The Knights of the White Shield Part 22

"I will," said Charlie, eagerly, who had great admiration for the apothecary, but might possibly have been moved also by great love for his candy.

"And I will," said Wort, determined not to be outdone by Charlie.

"Well, now, the club that has been broken is going to be mended, and you two will forgive and forget, wont you?"

"I will," declared Charlie, promptly.

Wort hesitated.

"Take this while you are thinking," said Will, pressing into Wort's hands an extra large piece of rose-pipe.

As he took it, Wort growled, "Sid began it."

"But will you end it if Sid is willing to make up? You wont hold out?"

"N--n--o."

"There is Sid!" said Charlie.

"Where?"

"Going along the lane, that boy with a blue cap on."

"You two stay here, and tell Aunt Stanshy, Charlie, that I'll be back soon to finish my breakfast," and away went Will, without a hat, a cake of bread in one hand and a piece of cheese in the other.

"If that fellow isn't the greatest! He would leave a funeral in just that way if the impulse took him," declared Aunt Stanshy, watching him from the window, and secretly admiring him. "What a boy! He makes lots of trouble for me, O dear!"

"Aint he funny?" asked Wort.

"Funny?" replied Aunt Stanshy, who did not intend that any one else should depreciate her idol. "Funny? of course not."

All this time Will was chasing Sid, who was heading up the lane and was about entering Water Street. Sid was in a hurry, and unaware that he was wanted by any one in the lane, had broken into a run; but Will had run to so many fires that he was equal to this emergency and overtook Sid, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"What do you want?" asked Sid. "I want to catch that man ahead there and borrow his clam-digger."

"Come back to the house with me a little while."

Any of the club boys would do any thing for Will, and Sid turned.

"Good-morning, Mr. Somers."

Will turned his head, so covered with wilfully curly hair. In his hand were the bread and cheese still. He blushed as he said, "Good-morning, Miss Barry."

"Whew," he said to himself, "the teacher has caught me now!"

Several people indeed "caught" Will Somers, in that way, that morning, and wondered what he was doing, running bare-headed. He carried his point, though, captured Sid, and led him back to the house.

"Now, Sid," exclaimed Will, on his way to Aunt Stanshy's "there has been trouble in the Up-the-Ladder Club, I learn, and I want to fix it up, and you will help me, will you not?"

"O yes," replied Sid, whose nature was not a hard and implacable one.

"Wort is at the house, and you are willing to say you are sorry you hurt him, and you want to make up and be good friends?"

"O yes."

When Will entered the house with his prize, the two met Wort face to face.

"I want these two knights to make up and be good friends again, because it is all foolish and wrong, you know, holding out against one another," said Will.

The two boys eyed one another, Sid grinning, Wort looking sulky and foolish.

"Wort," said the late princ.i.p.al of the academy, "I am sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean to do it, but I suppose I was too anxious to keep up the discipline of the school, and I got agoing, you know. Let's shake hands and be friends."

Wort hesitated.

"You ought to do that," said Will. "Shake hands, Wort," and as he spoke he carelessly but effectively waved a stick of sa.s.safras-pipe in Wort's sight. It is one of the most potent sticks that can be used for a boy's "_licking_."

"Well, I will," said Wort, "and I didn't mean to hurt you;" unwilling that Sid should be the only one thought able to inflict an injury.

"I now announce," said Will, "that soon as possible, I shall take every boy down to Sandy Beach for an afternoon's fun; that is, every knight who makes up."

This had a magical effect. All the disaffected knights followed the example of Sid and Wort, "making up" and joining the beach-party. The excursionists had a capital time on that occasion, and returned in such a frame of mind that it could be considered as settled that the club, once in splinters, was now mended.

The boys, on the subsequent Sunday, told Miss Barry that there had been a quarrel, but, added Sid, "It is all fixed now."

"I am very glad there has been a reconciliation," replied Miss Barry. "If there had been none, I should have felt that you were going down and not up the ladder. In our play we can be moving up, and reconciliation is a round in the ladder."

CHAPTER XIII.

A KNIGHT GOES TO SEA.

"And do you want to come to my launching?"

"You going to be launched?" asked Charlie.

"Not exactly," said Skipper Wentworth, Wort's father, "but my schooner is, and if you come to Raynes's s.h.i.+p-yard next Sat.u.r.day, you will see her. You can tell any of the other boys to come if they like. Wort will be there."

Charlie went down to the yard the day before the launching. The schooner seemed to be an ant-heap where all the ants were stirring, and all were on the outside, so many men were at work. The club boys were quite numerously represented through their friends. Sid's father was flouris.h.i.+ng a paint-brush high up on a staging. Pip's father and also Juggie's cousin were swinging their hammers about the cook's quarters Pip's grandfather, a blacksmith, was inspecting some of the iron-work of the vessel. A tall cousin of the governor was driving oxen. The clanking chains of the oxen hauling timber for the building of another vessel, the pounding of hammers, the shouts of the bosses ordering the workmen, made a lively compound of sound. The next Sat.u.r.day, every thing was ready for the launching.

With eager eyes Charlie noticed all the movements of the workmen. He saw them drive the wedges under the schooner, and heard blow on blow as the wedges went in farther and farther. He saw them knock away the props holding the schooner in place, and along the ways, or planed timbers, well greased for the schooner's ride, he watched the vessel slowly then swiftly moving. Down, down she went, lower and lower, so deep into the waiting arms of the blue river, that the waters threatened to go over her, and then up she came gracefully, bringing a bridal-veil of snowy foam with her, and exciting the admiration of all the spectators, who vented their feelings in an uproarious "Hurrah!" One of the fortunate party that had permission to be in the vessel at its launching was Wort Wentworth, the skipper's boy.

"I must see every thing that there is," thought the inquisitive boy, and he turned, finally, into the state-room which the skipper himself expected to occupy as his quarters in the cabin. "Nice place," he said, climbing into his father's berth, and there curling up into one corner.

The day had been an exciting one, and yet tiresome, and Wort's next movement was to gape.