun in the hand of the stranger went off; and its going-off proved to Dory that it was a gun, as he had supposed, and even believed.
"Help! help!" shouted some one in the road; and the voice proved that there was some one there.
Scarcely had the word been uttered before the man in the bushes broke from his place of concealment, and rushed towards the road. Dory was too much interested in the affair to remain at a distance any longer. It was none of his business; but it was plain enough that the mysterious stranger had fired his gun at the person who shouted for assistance from the road. Dory reasoned, that, as he had fired the gun once, he could not fire it again without reloading it; and he had not had time to do this.
But there was some sort of wickedness in progress, and Dory ran with all his might to the road; and, even if he had not run with all his might, it would not have taken him a great while to accomplish two rods. When he came to the opening, he saw one man spring upon another. The former dropped the gun he carried in his hand, and it was plain that he had fired the shot.
The two men clutched each other, though one of them tried to say something to the other. Dory had lots of blood in his veins, and it began to boil as though it was over a hot fire. All his sympathies were with the man who had been attacked. The other had crept upon him like a thief in the night, had fired at him, and then had followed up the attack with a hand-to-hand onslaught.
"Don't, Pearl!" pleaded the man who had been attacked. "Consider what you are doing! You will ruin yourself! You are sure to be discovered, even if you kill me!"
Dory did not wait to hear any more. He had a strong impulse to take a hand in the affair, though it was none of his business. The stranger who had wakened him from his slumbers was back to him, and the boy thought his opportunity at the present instant was too good to be lost.
The supperless wanderer flung himself upon the shoulders of the assailant, and grappled him around the throat with all his strength. He was well aware, that, if he failed at the first dash, his chance would not only be gone, but he would be in danger of being entirely wiped out by his intended victim.
Dory was not a very heavy boy, but he was remarkably active. He dug his knees into the back of the man, and in a moment he brought him to the ground. The stranger then turned his attention to his assailant, and he made short work of him. He seemed only to shake himself, and Dory went half way across the road.
The ex-waiter was on his feet again in an instant. He looked at the assailant, and saw that he had a sort of cloth mask on his face. As the boy sprang to his feet, the stranger was in the act of picking up his gun. He snatched it from the ground, and then fled into the woods. The conflict appeared to be ended.
Dory puffed like a fish out of water. He had been laboring under tremendous excitement, which is not at all strange; for it would have stirred the blood of any one to see another attacked with a deadly weapon.
Dory watched the woods, and rather expected that a bullet would soon be travelling from that direction towards him and the person who had been attacked. But his companion in the road did not seem to be at all alarmed: at least he did not make any haste to seek a safer position.
"It is dangerous being safe just here," said Dory, when he had collected his scattered thoughts, and realized that it was time something was done. "I think we had better move on, or that gun will go off again."
"I don't think it will go off again," replied the man in the road, in a very sad, rather than an alarmed or indignant tone.
"Didn't that man fire at you? Won't he do it again?" demanded Dory.
"I don't think he intended to hit me; though he fired at me, or he fired his gun. I don't believe he fired it at me," answered the stranger in a confused manner.
"If he fired at you, of course he meant to hit you. What in the world should he fire at you for if he didn't mean to hit you?" asked Dory, wondering at the reasoning of his companion in the road.
"I am confident I am right; but we won't say any thing more about it just now," added the stranger, who seemed to be struggling with other emotions than those of fear or indignation.
"That's very queer," said Dory, puzzled at the strange conduct of the man who had been fired at. "I think you will get a bullet through your head if you stay here much longer."
"I am not afraid of a bullet; but I don't think I had better stay here any longer," replied the stranger. "Which way are you going, young man?"
"I was going over to a place they call Belzer's."
"That is a mile from here. Were you going there when that gun was fired?" asked the man eagerly.
"Well, not just at that minute. I was tired out, and I lay down in the woods to rest me. I was going over to Belzer's to see if I could get a place to work. I"—
"You are too late: they hired a boy at Belzer's this afternoon," added the man.
"That's just my luck," added Dory, discouraged at this intelligence.
"The luck shall not go against you this time. You have no errand at Belzer's now; and, if you will walk to Plattsburgh with me, I will make it all right with you; and you shall not be sorry that you did not find a place at Belzer's, which is not a proper place for a boy like you."
"If there is no place there for me, and it is not the place for me, I shall return to Plattsburgh," answered Dory, as he started with the stranger in the direction from which he had come when he took to the woods.
In a short time they came out into the open country; and there was no longer any danger that the attack from the mysterious assailant would be renewed.
"Young man, you have done me a great service; and you have done a greater one to another person," said the stranger.
"Who's that?" asked Dory, puzzled by the strange speech of his companion.
"I mean the one who fired the gun at me," answered his fellow-traveller.
"That's funny!" exclaimed Dory. "You and he seem to be fooling with each other. He shot at you, and didn't mean to hit you; and now I have done him a great service. I suppose you don't mean to pay me for the service I did him," laughed Dory.
"I should be willing to pay you more for what you did for him than for what you did for me."
Dory was bewildered.
Dory began to think his companion was a lunatic. Certainly he was a Christian man, for he seemed to have nothing but kindness in his heart towards his late assailant.
"I don't want any pay for what I did for either," said Dory Dornwood, as he saw his companion thrust his hand into his pocket, and he feared that his joke had been taken in earnest.
"We will talk about that when we get to Plattsburgh. Will you tell me your name, young man?"
"My name is Theodore Dornwood, though almost everybody calls me Dory. But I don't care what they call me, if they don't call me too late to supper, or don't call me at all, as nobody did to-night," replied Dory. And an emphatic wrenching at his stomach, just at the moment he spoke, compelled him to repeat that ancient witticism.
"You have had no supper, Dory?" demanded his new friend, with much sympathy in his tones.
"Not a bit, and not much dinner," added Dory. "Major Billcord spoiled my dinner. And I dare say he charges me with spoiling his dinner: but I didn't; it was the cook."
The curiosity of his companion was excited, and Dory told the whole story of his experience as a waiter at dinner that day. In answering the questions of the stranger, he told the history of himself and his family. He enlarged upon his efforts to obtain a situation, and declared that he wanted to do something to help his mother, and make things easier for her.
Just as he was finishing his narrative, they reached the front of a farmhouse. The stranger led the way to the door, and knocked. Presently the door was opened by a man with a lamp in his hand. Dory wondered what his companion wanted there; for he had not spoken of making a call on the way to the town.
"Ah! is that you, Basil Hawlinshed?" said the occupant of the house, as the light from his lamp fell upon the face of the stranger,—a stranger to Dory, though he did not appear to be such to the man of the house. "I am glad to see you. Come in!"
"Thank you, Neighbor Brookbine. I am sorry to trouble you: but this young man with me has not been to supper yet; and it makes my stomach turn somersets to travel with any one who has not been to supper when it is after nine o'clock in the evening."
"Come in! come in, Neighbor Hawlinshed! though I suppose you are to be no longer my neighbor. The boy shall have the best supper we can get up for him at this time of night."
Mr. Hawlinshed—for this appeared to be the name to which he answered—and Dory followed him into the house. When he had gone to make preparations for the supper, Dory's companion led him to one side of the room.
"Will you do me a favor, Dory?" said Mr. Hawlinshed.
"I will try with all my might to do it," replied Dory.
"Don't say one word about what happened in the woods while you are in this house," said Mr. Hawlinshed earnestly, and with much emotion.
"Oh, that's an easy one!" replied Dory gayly. "I could do that, and only half try."
"Be very sure you don't speak a word about the matter, or even hint at it in the most distant manner," continued Mr. Hawlinshed with painful emphasis.
"Not a word or a hint, sir. No one shall squeeze it out of me with a cider-press," protested Dory.
Mr. Brookbine came into the room, and Mr. Hawlinshed tried to compose himself. The talk of the two men was upon subjects in which the boy felt no interest. He was more concerned about his supper than about the affairs of the two speakers. But he learned that Mr. Hawlinshed had been a farmer, and had just sold his farm for forty-five hundred dollars in cash. He was going to another part of the State to engage in the lumber business.