CHAPTER III

STRANGE ACTIONS

Oriole Putnam did not have breath to introduce Teddy Ford to the old lightkeeper. She just panted as she staggered to the open door of the cottage. But Nat Jardin did not need to be introduced to Myron and Marian.

"Sho! I wanta know what's happened to them babies?" he demanded. "You been trying to drown 'em? The poor leetle things! Bring 'em right in here----"

"For the good land's sake!" broke in Ma Stafford from behind the lightkeeper's rather bulky figure. "What's the meaning of such things, I want to know? Give me that child! She's as blue as indigo and nigh about gone!"

Ma Stafford grabbed Marian out of the boy's arms. Uncle Nat seized the other twin. For the minute the two old people scarcely noticed the boy and Oriole, both quite as wet as the twins--their clothing indeed already stiffening in the cold air.

But Jardin did shout for them to come in and shut the door. There was a hot fire in the kitchen stove and it was just like coming into a conservatory to enter that room from the open air. Oriole and the strange boy hurried to the stove.

"You all been in the water," clucked Ma Stafford. "I knew well enough that ice warn't safe, 'Thaniel. Now, didn't I tell you so?"

"'Twarn't safe where they got, sure 'nough," agreed Jardin. "This boy's all right, Ma. His eyes is open--and he's a plucky little feller, like I always said he was. Ain't you, Myron?"

"Is--is Mawyann all right?" gasped the twin.

"Sure she is," declared Jardin warmly. "Ma'll fix her up."

"Oriole!" cried the old woman, "you get me rough towels out of the dresser drawer. You know where they be. For the land's sake! You ain't fitten to do anything yourself, you are so sopping."

"Both she and this boy better git their wet clothes off," advised the old man, beginning to strip little Myron before the kitchen stove.

"I'm going to take this child into the sittin' room. There's a good fire in the base-burner. You come, too, Oriole, child," urged Ma. "There must be something dry of yours here that you can put on. How ever did it happen?"

That was what Uncle Nat wanted to know of Teddy Ford when they were left alone with Myron in the kitchen.

"I came over from Paulmouth on that boat of Captain Diggers. He said there might be a job over this way for a boy. And I started down toward that life saving station you can see from out yonder----"

"Cap'n Petty's station at the Flow," interjected Nat Jardin.

"I heard there was a man down there could use a boy. I think I would like to work on a boat, or alongshore. You see, I never saw the ocean before."

"Sho, now! That so?" queried the old man, interested.

"And I was walking on the ice because it was the shortest cut, they said, and it seemed so. I saw that big iceboat make that dive for this girl and the sled----"

"Whose boat was it?" asked Jardin quickly.

"I don't know. But it was a big one. It just slued right around, almost hitting that girl and the sled she was dragging, and the ice smashed right in--a big splotch of it. Gee! but they didn't have a chance. They all went into the water together."

"That's purt' serious, I cal'late," said Jardin, now, having stripped the little trembling body of Myron Langdon. "Gimme that towel. I got to rub this boy till he shines! You use that other one. What did ye say your name was?"

"Teddy Ford. I don't belong around here."

"No, I see ye don't. Not if you never saw the sea before," chuckled Nat Jardin. "You come from away back in the tall timber, I cal'late?"

"I ain't no greenhorn," declared Teddy Ford quickly, but he smiled, and Nat Jardin found that smile, as Oriole had found it, most winning. "But I come a long way to get here."

"And why did you come?" asked the old man, rubbing Myron until he was all in a pink glow.

The bigger boy flashed the lightkeeper a curious look. "Oh--I got restless, I guess. Seems to me I wanted to get as far away from my old stamping grounds as possible. And I guess I have. Gee!"

"H'm," considered the lightkeeper. "You look like a purt' nice boy. But that's kind of a swear-word you use so frequent, and I'd rather you didn't say it before this here little feller. Myron imitates just like a parrot."

"Oh!" exclaimed Teddy Ford. "I'm always saying 'gee,' but it don't mean anything."

"Then don't use it," advised the lightkeeper, quite unaware that he used exclamatory expressions himself at times that were quite as meaningless. "You getting warm?"

"Yes, sir."

"There's coffee in that pot. You shove it for'ard. You'll have a cup and it'll warm you up. Ma will make some cocoa or hot milk for these young ones and Oriole."

He wrapped Myron in a big shawl of Ma's, told him to sit still on the kitchen settee and not wriggle, and went off to his own room to find some dry garments for the strange boy.

"You--you are an awful good boy," stammered Myron, gazing at the other rubbing himself down. Myron was what Ma called "a noticing child," which meant that he was thoughtful for his age. "You saved Mawyann."

"'Marian'?" repeated Teddy Ford. "And your name is Myron? Say, that's funny, too!" and Ted stared at the little fellow reflectively.

"What is funny?" asked Myron.

But just then Nat Jardin came back with under-garments, socks, a pair of canvas shoes, and a suit of overalls that would at least cover the strange boy if they did not well fit him. Ted put them on, staring most of the time at little Myron.

By and by Oriole appeared in some of the old clothes she had left on the island when, several months before, she had gone to live with Mrs. Rebecca Joy on the mainland. She began to smile the moment she saw Teddy Ford.

"Oh, dear me!" she said, "how funny you look in those dungarees of Uncle Nat's. But I guess you were just as wet as I was, Teddy Ford."

"I went into the same water," he told her, grinning again.

Oriole thought that smile of the curly-haired boy quite entrancing. She really could not help looking at him.

"How's little Marian getting on?" asked Nat Jardin.

"She is going to be all right," was Oriole's reassuring reply. "Ma says she only swallowed a little water, and she is as warm as toast now."

"The poor child----"

"Sa-ay!" burst out Teddy Ford suddenly, "are these kids twins?"

"Of course they are," said Oriole.

"And their names are Myron and Marian?" insisted the big boy.

"Of course. You saved Marian, and her father will be _so_ thankful to you--you wait and see."

"I want to know what their last name is," said the boy, growing suddenly very red in the face. "It can't be--Gee!"

"There you go again, son," said Nat Jardin. "I cal'late it is going to be some hard for you to break yourself of saying that."

But now Teddy Ford paid no attention to the old lightkeeper. He was staring at Oriole.

"Say!" he demanded, "does the father of these kids live around here?"

"He is living at the Littleport Inn. Yes, sir," replied the surprised girl.

"And--and their mother?"

Oriole put a finger upon her own lips and shook her head. "No, no!" she whispered. "They don't know anything about their mother. She--she is dead."

Oriole said this almost in Teddy Ford's ear so that Myron should not overhear what she said.

"Oh!" said the boy. "But they _do_ live around here, then? What's their name?"

"Why! Myron and Marian."

"Gee! Don't I know that?" muttered Teddy Ford. "But the rest of it? Their family name?"

"Their father is Mr. Harvey Langdon----"

This time Teddy interrupted her with a very emphatic "Gee!" indeed. His face turned from fiery red to white, and his eyes glowed with what Oriole correctly guessed was anger.

"S-s-s-say!" he stuttered hoarsely, "you don't mean to say the father of these two kids is Harvey Langdon, the ranchman?"

"Why, yes. That is exactly who he is," said Oriole, her own eyes wide with wonder.

"I--I didn't know--I hadn't the first idea he was in the East," stammered Teddy Ford.

"He came on here to Littleport to find Myron and Marian. They were lost----"

"Yes, I heard talk about that," muttered the boy.

"You never came from away out West where Mr. Langdon and the twins live?" gasped Oriole.

"Never mind where I came from," growled Teddy Ford, seizing his still wet cap that he had hung behind the stove to dry. "I know these Langdons--you bet I do!"

"Why, Teddy Ford! you sound just as though you did not like them. And you saved Marian--and Myron and me too--from drowning."

"I would never have saved that kid if I'd known she was Harvey Langdon's!" exclaimed the boy angrily. "You can just bet I wouldn't!"

"Oh! How wicked!"

"I don't care!" muttered the boy. "Let it be wicked. Gee! if you'd gone through what _I_ have----"

"But surely these little children never harmed you," began Oriole.

"Never mind. I know what their father is. I don't want to have a thing more to do with Harvey Langdon--nor those kids, either!"

Oriole was too amazed to speak. Uncle Nat had gone into the other room to see for himself how Marian was, while Myron was snuggled down on the settee almost asleep.

Teddy Ford started for the outer door, pulling his damp cap down over his curls. He carried his coat over his arm. That garment had not been in the sea.

"Oh! Oh!" cried Oriole.

"Never you mind. I'm not going to hang around here where Harvey Langdon may show up any minute. Not me!"

The next moment he had dashed out of the cottage. Oriole ran after him and looked out. But she could not see him, so fast had the strange boy moved. Besides, it was past sunset and fast growing dark.

"Well! did you ever?" murmured the amazed Oriole. "Such strange actions! That Teddy Ford is just the funniest boy I ever saw!"