"I don't s'pose you have any doughnuts left, Susan?" he ventured rather wistfully.

Now Susan had not forgiven Bob for a little joke he had played on her some time before, so at his hint, to show her displeasure, she turned her back and did not answer. This was just what Bob wanted.

Looking up to see that Dent was not observing him, he pa.s.sed one end of the string about the step-ladder. Tying it securely, he fastened the other end to Susan's ap.r.o.n strings in such a manner that it would not pull off.

"I'll wait for you out in the barn," he said to Dent when it became evident that Susan was not going to take the hint and get the doughnuts. In fact, Bob, much as he liked them, would have been disappointed if she had gone in for some. He wanted to get out of the way before a certain thing happened.

He strolled off, but instead of going to the barn he hid around the corner of the house. Susan and Dent conversed for several minutes longer, the man meanwhile busy at the windows. Then the cook, hearing her mistress calling her, started for the house in a hurry.

The result was disastrous. As she started off the string tied to the ladder and her ap.r.o.n tightened. As Susan was a woman of heavy weight, it did not take much effort on her part to pull over the ladder, together with Dent and the pail of water.

Dent came down to the ground, fortunately landing on his feet like a cat. The pail of water described a graceful curve and splashed on both Susan and the man. The cook, whose feet became tangled up in the falling ladder, slipped and fell, knocking Dent down, and there they were in a heap, both soaking wet.

And that was Bob's "joke." Hidden around the corner of the house, he laughed so he almost betrayed his position.

"Oh, that's too funny!" he whispered. "It was like clowns in a circus!"

CHAPTER X

OFF ON THE TRIP

For a few seconds both the cook and the hired man, whose feet Susan had knocked from under him, did not move. The suddenness of it all was too much for them. Then Dent arose after a struggle.

"Did you do that on purpose?" he asked Susan, an angry look coming over his face.

"Do what on purpose? What do you mean?"

"Did you upset my ladder?"

"Upset your ladder? Well, I guess not! But I'd like to know why you tried to throw that pail of water over me. If it was meant for a joke, I think it was a pretty poor one."

The woman started to arise, but found herself somewhat tangled up in the cord and ladder.

"Throw water on you?" repeated Dent with a puzzled look. "I didn't throw any water. It got on me as much as it did on you."

This was as near to a quarrel as these two had ever approached.

Bob, listening around the corner of the house, was holding his sides to keep from bursting into laughter, though my own opinion is that he should have felt sorry for his "joke." It might have resulted disastrously, for either Susan or the hired man might have broken a leg or an arm. But Bob never thought of that. His sole idea was to create a laugh for himself.

Dent and Susan, dripping wet, looked at each other. Then the cook, wiping some of the water from her face, got up. As she did so the cord tied to her ap.r.o.n strings became tightened, and as Dent was partly standing on the step-ladder, Susan's progress was suddenly stopped.

"There!" she exclaimed, "That's what did it. My ap.r.o.n string got tangled in the ladder."

Dent examined the cord.

"No, it didn't get tangled," he announced. "It was tied there by some one, and I know who did it."

"Who?"

"Bob Henderson. Wait till I catch him! He did this for a joke.

The young rascal! pretending he wanted some rheumatism medicine for his father! I'll fix him!"

Bob thought it was time to be moving on. He did not like the tone of Dent's voice.

But if the boy hoped to get off unseen he was disappointed. As he started to run he slipped and fell. Dent heard the noise the lad made, and while Susan was loosening the cord from her ap.r.o.n the man ran forward.

Bob, however, was up like a flash and ran off, but not before Dent had nearly caught him. Then the hired man knew it would be of no use to chase the mischievous lad, as Bob was very fleet of foot.

"You wait!" cried Dent, shaking his fist at Bob. "I'll fix you!"

"You can't!" was the answer. "I'm going on a voyage!"

"I hope you never come back here!" said Dent angrily. "I hope you get lost on a desert island where there's nothing to eat but seaweed!"

"That would serve him right," added the cook "The idea of hinting for some of my doughnuts! I'll tell his mother on him."

"And I'll tell his father," added Dent.

Bob was a little afraid lest Mrs. Dodson might come out, and seeing the state her employees were in, would know the lad had had a hand in it. The effects might be more unpleasant than they now promised to be. So Bob hastened his pace, and was soon out of sight of the big house on the hill. He left behind him two very angry persons, yet when they glanced at each other neither Susan nor Dent could help laughing. They looked as if they had been through a cyclone and cloud-burst, both at the same time, as the hired man expressed it.

Bob's father did hear of the trick, but not in the way the lad expected he would. On cooling down neither the hired man nor the cook felt like going and making a complaint about what Bob had done. The trick, however, had been witnessed by the coachman, and he told some friends in the village. In this way it became known to several persons, and Mr. Henderson heard of it.

"Bob," he said to his son very sternly that night, "I thought you had given up such foolishness as playing those tricks."

"I thought I had, too, dad, but I couldn't help doing this. Her ap.r.o.n strings came just in the right place."

"Do you think it was a nice thing to do?"

"No, sir. I s'pose not."

Mr. Henderson sighed. Bob was so frank to acknowledge a fault that it was hard to punish him.

"I don't know what's going to become of you," he said.

"Well, that was my last land joke, dad."

"Your last land joke? What do you mean?"

"I'm going to sail with Captain Spark soon, and I'll not have time for any more."

"That's so, and I'm glad of it. If you try any jokes on the sailors you may find they know a trick or two themselves."

"Oh, I'm going to turn over a new leaf."

"It's about time."

Bob really intended to mend his ways. This, perhaps, was due as much to a fear of what the sailors on the ship might do to him if he played any pranks on them as it was to a desire to reform.