Chapter II: Part 2

"Because if you're not," continued Pete--"and what tarnation use a sturdy chap like you will find in all that Latin and Greek stuff, I can't see,--if you're not in for it, I can give you a chance."

V.--A "CHANCE."

"I can give you a chance," repeated Pete, as he turned to Dan with his broad, ruddy face illuminated by a friendly smile. "It's a chance I wouldn't hold out to everybody, but I know you for a wide-awake youngster, as honest as you are slick. Them two don't go together in general; but it's the combination I'm looking fur just now, and you seem to have it. I was thinking over it this very morning. 'Lord, Lord,' sez I to myself, 'if Dan Dolan hadn't gone and got that eddycation bug in his head, wouldn't this be the chance for him?"

"What is it?" asked Dan; but there was not much eagerness in his question. Wide and springy as was the butcher's cart, it did not appeal to him as a chariot of fortune just now. A loin of beef dangled over his head, a dead calf was stretched out on the straw behind him. Pete's white apron was stained with blood. Dan was conscious of a dull, sick repulsion of body and soul.

"Well, it's this," continued Pete, cheerfully. "You see, I've made a little money over there at my corner, and I'm planning to spread out,--do things bigger and broader. There ain't no sort of use in holding back to hams and shoulders when ye can buy yer hogs on the hoof. That's what I'm in fur now,--hogs on the hoof; cut 'em, corn 'em, smoke 'em, salt 'em, souse 'em, grind 'em into sausage meat and headcheese and scrapple, boil 'em into lard. Why, a hog is a regular gold mine when he is handled right. But I can't handle it in that little corner shop I've got now: there's no room fur it. But it's too good a business there fur me to give up. So I'm going to open another place further out, and keep both a-going. And I can't afford no high-class bookkeeper or clerk, that will maybe jump my trade and gobble all my profits. What I want is a boy,--a bright, wide-awake boy that knows enough about figguring to keep my accounts, and see that no one 'does' me,--a boy that I can send round in the wagon to buy and sell 'cording to my orders,--a boy that will be smart enough to pick up the whole business from _a_ to _izzard_, and work up as I worked up till I kin make him partner. That's the chance I've got, and I believe you're the boy to take it."

"I--I would have to give up college of course," said Dan, slowly.

"Give up college!" echoed Pete. "Well, I should rather say you would! There ain't no time fur books in a biz like mine. Now, Dan, what's the good of college anyhow fur a chap like you? It ain't ez if you were one of these high mug-a-mugs with a rich father to pay yer way through, and set you up in a white choker and swallow-tail coat afterwards. What's the good of a strong, husky fellow fooling along with Latin and Greek, that will never be no use to him? You'd a heap better spiel plain strong English that will bring you in the spondulics. Why, look at me! I never had two years' schooling in my life. It's all I can do to scrawl 'P. J. Patterson,' so folks can read it, and thump out the rest on a secondhand typewriter. But that 'ere same scrawl will bring five thousand dollars out of the bank any time I want it. If I had as much eddycation as you have, Dan, nobody couldn't keep me in any school in the land another minute. It's all nonsense,--a dead waste of time and money."

"What would you pay me?" asked Dan, as the big loin of beef above joggled against his shoulder.

"Well, let me see!" considered Pete. "I ain't paying any fancy price at start, fur I don't know how things will work out; but I won't be mean with you, Dan. What do you say to four dollars a week and board?"

"No," answered Dan, promptly. "I don't want your board at all."

"Ye don't?" said Pete in surprise. "It will be good board, Dan: no fancy fixings but filling, I promise you that,--good and filling."

"I don't care how filling it is," answered Dan, gruffly. "I'd want my own board, with Aunt Winnie. That's all I'd come to you for,--to take care of Aunt Winnie."

"Ain't they good to her where she is?" asked Pete, who knew something of the family history.

"Yes," answered Dan; "but she is not happy: she is homesick, and I want to bring her--home."

And something in the tone of the boyish voice told Pete that, with Aunt Winnie and a home, Dan would be secured as his faithful henchman forever.

"I don't blame you," he said. "I've got an old mother myself, and if I took her out of her little cubby-hole of a house and put her in the marble halls that folks sing about, she'd be pining. It's women nature, specially old women. Can't tear 'em up by the roots when they're past sixty. And that old aunt of yours has been good to you sure,--good as a mother."

"Yes," answered Dan, a little huskily, "good as a mother."

"Then you oughtn't to go back on her sure," said Pete, reflectively. "Considering the old lady, I'll make it five dollars a week, if you'll agree for a year ahead, Dan."

"A year ahead!" echoed Dan, thinking of all that year had promised him.

"Yes," said Pete, decidedly. "It must be a year ahead. I can't break you in at such a big figger, and then hev you bolt the track just as I've got used to you. I wouldn't give five dollars a week to any other boy in the world, though I know lots of 'em would jump at it. It's only thinking of that old mother of mine and how I'd feel in your place, makes me offer it to you. Five dollars a week will bring your Aunt Winnie back home. And, between you and me, Dan, if she ain't brought back, she'll be in another sort of home before long, and past your helping. Mrs. Mulligan was telling me the other day that she had been out to see her, and she was looking mighty peaked and feeble,--not complaining of course, but just pining away natural."

"When will you want me?" blurted out Dan, desperately. "Right off now?"

"Oh, no, no!" was the hasty answer. "I haven't got the other place open yet, and this 'ere hot weather ain't no time fur it. I'm just laying plans for the fall. What were you thinking of doing this summer?"

"Going off with a lot of fellows to the seashore. But I'm ready to give it up," answered Dan, gulping down the lump that rose in his throat.

"No, don't,--don't!" said Pete. "I haven't got things fixed for a start yet. Won't have them fixed for a couple of months or so. I ain't a-hurrying you. Just you think this 'ere chance over, and make up your mind whether it ain't wuth more than all that Greek and Latin they're stuffing into your head at Saint Andrew's. Then come around somewhere about the first of September and see me 'bout it. I won't go back on my offer. It will be five dollars cash down every Saturday night, and no renigging. I turn off here," concluded Pete, drawing up as they reached a busy corner. "You'll have to jump down; so bye, bye, Dan my boy, until I see you again! Remember it's five dollars a week, and a home for Aunt Winnie."

"I'll remember," said Dan, as, half dazed, he jumped from the wagon and took his way back to Saint Andrew's.

He entered the cross-crowned gateway that guarded the spacious grounds, feeling like one in a troubled dream. He could shape nothing clearly: his past, present, and future seemed shaken out of place like the vari-colored figures of a kaleidoscope. To give up all his hopes, to shut out the beautiful vista opening before him and settle down forever to--to--"hogs on the hoof!" And yet it was his only chance to cheer, to gladden, perhaps to save gentle Aunt Win's life,--to bring her home again.

But would she be happy at such a sacrifice? Would she not grieve even at the fireside she had regained over her broken dreams? And Dan would come down from his dreams and visions (which, after all, are very vague and uncertain things for boys of thirteen) to Tabby and the teapot, to the fluttering old hand in his clasp, the trembling old voice in his ear.

The sun was close to its setting; supper was over, he knew; and Jim Norris was waiting impatiently for his promised game. But he could not think of tennis just now; still less was he disposed for a meeting with Dud Fielding, whose voice he could hear beyond the box hedge at his right. So, turning away from tennis court and playground, Dan plunged into the quiet shelter of the walk that skirted the high, ivy-grown wall, and was already growing dim with evening shadows, though lances of sunlight glinting here and there through the arching pines broke the gloom.

Pacing the quiet way with feeble step was an old priest, saying his Office. Father Mack's earthly work was done. He could no longer preach or teach; he was only lingering in the friendly shadows of Saint Andrew's, waiting his Master's call home; his long, busy life ending in a sweet twilight peace. Sometimes at retreats or on great feasts, when there was a crowd of juvenile penitents in the college chapel, Father Mack, gentle and indulgent, had his place in a quiet corner, where he was rather avoided by young sinners as a "dying saint."

But Dan, whatever might be his month's record of wrong-doing, had taken to Father Mack from the first. Perhaps it was something in the Irish voice that recalled Aunt Winnie; perhaps some deeper sympathy between souls akin. Though they seldom met, for the old priest had his room in a building remote from the students' quarters, Father Mack and Dan were fast friends. His presence here was most unlooked for; and Dan was about to retire without further intrusion, when the old priest closed his book and turned to him with a kindly nod.

"You needn't run off. I'm done, my boy. These long, hot days are a bit hard on me; but I like to stay out here in the evening to say my Office and watch the sunset. Did you ever watch the sunset, Danny?"

"Yes, Father," answered Dan. "It's great."

"What do you see in it, Danny?" was the low question.

"Oh, all sorts of things, Father,--domes and spires and banners of gold and red and purple, and pillars of cloud and fire--"

"And gates," broke in Father Mack. "Don't you see the gates, Danny,--gates that seem to open in the shining way that leads to God's Throne? Ah, it's a wonderful sight, the sunset, when your day is near done and you are tired and old,--too old to be picturing and dreaming. I'll soon see--beyond the cloud and the dream, Danny,--I'll soon see."

The old man paused for a moment, his dim eye kindling, his withered face rapt. Then suddenly, as if recalled from some cloudy height to earth, his look and voice changed into fatherly interest.

"Were you looking for me,--were you wanting to talk to me, my son?"

"No--yes--no," faltered Dan, who had not thought of such a thing. "Well, yes, I believe I do. I'm all muddled up, and maybe you can set me right, Father Mack. For--for," Dan blurted out without further hesitation, "I can't see things clear myself. Aunt Winnie is grieving and pining and homesick at the Little Sisters. She is trying to hide it, but she is grieving, I know. She broke down and cried to-day when I went to see her,--cried real sobs and tears. And--and" Dan went on with breathless haste, "Peter Patterson, that keeps the meatshop at our old corner, has offered me five dollars a week to come and work for him. To give up Saint Andrew's--and--and--all it means, Father Mack, and work for him."

VI.--FATHER MACK.

"Give up Saint Andrew's!" repeated Father Mack in a low, startled voice. "You, Dan! Give up! Oh, no, my boy,--no!"

"Aunt Winnie will die if I don't," blurted out Dan, despairingly. "Pete Patterson says so. And I can take her home and give her back her little rooms over Mulligans', and the blue teapot and Tabby, and everything she loves. And Pete says I can work up to be his partner."

"His partner,--his partner! In what?" asked Father Mack, anxiously.

"Meat business," answered Dan. "He's made money, and he's going in for it big,--corning, smoking, sausage, everything. I--I could take care of Aunt Winnie fine."

"Meat business, sausage? I don't think I understand," said Father Mack, in bewilderment. "Sit down here, Dan, and tell me all this over again."

Dan took his seat on a broken slab that had been a gravestone before the old college cemetery had been condemned and removed beyond the limits of the growing city. It was a very old slab, bearing the Latin title of some Brother or Father who had died fifty years ago. The sunset fell through a gap in the pines that showed the western sky, with its open gates, their pillars of cloud and fire all aglow.

"Tell me slowly, calmly, Dan. My ears are growing dull."

And Dan told his story again, more clearly and less impetuously; while Father Mack listened, his bent head haloed by the setting sun.

"I can't let Aunt Winnie die," concluded Dan. "You see, I have to think of Aunt Winnie, Father."

"Yes, I see,--I see, my boy," was the low answer. "And it is only of Aunt Winnie you are thinking, Dan?"

"Only of Aunt Winnie," replied Dan, emphatically. "You don't suppose anything else would count against Saint Andrew's, Father. I'd work, I'd starve, I'd die, I believe, rather than give up my chance here?"

"Yes, yes, it's hard lines sometimes," said Father Mack. "You may find it even harder as the years go by, Dan. I heard about the trouble yesterday."

"Oh, did you, Father?" said Dan, somewhat abashed. "Dud Fielding did stir the old Nick in me for sure."

"Yes," said Father Mack. "And that same fierce spirit will be stirred again and again, Dan. Despite all your teachers can do for you, there will be pricks and goads we can not help."

"I know it," answered Dan, sturdily. "I'm ready for them. Saint Andrew's is worth all the pricks and goads I'll get. But Aunt Winnie, Father,--I can't forget Aunt Winnie. I've got to take Aunt Winnie back home."

"Would she--wish it, at such--such a cost, Dan?" Father Mack questioned.

"Cost," repeated Dan, simply. "It wouldn't cost much. The rooms are only a dollar a week, and Aunt Winnie can make stirabout and Irish stews and potato cake to beat any cook I know. Three dollars a week would feed us fine. And there would be a dollar to spare. And she could have her teapot on the stove again, and Tabby on the hearth-rug, only--only" (the young face clouded a little) "I'm afraid great as it all would be, she'd be grieving about her dreams."

"Her dreams!" echoed Father Mack, a little puzzled.

"Yes," said Dan. "You see, I am all she has in the world, and she is awful soft on me, and since I got into Saint Andrew's she's softer still. She thinks there's nothing too great or grand for me to do. My, it would make you laugh, Father, to hear poor old Aunt Winnie's pipe dreams about a tough chap like me!"

"What does she dream, Dan?" asked the old priest softly.

"I suppose she'd get out of them if she were home where things are natural like," said Dan; "but now she sits up there in the Little Sisters' dreaming that I'm going to be a priest,--a rough-and-tumble fellow like me!"

"Stranger things than that have happened, Dan," said Father Mack, quietly. "I was a rough-and-tumble fellow myself."

"You, Father!" exclaimed Dan.

"The 'roughest-and-tumblest' kind," said Father Mack, his worn face brightening into a smile that took away twenty years at least. "I ran away to sea, Dan, leaving a gentle mother to break her heart for me. When I came back" (the old face shadowed again) "she was gone. Ah, God's ways are full of mystery, Dan! I think it was that made me a priest."

Father Mack was silent for a moment. His dim eyes turned to the sunset, where the cloud curtains were swept asunder, the pillared gates a glory of crimson and gold. Something in his old friend's face hushed Dan's questioning until Father Mack spoke again.

"That was a long time ago,--a long time ago. But the thought of it makes me understand about Aunt Winnie, Dan, and how hard it is to give you up. Still--still--even of old God asked the firstlings of the flock. Sacrifice! sacrifice! It is the way to heaven, Dan. Heart, hopes, tears, blood,--always sacrifice." And again the old speaker paused as if in troubled thought. "How soon must you make your choice, Dan?" he asked at length.

"My choice? About leaving, you mean, Father? Oh, Pete Patterson doesn't want me until the fall. And I haven't any place to go this summer, if I give up now. Father Regan is going to send us off to-morrow with Brother Bart for a summer at the seashore."

"A summer at the seashore! Ah, good, good,--very good!" said Father Mack, his old face brightening. "That will give us time to think, to pray, Dan. A summer! Ah, God can work wonders for those who trust Him in a summer, Dan! Think what He does with the seed, the grain, the fruit. It is not well to move or to choose hastily when we are in the dark as to God's will. So say nothing about all this to any one as yet, Dan,--nothing this summer."

"I won't, Father," agreed Dan.

"And I promise that every day you will be remembered in my Mass, Dan."

"Thank you, Father! That ought to keep me out of trouble sure."

"And now where is this seashore place?" asked Father Mack, quite cheerfully.

"An island called Killykinick, Father."

"Killykinick?" echoed Father Mack, startled. "You are going to Killykinick? God bless me, how wonderful!"

"You know the place, Father?" asked Dan, with interest.

"I know it indeed," was the answer. "I was wrecked there in the wild days of which I told you, Dan, sixty years ago. The 'Maria Teresa' (I was on a Portuguese ship) went upon the rocks on a dark winter night, that I thought was likely to be my last. For the first time in my reckless youth I really prayed. My dear mother, no doubt, was praying for me, too; for I learned afterwards that it was on that night she died, offering with her last breath her life for her boy. Well, we held together somehow until morning, and got off to the shore of Killykinick before the 'Maria Teresa' went down, loaded with the golden profits of a two years' cruise."

"And did they never get her up?" asked Dan, quite breathless with interest at this glimpse of a "dying saint's" past.

"Never," answered Father Mack,--"at least never that I heard of. It was soon afterward that I turned into other ways and lost sight of my old mates. But I always have remembered the friendly haven of Killykinick. It was a wild place,--only a few deserted fishermen's huts on the rocky shore, where we lived on fish and clams until taken off by a passing ship. But that same rocky shore meant safety, shelter, life. And so in the after years I have always blessed Killykinick. And you are going there to-morrow! You will find it all changed,--all changed, I am sure," said Father Mack, as he slowly rose to his feet, for the sunset was fading now. "But I will think of you there, Dan,--think of you frolicking over the rocks and sands where I wandered so long ago a shipwrecked boy. Now it is time for me to go in, for my old blood chills in the twilight; so I must say good-bye,--good-bye and God bless you, my boy!"

And, laying his hand for a moment on the boyish head, the old priest turned away into the deepening shadow of the pines, leaving Dan, who was beginning to feel vividly conscious that he had missed his supper, to make a rapid foray into the refectory, where Brother James could always be beguiled into furnishing bread and jam in and out of time,--having been, as he assured the belated ones, a boy himself.

There was another belated one this evening. Seated before a tempting spread of milk toast, demanded by his recent convalescence, was Freddy Neville, a little pale and peaked perhaps, but doing full justice to a third creamy slice, and ready for more.

"Why, hello, Fred!" greeted Dan, dropping into the chair beside him. "You down?"

"Yes," said Fred, spooning his dish vigorously. "I'm well, all right now. Temperature gone, Brother Tim says. Can't I have a little more toast, Brother James, please? I'm not half filled up yet. Supper tastes twice as good down here. I've been out with Brother Bart buying shoes and things to go to Killykinick, and I'm hungry as a bear."

"Wait a bit then, and I'll bring ye both in some strawberry jam and biscuits," said Brother James, good-humoredly. "It's the black fast Brother Tim puts on sick boys, I know. When they came down after the measles I couldn't get them enough to eat for a month. There now!" And the good man set forth supplies liberally. "I know what it is. I've been a hungry boy myself."

"Jing, it's good to be up and out again!" said Freddy, as both boys pitched into biscuits and jam. "I felt down and out this morning sure, Dan, and now everything is working fine. We're going to have the time of our lives this summer, after all. Even Dud Fielding is cooling off, Jim Norris says, now that his nose has gone down, and he has heard about Killykinick."

"Who told him?" asked Dan, who did not feel particularly cheered at these tidings; for Dud's "cooling off" was by no means to be trusted, as he knew.

"Father Regan, of course. He couldn't send the boys unless they wanted to go. But when they heard about the old house uncle made out of his ship, and the row-boats and the sailboat, and the bathing and fishing, they just jumped at the chance to go. And Jim says there is a fine place not far off, where Dud spent the season two years ago with some tip toppers, and he's counting on getting in with them again. So he is tickled all around. But I'm not caring about Dud or what he likes, so long as I've got you, Dan, I wouldn't want to go without you."

"Wouldn't you, kid?" asked Dan, softly, for, after all the troubles and perplexities of the day, his little chum's trusting friendship seemed very sweet to him.

"N-o-o-o!" answered Freddy, most decidedly. "But I sort of wish Brother Bart was not going. He'll keep me such a baby!"

"No, he won't. I'll see to that," said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye. "If there's any way of giving you a good time, I'll do it. And I won't let you get hurt again either,--no sir! I've had my scare about that. I'm going to look out for you right. It may be for the last time, but--"

"The last time," interrupted Freddy quickly. "Why will it be the last time?"

"I mean I may never have a chance at such a jolly holiday again," answered Dan, suddenly remembering his promise to Father Mack. "But we'll make this one a hummer. If Killykinick is half what I think it is, we'll make this chance a hummer you'll never forget."

VII.--A HOLIDAY START.

And the holiday proved to be a "hummer" from the very start. Everybody was in high spirits. Even Dud Fielding, with his nose happily reduced to its normal color and size, had lost his "grouch," and was quite himself again, in a sporting suit of English tweed, ordered from his tailors for "roughing it." Easy-going Jim was in comfortable khaki; so was little Fred; while Dan had been privately presented by the Brother wardrobian with two suits of the same,--"left by boys for the poor," good Brother Francis had whispered confidentially.

"I fill the bill then, sure," said Dan, with a cheerful grin.

"You do, but many a fine man has done the same before you," answered Brother Francis, nodding. "I've put a few more things in your trunk, Dan; take them and God bless you! I've cut off the marks so nobody'll be the wiser."

Brother Bart's wrinkled face wore a glow of pleasurable excitement as, after seeing the baggage off, he marshalled his holiday force on the college porch for the last words of command from his reverend chief.

"Give your orders now, Father; though God knows how I'll be able to keep this lot up to them. They are not to be killing and drowning themselves against my will and word."

"Certainly not," said Father Regan, with a smile. "Brother Bart is to be obeyed, boys, or you'll promptly be ordered home."

"And there is to be no roving off wid pirates and smugglers that may be doing their devilment along the shore," continued Brother Bart, anxiously.

"The government looks out for all that now," laughed Father Regan.

"I'm not so sure," said Brother Bart, who had grown up in a wild stretch of the Irish coast. "It's a wicked world, and we're going beyant the Lord's light that shines on us here."

"Not at all," was the cheering assurance. "Beach Cliff is only six miles away, and it has a little church where there is a Mass every Sunday."

"The Lord be praised for that anyhow!" said the good man, with a sigh of relief. "It's a great burthen that ye've put on my body and soul, Father. But I'll do me best, and, with God's help, I'll bring the four of them back safe and sound to ye. Now give us your blessing and we'll be off."

And very soon they were off indeed, speeding on to the busy wharf, scene of many a "lark" in Dan's boyish past. Here the great steamboat was awaiting them: for, although the route was longer and more circuitous, Father Regan had decided it best for his young travellers to make their journey by sea.

To Jim and Dud such a trip was no novelty; even Freddy had taken more than one holiday outing with Uncle Tom; but to Dan--Dan whose busy, workaday childhood had excluded even the delights of a cheap excursion--everything was wonderfully and deliciously new. He felt like one in a bewildering dream. As the great floating palace, all aglitter and aglow with splendors of paint and upholstery hitherto unknown, swung from her moorings out into the stream, Dan quite forgot the gentility of his surroundings and the elegant Dud Fielding at his elbow, and waved his hat with a wild "Hurrah" to half a dozen Wharf Rats who were fishing off the pier.

"Dan Dolan!" rose the shrill-voiced chorus, and six pairs of bare legs dangling over the water scrambled up to a stand. "Jing! if it ain't Dan Dolan,--Dan Dolan all diked up like a swell! Hi-yi-yi-yi, Dan! Where are you going, Dan?"

"Seashore, New England, Killykinick!" Dan shouted back, quite unconscious of the smiles and stares of the passengers. "Off for the summer! Hooray!"

"Hooray--hooray!" with a series of whoops and catcalls came back the Wharf Rat's farewells, echoing with such friendly memories of a rough past that Dan was struck speechless by the fierce contrasting voice in his ear.

"You darned dunderhead!" whispered Dud Fielding. "Can't you keep quiet in a decent crowd?"

"Eh?" said Dan in bewilderment.

"Don't you see everybody staring at us?" continued Dud, wrathfully. "To be shouting at dirty little beggars like those and disgracing us all!"

"Disgracing you?" echoed Dan.

"Yes," said Dud, still hot with pride and rage. "And there are the Fosters on the upper deck,--people I know. Come, Jim, let's cut off before they see us with this low-down chump."

And Dud led easy-going Jim to the other side of the boat.

"Low-down chump!" Unconscious as he was of any offense, Dan felt the scornful sting of the words, and his hot blood began to boil; but he remembered the "pricks and goads" he had resolved to bear bravely, and shut his lips tight together as Freddy stole a small hand into his own.

With the last "Hi-yi" the Wharf Rats had settled back to their occupation, and Freddy eyed them from the growing distance most favorably.

"Did you ever fish like that, Dan?" he asked with interest.

"Often," was the brief reply; for Dan was still hot and sore.

"Golly, it must be fun! And did you catch anything, Dan?"

"My dinner," answered Dan, grimly.

"Jing!" exclaimed Freddy, breathlessly. "That was great! When we get to Killykinick let us go out like those bare legged boys and catch our dinner, too."

And Dan laughed and forgot he was a "low-down chump" as he agreed they would catch dinners whenever possible. Then he and Freddy proceeded to explore the big boat high and low, decks, cabins, saloons, machinery wherever visible. Freddy, who had made similar explorations with Uncle Tom as guide, was quite posted in steamboat workings; but it was all new and wonderful to Dan, who had only dry book-knowledge of levers and cogs and wheels; and to watch them in action, to gaze down into the fiery depths of the furnace, to hear the mighty throb of the giant engine,--to see all these fierce forces mastered by rules and laws into the benignant power that was bearing him so gently over summer seas, held him breathless with interest and delight. Even the clang of the first dinner gong could not distract him from his study of cylinder and piston and shaft and driving-rod, and all shining mechanism working without pause or jar at man's command.

"Just as if they had sense," said Dan, thoughtfully,--"a heap more sense than lots of living folk I know."

"That's what Uncle Tom says," replied Freddy, to whom, in their brief holidays together, Uncle Tom, cheery and loving, was an authority beyond question. "He says they work by strict law and rule, and people won't. They shirk and kick. Jing! if these here engines took to shirking and kicking where would we be? But they don't shirk and kick against law. Uncle Tom says they obey, and that's what boys ought to do--obey. Gee! it's good we're not engines, isn't it, Dan? We'd blow things sky high.--Here's the second call for dinner," said Freddy, roused from these serious reflections by the sound of the gong. "We'd better move quick, Dan, or the ice-cream may give out."

"Can you have ice-cream,--all you want?" asked Dan.

"Well, no," hesitated Freddy, who knew what Dan could do in that line,--"not like we have at college. They dish it out other places a little skimp, but they'll give you a good supply of other things to make up."

Which information Dan soon found to be most pleasantly correct; and, though the glories of the long dining room, with its corps of low-voiced waiters, were at first a trifle embarrassing, and Brother Bart's grace, loudly defying all human respect, attracted some attention to his table, the boys did full justice to the good things set so deftly before them, and went through the bill of fare most successfully.

The black waiters grinned as the young travellers proceeded to top off with apple pie and ice-cream, combined in such generous proportions that Brother Bart warned them that the sin of gluttony would be on their souls if they ate another mouthful.

Then Freddy, sorely against his will, was borne off by his good old friend to rest, according to Brother Tim's last order; while Dan was left to himself to watch the boat turning into the shore, where a wharf loaded with truck for shipping jutted out into the stream; and one passenger--a sturdy, grizzled man in rough, brown hunting corduroy--leaped aboard followed by two fine dogs. Then the laboring engines, with puff and shriek, kept on their way; while Dan continued his investigations, and made friendly overtures to a big deck hand who volunteered to show the eager young questioner "below."

And "below" they went, down steep, crooked steps that led away from all the glitter and splendor above, into black depths, lit only by fierce glow of undying fires. Brawny, half-naked figures fed and stirred the roaring flames; the huge boilers hissed, the engines panted; but through all the darkness and discord came the measured beat of the ship's pulse that told there was no shirk or kick,--that all this mighty mechanism was "obeying."

And then, this dark sight-seeing over, Dan came up again into the bright, sunlit deck crowded with gay passengers chatting and laughing. Brother Bart was making efforts at conversation with an old French priest returning to his mission in the Canadian forests; Dud had introduced Jim to his fashionable friends, and both boys were enjoying a box of chocolates with pretty little Minnie Foster; Freddy was still "resting" in his stateroom.

All were unmindful of the dark, fiery depths below, where fierce powers were working so obediently to bear them on their happy, sunlit way, that was widening each moment now. The smiling shores, dotted with farms and villages, were stretching away into hazy distance; there was a new swell in the waves as they felt the heart-beat of the sea. It was all new and wonderful to Dan; and he stood leaning on the deck rail of a secluded corner made by a projecting cabin, watching the sunset glory pale over the swift vanishing shore, when he was suddenly startled by a deep voice near him that questioned:

"Worth seeing, isn't it?"

Dan looked up and saw the big grizzled stranger in corduroy gazing at the splendor of the western sky.

"Yes, sir," answered Dan. "It's great! Are we out at sea now?"

"Almost," was the reply. "Not in the full swell yet, but this is our last sight of land." He nodded to a promontory where the delicate lines of a lighthouse were faintly pencilled against the sunset.

"Jing!" said Dan, drawing a long breath, "it feels queer to be leaving earth and sun and everything behind us."

His companion laughed a little harshly. "I suppose it does at your age," he said. "Afterwards" (he stopped to light a cigar and puff it into glow),--"afterwards we get used to it."

"Of course," assented Dan, "because we know we are coming back."

"Coming back!" repeated the other slowly. "We are not always sure of that. Sometimes we leave the land, the light, behind us forever."

"Oh, not forever!" said Dan. "We would have to strike light and land somewhere unless we drowned."

"We don't drown," continued the stranger. "We do worse: we drift,--drift in darkness and night."

Dan stared. His companion had taken his cigar from his lips and was letting its glow die into ashes.

"Folks do drown sometimes," said Dan. "I tell you if you go round the bottom of this boat you'd see how we could drown mighty easily. Just a wheel or crank or a valve a mite wrong,--whewy! we'd all be done for. But they don't go wrong; that's the wonder of it, isn't it?" said Dan, cheerfully. "If everybody kept steady and straight as a steam-engine, this would be a mighty good world."

"No doubt it would," was the reply. "Are you not rather young to be facing it alone?"

"Oh, I'm not alone!" said Dan, hastily. "I'm off with a lot of other fellows for the seashore. We are college boys from Saint Andrew's."

"Saint Andrew's?" The stranger started so violently that the dying cigar dropped from his hold. "Saint Andrew's College, you say, boy! Not Saint Andrew's in--"

But a clear young voice broke in upon the excited question.

"Dan Dolan! Where are you, Dan? Oh, I've been looking everywhere for you!"

And, fresh and rosy from his long rest, Freddy Neville bounded out gleefully to Dan's side.

A low cry burst from the stranger's lips, and he stood staring at the boys as if turned into stone.

VIII.--A NEW FRIEND.

"Jing, you gave me a scare, Dan!" said Freddy, drawing a long breath of relief. "I thought you had dropped overboard."

"Overboard!" scoffed Dan. "You must think I'm a ninny. And you have been sleeping sure! Got to keep this sort of thing up all summer?"

"Oh, no, no!" said Freddy; "only for a few days,--until I get real well and strong; though Brother Bart will keep fussing over me, I know. Golly, I wish we had Uncle Tom along with us!"

"All right, is he?" asked Dan.

"Great!" replied Freddy, emphatically. "Doesn't baby you a bit; lets you row and swim and dive when you go off with him. Most as good as a real father."

"_Just_ as good, I guess," amended Dan.

"No," said Freddy, shaking his head. "You see, he has other work--preaching and saying Mass and giving missions--where I don't come in. He has to leave me at Saint Andrew's because he hasn't any home. It must be just fine to have a home that isn't a school,--a sort of cosy little place, with cushioned chairs, and curtains, and a fire that you can see, and a kitchen where you can roast nuts and apples and smell gingerbread baking, and a big dog that would be your very own. But you can't have a home like that when you have a priest uncle like mine."

"No, you can't," agreed Dan, his thoughts turning to Aunt Winnie and her blue teapot, and the little rooms that, despite all the pinch and poverty, she had made home.

"And Christmas," went on Freddy, both young speakers being quite oblivious of the big stranger who had seated himself on a camp stool in the shelter of the projecting cabin, and, with folded arms resting on the deck rail, was apparently studying the distant horizon,--"I'd like to have one real right Christmas before I get too big for it."

"Seems to me you have a pretty good time as it is," remarked Dan: "new skates and sled, and five dollars pocket money. There wasn't a fellow at the school of your age had any more."

"That's so," said Freddy; "but they went _home_. A fellow doesn't want pocket money when he goes home. Dick Fenton had only sixty cents; I lent him fifteen more to get a card-case for his mother. But he had Christmas all right, you bet: a tree that went to the ceiling (he helped to cut it down himself); all the house 'woodsy' with wreaths and berries and fires,--real fires where you could pop corn and roast apples. He lives in the country, you see, where money doesn't count; for you can't buy a real Christmas; it has to be homemade," said Freddy, with a little sigh. "So I'll never have one, I know."

Then the great gong sounded again to announce supper; and both boys bounded away to find the rest of their crowd, leaving the big stranger still seated in the gathering darkness, looking out to sea. As the boyish footsteps died into silence, he bowed his head upon his hands, and his breast heaved with a long, shuddering breath as if some dull, slumbering pain had wakened into life again. Then, in fierce self-mastery, he rose, stretched his tall form to its full height, and, ascending to the upper deck, began to pace its dimming length with the stern, swift tread of one whose life is a restless, joyless march through a desert land.

Meanwhile Brother Bart and his boys had begun to feel the roll of the sea, and to realize that supper had been a mistake. Jim and Dud had retired to their staterooms, with unpleasant memories of Minnie Foster's chocolates, and the firm conviction that they never wanted to see a candy box again. Brother Bart was ministering to a very white-faced "laddie," and thanking Heaven he was in the state of grace and prepared for the worst.

"The Lord's will be done, but I don't think any of us will live to see the morning. There must have been some poison in the food, to take us all suddint like this."

"Oh, no, Brother Bart!" gasped Freddy, faintly. "I've been this way before. We're all just--just seasick, Brother Bart--dead seasick."

Even Dan had a few qualms,--just enough to send him, with the sturdy sense of his rough kind, out into the widest sweep of briny air within his reach. He made for a flight of stairs that led up into some swaying, starlit region where there were no other sufferers, and flung himself upon a pile of life-preservers that served as a pillow for his dizzy head. Sickness of any sort was altogether new to Dan, and he felt it would be some relief to groan out his present misery unheard. But the glow of a cigar, whose owner was pacing the deck, suddenly glimmered above his head, and the big man in corduroy nearly stumbled over him.

"Hello!" he said. "Down and out, my boy? Here, take a swig of this!" and he handed out a silver-mounted flask.

"No," said Dan, faintly, "--can't. I've taken the pledge."

"Pooh! Don't be a fool, boy, when you're sick!"

"Wouldn't touch it if I were dying," said Dan. "I'm getting better now, anyhow. My, but I felt queer for a while! It is so hot and stuffy below. No more packing in on a shelf for me. I'll stick it out here until morning."

"And the others,--the little chap who was with you?" the stranger asked hastily. "Is he--he sick, too?"

"Freddy Neville? Yes, dead sick; but Brother Bart is looking out for him. Brother Bart is a regular old softy about Freddy. He took him when he was a little kid and keeps babying him yet."

"He is good to him, you mean?" asked the other, eagerly.

"Good? Well, I suppose you'd call it good. I couldn't stand any such fussing. Why, when Fred got a tumble in the gym the other day the old man almost had a fit!"

"A tumble,--a fall; did it hurt him much?" There was a strange sharpness in the questioner's voice.

"Pooh, no!" said Dan. "Just knocked him out a little. But we were all getting into trouble at Saint Andrew's, for vacation there is pretty slow; so Father Regan has sent us off to the seashore for the summer?"

"The seashore? Where?"

"Some queer place called Killykinick," answered Dan, who was now able to sit up and be sociable.

"Killykinick?" repeated his companion, in a startled tone. "Did you say you were going to Killykinick?"

"Yes," answered Dan. "Freddy's uncle or cousin or somebody died a while ago and left him a place there. Freddy has a lot of houses and money and things all his own. It's lucky he has. He isn't the kind to rough it and tough it for himself. Not that he hasn't plenty of grit," went on Freddy's chum, hastily. "He's as plucky a little chap as I ever saw. But he's been used to having life soft and easy. He is the 'big bug' sort. (I ain't.) So I'm glad he has money enough to make things smooth at the start, though his no-'count father did skip off and leave him when he was only five years old."

"His father left him?" repeated Dan's companion. "Why?"

"Don't know," answered Dan. "Just naturally a 'quitter,' I guess. Lots of menfolks are. Want a free foot and no bother. But to shake a nice little chap like Freddy I call a dirty, mean trick, don't you?"

"There might be reasons," was the hesitating rejoinder.

"What reason?" asked Dan, gruffly. "There ain't any sort of reason why a father shouldn't stick to his job. I hate a 'quitter,' anyhow," concluded Dan, decisively.

"Wait until you are twenty years older before you say that, my boy!" was the answer. "Perhaps then you will know what quitting costs and means. But you're an old chum for that little boy. I saw him with you down below. How is it that you're such friends?"

And then Dan, being of a communicative nature, and seeing no cause for reserve, told his new acquaintance all about the scholarship that had introduced him into spheres of birth and breeding to which he frankly confessed he could make no claim.

"I'm not Freddy's sort, I know; but he took to me somehow,--I can't tell why."

Yet as Dan went on with his simple, honest story, his listener, who, world-wise and world-weary as he was, knew something of the boyish nature that turns instinctively to what is strong and true and good, felt he could tell why Freddy took to this rough diamond of a chum.

Dan, in his turn, learned that his new acquaintance was called John Wirt; that he was off on a vacation trip, hunting and fishing wherever there was promise of good sport; that he had travelled abroad for several years,--had been to China, Japan, India, Egypt; had hunted lions and elephants, seen the midnight sun, crossed Siberian steppes and African deserts. From a geographical standpoint, Mr. Wirt's story seemed an open and extensive map, but biographically it was a blank. Of his personal history, past, present or future, he said nothing. Altogether, Dan and his new acquaintance had a pleasant hour on the open deck beneath the stars, and made friends rapidly.

"I wish you were going our way," said Dan, regretfully, as his companion announced that he was to get off at the first point they touched. "Brother Bart is going to granny us all, I know. If we had a real strong man like you around, he wouldn't scare so easily. And there is fine fishing about Killykinick, they say."

"So I have heard." The stranger had risen now, and stood, a tall shadow dimly outlined above Dan. "I--I--perhaps I'll drop in upon you. Isn't it time for you to turn in now?"

"No," answered Dan,--"not into that packing box below. I'm up here for the night."

"And I'm off before morning, so it's good-bye and good luck to you!"

And, with a friendly nod, Mr. John Wirt strode away down the darkened deck, leaving Dan to fling himself back upon his life-preservers, and wonder how, when, or where he had seen their new acquaintance before,--not at Saint Andrew's; for Mr. Wirt had been abroad, as he had said, ever since Dan entered the college; not at Milligans' or Pete Patterson's, or anywhere about his old home. Perhaps he had blacked his shoes or sold him a newspaper in some half-forgotten past; for surely there was something in his tone, his glance, his friendly smile that Dan knew.

He felt quite well now. All the dizziness and nausea had vanished, and he was his own strong, sturdy self again. The roll and swap of the boat were only the rock of a giant cradle; the surge of the sea, a deep-toned lullaby soothing him to pleasant dreams; and the sky! Dan had never seen such a midnight sky. He lay, with his head pillowed in his clasped hands, looking up at the starry splendor above him with a wonder akin to awe. The great, blue vault arching above him blazed with light from a myriad stars, that his books had told him were worlds greater than this on whose wide waters he was tossing now,--worlds whose history the wisest of men could never know,--worlds, thousands and millions of them, moving in shining order by "rule and law."

"Rule and law,"--it was the lesson that seemed to face Dan everywhere,--down in those black depths he had penetrated to-day, where valve and lever and gauge held roaring fire and hissing steam, with all their fierce force, to submission and service; in the polished mechanism whose steady throb he could feel pulsing beneath him like a giant heart; in the radiant sky where worlds beyond worlds swept on their mysterious way--obeying.

With half-formed thoughts like these stirring vaguely in his mind, Dan was dropping off into pleasant sleep, when he was roused by the sound of voices and the glimmering of a ship's lantern.

"I think you will find your boy here, sir."

It was Mr. John Wirt, who, with the aid of a friendly deck hand, was guiding a pale, tottering, very sick Brother Bart to Dan's side.

"Who wants me?" asked the half-wakened Dan, springing to his feet.

"Dan Dolan! Ye young rapscallion!" burst out Brother Bart, almost sobbing in his relief. "It's down at the bottom of the black sea I thought ye were. I've been tramping this boat, with this good man holding me up (for I'm too sick to stand), this half hour. Down wid ye now below stairs with the rest, where I can keep an eye on ye. Come down, I say!"

IX.--OBEYING ORDERS.

"Down below!" the words struck harshly on Dan's ear for good old Brother Bart was more used to obedience than command, and he was sick and shaken and doing his guardian duty under sore stress and strain to-night.

"Go below! What for?" asked Dan, shortly. "I'm all right up here, Brother Bart. I can't stand being packed in downstairs."

"Stand it or not, I'll not have ye up here," said Brother Bart, resolutely. "Down with ye, Dan Dolan! Ye were put under my orders, and ye'll have to mind my words."

"Not when it means being sick as a dog all night," answered Dan, rebelliously. "I tell you I can't stand it down in that stuffy place below, and I won't, I am going to stay up here."

"And is that the way ye talk?" said Brother Bart, who had a spirit of his own. "And it's only what I might look for, ye graceless young reprobate! God knows it was sore against my will that I brought ye with me, Dan Dolan; for I knew ye'd be a sore trial first to last. But I had to obey them that are above me. Stay, then, if you will against my word; for it's all I have to hold ye, since ye are beyant any rule or law.--We'll go back, my man," continued Brother Bart to the burly deck hand who had been supporting his swaying form. "Help me to get down to my bed, in God's name; for I am that sick I can scarcely see."

And Brother Bart tottered away, leaving Dan standing hot and defiant by his new friend, Mr. Wirt.

"Sorry to have made trouble for you," said that gentleman; "but when I found that good old man wandering sick and distracted over the boat, stirring up everyone in search of a lost boy, there was nothing to do but give him the tip."

"Freddy may stand it," said Dan, fiercely; "but I won't be grannied. What harm is there in staying up here?"

"None at all from our standpoint," was the reply; "but the good old gentleman looks at things in another light. You're under his orders," he said; and there was a faint, mocking note in the words, that Dan was keen enough to hear. He was hearing other things too,--the pant of the engines, the throb of the pulsing mechanism that was bearing him on through darkness lit only by the radiance of those sweeping worlds above; but that mocking note in his new friend's voice rose over all.

"Orders!" he repeated angrily. "I bet _you_ wouldn't take any such orders if you were a boy."

"No, I wouldn't, and I didn't" (there was a slight change in the speaker's voice as he paused to light a cigar), "and you see where it left me."

"Where?" asked Dan, curiously.

"Adrift," was the answer,--"like this big boat would be if there was no one to command: beyond rule and law, as that good old friend of yours said just now,--beyond rule and law."

"Beyond rule and law,--rule and law." The words began to hammer somehow on Dan's head and heart as he recalled with waking remorse poor Brother Bart tottering away in the darkness,--Brother Bart, who, as Dan knew, was only doing his duty faithfully, to the boy under his care,--Brother Bart, who, like the steamboat, like the stars, was _obeying_.

For a moment or two Mr. Wirt puffed at his cigar silently, while the fierce fire that had blazed up in Dan's breast sank into bounds, mastered by the boy's better self, even as he had seen Nature's fierce forces of flame and steam mastered by higher powers to-day.