CHAPTER XXX

DICK STARBRIGHT’S HOME.

On the southeastern shore of Seneca Lake, not many miles from the little village of Burdett, stood the handsome home of the Starbrights. Old Captain Starbright had purchased this splendid country place, intending to settle down there some time, far from sight and sound of the grim and restless ocean, to spend the latter part of his life in peace and quietude. But his dream of peaceful old age in the bosom of his family had never been realized, for he died in the cabin of his vessel far from his native land. Gossip said he drank himself to death.

However, he had made a comfortable fortune, and the home he left to his widow and children was an ideal one. He had enlarged and remodeled the old country house till it was regarded by the neighbors as a veritable palace. He had spent large sums on the surrounding grounds, and his landscape gardening was the wonder and awe of the plain people of that section of the country. Not a few of them declared he was determined to bankrupt himself by his foolish extravagance in these matters; but the result of his labors was pleasing to the eye, to say the least.

The homestead was situated on a hill that sloped gently westward to the shore of the lake, where the captain built a handsome boat-house. From Watkins, on the south, to Geneva, on the north, Seneca Lake is fifty miles long, and there is plenty of yachting to be had, for which purpose the old mariner purchased a handsome sloop, and Dick had been taught to handle her with the skill of a veteran.

There were rowboats and canoes, and both Dick and his younger brother, Phil, had built up the muscles of their arms and backs pulling at the oar and paddle. But now the lake was frozen over from end to end by the week of cold weather before the holidays, and sailing and boating could not be enjoyed. There was plenty of skating, however, and Phil had an ice-boat, which he had constructed with his own hands.

Dick’s mother was a handsome, kind-faced lady, refined and sad in her manner, although her face could light up with a smile that was like a golden sunburst. She was very proud of her two boys, and of big, manly Dick in particular. He was so much like her husband as she had known him in his younger days. Yes, Dick was like him in many respects, yet she could see that he was finer-grained, for the old sailor had been somewhat blunt and bluff in his ways.

No wonder Dick was finer-grained, for it were impossible for him to be otherwise with such a mother. Her influence had been over him always, and she was to him the type of perfect womanhood. She liked to think of him as like her husband in his youthful days, and yet that thought brought to her sometimes one great fear.

Captain Starbright had been beset by one great weakness—his love for strong drink. All his life he had fought against it, but it had conquered him at last and cut short his days. The one great fear that haunted Dick’s mother was that some time her elder son might fall beneath the ban of intemperance; but from the time little Dick knelt at her knee to lisp his bedtime prayers she had sought to instil in his mind a loathing and repulsion for the demon of strong drink.

Phil Starbright regarded his brother as just about “the proper thing” in every way. Phil was slenderer and more like his mother, and Dick seemed to him a marvel of strength, courage, and energy. At school there had never been a fellow who could whip Dick, and whenever Phil was in trouble Dick could easily and readily be summoned to help him out.

Phil, also, was fitting for Yale. At Andover he had read with breathless interest the accounts of the Yale football-games in which Dick had taken part; and his pride swelled and grew when report after report told of the marvelous playing of the young freshman giant who was known as the protégé of Frank Merriwell.

Frank Merriwell! Phil had heard of him many times before Dick went to Yale; he had talked of him to Dick, and he had longed to see the most famous college man in the country. When Dick wrote to Phil, telling of his meeting with Merriwell and how kind Merriwell had been to him, the younger brother felt like turning somersaults and yelling with joy.

And then, just before the holidays, Phil received a letter, in which Dick said he had invited Merriwell and a number of his friends to spend a portion of the vacation at the Starbright home, which invitation had been accepted. Phil came near having a fit. At last he would see Frank Merriwell! The day that he had dreamed of was coming!

With a bounding, eager heart the Andover lad packed up and started for home, for he could get off a day sooner than Dick, and he wished to have everything ready to receive his brother’s guests in the proper manner.

Thus it came about that Merry, Browning, Ready, and Dashleigh were warmly welcomed at the fine old country place on Seneca Lake. And Phil’s heart ceased to beat for a moment when Frank Merriwell pressed his hand and said he was glad to know Dick’s brother.

Mrs. Starbright was so happy that the sad look had fled from her face, and she quickly made them all feel quite at home.

“You must blame Dick for bringing such a crowd along, Mrs. Starbright,” said Merry. “He would make us come.”

“And I am very, very glad he did,” she earnestly declared, in a way that left no doubt of her sincerity. “He has written me about all of you, particularly of you, Mr. Merriwell. I think I’ve hardly ever received a letter from him in which he has not made some reference to you. You were very kind to him, and I have much to thank you for.”

“And I,” said Ready, “I have been very kind to him, also. He will tell you how I have entertained him as a sophomore should entertain a freshman. Oh, I have labored with him many a night.”

“Thank you, too,” she said, “for helping him nights with his studies. I am sure I appreciate it, Mr. Ready.”

“With his studies!” gasped Jack, taking care she did not hear. “Oh, my! Wouldn’t that kill you! Think of a sophomore helping a freshman with his studies! I’ve helped him do a jolly turn at Billie’s; I’ve marched him about the campus in his pajamas, and I’ve trained him through the streets with his left trousers leg rolled to the knee and a broom on his shoulder for a gun; but helped him with his studies—oh, Laura!”

“But these are not all, mother,” laughed Dick. “There are more coming. To-morrow two young ladies and two gentlemen will arrive. One of the gentlemen is the father of one of the young ladies, while the other gentleman is the husband of the other young lady. The old house will be filled, and we won’t do a thing!”

“I think we’ll be able to find room for everybody,” she said. “The holidays are to be very happy for me, I’m sure.”

“I hope she’s provided plenty of fodder for the herd,” whispered Ready to Browning. “I’m hollow as—as your head.”

“Now, don’t try to get funny at my expense,” warned the big senior. “I’m hungry myself, and I don’t feel like being made a fool of.”

“It would be hard to improve on what nature did for you in that respect,” murmured the irrepressible sophomore.

The boys were shown up to large, pleasant rooms, which had been prepared for them. Frank and Bruce were given a room together, but there were two old-fashioned beds in it, and it opened into another and smaller room that was designated for Ready.

“Thank goodness!” said Jack, when he found he was to have a room by himself. “I’ll not have to sleep in the same apartment with Browning. If I did, by the gods of Olympus! I’d get a clothes-pin and place it straddle of his nose to keep him from snoring. His snore is one of the most frightful things I ever encountered. Yea, verily! I know, for I’ve listened to it in the stilly hours of many an awful night, and it has filled me with despair and an intense desire to do murder.”

“Oh, shut up and get into your own quarters!” growled Bruce. “Your mouth must be tired. It’s been going yawp! yawp! yawp! ever since we left New Haven. You’re the worst case of talk-and-say-nothing I ever knew.”

“Refuse me!” chirped Ready, bowing low. “I happened to be built that way. It soothes my nerves to work my jaw.”

“But it tears up the nerves of everybody within hearing,” declared Bruce.

“Well, here we are, fellows,” said Frank cheerfully. “Starbright has a splendid home and a beautiful mother. I’m glad I came.”

“Wait till I get down to the supper-table and I’ll tell you better whether I’m glad or not,” said Jack. “I wonder if they’ve really got enough for us to eat. Even a railroad sandwich would have no terrors for me now.”