Читать книгу The Speedwell Boys and Their Ice Racer: or, Lost in the Great Blizzard - Roy Rockwood - Страница 4

Mildred Kent, the doctor’s daughter, and her closest friend, Lettie Parker, halted the Speedwells at the close of school the next day. Mildred was a very pretty girl and Dan thought she was just about right. As for the sharp-tongued Lettie, she and Billy appeared to be always quarreling – in a good-natured way.

“We want to know what’s in the wind, boys?” demanded Mildred, her pretty face framed by a tall sealskin collar and her hands in a big shawl muff.

“There’s snow in this wind,” replied Billy, chuckling, for a few sharp flakes were being driven past the quartette as they stood upon the corner.

“Aren’t you smart, Billy Speedwell!” scoffed the red-haired Lettie. “Doesn’t it pain you?”

“You bet it does!” agreed Billy, promptly. “But they tell me that you suffer a deal yourself, Miss Parker, from the same complaint.”

“Now, children! children!” admonished Mildred. “Can’t you be together at all without scrapping?”

“And what about the wind, Mildred?” asked Dan.

“You boys were all down to the Boat Club last night, I hear. What is doing?”

“Aw, don’t tell ’em, Dan!” urged Billy, as though he really meant it. “They’ll want to play the part of the Buttinsky Sisters– you know they will!”

“I like that!” gasped Lettie, clenching her little gloved fist. “Oh! I wish sometimes I was a boy, Billy Speedwell!”

“Gee, Lettie! Isn’t it lucky you’re not?” he gasped. “There’d be no living in the same town with you. I like you a whole lot better as you are – ”

Dan and Mildred laughed, but Lettie was very red in the face still, and not at all pacified, as she declared:

“I believe I’d die content if I could just trounce you once – as you should be trounced!”

“Help! help! Ath-thith-tance, pleath!” begged Billy, keeping just out of the red-haired girl’s reach. “If you ever undertook to thrash me, Lettie, I know I’d just be scared to death.”

“Come now,” urged Mildred. “You are both delaying the game. And it’s cold here on the street corner. I want to know.”

“And what do you want to know, Miss?” demanded Billy.

“Why, I can tell you what we did last evening, if that’s what you want to know, Mildred,” said Dan, easily. “There’s nothing secret about it.”

“You can’t be going to plan any boat races this time of year?” exclaimed Lettie. “The paper says we’re going to have a hard winter and the Colasha steamboat line has laid off all its hands and closed up for the season. They say the river is likely to be impassable until spring.”

“That’s all you know about it,” interposed Billy. “We just did agree to have boat races on the river last evening. Now, then! what do you think?”

“I think all the Riverdale boys are crazy,” returned Lettie, promptly.

“What does he mean, Dan?” asked Mildred.

“Poof! Boat racing! Likely story,” grumbled the red-haired girl.

“Now, isn’t that the truth, Dan?” demanded Billy, but careful to circle well around Miss Parker to put his brother and Mildred between himself and the county clerk’s daughter.

“As far as it goes,” admitted Dan, chuckling. “But he doesn’t go far enough. We did talk some about having boat races – iceboat races.”

“Oh, ho!” cried Lettie. Her eyes flashed and she began to smile again. “Iceboats, Dannie? Really?”

“But I thought they were so dangerous?” demurred Mildred, rather timidly. “Didn’t Monroe Stevens and somebody else almost get drowned yesterday morning trying out an iceboat?”

“’Deed they did,” admitted Billy. “But the river wasn’t fit.”

“And you boys got them out of the water, too!” exclaimed Lettie, suddenly. “I heard about it.”

“Somebody had to pull ’em out, so why not we?” returned Dan quickly, with perfect seriousness.

“And you boys are going to build another boat?” asked Mildred.

“A dozen, perhaps,” laughed Billy.

“We’ll build one if nothing happens to prevent – Billy and I,” said Dan. “And if the interest continues, and there are enough boats on the river to make it worth while, we’ll have a regatta bye and bye.”

“An iceboat regatta! Won’t that be novel?” cried Mildred.

But Lettie was interested in another phase of it. She demanded: “How big is your boat going to be, Billy?”

“Oh, a good big one,” he said, confidently. “Eh, Dan?”

“We haven’t decided on the dimensions. I want to make a plan of her first,” Dan said, seriously.

“Well, now! let me tell you one thing,” said the decisive Lettie. “You have got to build it big enough to carry four – hasn’t he, Mildred?”

“Four what?” demanded Billy.

“Four people, of course. You’re not going to be stingy, Billy Speedwell! You know our mothers wouldn’t hear of our sailing an iceboat; but if you boys take us – ”

“Ho!” cried Billy. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Let!”

“There isn’t any place you go, Billy Speedwell, that I can’t!” cried the red-haired one, who had always been something of a tomboy. “And I’m not afraid to do anything that you dare to do – so there!”

“Dear me, Lettie don’t get so excited,” advised Mildred. “Do you suppose girls could sail on your iceboat, Dan?”

“Why not? An iceboat is no more dangerous than a sailboat. And I intend to build our boat with a shallow box on the body so that at least two passengers can lie down in it comfortably.”

“Lie down in it?” queried Lettie, in a puzzled tone.

“Of course,” grunted Billy, “or the boom would knock their silly heads off when the boat comes about. Don’t you know?”

“To be sure! ‘Low bridge!’ I’ve sailed enough on a catboat to know when to ‘duck,’ I hope,” returned Lettie.

“And we can sail with you, Dan?” Mildred was saying. “Do – do you think it will be safe?”

“Perfectly,” replied the older Speedwell. “Not, of course, when we race. We’ll carry only ballast, then, and one of us will have to stand on the outrigger to keep the boat from turning turtle – ”

“Oh, that sounds dreadfully exciting!” gasped Lettie, her eyes shining.

“It sounds pretty dangerous,” observed Mildred. “You two boys are speed crazy, I believe! Burton Poole’s got a new car – have you seen it? He says it is a fast one.”

“Pooh!” returned Billy. “Burton’s got to get up awfully early in the morning to be in the same class with us.”

“Never mind the autos,” said Mildred, briskly. “We’ve got what we want, Lettie,” and she laughed. “Remember, boys! we’re to have first call on your iceboat when it is built.”

“Oh, yes! When it is built,” said her chum, laughing. “We’re all counting our chickens before they’re hatched.”

“You wait till a week from Saturday, Let,” said Billy, with confidence. “By that time we’ll have hatched a pretty good-sized chicken – eh, Dan?”

His brother would not promise; but that very night the boys drew plans for the ice racer they intended to build. Mr. Speedwell owned a valuable piece of timber, and the boys always had a few seasoned logs on hand. They selected the sticks they needed, sledded them to the mill, had them sawed right, and then set to work on the big barn floor and worked the sticks down with hand tools.

They even made their own boom, for Mr. Speedwell helped them, and he was a first-class carpenter. The iron work they had made at the local blacksmith shop. The canvas for the sails came from Philadelphia, from a mail order house. Before the middle of the next week the Speedwells carted the new boat down to old John Bromley’s dock in sections, put it together on the ice, and John helped them make the sails and bend them, he knowing just how this should be done.

They had a private trial of the boat one afternoon, towards dark, and she worked beautifully. Even Bromley, who had not seen many iceboats and was an old, deep-water sailor was enthusiastic when he saw the craft, with Dan at the helm, skim across the river, tack beautifully, and return on the wind.

They then started to give her a couple of coats of bright paint.

“What you goin’ to call her boys?” Bromley asked.

“Ought to be something with feathers – she’s a bird,” laughed Billy.

“And we’re going to ‘hatch’ her about as quick as you promised the girls,” his brother remarked.

“Barry Spink’s is the White Albatross – he’s going to name it after the boat he and Money wrecked.”

“Bird names seem popular,” said Dan. “Fisher Green has sent for a craft already built. He showed me the catalog. His will be called the Redbird.”

“Say!” shouted Billy, grinning. “I got it!”

“Let’s have it, then,” advised his brother.

“What’s the matter with the Fly-up-the-Creek? There’s nothing much quicker on the wing, is there?”

“Bully!” agreed Dan, with an answering smile. “And I bet nobody else on the river will think of that for a name. She’s christened! Fly-up-the-Creek she is. But I wonder what Milly and Lettie will say to that name?”