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Though they were only schooners carrying cement, I wanted to sit in the sun on the string-piece of a wharf and watch them. I wanted to beat about the harbor in a catboat, and feel the tug and pull of the tiller. Kinney protested that that was no way to spend a vacation or to invite adventure. His face was set against Fairport.
By the time the dazed constable was able to sit up and peer owlishly into the unloving faces of the Mistress and the Master, Lad had shaken himself thrice and was pattering across the dock toward the group. From the two humans, Wefers' gaze shifted to the oncoming dog. Then he glanced back at the sullen depths of lake water beyond the string-piece. Then he let his head sink on his chest.
For there was no craft tied to the string-piece, where he had fastened his motor-boat. He looked again, rubbed his eyes to make sure and then cried out: "The ARROW is gone!" There was no doubt of it. The craft was not at the dock. Breaking into a run, Tom hastened to the boathouse. The ARROW was not in there, and a look across the lake showed only a few rowboats in sight.
I move, therefore, that Solomon be laid on the table, and that the privileges of the ah of the wharf be extended indefinitely to our friend on the string-piece." The motion, having been seconded, was duly carried, and the stranger resumed.
Soon pea-pod and dory were being loaded beside the wharf. The young Italian had come to the string-piece, and was watching the embarkation. Jim saw that tears were trickling down his cheeks. "What's the matter?" he asked. The boy turned away, his breast heaving. Jim tossed the painter to Lane. "Look out for the boat a minute, Budge! I want to find what the trouble is with that young fellow."
A "gang" of rude young men toughs walked up and down, teasing the girls, wrestling, scuffling, and roaring out bad language. Troops of children played at leap-frog, high-spy, jack-stones, bean-bag, hop-scotch, and tag. At the far end of the pier some young men and women waltzed, while a lad on the string-piece played for them on his mouth-organ.
Babcock pushed open the door in the fence and stepped in. A loaded scow lay close beside the string-piece of the government wharf. Alongside its forward hatch was rigged a derrick with a swinging gaff. The "fall" led through a snatch-block in the planking of the dock, and operated an iron bucket that was hoisted by a big gray horse driven by a boy.
He paused but an instant on the string-piece, and then, cheered on by the amused crowd, he made a flying leap across the intervening stretch of water and landed safely on the deck. A fat man happened to be standing on the exact spot on which he struck, and they both went down with a resounding crash. When the arriving man had somewhat recovered his breath he apologized to the fat man.
In the same aimless and unwitting fashion, he found himself, an hour later, sitting on the string-piece of the Oakland city wharf and leaning his aching head against a friendly timber. From where he sat he could look down upon the decks of a number of small sailing-craft. Quite a crowd of curious idlers had collected to look at them, and Joe found himself growing interested.
Johnson's point is well taken," said a stranger who had been sitting upon the string-piece of the pier, quietly, but with very evident interest, listening to the discussion. He was a tall and excessively slender shade, "like a spirt of steam out of a teapot," as Johnson put it afterwards, so slight he seemed.
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