Chapter II.
"THE YOUNGSTER'S" PLAN.
"You see," said Aleck, "though I've about seventy-five dollars ahead,yet when we have bought what we shall need, there will not be morethan forty dollars left. Now, if we go to Cleveland in the cars andtake our things with us, it'll cost us twenty-five dollars or more,and leave us almost nothing to get started with there."
"S'posin'," said Jimkin the Wise, "s'posin' we don't go in the cars.Cleveland's on the lake, and the lake's all ice; let's skate down touncle's!"
"Humph!" grunted Aleck.
"Pshaw!" said Kate.
"Didn't we skate eighteen miles yesterday, and couldn't we have gonefarther?" persisted Jim, unabashed.
"It's more than a hundred miles to Cleveland. Think you could do thatin one day? Besides, how would you know the way?"
"Didn't say I could do it in one day. But couldn't we go ashore andstop at night? That's the way the Hall boys did, who skated up toDetroit last winter."
"I read in the newspaper yesterday," said Kate, "that the lake wasfrozen uncommonly hard, and was solid ice all the way along the shoreas far as the headlands of Ashtabula."
"If we could be sure of that," Aleck admitted, "there might be someuse in trying; but one can't be sure. Besides, how could we take alongour baggage?"
"Pull it on a sled," said Kate, "the way they do in the arcticregions. Men up there just live on the ice, sleep at night and cooktheir food and travel all day, and they don't have skates either.Gracious! Who can that be?"
No wonder Katy was astonished, for there came echoing through thehouse a noise as if somebody was pounding the wall down with a stonemaul. Aleck hastened to put a stop to it by opening the door.
He was greeted by the grinning face of a round-headed, chunky ladnearly his own age, named Thucydides Montgomery; but as this was toolong a name for the Western people, it had been cut down very early inlife to "Tug," which everybody saw at once was the right word, onaccount of the lad's strength and toughness. The mammas of the villagethought him a bad boy, getting their information from the small boysof the public school, whom, in his great fondness for joking, he wouldsometimes frighten and tease.
Aleck knew him better, and knew how brave and goodhearted he was. Jimhad good cause to be fond of him, for, in behalf of The Youngster,during his first week at school, Tug had soundly thrashed a bullyingtyrant; while Kate gratefully remembered various heavy market-basketshe had carried for her, since he lived near by. A closer tie betweenour little family and their visitor, however, was the fact that, likethem, he was an orphan, and, like them, had relatives in Cleveland,whom he had often thought he should like to be with better thanstaying with his aunt here in Monore.
When Tug had joined the circle gathered before the big fireplace, andhad begun to talk about the brass-works, he was promptly hushed byAleck.
"Put that up now, and attend to me. This urchin here, who has becomevery cheeky since he began to go to school--"
"And came under my care," Tug interrupted, loftily.
"Yes, no doubt. Well, The Youngster finds we all want to go toCleveland, but can't afford the railway fare, and so he coollyproposes that we skate there."
"Well, why don't you do it? I'll go with you," said Tug, quietly.
Jim shouted with triumph. Kate laughed, and clapped her hands at thefun of beating her big brother, and Aleck looked as though he thoughthe was being quizzed.
"Do you mean it?" he asked.
"Of course I do. I want to go down as badly as you do. I haven't anystamps, and the walking, I'm told, isn't good. I prefer to skate."
"Katy says we might drag our luggage on sleds, as they do in thearctic regions; but supposing the ice should break up, or we shouldcome to a big crack?"
"I have read," Kate remarks again, "that they carry boats on theirsledges, and pack their goods in the boats, so that they will float ifthe ice gives way."
"Take my boat!" screamed Jim, eagerly.
"That would call for a big sled."
"Well, didn't you two fellows build a pair of bobs last winter bigenough to carry that boat?"
"Doubtful," answered Aleck. But when they brought out the plan of theboat, and then measured the bobs, which were stored in the woodshed,they found them plenty wide, and Tug was sure they were sufficientlystrong.
Kate looked at them rather dubiously, and said she had never read ofarctic boats mounted on heavy bobs, but that they always seemed in thepictures to have long, light runners under them; but Jim reminded hercurtly that "girls didn't know everything," so she kept still, and theplanning and talking went on.
Young people who are under no necessity to ask permission of olderpersons, and, besides, are pushed by circumstances, decide quickly ona plan which looks forward to adventure. Generally, I fear, they cometo grief, and learn some good lessons rather expensively; butsometimes their energy and fearlessness carry them safely through whatthe caution of old age would have stopped short of trying to perform.
DISCUSSING THE PLAN.]
They sat up pretty late discussing the plan, but before Tug went towhat he said he "s'posed he must call home," they had determined totry it if the weather held firm.
This was on Friday. They hoped to get away early in the coming week.Then all three went to bed, Jim jubilant, and looking forward to along frolic; Kate half doubtful whether it was best, but hopeful;Aleck sure that, for himself, he didn't care, hating to put his sisterand brother to any risk, yet seeing no better way of resistingpoverty; Tug resolute, and bound to stand by his friends, whateverhappened. So they slept, and bright and early next morning the quietpreparations began, Tug declining to answer any questions as to how hearranged the matter of his going with his aunt.