Jack the Hunchback

A Story of Adventure on the Coast of Maine

Chapter I - ADRIFT.

Tom Pratt firmly believed he was the most unfortunate boy in Maine when, on a certain June morning, his father sent him to the beach for a load of seaweed.

Tom had never been in love with a farmer's life.

He fancied that in any other sphere of action he could succeed, if not better, certainly more easily, than by weeding turnips or hoeing corn on the not very productive farm.

But either planting or digging was preferable to loading a huge cart with the provokingly slippery weeds which his father insisted on gathering for compost each summer.

Therefore, when the patient oxen, after much goading and an unusual amount of noise from their impatient driver, stood knee-deep in the surf contentedly chewing their cuds and enjoying the cool footbath, Tom, instead of beginning his work, sat at the forward part of the cart gazing seaward, thinking, perhaps, how pleasant must be a sailor's life while the ocean was calm and smiling as on this particular day.

"I reckon that's what it is, father, an' she must be adrift."

Farmer Pratt mounted the cart and scrutinized the approaching object until there could no longer be any question as to what it was, when Tom said gleefully,—

"It must be a ship's boat, an' if she hasn't got a crew aboard, we'll make a bigger haul than we could by cartin' seaweed for a week."

"Yes, them kind cost more'n a dory," the farmer replied dreamily, as he mentally calculated the amount of money for which she might be sold. "I reckon we'll take her into Portland an' get a tidy—"

"I can see a feller's head!" Tom interrupted, "an' it shets off our chance of sellin' her."

That the boat had an occupant was evident.

A closely shaven crown appeared above the stem as if its owner had but just awakened, and was peering out to see where his voyage was about to end.

Nearer and nearer the little craft drifted until she was dancing on the shore line of the surf, and the figure in the bow gazed as intently landward as the farmer and his son did seaward.

This last remark probably referred to the general appearance of the young voyager.

He was an odd-looking little fellow, with a head which seemed unusually small because the hair was closely cropped, and a bent, misshapen body several sizes too large for the thin legs which barely raised it above the gunwales. The face was by no means beautiful, but the expression of anxiety and fear caused it to appeal directly to Tom's heart, if not to his father's.

Farmer Pratt was not pleased at thus learning that the boat had an occupant.

Empty, she would have been a source of profit; but although there was apparently no one save the deformed lad aboard, he could make no legal claim upon her.

The craft was there, however, and would speedily be overturned unless he waded out into the surf at the risk of a rheumatic attack, to pull her inshore.

Although decidedly averse to performing any charitable deed, he did this without very much grumbling, and Tom was a most willing assistant.

This act in itself would not have caused any surprise, but at the same moment a familiar noise was heard from beneath the coverings.

Farmer Pratt stepped back quickly in genuine alarm and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt as he exclaimed,—

"Well, this beats anything I ever seen!"

"It's a baby, father!" Tom cried, starting forward to take the burden from the crooked little sailor's arms; but the latter retreated as if afraid the child was to be carried away, and the farmer replied testily,—

"But how did it come here?"

"That's what beats me"; and then, as if suddenly realizing that the apparent mystery might be readily solved, he asked the stranger, "Where did you come from, sonny?"

"From Savannah."

"Sho! Why, that's way down in Georgy. You didn't sail them many miles in this 'ere little boat?"

"No, sir. We broke adrift from Captain Littlefield's ship yesterday when she blowed up, an' the baby's awful hungry."

"Ship blowed up, eh? Whereabouts was she?"

"Out there"; and the boy pointed eastward in an undecided manner, as if not exactly certain where he had come from.

"What made her blow up?" Tom asked curiously.

"Well, well, well!" and as the thought of whether he would be paid for the trouble of pulling the boat ashore came into the farmer's mind, he said quickly, "'Cordin' to that you don't own this boat?"

"She belongs to the ship."

"If we could only get back to New York I'm sure I would be able to find the captain's house."

"It's a powerful long ways from here, sonny; but I'll see that you are put in a comfortable place till somethin' can be done. What's your name?"

"John W. Dudley; but everybody calls me Jack, an' this is Louis Littlefield," the boy replied as he removed the coverings, exposing to view a child about two years old.

Master Tom was delighted with the appearance of the little pink and white stranger, who was dressed in cambric and lace, with a thin gold chain around his neck, and would have shaken hands with him then and there if Jack had not stepped quickly back as he said,—