The Rival Campers Ashore: or, The Mystery of the Mill. Smith Ruel Perley

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "Hm!" growled the colonel. "I'll set the dog on Tim Reardon if he comes up the way they did. Here, Cæsar, come here!"

      The colonel gave a sharp whistle.

      But Cæsar, a yellow mongrel of questionable breeds, did not appear. A keen vision might have seen this canine terror to evildoers poke a shrinking muzzle a little way from beneath the board walk, emit a frightened whine and disappear.

      Colonel Witham dozed again, and again slumber overtook him. He did not stir when Grannie Thornton, recovered from her attack of rheumatism, appeared at a window and shook a table-cloth therefrom; nor when Bess Thornton, dancing out of the doorway, whisked past his chair and seated herself at the edge of the piazza.

      The girl's keen blue eyes perceiving, presently, an object in the distance looking like a queer combination of boy and bicycle, she ran out from the dooryard as it approached. Tim Reardon, an undersized, sharp-eyed youngster, rather poorly dressed and barefoot, wheeling his machine laboriously along, was somewhat of a mournful-looking figure. The girl held up a warning hand as he approached.

      "Hello," said the boy. "What's the matter?"

      The girl pointed at the sleeping colonel.

      "Said he'd set the dog on you if you came around the way the others did," replied Bess Thornton. "They woke him up. My! wasn't he mad? Here," she added, handing a small box to the boy, "George Warren left this for you. Said they wanted to make time. That's why they didn't stop for you."

      "Thanks," said the boy. "Thought I'd got to walk clear back to Benton. But I was going to have a swim first. Guess I'll have it, anyway. It's hot, walking through this dust."

      "I'll tell you where to go," said the girl. "Do you know what's fun? See that tree way up along shore there, the one that hangs out over the water? Well, I climb that till it bends down, and then I get to swinging and jump."

      Tim Reardon gave her an incredulous glance, with one eye half closed.

      "Oh, I don't care whether you believe it or not," said the girl. "But I'll show you some time. Can't now. Got to wash dishes. Don't wake him up, or you'll catch it."

      She disappeared through the doorway, and Tim Reardon, leaving his wheel leaning against a corner of the house, went up along shore. In another half hour he returned, took from his pocket the box the girl had given to him, got therefrom an awl, a bottle of cement and some thin strips of rubber, and began mending the punctured tire of the bicycle. The tire was already somewhat of a patched affair, bearing evidences of former punctures and mendings.

      "It's Jack's old wheel," he remarked by way of explanation to Bess Thornton, who had reappeared and was interestedly watching the operation. "He's going to give me one of his new tires," he added, "the first puncture he gets."

      "Why don't you put a tack in the road?" asked the girl promptly.

      Tim Reardon grinned. "Not for Jack," he said.

      "Say," asked the girl, "what's Witham mad with those boys about? Why did he send 'em out of the hotel the other night?"

      "Oh, that's a long story," replied Tim Reardon; "I can't tell you all about it. Witham used to keep the hotel down to Southport, and he was always against the boys, and now and then somebody played a joke on him. Then, when his hotel burned, he thought the boys were to blame; but Jack Harvey found the man that set the fire, and so made the colonel look foolish in court."

      But at this moment a yawn that sounded like a subdued roar indicated that Colonel Witham was rousing from his nap. He stretched himself, opened his eyes blankly, and perceived the boy and girl.

      "Well," he exclaimed, "you're here, eh? Wonder you didn't come in like a wild Indian, too. What's the matter?"

      "Got a puncture," said Little Tim.

      The colonel, having had the refreshment of his sleep, was in a better humour. He was a little interested in the bicycle.

      "Queer what new-fangled ideas they get," he said. "That's not much like what I used to ride."

      Little Tim looked up, surprised.

      "Why, did you use to ride a wheel?" he asked.

      "Did I!" exclaimed Colonel Witham, reviving old recollections, with a touch of pride in his voice. "Well, now I reckon you wouldn't believe I used to be the crack velocipede rider in the town I came from, eh?"

      Little Tim, regarding the colonel's swelling waist-band and fat, puffy cheeks, betrayed his skepticism in looks rather than in speech. Colonel Witham continued.

      "Yes, sir," said he, "there weren't any of them could beat me in those days. Why, I've got four medals now somewhere around, that I won at county fairs in races. 'Twasn't any of these wire whirligigs, either, that we used to ride. Old bone-shakers, they were; wooden wheels and a solid wrought iron backbone. You had to have the strength to make that run. Guess some of these spindle-legged city chaps wouldn't make much of a go at that. I've got the old machine out in the shed there, somewhere. Like to see it?"

      "I know where it is," said Bess Thornton. "I can ride it."

      "You ride it!" exclaimed Colonel Witham, staring at her in amazement. "What?"

      "Yes," replied the girl; "but only down hill, though. It's too hard to push on the level. I'll go and get it."

      "Well, I vum!" exclaimed Colonel Witham, as the girl started for the shed. "That girl beats me."

      "Look out, I'm coming," called a childish voice, presently.

      The door of the shed was pushed open, and Bess Thornton, standing on a stool, could be seen climbing into the saddle of what resembled closely a pair of wagon wheels connected by a curving bar of iron. She steadied herself for a moment, holding to the side of the doorway; then pushed herself away from it, came down the plank incline, and thence on to the path leading from the elevation on which the shed stood, at full speed. Her legs, too short for her feet to touch the pedals as they made a complete revolution, stuck out at an angle; but she guided the wheel and rode past Tim Reardon and the colonel, triumphantly. When the wheel stopped, she let it fall and landed on her feet, laughing.

      "Here it is, Colonel Witham," said she, rolling it back to where he stood. "Let's see you ride it."

      Colonel Witham, grasping one of the handle-bars, eyed the velocipede almost longingly.

      "No," he said. "I'm too old and stout now. Guess my riding days are over. But I used to make it go once, I tell you."

      "Go ahead, get on. You can ride it," urged Tim Reardon. "It won't break."

      "Oh no, it will hold me, all right," said Colonel Witham. "We didn't have any busted tires in our day. Good iron rim there that'll last for ever."

      "Just try it a little way," said Bess Thornton.

      "I never saw anybody ride that had won medals," said Tim Reardon.

      Colonel Witham's pride was rapidly getting the better of his discretion.

      "Oh, I can ride it," he said, "only it's – it's kind of hot to try it. Makes me feel sort of like a boy, though, to get hold of the thing."

      The colonel lifted a fat leg over the backbone and put a ponderous foot on one pedal, while the drops of perspiration began to stand out on his forehead.

      "Get СКАЧАТЬ