The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat Part 18

Again the lash fell.

"Please don't!" begged Will, trying to break loose. But the angry farmer held him in too firm a grip.

"Look here!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey with flas.h.i.+ng eyes. "I believe that boy is telling the truth!"

"Wa'al, I don't," snapped the mean farmer. "An' I'm goin' to give him a good lesson."

"Not that way, Mr. Hardee!" cried Mr. Bobbsey, taking a step forward.

"Huh! You seem to know my name," said the farmer, stopping in his beating of the boy, "but I don't know you."

"My name is Bobbsey," said the twins' lather, and the farmer started.

"I'm in the lumber business over at Lakeport. I guess you bought some lumber of me, didn't you, for your house."

"Wa'al, s'posin' I did?" asked Mr. Hardee. "I paid you for it, didn't I?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Wa'al, then that don't give you no right to interfere with me! This is my hired boy, an' I can do as I please with him."

"Oh, no, you can't, Mr. Hardee!" said Mr. Bobbsey quickly.

"What's that? I can't? Wa'al, I'll show you! Stand back now, I'm goin'

to give him a good thres.h.i.+n'!"

Again he raised the whip, but it did not fall on poor, timid, shrinking Will. For Mr. Bobbsey s.n.a.t.c.hed it away from the angry farmer's hand and flung it far to one side.

"Here! What'd you mean by that?" demanded Mr. Hardee, his face more flushed than ever with anger.

"I mean you're not going to beat that boy!" replied the twins' father.

"He hasn't done anything to deserve it, and I'm not going to stand by and see him abused. Is he your hired boy?"

"I took him out of the poorhouse--n.o.body would hire him. He's bound out to me until he's of age, an' I can do as I please with him."

"Oh, no, you can't," said Mr. Bobbsey. "I happen to know something of the law. You have no right to beat this boy, and if you try to do it now, or again, and I hear of it, I'll make a complaint against you.

Don't you strike him again, especially when he hasn't done anything."

Mr. Hardee seemed so surprised that he did not know what to say. His grip on Will's arm slipped off, and Will quickly stepped to one side.

There were tears in his eyes, and on his face.

"I believe this boy was telling the truth," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Even if he did fish a little during the time you call yours, that would be no excuse for using a horsewhip on him."

"I tell you he's bound out to me, and I can do as I please with him!"

cried Mr. Hardee.

"No, you can't," said Mr. Bobbsey. "You have no right to be cruel, even if he is a poor boy, and is bound out to you. Haven't you any folks, Will?" he asked.

"No--no, sir," was the half-sobbed answer. "No near folks. I come from th' poorhouse, just as he says. But I've got an uncle somewhere out west. He's a miner. If he knew where I was, he'd look after me."

"Where is your uncle?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"I--I got his address, but I can't write very good, or I'd send him a letter."

"Let me have his address," went on Mr. Bobbsey. "And I'll see what I can do."

"Look here!" cried the farmer. "I won't have you interferin' in my business! You ain't got a right to!"

"Every one has a right to stop a poor boy from being unjustly beaten,"

said the twins' father. "Will, you get me that address. I'll be here a day or so, in my houseboat, and you can bring it down to me. Do you think you can find it, and let me know where your uncle lives?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then do it."

"Now you look-a-here!" began Mr. Hardee, "I won't have you, nor anybody else, interferin' with my hired help. I---"

"I'm not interfering except to stop you from horsewhipping a boy,"

said Mr. Bobbsey. "Any one has a right to do that."

"Humph!" was all the farmer said, as he over and picked up the horsewhip Mr. Bobbsey had taken from him. The twins' father thought perhaps the farmer was going to use it again, but he did not. Mr.

Hardee turned to Will and said:

"Get along up to the house, and eat your supper! There's lots o' work to be done afore dark. An' if I catch you fis.h.i.+n' any more, I'll make you---"

"But I wasn't fis.h.i.+n' except at the noon hour," the boy interrupted.

"That's enough of your talk!" the farmer cried as he walked toward the barn. "Go on!"

Mr. Bobbsey went back to the houseboat.

"It's all right," he said cheerfully to his wife and children. "I made him stop hurting Will."

"Did he--did he hit him very hard?" asked Freddie, for punishment of that sort was totally unknown in the Bobbsey home. Of course the children did not always do right, but they were punished by having some pleasure taken away from them, and never whipped.

"No, Will wasn't much hurt," said Mr. Bobbsey, for he did not want his children, or their cousins, to worry too much over what they had seen.

Yet Mr. Bobbsey could not help but think that the cruel lash must have hurt Will more than the boy himself showed.

"He--he won't whip him any more, will he?" asked little Flossie.

"No, not any more," said Mr. Bobbsey, for he had made up his mind he would, if necessary, take the boy away from the mean farmer before any more whipping could be done.

"Suppah am ready!" called Dinah from the kitchen. "An' I done wants yo' all t' come right away fo' it gits cold!"

"We're coming!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "And after supper we'll sit on deck and sing songs."

She wanted to do something to take out of the minds of the children the memory of the unpleasant scene they had just observed.

"I wish it would hurry up and come morning," said Bert.