Dab Kinzer - William O. Stoddard
DAB KINZER
A STORY OF A GROWING BOY
BY
WILLIAM O. STODDARD
1884
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE KINZER FARM, THE NEW SUIT, AND THE WEDDING.
CHAPTER II.
DAB'S OLD CLOTHES GET A NEW BOY TO FIT.
CHAPTER III.
A MEMBER OF ONE OF THE OLDEST FAMILIES MEETS A YOUNG
GENTLEMAN FROM THE CITY.
CHAPTER IV.
TWO BOYS, ONE PIG, AND AN UNFORTUNATE RAILWAY-TRAIN.
CHAPTER V.
NEW NEIGHBORS, AND GETTING SETTLED.
CHAPTER VI.
CRABS, BOYS, AND A BOAT-WRECK.
CHAPTER VII.
A VERY ACCIDENTAL CALL.
CHAPTER VIII.
A RESCUE, AND A GRAND GOOD TIME.
CHAPTER IX.
THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF BOYS.
CHAPTER X.
A CRUISE IN "THE SWALLOW".
CHAPTER XI.
SPLENDID FISHING, AND A BIG FOG.
CHAPTER XII.
HOW THE GAME OF "FOLLOW MY LEADER" CAN BE PLAYED
AT SEA.
CHAPTER XIII.
"HOME AGAIN! HERE WE ARE!".
CHAPTER XIV.
A GREAT MANY THINGS GETTING READY TO COME.
CHAPTER XV.
DABNEY KINZER TO THE RESCUE.
CHAPTER XVI.
DAB KINZER AND HAM MORRIS TURN INTO A FIRE-DEPARTMENT.
CHAPTER XVII.
DAB HAS A WAKING DREAM, AND HAM GETS A SNIFF OF SEA-AIR.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW DAB WORKED OUT ANOTHER OF HIS GREAT PLANS.
CHAPTER XIX.
A GRAND SAILING-PARTY, AND AN EXPERIMENT BY RICHARD LEE.
CHAPTER XX.
A WRECK AND SOME WRECKERS.
CHAPTER XXI.
DAB AND HIS FRIENDS TURN THEMSELVES INTO COOKS AND WAITERS.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE REAL MISSION OF THE JUG.
CHAPTER XXIII.
ANOTHER GRAND PLAN, AND A VERY GRAND RUNAWAY.
CHAPTER XXIV.
DABNEY'S GREAT PARTY.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE BOYS ON THEIR TRAVELS. A GREAT CITY, AND A GREAT DINNER.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE FIRST MORNING IN GRANTLEY, AND ANOTHER EXCELLENT JOKE.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A NEW KIND OF EXAMINATION.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
AN UNUSUAL AMOUNT OF INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER XXIX.
LETTERS HOME FROM THE BOYS.--DICK LEE'S FIRST GRIEF.
CHAPTER XXX.
DABNEY KINZER TRIES FRESH-WATER FISHING FOR THE FIRST TIME.
CHAPTER XXXI.
A FIGHT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
CHAPTER XXXII.
OLD FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS OF HIS COME TO VISIT DABNEY.
DAB KINZER
CHAPTER I.
THE KINZER FARM, THE NEW SUIT, AND THE WEDDING.
Between the village and the inlet, and half a mile from the great "bay,"
lay the Kinzer farm. Beyond the bay was a sandbar, and beyond that the
Atlantic Ocean; for all this was on the southerly shore of Long Island.
The Kinzer farm had lain right there--acre for acre, no more, no
less--on the day when Hendrik Hudson long ago sailed the good ship "Half
Moon" into New-York Bay. But it was not then known to any one as the
Kinzer farm. Neither was there then, as now, any bright and growing
village crowding up on one side of it, with a railway-station and a
post-office. Nor was there, at that time, any great and busy city of New
York, only a few hours' ride away, over on the island of Manhattan. The
Kinzers themselves were not there then. But the bay and the inlet, with
the fish and the crabs, and the ebbing and flowing tides, were there,
very much the same, before Hendrik Hudson and his brave Dutchmen knew
any thing whatever about that corner of the world.
The Kinzer farm had always been a reasonably "fat" one, both as to size
and quality; and the good people who lived on it had generally been of a
somewhat similar description. It was, therefore, every way correct and
becoming for Dabney Kinzer's widowed mother and his sisters to be the
plump and hearty beings they were, and all the more discouraging to poor
Dabney that no amount of regular and faithful eating seemed to make him
resemble them at all in that respect.
Mrs. Kinzer excused his thinness, to her neighbors, to be sure, on the
ground that he was "such a growing boy;" but, for all that, he caught
himself wondering, now and then, if he would never be done with that
part of his trials. For rapid growth has its trials.
"The fact is," he said to himself one day, as he leaned over the north
fence, "I'm more like Ham Morris's farm than I am like ours. His farm is
bigger than ours, all round; but it's too big for its fences, just as
I'm too big for my clothes. Ham's house is three times as large as ours,
but it looks as if it had grown too fast. It hasn't any paint to speak
of, nor any blinds. It looks as if somebody'd just built it there, and
then forgot it, and gone oft and left it out of doors."
Dabney's four sisters had all come into the world before him; but he was
as tall as any of them, and was frequently taken by strangers for a good
two years older than he was. It was sometimes very hard for him, a boy
of fifteen, to live up to what was expected of those extra two years.
Mrs. Kinzer still kept him in roundabouts; but they did not seem to
hinder his growth at all, if that was her object in so doing.
There was no such thing, however, as keeping the four girls in
roundabouts of any kind; and, what between them and their mother, the
pleasant and tidy little Kinzer homestead, with its snug parlor and its
cosey bits of rooms and chambers, seemed to nestle away, under the
shadowy elms and sycamores, smaller and smaller with every year that
came.
It was a terribly tight fit for such a family, anyway; and, now that
Dabney was growing at such a rate, there was no telling what they would
all come to. But Mrs. Kinzer came at last to the rescue; and she
summoned her eldest daughter, Miranda, to her aid.
A very notable woman was the widow. When the new railway cut off part of
the old farm, she had split up the slice of land between the iron track
and the village into "town lots," and had sold them all off by the time
the railway company paid her for the "damage" it had done the property.
The whole Kinzer family gained visibly in plumpness that year, except,
perhaps, Dabney.
Of course the condition and requirements of Ham Morris and his big farm,
just over the north fence, had not escaped such a pair of eyes as those
of the widow; and the very size of his great barn of a house finally
settled his fate for him.
A large, quiet, unambitious, but well-brought-up and industrious young
man was Hamilton Morris, and he had not the least idea of the good in
store for him for several months after Mrs. Kinzer decided to marry him
to her daughter Miranda; but all was soon settled. Dab, of course, had
nothing to do with the wedding arrangements, and Ham's share was
somewhat contracted. Not but what he was at the Kinzer house a good
deal; nor did any of the other girls tell Miranda how very much he was
in the way. He could talk, however; and one morning, about a fortnight
before the day appointed, he said to Miranda and her mother,--
"We can't have so very much of a wedding: your house is so small, and
you've chocked it so full of furniture. Right down nice furniture it is
too; but there's so much of it, I'm afraid the minister'll have to stand
out in the front yard."
"The house'll do for this time," replied Mrs. Kinzer. "There'll be room
enough for everybody. What puzzles me is Dab."
"What about Dab?" asked Ham.
"Can't find a thing to fit him," said Dab's mother. "Seems as if he were
all odd sizes, from head to foot."
"Fit him?" exclaimed Ham. "Oh, you mean ready-made goods! Of course you
can't. He'll have to be measured by a tailor, and have his new suit
built for him."
"Such extravagance!" emphatically remarked Mrs. Kinzer.
"Not for rich people like you, and for a wedding," replied Ham; "and
Dab's a growing boy. Where is he now? I'm going to the village, and I'll
take him right along with me."
There seemed to be no help for it; but that was the first point relating
to the wedding, concerning which Ham Morris was permitted to have
exactly his own way. His success made Dab Kinzer a fast friend of his
for life, and that was something. There was also something new and
wonderful to Dabney himself, in walking into a tailor's shop, picking
out cloth to please himself, and being so carefully measured all over.
He stretched and stretched himself in all directions, to make sure
nothing should turn out too small. At the end of it all, Ham said to
him,--
"Now, Dab, my boy, this suit is to be a present from me to you, on
Miranda's account."
Dab colored and hesitated for a moment: but it seemed all right, he
thought; and so he came frankly out with,--
"Thank you, Ham. You always was a prime good fellow. I'll do as much for
you some day. Tell you what I'll do, then: I'll have another suit made
right away, of this other cloth, and have the bill for that one sent to
our folks."
"Do it!" exclaimed Ham. "Do it! You've your mother's orders for that.
She's nothing to do with my gift."
"Splendid!" almost shouted Dab. "Oh, but don't I hope they'll fit!"
"Vit," said the tailor: "vill zay vit? I dell you zay vit you like a
knife. You vait und zee."
Dab failed to get a very clear idea of what the fit would be, but it
made him almost hold his breath to think of it.
After the triumphant visit to the tailor, there was still a necessity
for a call upon the shoemaker, and that was a matter of no small
importance. Dab's feet had always been a mystery and a trial to him. If
his memory contained one record darker than another, it was the endless
history of his misadventures with boots and shoes. He and leather had
been at war from the day he left his creeping-clothes until now. But now
he was promised a pair of shoes that would be sure to fit.
So the question of Dab's personal appearance at the wedding was all
arranged between him and Ham; and Miranda smiled more sweetly than ever
before upon the latter, after she had heard her usually silent brother
break out so enthusiastically about him as he did that evening.
It was a good thing for that wedding, that it took place in fine summer
weather; for neither kith, kin, nor acquaintances had been slighted in
the invitations, and the Kinzers were one of the "oldest families."
To have gathered them all under the roof of that house, without either
stretching it out wider or boiling the guests down, would have been out
of the question; and so the majority, with Dabney in his new clothes to
keep them countenance, stood out in the cool shade of the grand old
trees during the ceremony, which was performed near the open door; and
were afterwards served with the refreshments in a style which spoke
volumes for Mrs. Kinzer's good management, as well as for her
hospitality.
The only drawback to Dab's happiness that day was that his acquaintances
hardly seemed to know him. He had had almost the same trouble with
himself, when he looked in the glass that morning.
Ordinarily, his wrists were several inches through his coat-sleeves, and
his ankles made a perpetual show of his stockings. His neck, too, seemed
to be holding his head as far as possible from his coat-collar, and his
buttons had no favors to ask of his button-holes.
Now, even as the tailor had promised, he had received his "first fit."
He seemed to himself, to tell the truth, to be covered up in a prodigal
waste of new cloth. Would he ever, ever, grow too big for such a suit of
clothes as that? It was a very painful thought, and he did his best to
put it away from him.
Still, it was a little hard to have a young lady, whom he had known
since before she began to walk, remark to him,--
"Excuse me, sir, but can you tell me if Mr. Dabney Kinzer is here?"
"No, Jenny Walters," sharply responded Dab, "he isn't here."
"Why, Dabney!" exclaimed the pretty Jenny. "Is that you? I declare, you
have scared me out of a year's growth!"
"I wish you'd scare me, then," said Dab. "Then my clothes would stay
fitted."
Every thing had been so well arranged beforehand, thanks to Mrs. Kinzer,
that the wedding had no chance at all except to go off well. Ham Morris
was rejoiced to find how entirely he was relieved of every
responsibility.
"Don't worry about your house," the widow said to him, the night before
the wedding. "We'll go over there, as soon as you and Miranda get away,
and it'll be all ready for you by the time you get back."
"All right," said Ham. "I'll be glad to have you take the old place in
hand. I've only tried to live in a corner of it. You don't know how much
room there is. I don't, I must say."
Dabney had longed to ask her if she meant to have it moved over to the
Kinzer side of the north fence, but he had doubts as to the propriety of
it; and just then the boy came in from the tailor's with his bundle of
new clothes.
CHAPTER II.
DAB'S OLD CLOTHES GET A NEW BOY TO FIT.
Hamilton Morris was a very promising young man, of some thirty summers.
He had been an "orphan" for a dozen years; and the wonder was that he
should so long have lived alone in the big, square-built house his
father left him. At all events, Miranda Kinzer was just the wife for
him.
Miranda's mother had seen that at a glance, the moment her mind was
settled about the house. As to that and his great, spreading,
half-cultivated farm, all either of them needed was ready money and
management.
These were blessings Ham was now made reasonably sure of, on his return
from his wedding-trip, and he was likely to appreciate them.
As for Dabney Kinzer, he was in no respect overcome by the novelty and
excitement of the wedding-day. All the rest of it, after the departure
of Ham Morris and the bride, he devoted himself to such duties as were
assigned him, with a new and grand idea steadily taking shape in his
mind. He felt as if his brains too, like his body, were growing. Some of
his mother's older and more intimate friends remained with her all day,
probably to comfort her for the loss of Miranda; and two or three of
them, Dab knew, would stay to tea, so that his services would be in
demand to see them safely home.
All day long, moreover, Samantha and Keziah and Pamela seemed to find
themselves wonderfully busy, one way and another, so that they paid even
less attention than usual to any of the ins and outs of their brother.
Dabney was therefore able, with little difficulty, to take for himself
whatever of odd time he might require for putting his new idea into
execution.
Mrs. Kinzer herself noticed the rare good sense with which her son
hurried through with his dinner, and slipped away, leaving her in
undisturbed possession of the table and her lady guests, and neither she
nor either of the girls had a thought of following him.
If they had done so, they might have seen him draw a good-sized bundle
out from under the lilac-thicket in the back yard, and hurry down
through the garden.
A few moments more, and Dabney had appeared on the fence of the old
cross-road leading down to the shore. There he sat, eying one passer-by
after another, till he suddenly sprang from his perch, exclaiming,--
"That's just the chap! Why, they'll fit him, and that's more'n they ever
did for me."
Dab would probably have had to search along the coast for miles before
he could have found a human being better suited to his present
charitable purposes than the boy who now came so lazily down the road.
There was no doubt about his color, or that he was all over of about the
same shade of black. His old tow trowsers and calico shirt revealed the
shining fact in too many places to leave room for a question, and shoes
he had none.
"Dick," said Dabney, "was you ever married?"
"Married!" exclaimed Dick, with a peal of very musical laughter, "is I
married? No. Is you?"
"No," replied Dabney; "but I was very near it, this morning."
"Dat so?" asked Dick, with another show of his white teeth. "Done ye
good, den; nebber seen ye I look so nice afore."
"You'd look nicer'n I do if you were only dressed up," said Dab. "Just
you put on these."
"Golly!" exclaimed the black boy. But he seized the bundle Dab threw
him, and he had it open in a twinkling.
"Any t'ing in de pockets?" he asked.
"Guess not," said Dab; "but there's lots of room."
"Say dar was," exclaimed Dick. "But won't dese t'ings be warm?"
It was quite likely; for the day was not a cool one, and Dick never
seemed to think of getting off what he had on, before getting into his
unexpected present. Coat, vest, and trousers, they were all pulled on
with more quickness than Dab had ever seen the young African display
before.
"I's much obleeged to ye, Mr. Kinzer," said Dick very proudly, as he
strutted across the road. "On'y I dasn't go back fru de village."
"What'll you do, then?" asked Dab.
"S'pose I'd better go a-fishin'," said Dick. "Will de fish bite?"
"Oh! the clothes won't make any odds to them," said Dabney. "I must go
back to the house."
And so he did: while Dick, on whom the cast-off garments of his white
friend were really a pretty good fit, marched on down the road, feeling
grander than he ever had before in all his life.
"That'll be a good thing to tell Ham Morris, when he and Miranda get
home again," muttered Dab, as he re-entered the house.
Late that evening, when Dabney returned from his final duties as escort
to his mother's guests, she rewarded him with more than he could
remember ever receiving of motherly commendation.
"I've been really quite proud of you, Dabney," she said, as she laid her
plump hand on the collar of his new coat, and kissed him. "You've
behaved like a perfect little gentleman."
"Only, mother," exclaimed Keziah, "he spent too much of his time with
that sharp-tongued little Jenny Walters."
"Never mind, Kezi," said Dab: "she didn't know who I was till I told
her. I'm going to wear a label with my name on it when I go over to the
village to-morrow."
"And then you'll put on your other suit in the morning," said Mrs.
Kinzer. "You must keep this for Sundays and great occasions."
"Any more weddings coming, right away?" said Dab, with a sharp glance
around upon what remained of the family; but the girls were all very
busy just then, with their books and their sewing, and he did not get
any direct reply. Even his mother walked away after something she had
left in the dining-room.
When the next morning came, Dabney Kinzer was a more than usually early
riser, for he felt that he had waked up to a very important day.
"Dabney," exclaimed his mother, when he came in to breakfast, "did I not
tell you to put on your other suit?"
"So I have, mother," replied Dab: this is my other suit."
"That?" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer.
"So it is!" cried Keziah.
"So it isn't," added Samantha. "Mother, that is not what he had on
yesterday."
"He's been trading again," mildly suggested Pamela.
"Dabney," said Mrs. Kinzer, "what does this mean?"
"Mean!" replied Dabney. "Why, these are the clothes you told me to buy.
The lot I wore yesterday were a present from Ham Morris. He's a splendid
fellow. I'm glad he got the best of the girls."
That was a bad thing for Dabney to say just then, for it was vigorously
resented by the remaining three. As soon as quiet was restored, however,
Mrs. Kinzer remarked,--
"I think Hamilton should have consulted me about it, but it's too late
now. Anyhow, you may go and put on your other clothes."
"My wedding suit?" asked Dab.
"No, indeed! I mean your old ones,--those you took off night before
last."
"Dunno where they are," slowly responded Dab.
"Don't know where they are?" responded a chorus of four voices.
"No," said Dab. "Bill Lee's black boy had em on all yesterday afternoon,
and I reckon he's gone a-fishing again to-day. They fit him a good sight
better 'n they ever did me."
If Dabney had expected a storm to come from his mother's end of the
table, he was pleasantly mistaken; and his sisters had it all to
themselves for a moment. Then, with an admiring glance at her son, the
thoughtful matron remarked,--
"Just like his father, for all the world! It's no use, girls: Dabney's a
growing boy in more ways than one. Dabney, I shall want you to go over
to the Morris house with me after breakfast. Then you may hitch up the
ponies, and we'll do some errands around the village."
Dab Kinzer's sisters looked at one another in blank astonishment, and
Samantha would have left the table if she had only finished her
breakfast.
Pamela, as being nearest to Dab in age and sympathy, gave a very
admiring look at her brother's second "good fit," and said nothing.
Even Keziah finally admitted, in her own mind, that such a change in
Dabney's appearance might have its advantages. But Samantha inwardly
declared war.
The young hero himself was hardly used to that second suit, as yet, and
felt any thing but easy in it.
"I wonder," he said to himself, "what Jenny Walters would say to me now.
Wonder if she'd know me."
Not a doubt of it. But after he had finished his breakfast, and gone
out, his mother remarked,--
"It's really all right, girls. I almost fear I have been neglecting
Dabney. He isn't a little boy any more."
"He isn't a man yet," exclaimed Samantha. "And he talks slang
dreadfully."
"But then, he does grow so!" remarked Keziah.
"Mother," said Pamela, "couldn't you get Dab to give Dick Lee the slang,
along with the old clothes?"
"We'll see about it," replied Mrs. Kinzer.
It was very clear that Dabney's mother had begun to take in a new idea
about her son.
It was not the least bit in the world unpleasant to find out that he was
"growing in more ways than one," and it was quite likely that she had
indeed kept him too long in roundabouts.
At all events, his great idea had been worked out into a triumphant
success; and, before the evening was over, Pamela replied to a remark of
Samantha's,--
"I don't care. He's taller than I am, and I'd ever so much rather have a
frock-coat walk beside me to meeting."
CHAPTER III.
A MEMBER OF ONE OF THE OLDEST FAMILIES MEETS A YOUNG GENTLEMAN FROM THE
CITY.
Dick Lee had been more than half right about the village being a
dangerous place for him, with such an unusual amount of clothing over
his ordinary uniform.
The very dogs, every one of whom was an old acquaintance, barked at him
on his way home that night; and, proud as were his ebony father and
mother of the improvement in their son's appearance, they yielded to his
earnest entreaties, first, that he might wear his present all the next
day, and, second, that he might betake himself to the "bay" early in the
morning, and so keep out of sight "till he got used to it."
"On'y, you jist mind wot yer about!" said his mother, "and see't you
keep dem clo'es from gettin' wet. I jist can't 'foard to hab dem spiled
right away."
The fault with Dab Kinzer's old suit, after all, had lain mainly in its
size rather than its materials; for Mrs. Kinzer was too good a manager
to be really stingy.
Dick succeeded in reaching the boat-landing without falling in with any
one who seemed disposed to laugh at him; but there, right on the wharf,
was a white boy of about his own age, and he felt a good deal like
backing out.
"Nebber seen him afore, either," said Dick to himself. "Den I guess I
ain't afeard ob him."
The stranger was a somewhat short and thick-set, but bright and
active-looking boy, with a pair of very keen, greenish-gray eyes. But,
after all, the first word he spoke to poor Dick was,--
"Hullo, clothes! Where are you going with all that boy?"
"I knowed it, I knowed it!" groaned Dick. But he answered as sharply as
he knew how,--
"I's goin' a-fishin'. Any ob youah business?"--
"Where'd you learn how to fish?" the stranger asked, "Down South? Didn't
know they had any there."
"Nebbah was down Souf," was the somewhat surly reply.
"Father run away, did he?"
"He nebber was down dar, nudder."
"Nor his father?"
"'Tain't no business ob yourn," said Dick, "but we's allers lived right
heah, on dis bay."
"Guess not," said the white boy knowingly. Dick was right, nevertheless;
for his people had been slaves among the very earliest Dutch settlers,
and had never "lived South" at all. He was now busily getting one of the
boats ready to shove off; but his white tormentor went at him again,
with,--
"Well, then, if you've lived round here as long as that, you must know
everybody."
"Reckon I do."
"Are there any nice fellows around here? Any like me?"
"De nicest young gen'lman round dis bay," replied Dick, "is Mr. Dab
Kinzer. But he ain't like you. Not nuff to hurt him."
"Dab Kinzer," exclaimed the stranger. "Where'd he get his name?"
"In de bay, I 'spect," said Dick, as he shoved his boat off; "caught 'im
wid a hook."
"Anyhow," said the strange boy to himself, "that's probably the kind of
fellow my father would wish me to associate with. Only it's likely he's
very ignorant."
And he walked away towards the village, with the air of a man who had
forgotten more than the rest of his race were ever likely to find out.
At all events, Dick Lee had managed to say a good word for his
benefactor, little as he could guess what might be the consequences.
Meantime Dab Kinzer, when he went out from breakfast, had strolled away
to the north fence, for a good look at the house which was thenceforth
to be the home of his favorite sister. He had seen it before, every day
since he could remember; but it seemed to have a fresh and almost
mournful interest for him just now.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, as he leaned against the fence. "Putting up
ladders? Oh, yes, I see! That's old Tommy McGrew, the house-painter.
Well, Ham's house needs a new coat as badly as I did. Sure it'll fit
too. Only it ain't used to it, any more'n I am."