Darry the Life Saver Part 18

"Then you will not do Mrs. Peake this little favor, sir?" he asked.

"Business is business with me, young man. Sometimes it is one person's day, and then the tables turn, and it is another's. This happens to be my time. According to the strict construction of the law, and the wording of the mortgage, the failure to pay the interest on time, with three days' grace, const.i.tutes a lien on the property. I have a use for that cottage--in fact, a relative of mine fancies it. Here, I will give Nancy a chance to redeem her home. Wait a minute or two."

He wrote rapidly on a sheet of paper, signed the same, and held it out.

"Seven days I agree to wait, and if the princ.i.p.al and delayed interest are not handed over to me by next Tuesday, just one week from to-day, on Wednesday they will have to vacate. That will do, boy. Tell Nancy I only do that because of our old friendship. Had it been anyone else they would have cleared out before this. You can go now."

Darry had to bite his lips harder than ever to keep from telling the skinflint just what he thought of him.

Thrusting the paper in his pocket he stalked from the den of the human spider, his mind in a whirl; but grimly determined to try and find some means for saving the humble home of Abner Peake from the hand of the spoiler.

CHAPTER XVII

ABNER TELLS A LITTLE HISTORY

As he walked home that evening Darry was figuring. Fourteen dollars was not going far when the sum required, according to the figures Mr.

Quarles had written out, reached the grand total of a hundred and eleven dollars and thirty-seven cents.

He had had much more than that on board the poor old _Falcon_ when she went to pieces, the amount of his savings for several years; but there was no use of his thinking about that.

To whom could he look for a.s.sistance?

He had not a friend, save new ones in the village; and even Mr. Keeler would be apt to decline to lend him money. Times were hard, collections very slow--he had heard this said many times of late--and to small merchants the sum of a hundred dollars means much.

Darry thought it best not to say anything just then to Mrs. Peake, though a little later he must tell her about his visit to the money lender, and deliver the message Mr. Quarles had sent to her.

He was due to cross the sound on the morrow, and perhaps it would be best to tell Abner first; he might have been making some arrangement to get someone else to a.s.sume the mortgage, and pay the lawyer off.

So Darry tried to a.s.sume a cheerfulness he was far from feeling.

Long he lay awake that night, thinking and trying to lay out some plan of action that might promise results.

In the morning Darry visited his traps.

Only one victim rewarded his labor, and this added to his gloom.

He finished all his various ch.o.r.es, and they were many, for he had taken numerous duties upon his shoulders in order to spare Abner's wife.

As before, it was nearly the middle of the afternoon before he could get away.

Mr. Keeler loaded him down with packages intended for the station-keeper; indeed Darry had to make two trips between the store and his boat before he had all his cargo aboard.

The weather was what a sailor would call "dirty"; that is, it gave promise of turning into more or less of a storm, and wise mariners would be keeping a weather eye out for a safe and snug harbor.

Darry had no fear. He believed he knew that bay like a book now, and since he had tinkered with the boat and placed it in fair condition he thought it could stand any sea that might meet him in his pa.s.sage to and fro between the mainland and the stretch of sand acting as a buffer to the ocean tides.

It was a dead calm when he started, and he was compelled to use the oars; but by the time he reached the middle a breeze sprang up, and quick to take advantage of his opportunity he spread his bit of a sail, and went flying along like a frightened gull.

Abner was always glad to see him, and taking advantage of the first chance to get the life saver alone, Darry told of his recent experience with the loan shark.

The other looked very downcast; indeed, Darry could not remember having ever seen him appear so disheartened.

"It means trouble for the poor ole woman, Darry. If I kin only muster up enough courage to ask some o' the folks to help me out p'raps we kin pull through; but the best o' friends pull back wen money is spoken of.

They all got ther own burdens to kerry. I know I war a fool to ever do it; but Jenny got on my nerves yuh see, an' promised to give it back.

An' thet shark, Quarles, it does him a lot o' good to know he kin push me down a peg," he said, with a heavy sigh.

"I seemed to get the notion that he didn't love you very much, Mr.

Peake," remarked Darry.

"I thort he'd forgot all about it, but now I know he ain't, the skunk!

He holds it agin me, and hes all these years. I reckon he jest hugged hisself wen I kim to him an' asked that loan. It war jest like playin'

into his hands. Yuh see, lad, him an' me was rivals onct on a time."

Darry p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

Here was a touch of romance, something one would hardly expect to find in connection with so ordinary looking a man as Abner Peake.

"You mean that he wanted Nancy--that is Mrs. Peake, to marry him?" he asked.

"Thet's jest it, son. I reckon he'd a got her, too, fur I didn't hold a candle to Darius wen it kim to looks or larnin', but yuh see thet's whar chanct stepped in an' guv me a shove."

"Something happened then?"

"Nancy fell overboard off a boat we was all on. Darius, he didn't know how to swim and all he could do was to yell and wave his arms."

"And you went overboard after her?"

"I reckon I did. They sed as how I was in the water nigh about as quick as Nancy herself. She was a carryin' on high, like she was chokin', when I got to her, but I had her out in a jiffy. Arter thet she kinder took to me, an' Darius he got the mitten."

"Now I understand why he feels that way toward you," said Darry, wisely.

"They was some things I never did understand 'bout that thing. Nancy, she was allers the best gal swimmer in the village, but she did act like she was drownin' that day. Some sed as how they thort she tumbled over apurpose jest to hev some fun, an' see which o' her beaux'd drap in arter her the quickest," and the surfman smiled at the thought.

"And you won out. I guess Mr. Quarles has never forgiven you for that.

But what can be done to beat him at his game now? Isn't there any way?"

"We got a week to try, an' as I git off before the end o' the time I'll see if anything kin be did. P'rhaps Keeler might help me out, though I did hear him say he was mighty hard up jest now. It was nice in yuh tryin' to do wot yuh did, boy. I knowed I wasn't makin' no mistake when I sized yuh up as the right sorter lad to take leetle Joey's place."

The life saver put an arm affectionately across the shoulders of his companion, and Darry never felt prouder in his life than when he realized that he had "made good" with this simple surfman who had been so kind to him at their first meeting.

"I only wish I had been able to do what I wanted to. It it had been any other man but Mr. Quarles I think he would have fixed it up, and I meant to put aside what I earned this winter, either from trapping or working for Mr. Singleton, to wipe out all that debt. I will yet, if I have the chance, and you can get somebody to take over the mortgage," he said, stoutly.

"Give me time to think, lad. Wen yuh kim acrost another time p'raps I'll have some plan made up. I'd do nigh anything to save pore Nancy bein'

put outen our leetle home. 'Taint much to look at, but she sets a heap by it, I reckon. And as soon as I git a chanct I mean to drop outen this business an' try to make a livin' another way, so I kin be home more.