“There’s Captain Sam’s,” remarked Henry Burns, as they passed a little frame cottage just before they had come to the turn of the road. “I’d like to give him one salute for old time’s sake. He’s the jolliest man in Southport.”
“He is not at home,” said Tom. “We asked about him to-day, when we got in. He started up the bay this afternoon. Queer you did not see him out there somewhere.”
“Why, we saw one or two boats off in the distance at the time of the collision,” said Harvey; “but we were pretty much occupied just about that time, eh, Henry? I didn’t notice what boats they were.”
They were approaching the Warren cottage by this time, and their conversation ceased. The cottage was the last in the row that skirted the cove, somewhat apart from all the others, occupying a piece of high ground that overlooked the cove and the bay, and affording a view away beyond to the off-lying islands. This view was obtained through a thin grove of spruces, with which the island abounded, and which made a picturesque foreground.
The cottage itself was roomy and comfortable, with a broad piazza extending around the front and one side. Upon this piazza the boys now stepped, quietly – “so as not to disturb the sleepers,” Henry Burns put in.
“Well, Henry, what’s up? You are master of ceremonies, you know,” said Tom.
“Why, we want to wake them very gently at first,” replied Henry Burns. “You know it is not good for any one to be frightened out of his sleep. They might not grow any more; and it might take away young Joe’s appetite – No, it would take more than that to do it,” he added.
They stepped around cautiously to the front door. As they had surmised, the peacefulness of Southport made locks and keys a matter more of form than usage, and the Warren boys had not turned the key in the lock. They entered softly.
“Hark! what’s that?” whispered Bob.
They paused on tiptoe. A subdued, choky roar, or growl, was borne down the front stairway from above.
“You ought to know that sound by this time,” said Henry Burns. “It’s young Joe, snoring. Don’t you remember how the other boys used to declare he would make the boat leak, by jarring it with that racket, when we had to sleep aboard last summer? Why, he used to have black and blue spots up and down his legs, where George and Arthur kicked him awake, so they could go to sleep.”
The sound was, indeed, prodigious for one boy to make.
“We may as well have some light on the subject,” said Henry Burns, striking a match and lighting the hanging-lamp in the sitting-room. It shed a soft glow over the place and revealed a room prettily furnished; the hardwood floor reflecting from its polished surface the rays from the lamp; a generous fireplace in one corner; and, more to the purpose at present, some big easy chairs, in which the boys made themselves at home.
But first a peep into the Warren kitchen pantry rewarded Bob with a mighty iron serving-tray, and Tom with a pair of tin pot-covers, which, grasped by their handles and clashed together, would serve famously as cymbals.
“Now,” said Henry Burns, when they were all assembled and comfortably seated, “you remember how we used to imitate the village band when it practised nights in the loft over the old fish-house? Well, I’ll be the cornet; Tom, you’re the bass horn – ”
“He is when his voice doesn’t break,” remarked Bob, slyly.
“That’s all right,” replied Henry Burns. “Every musician strikes a false note once in awhile, you know.” And he continued, “You are the slide-trombone, Jack; and you, Bob, come in with that shrieking whistle through your fingers for the flute.”
“Great!” exclaimed Bob. “What shall we try?”
“Oh, we’ll give them ‘Old Black Joe’ for a starter,” said Henry Burns, “just out of compliment to young black Joe up-stairs.”
Presently, there arose through the stillness of the house, and was wafted up the stairway, an unmelodious, mournful discord, that may perhaps have borne some grotesque resemblance to the old song they had chosen, but was, indeed, a most atrocious and melancholy rendering of it.
Then they paused to listen.
There was no answering sound from above, save that the snoring of young Joe was no longer deep and regular, but broken and short and sharp, like snorts of protest.
“Repeat!” ordered Henry Burns to his grinning band.
Again the combined assault on “Old Black Joe” began.
Then they paused again.
The snoring of young Joe was broken off abruptly, with one particularly loud outburst on his part. There was, also, the creaking of a bed in another room, and a sound as of some one sitting bolt upright.
“Here, you Joe! Quit that! What on earth are you doing?” called out the voice of George Warren, in tones which denoted that he had awakened from slumber, but not to full consciousness of what had waked him, except that it was some weird sound.
Then another voice, more sleepily than the other: “What’s the matter, George? Keep quiet, and let a fellow go to sleep.”
“Why, it’s that young Joe’s infernal nonsense, I suppose,” exclaimed the elder brother. “Now, that will be enough of that, Joe. It isn’t funny, you know.”
“That’s it! always blaming me for something,” came the answer from the youngest boy’s room. “You fellows are dreaming – gracious, no! I hear a voice down-stairs.”
It was the voice of Henry Burns saying solemnly, “Repeat.”
“Old Black Joe,” out of time, out of tune, turned inside out and scarcely recognizable, again arose to the ears of the now fully aroused Warren brothers.
There was the sound of some one leaping out of bed upon the bare chamber floor.
“Now you get back into bed there, Joe!” came the voice of George Warren, peremptorily. “Let those idiots, Tom and Bob, amuse themselves till they get tired, if they think it’s funny. We are not going to get up to-night, and that’s all there is about it. Say, you fellows go on now, and let us alone. We’re tired, and we are not going to get up.”
“Too dictatorial, altogether,” commented Henry Burns, softly. “Give them the full band now, good and lively.”
So saying, he seized the huge dinner-bell; Harvey took up the great fog-horn; Tom and Bob, the pot-covers and serving-tray, respectively. A hideous din, that was the combined blast of the deep horn, the clanging reverberation of the tray beaten upon by Bob’s stout fist, the bellowing of the dinner-bell and the clash of cymbals, roared and stormed through the walls of the Warren cottage, as though bedlam had broken loose. The rafters fairly groaned with it.
Down the stairway appeared a pair of bare legs. Then the form and face of young Joe came into view. He stared for a moment wildly at the occupants of the Warren easy chairs, and the next moment let out a whoop of delight.
“Oh, hooray!” he yelled. “Come on, George. Come on, Arthur. Hurry up! Oh, my! but it’s Henry Burns.”
A small avalanche of bare feet and bare legs poured down the stairs, belonging in all to Joe, Arthur, and George Warren. Three sturdy figures, clad in their night-clothes, leaped into the room, whooping and yelling, and descended in one concerted swoop upon the luckless Henry Burns. That young gentleman went down on the floor, where he afforded a seat for two of the Warren boys, while young Joe, with pretended fury, proceeded to pummel him, good-naturedly.
The three remaining boys were quickly added to the heap, dragging the Warrens from off their fallen leader; and the turmoil and confusion that raged about the Warren sitting-room for a moment might have meant the wreck and ruin of a city home, adorned with bric-à-brac, but resulted in no more serious damage than a collection of bruises on the shins and elbows of the participants.
Out