THE BOY IN THE GRAY CANOE

He frequently wondered afterwards how he ever reached the capsized canoe, why his own craft didn’t turn over and drop him into the water, as it threatened to do fifty times during that race! A special Providence must have watched over him, for he took some wild chances, quite forgetting his former nervousness and all he knew of the eccentricities of canoes. Often he got off his course, and doubtless he wasted much effort in the course of his unskilled exertions, but he reached his goal in short time nevertheless. As he drew near he discovered to his surprise that the overturned craft had not held Tom and Joe Kirkham, that, in fact, but one youth clung to the keel and that he was a total stranger.

“Much obliged,” called the latter as the yellow canoe swept alongside. “Think you can tow me and the canoe too?” The shipwrecked mariner seemed vastly unconcerned and Jerry felt that the bottom of the situation had sort of fallen out, so to speak; that what had had the appearance of a gallant rescue had dwindled flatly to a merely casual act of courtesy! He stopped paddling as his craft threatened to stave in the other and backed water, suddenly again very conscious of the uncertainties of canoeing.

“I reckon so,” he answered. “You ain’t a North Bank feller, are you?”

“No.” Jerry thought the brief disclaimer sounded a bit emphatic, so emphatic as to be almost discourteous. “No, I live over there in the house with the red roof.” The boy in the water nodded a dripping head toward the south bank of the river where a frame bungalow peered from behind a screen of trees. “My name’s Ingraham. You’re one of the school fellows, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Jerry agreed. “Can you get in here without upsetting us?”

“I could, but I’m not going to. The bow’s too high out and I weigh about a ton with all these wet clothes. Generally I just wear my bathing suit, but to-day I didn’t. Wait until I find the sheet and I’ll hold it and you can paddle across to shore. I reckon the pesky thing’ll tow all right after we get started.”

He suddenly disappeared from sight, rather to Jerry’s surprise, and was gone a long moment. When he reappeared, sputtering, he had the end of a small rope in one hand, and with it he swam around to the stern of the yellow canoe. “All right,” he panted, taking hold of the gunwale. “Start her easy. She’ll pull hard at first.”

“Reckon you can hold on there till I get to the shore?” asked Jerry doubtfully.

“Sure. Don’t you worry about me. You’ll have all you can do to paddle.”

Jerry found that that was true enough, especially at first, for the overturned canoe, with its unfurled sail thrusting down into the water, was a dead weight astern. Jerry saw Ingraham’s fingers whiten on the edge of the canoe as the pull came and heard a protesting grunt from that youth. But he held on, and just when it seemed that Jerry’s thrusts of the paddle were to yield no result, and just when the strain on the arms of the boy in the water had become intolerable, the craft behind moved sluggishly forward. After that progress was not so difficult and the strange tow headed toward a narrow sandy beach on the shadowed side of the stream. After a minute Ingraham spoke again.

“Say, if you’ll paddle on one side you’ll get along faster,” he remarked critically. “You’re digging me in the ribs every time you shift over here.”

“Got to keep her running straight,” answered Jerry briefly.

“Oh! Don’t you know how to paddle?”

“Not much.”

“You’d better keep out of canoes, then, I’d say!”

“I’m surely going to after this. Reckon a canoe’s a good thing to keep away from if you don’t know how to paddle it or sail it!”

“That a crack at me? Well, I know how to sail a canoe all right. Trouble was I lost the sheet and leaned out for it and the crazy thing turned right over. But I surely wouldn’t be messing around this river in one of them if I couldn’t paddle.”

“Reckon it was sort of lucky for you I was messing around, though,” returned Jerry quietly.

“How’s that?”

“Well, you was needing help, I’d say, about the time I arrove!”

“Oh, shucks, I was all right. I’d have drifted to shore after a while. Why, I’ve been spilled out a dozen times around here! Last time was down off the Academy and a couple of sailors from the _Reina Mercedes_ picked me up. Canoes are mighty cranky things. Of course, I don’t mean that I’d have preferred to stay in the water, because it might have been a couple of hours before I got ashore, and I’m much obliged to you, but there wasn’t any danger.”

“You’re welcome,” said Jerry dryly. “You live yonder?”

“Yes. We’ve been there all summer. I’m dying to get back home, but my folks want to stay until November some time.”

“Don’t you have to go to school?”

“I reckon I’ve had all the schooling I’m likely to get,” chuckled the other. “Mother’s sort of an invalid and we travel around a good deal and so there isn’t much chance. I went to a school in Florida part of last winter. Didn’t learn anything, though. Mother wanted me to go over yonder to your school this fall while we were here, but going to a place for a little while that way doesn’t get you anything, and that’s what I told her. You don’t need to go much closer. I can wade in from here.”

Jerry, however, kept on until the yellow canoe nosed up on the sand. Then: “If you’ll pull her up a little I’ll get out and help you turn your canoe over.”

“Oh, rot! Let her stay. I’ll get our darkey to help me to-morrow. Say, what’s your name?”

“Benson. I’d be pleased to help you if you’d like I should.”

“No, let the old thing stay as it is. I’ll tie this rope so she can’t get away. Well, much obliged to you, Benson. I say, come along up to the house and meet my folks. I’ll make out you saved my life and you’ll have a swell time, Benson.”

Ingraham grinned mockingly. Jerry had his first real look at him then as he stepped out on the little white beach, and he wasn’t altogether favorably impressed with what he saw. Ingraham was fairly tall and well filled out, but he didn’t appear very healthy, in spite of his tanned skin. Jerry guessed that the muscles beneath it were rather flabby. He had rather nice eyes that were almost as dark as his black hair, but his expression was somewhat arrogant and his smile seemed to hold a sneer. In age he might have been fifteen or sixteen; surely no older.

Jerry shook his head in response to the invitation. “Much obliged,” he answered, “but I’ve got to be getting back. Reckon it’s right late. If I was you I’d get into some dry clothes. You might catch cold standing around like that.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’m used to getting soaked. Well, thanks for pulling me ashore, Benson. See you again some time, maybe.”

“Likely so,” replied Jerry, doubting it nevertheless. “Evening.”

He pushed the yellow canoe off and turned it unskillfully, quite certain that Ingraham was viewing his efforts with that disdainful smile of his, and then set off across the river. Once, when he had paddled some distance, he looked back. From where he was the green-and-red bungalow high up on the bluff showed plainly in the slanting sunlight and he thought that a figure on the veranda waved to him. But he wasn’t certain, and as waving back would be skittish business he went on again. The river was empty now above the distant bridge, a broad ribbon of amber flecked with gold and bordered along the shadowed margin with steely gray. Ahead, the old brick Hall glowed mellowly in the sunlight and the squat yet graceful cupola was poised whitely against the clear sky. A single skiff was nosing to the float, but long before Jerry arrived it had been housed and its occupants had gone up the hill. He brought the yellow canoe alongside in quite a shipshape style and laid his paddle on the float. Then, very circumspectly, he crawled out.

Now, getting a canoe out of the water unassisted is no simple matter, as Jerry speedily determined. Had he lifted the bow over the edge of the float and then pulled the craft forward and out by gunwale or thwarts he would have done well enough, although such treatment isn’t especially beneficial to varnish. Instead of that method, however, he elected to lift it up bodily by the middle thwart. Leaning over the edge of the float, he took a firm grip and heaved. A wet canoe weighs more than Jerry calculated it would. It came up perhaps a foot, but then it went down again, and Jerry went with it. His feet slipped out behind him on the wet planks and he plunged forward, his head and shoulders disappearing into the canoe. The canoe rolled frantically and sidled away from the float, and Jerry accompanied it. Then it rolled the other way and Jerry was dumped unceremoniously into the river!

He found himself standing upright between float and canoe in some four feet of water, clutching very desperately at the former. He felt exceedingly surprised and extremely ridiculous for a moment. Then relief at the discovery that he was in no danger of drowning and amusement at the escapade took possession of him and, pulling the obstreperous canoe with him, he climbed out on the float, dripping and chuckling. To have braved the perils of deep water for nearly an hour, and dashed headlong to the rescue of Ingraham without misadventure, only to be shipwrecked on dry land, in a way of speaking, struck him as very, very funny, and he had his laugh out before he made a new study of the situation and pulled the canoe out bow-first and at length stowed it safely away in its place.

Of course luck would have it that Tom was awaiting him in Number 7 when he got there. Jerry gave a strictly truthful account of his ducking, but he omitted all mention of the incident of the capsized canoe. Tom enjoyed a fine laugh, and then quickly sobering, demanded: “Look here, Jeremiah! Didn’t you tell me once you couldn’t swim much?” Jerry nodded sheepishly.

“I thought you did! Are you plumb crazy? You keep away from canoes and boats till you learn how. You hear me? Suppose you’d turned over out there in the middle! Why, you’d have drowned!”

“Reckon I might have clung on to the canoe till some one came and got me,” ventured Jerry mildly.

Tom snorted contemptuously. “You’d have gone straight down, you silly chump, and when you came up the canoe would have been yards away from you. Besides, it’s no easy matter to hold on to an overturned canoe, let me tell you. If you’d ever tried it you’d know.”

“I’ve seen it done,” said Jerry.