The Voyage of the Hoppergrass | Page 8

for
ten days, Captain?"
"I dunno," replied the Captain, "but I guess yer wouldn't have stayed
there so long as that. There'll be six foot of water on that bar before
noon, so yer wouldn't have found the settin' quite so comfortable.
Besides, some of them sharks of yours might have et yer."
"Well, then," the young man returned, "it was lucky you came when
you did. The water was crowding me rather close. And now, what shall
I do? Will you give me a lift as far as Little Duck Island? Or if you
haven't got room enough, and I'll be in the way, why, I'll get in Mr.
Skeels' canoe again, and give you an exhibition of wabbling."
He looked dismally toward the canoe, which we now had in tow behind
the tender. We all told the castaway that we would be glad to have him
stay with us.
"Plenty of sleepin' room on board," said Captain Bannister, "an' you
said you was goin' to Big Duck, didn't yer? You stay with us, and we'll
get yer there all right, tomorrer."
"Do you know many people on Duck Island, Mr. Daddles?" asked Ed
Mason.
The young man turned around.
"Where did you get that name?" he asked.
"It's on that card on your bag."

The owner of the bag examined the label.
"I know who put that on there," he remarked to himself, "well, I ...
why ... no, I am going to the island, I suppose, to see a Mr. Kidd.
Relation of the pirate, I hope. He didn't say anything about it in his
letter. Whether he was related to Captain Kidd, I mean."
"You can find out tomorrer," said our skipper, "now we're headin' for
Pingree's Beach to see if we can get a mess of clams of old man
Haskell. Then we'll have dinner, and we can run over to the inlet at
Little Duck in an hour, any time this afternoon."
The breeze was still light, and the "Hoppergrass" made only fair
progress. Soon we were out of the river, and entering Broad Bay. The
sun was high by this time, the air cool and pleasant. Everything seemed
so clear and fresh, that it made us think the land a poor place in
comparison with the water. How hot and dusty the streets of the town
must be at this same minute! We felt sorry for the people who had to
stay there. We had only the clean white hull of the boat between us and
the sparkling water of the bay. Toward the sky the great white sail of
our boat soared up, like the wing of a giant sea gull, and we went
forward as easily and smoothly as one of the gulls who were gliding
through the air, and dipping to the water a few hundred yards ahead of
us. The grass covered river-banks were far astern now, and the only
land ahead was some low sand-dunes and beaches, hardly to be seen in
the distance.
"Here goes the chocolate," said Mr. Daddles, tossing it overboard,
"once it might have saved my life, but I don't care for it now. Chocolate
flavored with salt-water is pretty poor stuff."
Then he commenced turning over his clothes, which were spread out in
the sun on top of the cabin.
"What made yer say p'r'aps this feller named Kidd was a relation of the
pirate?" asked Captain Bannister. "You'd heard 'bout Fishback Island,
hadn't yer?"

"No, I never heard the name, even."
"What about Fishback Island, Captain?" asked Ed Mason.
"You never heard all them yarns, an' all that diggin' that went on over
there?"
"No, I never heard of it," Ed replied, "are there pirates there?"
"Of course not," said Jimmy Toppan scornfully, "there aren't any
pirates anywhere, now."
"Aren't there?" the Captain inquired. He slacked the sheet a little, and
made it fast with great deliberation. "You better not be too sure of that,
cos' I know where there's plenty of 'em."
"Around here?" I inquired.
Captain Bannister chuckled.
"No, not very near this place. In the China Sea."
"Have you ever seen any of them?"
"A whole junk full of 'em."
"What did they do?"
All four of us spoke at once. Mr. Daddles seemed to be as much
interested as the rest of us.
"Well, they tried to ketch us. But they couldn't. That was all there was
to it, then. But I see six of 'em 'bout a month later in Hong Kong."
"In Hong Kong! What were they doing there?"
"They was havin' their heads cut off, by a feller with a long sword.
Anyway, I guess they was some of the same crew that chased us in the
junk, cos' they was took by a man-of-war in 'bout