CHAPTER XIX.

That was a great day for the boys, but, before the close of it, Ford Foster had told his friends the news that Joe Hart and his brother Fuz had been invited to visit with him.

“Will they come?” asked Dab.

“Certainly.  That kind of boy always comes.  Nobody wants to keep him from coming.”

“When do you look for them?”

“Right away.  Vacation’s most gone, you know.”

“Wont they be ashamed to meet your sister!”

“Not a bit.  They’ll try their tricks even after they get here.”

“All right.  We’ll help ’em all we know how.  But, boys, I tell you what we must try for.”

“What’s that?”

“One grand, good sailing party, in the ‘Swallow,’ before they get here.”

“Hurrah for that!  Annie was wishing for one only yesterday.”

“We’ll have all of your folks and all of ours.  The ‘Swallow’ ’s plenty big enough.”

“Mother wouldn’t go and father can’t, just now.  He’s trying a case.  But there’s Annie and Frank and me—­”

“And my mother and Ham and Miranda and our girls.  Ham’ll go, sure.  Then we must take Dick Lee along.  It’d make him sick if we didn’t.”

“Of course.  And aint I glad about him?  Could we get ready and go to-morrow?”

“Guess not so quick as that.  We might by the day after, if the weather’s all right.”

Exactly.  There is always a large sized “if” to be put in where anything depends on the weather.  Mrs. Kinzer took the matter up with enthusiasm, and so did the girls, Miranda included, and Ford Foster was right about his own part of the company.

But the weather!

It looked well enough to unpracticed eyes, but Ham Morris shook his head and went to consult his fishermen friends.  Every human barometer among them warned him to wait a day or so.

“Such warm, nice weather,” remonstrated Ford Foster, “and there isn’t any wind to speak of.”

“There’s too much of it coming,” was Ham’s response, and there was no help for it.  Not even when the mail brought word from “Aunt Maria” that her two boys would arrive in a day or so.

“Our last chance is gone, Annie,” said Ford, when the news came.

“O, mother, what shall we do?”

“Have your sail, just the same, and invite your cousins.”

“But the Kinzers—­”

“Why, Annie!  Mrs. Kinzer will not think of neglecting them.  She’s as kind as kind can be.”

“And we are to pay her with Joe and Fuz,” said Ford.  “Well, I wish Ham Morris’s storm would come along.”

He only had to wait till next day for it, and he was quite contented to be on shore while it lasted.  There was no use in laughing at the prophecies of the fishermen after it began to blow.  Still, it was not a long one, and Ham Morris remarked:  “This is only an outside edge of it.  It’s a good deal worse at sea.  Glad we’re not out in it.”