The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dab Kinzer, by William O. Stoddard

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Title: Dab Kinzer A Story of a Growing Boy

Author: William O. Stoddard

Release Date: November 30, 2003 [EBook #10340]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAB KINZER ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jimmy O'Regan and PG Distributed Proofreaders

DAB KINZER

A STORY OF A GROWING BOY

BY

WILLIAM O. STODDARD

1884

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. THE KINZER FARM, THE NEW SUIT, AND THE WEDDING.

CHAPTER II. DAB'S OLD CLOTHES GET A NEW BOY TO FIT.

CHAPTER III. A MEMBER OF ONE OF THE OLDEST FAMILIES MEETS A YOUNG GENTLEMAN FROM THE CITY.

CHAPTER IV. TWO BOYS, ONE PIG, AND AN UNFORTUNATE RAILWAY-TRAIN.

CHAPTER V. NEW NEIGHBORS, AND GETTING SETTLED.

CHAPTER VI. CRABS, BOYS, AND A BOAT-WRECK.

CHAPTER VII. A VERY ACCIDENTAL CALL.

CHAPTER VIII. A RESCUE, AND A GRAND GOOD TIME.

CHAPTER IX. THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF BOYS.

CHAPTER X. A CRUISE IN "THE SWALLOW".

CHAPTER XI. SPLENDID FISHING, AND A BIG FOG.

CHAPTER XII. HOW THE GAME OF "FOLLOW MY LEADER" CAN BE PLAYED AT SEA.

CHAPTER XIII. "HOME AGAIN! HERE WE ARE!".

CHAPTER XIV. A GREAT MANY THINGS GETTING READY TO COME.

CHAPTER XV. DABNEY KINZER TO THE RESCUE.

CHAPTER XVI. DAB KINZER AND HAM MORRIS TURN INTO A FIRE-DEPARTMENT.

CHAPTER XVII. DAB HAS A WAKING DREAM, AND HAM GETS A SNIFF OF SEA-AIR.

CHAPTER XVIII. HOW DAB WORKED OUT ANOTHER OF HIS GREAT PLANS.

CHAPTER XIX. A GRAND SAILING-PARTY, AND AN EXPERIMENT BY RICHARD LEE.

CHAPTER XX. A WRECK AND SOME WRECKERS.

CHAPTER XXI. DAB AND HIS FRIENDS TURN THEMSELVES INTO COOKS AND WAITERS.

CHAPTER XXII. THE REAL MISSION OF THE JUG.

CHAPTER XXIII. ANOTHER GRAND PLAN, AND A VERY GRAND RUNAWAY.

CHAPTER XXIV. DABNEY'S GREAT PARTY.

CHAPTER XXV. THE BOYS ON THEIR TRAVELS. A GREAT CITY, AND A GREAT DINNER.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE FIRST MORNING IN GRANTLEY, AND ANOTHER EXCELLENT JOKE.

CHAPTER XXVII. A NEW KIND OF EXAMINATION.

CHAPTER XXVIII. AN UNUSUAL AMOUNT OF INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER XXIX. LETTERS HOME FROM THE BOYS.—DICK LEE'S FIRST GRIEF.

CHAPTER XXX. DABNEY KINZER TRIES FRESH-WATER FISHING FOR THE FIRST TIME.

CHAPTER XXXI. A FIGHT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

CHAPTER XXXII. OLD FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS OF HIS COME TO VISIT DABNEY.

DAB KINZER

CHAPTER I.

THE KINZER FARM, THE NEW SUIT, AND THE WEDDING.

Between the village and the inlet, and half a mile from the great "bay," lay the Kinzer farm. Beyond the bay was a sandbar, and beyond that the Atlantic Ocean; for all this was on the southerly shore of Long Island.

The Kinzer farm had lain right there—acre for acre, no more, no less—on the day when Hendrik Hudson long ago sailed the good ship "Half Moon" into New-York Bay. But it was not then known to any one as the Kinzer farm. Neither was there then, as now, any bright and growing village crowding up on one side of it, with a railway-station and a post-office. Nor was there, at that time, any great and busy city of New York, only a few hours' ride away, over on the island of Manhattan. The Kinzers themselves were not there then. But the bay and the inlet, with the fish and the crabs, and the ebbing and flowing tides, were there, very much the same, before Hendrik Hudson and his brave Dutchmen knew any thing whatever about that corner of the world.

The Kinzer farm had always been a reasonably "fat" one, both as to size and quality; and the good people who lived on it had generally been of a somewhat similar description. It was, therefore, every way correct and becoming for Dabney Kinzer's widowed mother and his sisters to be the plump and hearty beings they were, and all the more discouraging to poor Dabney that no amount of regular and faithful eating seemed to make him resemble them at all in that respect.

Mrs. Kinzer excused his thinness, to her neighbors, to be sure, on the ground that he was "such a growing boy;" but, for all that, he caught himself wondering, now and then, if he would never be done with that part of his trials. For rapid growth has its trials.

"The fact is," he said to himself one day, as he leaned over the north fence, "I'm more like Ham Morris's farm than I am like ours. His farm is bigger than ours, all round; but it's too big for its fences, just as I'm too big for my clothes. Ham's house is three times as large as ours, but it looks as if it had grown too fast. It hasn't any paint to speak of, nor any blinds. It looks as if somebody'd just built it there, and then forgot it, and gone oft and left it out of doors."

Dabney's four sisters had all come into the world before him; but he was as tall as any of them, and was frequently taken by strangers for a good two years older than he was. It was sometimes very hard for him, a boy of fifteen, to live up to what was expected of those extra two years.

Mrs. Kinzer still kept him in roundabouts; but they did not seem to hinder his growth at all, if that was her object in so doing.

There was no such thing, however, as keeping the four girls in roundabouts of any kind; and, what between them and their mother, the pleasant and tidy little Kinzer homestead, with its snug parlor and its cosey bits of rooms and chambers, seemed to nestle away, under the shadowy elms and sycamores, smaller and smaller with every year that came.

It was a terribly tight fit for such a family, anyway; and, now that Dabney was growing at such a rate, there was no telling what they would all come to. But Mrs. Kinzer came at last to the rescue; and she summoned her eldest daughter, Miranda, to her aid.

A very notable woman was the widow. When the new railway cut off part of the old farm, she had split up the slice of land between the iron track and the village into "town lots," and had sold them all off by the time the railway company paid her for the "damage" it had done the property.

The whole Kinzer family gained visibly in plumpness that year, except, perhaps, Dabney.

Of course the condition and requirements of Ham Morris and his big farm, just over the north fence, had not escaped such a pair of eyes as those of the widow; and the very size of his great barn of a house finally settled his fate for him.

A large, quiet, unambitious, but well-brought-up and industrious young man was Hamilton Morris, and he had not the least idea of the