"I hain't so sure," replied the mariner doubtfully. "This yere river bottom changes every day. I hain't took the _Nancy Jane_ to Elgin's Grove in two year. I dunno as I knows where the old channel has gone. I guess I plum forgot."

"Couldn't we get some one who knows the river?" Virginia failed to reckon with the pride of seafaring men.

"There hain't no man knows the Lame Moose like I knows her," protested Mr. Quince greatly offended. "I allers was the pilot of the _Nancy Jane_ and I still aims so to be."

Virginia smiled sweetly at the hurt riverman. "Please take us up in your boat. It will be so much fun."

Mr. Quince surrendered. "I'll take the old boat to the grove if I have to wait for the spring freshets to do it."

"It won't be dangerous, will it?" cried Virginia, disturbed by the vigor of the mariner's remarks. "The boat won't sink, will it?"

"That wouldn't make no odds, nohow," Mr. Quince rea.s.sured her. "That bottom of the Lame Moose is so near the top you wouldn't know no difference."

It was finally agreed that the _Nancy Jane_ should await the arrival of its pa.s.sengers at a convenient place below the highway bridge at the hour of ten on the next morning. But, before they left, Mr. Quince, after inspecting the cars upon nearby switch tracks, announced, "I don't seem to have no coal a layin' around handy, so I better have five bucks on account in case I have to buy some."

CHAPTER XIV

AN OUTING AND AN ACCIDENT

The heat wave had not broken in the morning. At eight o'clock South Ridgefield sweltered beneath a rising temperature with no promise of relief.

"The poor babies!" thought Virginia. "It is hotter than ever; but the picnic will help them." She remembered how warm it had been at the hospital on the previous day and fell to thinking of Joe Curtis, and her eyes grew soft and dreamy as she wished that he was going on the river trip.

The high temperature had caused Obadiah to spend a restless night and he was peevish and irritable when Virginia told him of the plans for the day. "You should not have mixed up in such matters without consulting me," he snapped. "It is indiscreet and may lead to your embarra.s.sment.

That hole up the river used to have a most unsavory reputation." He paused as if seeking for other objections, and then went on. "You might get a sun stroke."

In a moment she had her arms about his neck and kissed him. "There it is, Daddy. Thinking of me as usual."

"How can I help--," he grumbled.

She gave a joyous laugh and interrupted him. "I knew that you would want to help, too, Daddy. You may--allow Mr. Jones and Mr. Kelly to come to the picnic. It will be an outing which they will enjoy."

Obadiah drew away from her caresses. "Don't interfere with my office,"

he snarled. "I was greatly embarra.s.sed when I returned on the afternoon of the concert and found no one there. I spoke to them both about it."

Virginia flushed with feeling. "Did they tell you that I asked them to come?" she demanded, and when his face admitted it, she continued, "Regardless of the permission you gave me in this very room to ask any one I wished to the concert, you criticised me, Daddy, to your employees.

If you objected to my actions, why didn't you come to me?"

The unwonted stand of his daughter made Obadiah ill at ease. He flushed angrily and then regained control of himself. "There, there, don't get excited. I didn't say much--a mere nothing." He drew her towards him but she held her head stiffly, looking straight ahead. He kissed her cheek and whispered, "Don't be cross, dear. Of course Kelly and Jones may go to your picnic, if you want them."

She turned to him. The look of injury was gone. "I was cross, Daddy.

I did wrong, and I beg your pardon." She raised her lips for him to kiss and gave a little laugh in which there were memories of sadness.

That morning there was unusual activity on the South Ridgefield river front. The peace of Hog Creek was disturbed by the clang of shovels, the ring of slice bars, and the hissing of steam. Billowy clouds of smoke curling from the funnel of the _Nancy Jane_ mixed with the river mist and gave variety to the smells emanating from the slaughter houses on the further sh.o.r.e.

As the sun dissipated the fog, the _Nancy Jane_ left her anchorage, and, with much puffing and squeaking, breasted the sluggish current of the Lame Moose River. To the youth of the town, the reappearance of the craft was a matter of supreme interest, and, grouped along the bank, they gave voice to their pleasure in cheers. So, it is painted, the rural New Yorkers greeted the maiden voyage of the _Clermont_.

The _Nancy Jane_ hove to and made fast at her appointed tryst with the babies. Thereafter, Mr. Quince, bearing the pole with the iron hook as arms, acted as a landing party, and dispersed groups of youth who displayed a disposition to visit the ship without invitation.

Dr. Jackson came aboard at an early hour, and caused a truck load of cots to be arranged in two long rows down the center of the deck. Upon these he prepared comfortable beds of blankets.

Mr. Quince viewed these activities in the light of his personal experiences. "I have seen 'em dance and sing and fight on the _Nancy Jane_ but I hain't never seen n.o.body sleep much, leastwise, if they was sober." Suspicion entered his mind regarding the intentions of the physician. "You hain't a thinkin' of pullin' off no booze party in these prohibition times, air yer?" he demanded. "I don't want no law on me. I'm a respectable man and I runs a respectable boat."

The distrust cast upon his efforts to relieve suffering disgusted the doctor. "You attend to your business and I'll attend to mine. You can kick when I start something wrong," he protested.

"All right, old hoss, I have warned yer. There's a cop on the bridge a watching yer, now." Mr. Quince pointed to where a policeman leaned lazily over the bridge rail and inspected the _Nancy Jane_ with the mild curiosity aroused by its re-advent upon the river.

The absurd suggestion of the riverman irritated the doctor to redoubled energy. Jumping on the bank, he seized a carboy of lime water which he wrapped in a blanket and brought aboard, endeavoring to protect it from the sun's rays by concealing it beneath a cot.

Mr. Quince's worst suspicions were confirmed. He called to his follower.

"Sim, come here!"

The lad approached. He was coolly attired in a worn shirt, overalls and a broken straw hat.

"Sim, be my witness." The manner of Mr. Quince was dignified, as befitted one taking part in a legal ceremonial. He turned towards the busy medical man, a law-abiding citizen virtuously facing one of criminal desires. "I hereby warns yer agin' putting any licker on this yere boat," he cried in a stern voice.

"Oh, shut up," shouted the aggravated Doctor. "Don't be a fool."

"You heard him and you heard me, Sim. Now I got the goods on that feller if we git pinched," and, with an effort to engrave the matter upon the mind of his follower, the riverman concluded in the accepted tone of Hamlet's ghost, "Remember."

"Ayah," responded the indifferent Sim.

The arrival of members of the picnic party prevented further discussion of this matter.

Down the steps from the bridge they came, a sisterhood of the tired, the worried, the anxious. The cruel strokes of labor and poverty were relentlessly erasing the softness of youth. The bearing of children and unceasing toil had destroyed their figures, and already the weariness of age was creeping into their movements.

Yet this was no gathering of the sorrowing. Upon each breast rested, in gentle embrace, the fulfillment of womanhood. Their pledge to the perpetuation of their kind, their duty to the responsibilities and opportunities of dawning centuries. The pride of motherhood was upon worn faces as coverings were adjusted about soft cheeks and tiny eyes twinkled and fat hands made spasmodic efforts to grasp something where nothing was. Coa.r.s.e and strident voices dropped to a musical tenderness as they harked to the mysterious language of baby land.

Even as the first mothers arrived, came Virginia followed by Serena and Ike, carrying food. Mr. Vivian appeared, bringing monstrous ice cream freezers. Mrs. Henderson headed a small procession consisting of a man bringing oceans of milk and another with perfect bergs of ice.

The mothers charged upon Dr. Jackson, the familiar friend of their households, in noisy confusion. In sharp and emphatic tones, he brought order out of this feminine chaos in a manner pleasing even to that marine disciplinarian, Mr. Quince, who had watched the arrival of his pa.s.sengers with great astonishment. Two lines of kicking, struggling, emotion swept infants were stretched upon the cots, and lifted their voices in a chorus which sounded above the hiss of steam from the boiler.

Mr. Quince was an adaptable man, and, regardless of his amazement at the character of his cargo, he rose to the occasion. Boarding his ship, he inspected the rows of infants. "Wisht I'd a knowed these yere kids,"

he worried. "I mought a picked up some old trunk checks at the railroad station."

"What for, Mr. Quince?" asked Virginia.

"Some of these yere kids a lyin' around careless like is agoin' to git mixed up and start the allfiredest fight amongst these women folks.

Nothin' makes a woman madder and want to fight quicker than to lose a kid." Mr. Quince spoke in the tone of one accustomed to hailing the main top in the midst of storm, and his voice carried authoritative anxiety to the ears of every mother.

A scene of confusion ensued. The dire prophecy of the riverman caused each mother to seize her offspring and press it to her breast. The infants, having expressed acceptance of their new surroundings by falling asleep, were disturbed and made known their objections in loud wailings.

"Who stirred up those babies?" Dr. Jackson demanded, angrily.