[image]"Nearer and nearer came the 'Relentless' to that foaming bar."Page 43]"Ninety feet now!" thought Dave. "Will the shock upset her, pitch us out, or what?"Sixty feet now!"The bar looks sort of ugly!" remarked Johnny Richards.Thirty feet now!"Wish I was in bed!" thought Jimmy Davis.Twenty feet now!Had the schooner halted? The boys clustered in the bow and looked anxiously over to the bar."Boys, she holds, I do believe," said Dave."All right!" shouted Dick--"all right! The anchor holds!"It did seem an innocent, all-right situation: just the quiet sea, the musically-rolling surf along the bar, the stately lighthouse at the left, and that schooner quietly halting in the harbour."Now, boys," exclaimed Dick, "we can--""I thought you were going to swim to the lighthouse?" observed Dab."Oh, that won't be necessary now," replied Dick. "We are just masters of the situation. The moment the tide turns we can weigh anchor and drift back again just as easy! Be in our old quarters by morning, and nobody know the difference. Old Sylvester himself might come down the river, and he would find everything all right. Ha! ha!"Dick's confidence was contagious, and when he proposed "Haul the Bow-line," his companions sang with him, and sang with a will. How the notes echoed over the sea! Such a queer place to be singing in!"Mr. Toby Tolman," said Dick, facing the lighthouse, "we propose to wake you up! Let him have a rouser. Give him 'Reuben Ranzo!'"While they were administering a "rouser" to Mr. Toby Tolman, somebody at the stern was dropping into the sea. He had stripped himself for his swim, and now struck out boldly for the bar. Reaching its uncovered sands he ran along to the boat, lying on the channel side of the bar and not that of the lighthouse, leaped into the boat, and, shoving off, rowed round to the bow of the schooner. There was a pause in the singing, and Dick Pray was saying, "This place makes you think of mermen," when Dab Richards, looking over the vessel's side, said, "Ugh! if there isn't one now!""Where--where?" asked Johnny."Ship ahoy!" shouted Dave from the boat. "How many days out? Where you bound? Short of provisions?""Three cheers for this shipwrecked mariner just arrived!" cried Dab. And the hurrahs went up triumphantly in the moonlight. Dave threw up to the boys the much-desired painter, and the runaway boat was securely fastened."There, Dave!" said Dick, as he welcomed on deck the merman: "I was just going after that thing myself, just thinking of jumping into the water, but you got ahead of me. Somehow, I hate to leave this old craft.""I expect," said Dab Richards, a boy with short, stubby black hair and blue eyes, and lips that easily twisted in scorn, "we shall have such hard work to get Dick away from this concern that we shall have to bring a police-officer, arrest, and lug him off that way.""Shouldn't wonder," replied Dick. "Couldn't be persuaded to abandon this dear old tub.""Well, boys, I'm going to the lighthouse as soon as I'm dressed," said Dave.There was a hubbub of inquiries and comments."What for?" asked Dick. "Ain't we all right?""I hope so; but I want to keep all right. I want to ask the light-keeper--""But all we have got to do is to pull up anchor when the tide comes, and drift back.""Oh yes; we can drift back, but where? We can't steer the schooner. We don't know what currents may lay hold of her and take her where we don't want to go. There are some rocks with an ugly name.""'Sharks' Fins!'" said Jimmy. "Booh!""What if we ran on to them?" said Dave. "We had better go and ask Toby Tolman's opinion. He may suggest something--tell us of some good way to get out of this scrape. He knows the harbour, the currents, the tides, and so on. Any way, it won't do any harm to speak to him. I won't bother anybody to go with me. Stay here and make yourselves comfortable; I will dress and shove off."When Dave had dressed and returned, he found every boy in the boat. Dick Pray was the first that had entered."Hullo!" shouted Dave. "All here, are you? That's good. The more the merrier.""Dave, we loved you so much we couldn't leave you," asserted Dick."We will have a good time," said Dave. "All ready! Shove off! Bound for the lighthouse!"The old schooner was left to its own reflections in the sober moonlight, and the boat slowly crept over the quiet waters to the tall lighthouse tower.III.DID THE SCHOONER COME BACK?Mr. Toby Tolman sat in the snug little kitchen of the lighthouse tower. He was alone, but the clock ticked on the wall, and the kettle purred contentedly on the stove. Music and company in those sounds.The light-keeper had just visited the lantern, had seen that the lamp was burning satisfactorily, had looked out on the wide sea to detect, if possible, any sign of fog, had "felt of the wind," as he termed it, but did not discover any hint of rough weather. Having pronounced all things satisfactory, he had come down to the kitchen to read awhile in his Bible. The gray-haired keeper loved his Bible. It was a companion to him when lonely, a pillow of rest when his soul was weary with cares, a lamp of guidance when he was uncertain about the way for his feet, a high, strong rock of refuge when sorrows hunted his soul."I just love my Bible," he said.He had reason to say it. What book can match it?As he sat contentedly reading its beautiful promises, he caught the sound of singing."Some fishermen going home," he said, and read on. After a while he heard the sound of a vigorous pounding on the lighthouse door."Why, why!" he exclaimed in amazement, "what is that?"He rose and hastily descended the stair-way leading to the entrance of the lighthouse. To gain admission to the lighthouse, one first passed through the fog-signal tower. The lighthouse proper was built of stone; the other tower was of iron. They rose side by side. A covered passage-way five feet long connected the two towers, and entrance from the outside was first through the fog-signal tower. The foundation of each tower was a stubborn ledge that the sea would cover at high-water, and it was now necessary to have all doors beyond the reach of the roughly-grasping breakers. Otherwise they would have unpleasantly pressed for admittance, and might have gained it. The entrance to the fog-signal tower was about twenty feet above the summit of the ledge, and from the door dropped a ladder closely fastened to the tower's red wall. Around the door was a railed platform of iron, and through a hole in the platform a person stepped down upon the rounds of the ladder. Toby Tolman seized a lantern, and crossing the passage-way connecting the two towers, entered the fog-signal tower, and so gained the entrance. Just above the threshold of the door he saw the head and shoulders of a boy standing on the ladder."Why! who's this, at this time of night?" said Toby."Good-evening, sir. Excuse me, but I wanted to ask you something."It was Dave Fletcher."Any trouble?""Well, yes.""Come in, come in! Don't be bashful. Lighthouses are for folks in trouble.""Thank you."When Dave had climbed into the tower Dick Fray's curly head appeared."Oh, any more of you?" asked the keeper. "Bring him along.""Good-evening," said Dick.Then Jimmy Davis thrust up his head."Oh, another?" asked Toby. "How many?""Not through yet, Mr. Tolman," said Dave, laughing.Johnny Richards stuck up his grinning face above the threshold."Any more?" said the light-keeper.And this inquiry Dab Richards answered in person, relieving the ladder of its last load."Why, why! wasn't expecting this! All castaways?""Pretty near it, Mr. Tolman," said Dick."Come up into the kitchen, and then let us have your story, boys."They followed the light-keeper into the kitchen, so warm, so cheerfully lighted.In the boat Dick Pray had been very bold, and said he would go ahead and "beard the lion in his den;" but when at the foot of the lighthouse, he concluded he would silently allow Dave to precede him. The warmth of the kitchen thawed out Dick's tongue, and now that he was inside he kept a part of his word, and made an explanation to the light-keeper. He stated that they had had permission to "picnic" on the schooner, had--had--"got adrift"--somehow--and were caught on the bar, and the question was what to do."Perhaps you can advise us still further," explained Dave. "One suggestion is that when the tide turns we pull up anchor and drift back with the tide.""Anchor?" asked Mr. Toby Tolman. "I thought you went on because you couldn't help it. Didn't know you dropped anchor there."Dick blushed and cleared his throat."The schooner was anchored, but," said Dick, choking a little, "we--we--got--got--into water too deep for our anchor, and kept on drifting till the anchor caught in the bar.""Oh!" said the light-keeper, who now saw a little deeper into the mystery, though all was not clear to him yet. "What will you do now? It is a good rule generally, when you don't know which way to move, not to move. Now, if you pull up anchor and let the next tide take you back, there is no telling where it will take you. Some bad rocks in our harbour as well as a lot of sand. 'Sharks' Fins' you know about. An ugly place. Now let me think a moment."The light-keeper in deep thought walked up and down the floor, while the five boys clustered about the stove like bees flocking to a flaming hollyhock."See here: I advise this. Don't trouble that anchor to-night. The sea is quiet. No harm will be done the schooner, and her anchor has probably got a good grip on some rocks down below, and the tide won't start her. A tug will bring down a new schooner from Shipton to-morrow, and I will signal to the cap'n, and you can get him to tow you back. What say?" asked the keeper. "'Twill cost something.""That plan looks sensible," said Dave. "I will give my share of the expense."Dick looked down in silence. He wanted to get back without any exposure of his fault. The tug meant exposure, for the world outside would know it. The tide as motive power, drifting the schooner back, would tell no tales if the schooner went to the right place. There would, however, be danger of collision with rocks, and then the bill of expense would be greater and the exposure more mortifying. He scratched his head and hesitated, but finally assented to the tug-boat plan, and so did the other boys."Very well, then," said the keeper, "make yourselves at home, and I'll do all I can to make you comfortable."What, stay there? Did he mean it? He meant a night of comfort in the lighthouse.What a night that was!"I wouldn't have missed it for twenty pounds," Johnny Richards said to those at home.And the breakfast! It was without parallel. The schooner was held by its anchor inside the bar, and the boys in the morning visited their provision-baskets, and brought off such a heap of delicacies that the light-keeper declared it to be the "most satisfyin' meal" he had ever had inside those stone walls.About nine o'clock he said, "Now, boys, I expect the tug-boat will be down with that schooner. When the cap'n of the tug-boat has carried her through the channel, I will signal to him--he and I have an understanding about it--and he will come round and tow you up, I don't doubt. You might be a-watching for her smoke."Soon Dab Richards, looking up the harbour, cried out, "Smoke! she's coming!"Yes, there was the tug-boat, throwing up a column of black smoke from her chimney, and behind her were the freshly-painted hull, and new, clean rigging of the lately launched schooner. The boys, save Dave, went to theRelentless, as the light-keeper said he would fix everything with the tug-boat, "make a bargain, and so on," and Dave could hear the terms and accept them for the party if he wished. The light-keeper had also promised in his own boat to put Dave aboard the tug.But what other tug-boat was it the boys on theRelentlesssaw steaming down the harbour? They stood in the bow and watched her approach."She looks as if she were going to run into us," declared Dick."She certainly is pointing this way," thought Johnny."Our friends may be alarmed for us," was Dab's suggestion.This could not be, the other boys thought, and they dismissed it as a teasing remark by Dab. And yet the tug-boat was coming toward them like an arrow feathered with black smoke and shot out by a strong arm."It is certainly coming toward us," cried Dick in alarm. Who was it his black eyes detected among the people leaning over the rail of the nearing tug-boat?He looked again.He took a third look."Boys," he shouted, "put!"How rapidly he rushed for a hatchway, descending an old ladder still in place and leading into the schooner's hold! Fear is catching. Had Dick seen a policeman sent out in a special tug to hunt up the boys and secure the vessel? Johnny Richards flew after Dick. Jimmy Davis followed Johnny. Dab was quickly at the heels of Jimmy. Down into the dark, smelling hold, stumbling over the keelson, splashing into the bilge water, and frightening the rats, hurried the still more frightened boys."Who was it, Dick?" asked Dab."Keep still boys; don't say anything.""Can't you tell his name?" whispered Johnny.There it was, down in the dark, that Dick whispered the fearful name. When the tug-boat, theLeopard, carrying Dave neared the schooner, the captain said, "You have another tug there. It is thePanther."TheLeopardhated thePanther, and would gladly have clawed it out of shape and sunk it."I don't understand why thePantheris there," said Dave; "I really don't know what it means.""You see," said the master of theLeopardfiercely, "if that other boat is a-goin' to do the job, let her do it (he will probably cheat you). I can't fool away my time. TheSally Janeis waitin' up stream to be towed down, and I would like to get the job.""We will soon find out what it means, sir. Just put me alongside the schooner.""I will put my boat there, and you can jump out."Who was it that Dave saw on the schooner's deck? Dave trembled at the prospect. He could imagine what was coming, and it came."Here, young man, what have you been up to? A precious set of young rascals to be running off with my property. I thought you said you would be particular. The state prison is none too good for you," said this unexpected and gruff personage."Squire Sylvester," replied Dave with dignity, "just wait before you condemn after that fashion; wait till you get the facts. I did try to be particular. I don't think it was intended when it was done; boys don't think, you know--""When what was done?""Why, the anchor lifted--weighed--""Anchor lifted!" growled Squire Sylvester. "What for?""Just to see it move, and have a little ride, I think.""Have a little sail! Didn't you know, sir, it was exposing property to have a little sail?"Here the squire silently levelled a stout red forefinger at this opprobrious wretch, this villain, this thief, this robber on the high seas, this--with what else did that finger mean to label David Fletcher?"But the anchor was dropped again, and it was thought, sir, that it--that it would stop--""And the vessel did not stop! Might have guessed that, I should say. You got into deep water.""We were going to hire theLeopardto tow it back, and any damages would have been paid. I am very sorry--""No apologies, young man. What's done is done. I have got a tug-boat to take the vessel back.""And you don't want me?" here shouted the captain of theLeopard."Of course not," muttered the captain of thePanther, showing some white teeth in derision."I don't know anything about you," said Squire Sylvester to the captain of theLeopard; "this other party may settle with you.""I'll pay any bill," said Dave to theLeopard, whose steam was escaping in a low growl."Can't waste any more time," snarled theLeopard. He rang the signal-bell to the engineer, and off went his tug."Well, where are your companions?" said Squire Sylvester to Dave.--"O Giles," he added to thePanther, "you may start up your boat if you have made fast to the schooner.""Weigh the anchor fust, sir.""Oh yes, Giles."The anchor weighed, thePantherthen sneezed, splashed, frothed, and theRelentlessfollowed it. Squire Sylvester declared that he must find the other runaways; that they must be on board the schooner, and he would hunt for them. He discovered them down in the hold, and out of the shadows crawled four sheepish, mortified hide-aways.And so back to its moorings went the old schooner.Back to his office went Squire Sylvester, mad with others, and mad with himself because mad with others.Back to their homes went a shabby picnic party, and after them came a bill for the expense of theRelentless'sreturn trip. It costs something in this life to find out that the thing easily started may not be the thing easily stopped.IV.WHAT WAS HE HERE FOR?Bartie Trafton,aliasLittle Mew, was crouching behind a clump of hollyhocks in a little garden fronting the Trafton home. It was a favourite place of retreat when things went poorly with Little Mew. They had certainly gone unsatisfactorily one day not long after the sail that was not a sail. He had perpetrated a blunder that had brought out from Gran'sir Trafton the encouraging remark that he did not see what the boy was in this world for. Bartie had retreated to the hollyhock clump to think the situation over. He was ten years old, and life did have a hard look to Little Mew. He never supposed that his father cared much for him. When the father was ashore he was drunk; when he came to his senses, and was sober, then he went to sea. Bart sometimes wondered if his mother thought of him and knew how he was situated."She's up in heaven," thought Bart among the hollyhocks, and to Bart heaven was somewhere among the soft, white clouds, floating like the wings of big gulls far above the tops of the elms that overhung the roof of the house and looked down upon this poor little unfortunate. If earth brought so little happiness, because bringing so little usefulness, then why was Bart on the earth at all?"I don't see," he murmured.The question was a puzzle to him. He was still looking up when he heard the voice of somebody calling."It is somebody at the fence," he said. It was a musical voice, and Bart wondered if his mother wouldn't call that way. He turned; and what a sweet face he saw at the fence!--a young lady with sparkling eyes of hazel, fair complexion, and cheeks that prettily dimpled when she laughed. He surely thought it must be his mother grown young and come back to earth again. There was some difference between that face, so picturesquely bordered with its summer hat, and the puzzled, irregular features under the old, ragged straw hat that Bart wore."Are you the little fellow I heard about that got into the water one day?" asked the young lady."Yes'm," said Bart, pleased to be noticed because he had been in the water, while thankful to be out of it."Well, I'm getting up a Sunday-school class, and I should like very much to have you in it. Would you like to come?""Yes'm," said Bart eagerly, "if--if granny and gran'sir would let me.""Where are they? You let me ask them.""She's got a lot of tunes in her voice," thought Bart, eagerly leading the young lady into the presence of granny and gran'sir.They were in a flutter at the advent of so much beauty and grace, and gave a ready permission."Now, Bartie--that is your name, I believe--""Yes'm.""I shall expect you next Sunday down at that brick church, Grace Church, just on the corner of Front Street.""I know where it is.""And one thing more. Do you suppose you could get anybody else to come?" asked the young lady."I'll try.""That's right. Do so. Good-bye.""Good-bye."Bart was puzzled to know whom to solicit for the Sunday school. Gran'sir was so much interested in the young lady that Bart concluded gran'sir would be willing to go if asked and if well enough; but Bart concluded that gran'sir was too old, and he said nothing. Sunday itself, on his way to the church, Bart saw a recruit. It was Dave Fletcher."Oh, you will go with me, won't you? I haven't anybody yet," he said eagerly."What do you mean?" replied the wondering Dave."Oh, go to Sunday school with me. I said I would try to bring some one."Dave smiled, and Bart interpreted the smile as one half of an assent."Oh, do go! I said I would try. And she's real pretty.""Who? your teacher?""Yes.""Well, that is an inducement. But I am only going to be here a Sunday or two. My visit is almost over.""Oh, well, it would please teacher."Dave smiled again, and this Bart interpreted as the other half of the assent desired."Oh, I am so glad! I'll tell you where it is.""W-e-l-l! It won't do any harm. I can go as visitor, and I suppose it would please my family--""Family?""My father and mother and sister, if they should know I had visited the Sunday school. Come along! We don't want to be late, you know. I'll be visitor, and perhaps they will want me to make a speech at the school. Ha! ha!"Bart pulled Dave eagerly into the entry of the church, and then looked through the open door into the room where he knew the Sunday school met; for Bart had been a visitor once in that very same place."Oh, I see teacher," thought Bart, spying his friend in a seat not far from the door. Her back was turned toward him, but he had not forgotten the pretty summer hat with its fluttering ribbons of blue. Dave, with a smile, followed the little fellow, who was timorously conveying his prize to the waiting young lady. She looked up as Bart exclaimed, "Here, teacher! I've got one."[image]"'Here, teacher! I've got a recruit.'"Page 63."Why, Dave," she exclaimed, "where did you come from?""Annie--this you?" he said. The two began to laugh. Bart in surprise looked at them."This is my sister, Bart," explained Dave. "Ha! ha!"That beautiful young lady and the big boy who had saved him sister and brother? He might have guessed such a friend as Dave would have such a sister as this nice young lady. She was visiting at Uncle Ferguson's."You see, Dave, when I began my visit I did not expect to teach while here; but I met the minister, Mr. Porter, and he said he wished I would start another class for him in his Sunday school and teach it while here, and I could not say no; and went to work, and have been picking up my class. I didn't happen to tell you."The Rev. Charles Porter, at this time the clergyman at Grace Church, was an old friend of the Fletcher family. Meeting Annie in the streets of Shipton, and knowing what valuable material there was in the young lady, he desired to set her to work at once; and when her stay in town might be over, he could, as he said, "find a teacher, somebody to continue to open the furrow that she had started."Dave enjoyed the situation."I will play that I am superintendent, Annie, and have come to inspect your class, and will sit here while you teach.""I don't know about allowing you to stay here, sir, unless you become a member of the class and answer my questions, Dave."Annie was relieved of the presence of this inspector; for a gentleman at the head of a class opposite, noticing a big boy among Annie's flock of little fellows, kindly invited Dave to sit with his older lads."I am Mr. Tolman," said the gentleman. "Make yourself at home among the boys.""Thank you, sir," said Dave; and his sister, with a roguish smile, bowed him out of her class.That Sunday was an eventful day to Little Mew. It was pleasant any way to be near this young lady, who seemed to him to be some beautiful being from a sphere above the human kind in which he moved. And then Bart was interested in the subject Annie presented. She talked about heaven and its people. She talked about God; but she did not make him that far-off being that Bart thought he must be, so that the louder people prayed the quicker they would bring him. She told how near he was, all about us, so that we could seem to hear his voice in the pleasant wind, and feel his touch in the soft, warm sunshine."But--but," said Bart, "he seems to be behind a curtain. I don't see him."And then the teacher, her voice to Bart's ear playing a sweeter tune than ever, told how God took away the curtain; how he came in the Lord Jesus Christ; that the Saviour was the divine expression of God's love; and men could see that love going about their streets, coming into their homes, healing their sick, and then hanging on the cross that the world might be brought to God. Bart had been told all this before, but somehow it never got so near him."What she says somehow gets into me," thought Bart, looking up into the teacher's face. He thought he would like to ask her one question when he was alone with her. The school was dismissed, and Bart lingered that he might walk away with the teacher."Could I ask you about something?" he said, trotting at her side and lifting his queer, oldish face towards her."Certainly; ask all the questions you want. I can't say that I can answer them, but there's no harm in asking them.""Well, what am I in this world for?"He said it so abruptly that it amused Annie."What are you in this world for?""Yes'm. I don't seem to amount to much."Bart eagerly watched the face above him, that had suddenly grown serious; for Annie was thinking of the little fellow's home--of its unattractiveness, of the two old people there that seemed so uninteresting, especially the grandfather, who, as Annie recalled him, seemed to be only a compound of a whining voice, a gloomy face, a bad cough, and a clumsy cane. Then she recalled the slighting way in which she heard people speak of this odd little fellow, who seemed to be a figure out of place in life's problem; one who seemed to run into life's misfortunes, not waiting that they might run into him--one ill-adjusted and awry. Well, what should she say? She thought in silence. Then she stopped him, and looked down into his face.Bart never forgot it. It was as if all of heaven's beautiful angels she had told about that day were looking at him through her face, and all of heaven's beautiful voices were speaking in her tones."Bart," she said, "the great reason why you are in this world is because--God loves you."What? He wanted to think that over."Because what?" he said."Why, Bart," she said, "God is a Father--a great, dear Father."Bart began to think he was; but he had been getting his idea of God through gran'sir's style of religion, and God seemed more like a judge or a big police-officer--catching up people and always marching them off to punishment."God is a great, dear Father," the tuneful voice was saying, "and he wants somebody to love him; and the more people he makes, the more there are to love him, or should be, and so he made you. But oh, if we don't love him, it disappoints and grieves him!""Does it?" said Bart, thoughtfully, soberly."When you are at home--alone, upstairs--you tell God how you feel about it, just as you would tell your mother--""Or teacher," thought Bart."As you would tell your mother if she were on the earth."That day, all alone hi his diminutive chamber, kneeling by a little bed whose clothing was all too scanty in cold weather, a boy told God he wanted to love him. When Bart rose from his knees he said to himself, "Now, I must try to love other people."He went downstairs. Gran'sir was lying on a hard old lounge, making believe that he was trying to read his Bible, and at the same time he was very sleepy. Bart hesitated, and then said,--"Gran'sir, don't you--you--want me to get you a pillow and put under your head?""Oh, that's a nice little boy!" said the weary old grandfather, when his head dropped on the soft pillow now covering the hard arm of the lounge."And, gran'sir, I ain't much on readin'; but perhaps, if you'd let me, I might read something, you know.""Oh, that's a dear little feller," said gran'sir, closing his eyes, so old and tired. He had been trying to read about Jacob and the angels at Beth-el; but the lounge was so tough that the feature of the story gran'sir seemed to appreciate most sensibly was that Jacob slept on a pillow of stones. I can't say how much of the story, as Bart read it, gran'sir heard that day, for he was soon as much lost to the outside world as tired Jacob was. He had, though, a beautiful dream, he afterwards told granny. Yes; in his sleep he seemed to see the ladder with its shining, silver rounds, climbing the sky, and on them were so many angels, oh, so many angels!"And, granny," whispered gran'sir, "I was a little startled, for one of them angels seemed to have Bartie's face. I hope nothin' is goin' to happen, for I am beginnin' to think we should miss that little chap ever so much."V.THE LIGHTHOUSE."You say this is your last Sunday at Shipton. Sorry! We shall miss you in the class," said Dave's new Sunday-school acquaintance, Mr. Tolman."Thank you, sir," replied Dave; "but as this is only my second Sunday in your class, you won't miss me much.""Oh yes, we shall. See here, David. There is going to be some company at my house to-morrow night. Bring your sister round to tea."Dave and Annie were at Mr. Tolman's the evening of the next day; and who was it Dave saw trying to shrink into one corner? A stout, fat man, altogether too big for the corner."He looks natural," thought Dave.At this point the man saw Dave. He had been looking very lonely, but his face now brightened as if he had suddenly seen an old and valued acquaintance."Think you don't remember me!" he said, advancing toward Dave, and extending a large brown hand shaped something like a flounder. Dave thought at once of a lighthouse, a sand-bar, and an old schooner halting on the bar."Oh, the light-keeper, Mr. Tolman!" cried Dave. "You here?""It is my uncle from Black Rocks," said the younger Mr. Tolman, stepping up to this party of two. "Uncle Toby doesn't get off very often from the light, and we thought he ought to have a little vacation, and come and see his relatives.""My nephew James is very good," said Mr. Toby Tolman. "The last time I saw you," he added, addressing Dave, "I put you on board that tug-boat."Dave dropped his head."Oh, you needn't be ashamed of that affair. I didn't think at the time you could be the cause of the mischief, and I've been told since who it was that was to blame for it."Dave raised his head."Fact is I've been a-thinking of you. Want a job, young man?""Me, sir? I expect to go home to-morrow.""Got to return for anything special?""Well, my visit is out.""Nothing special to call you home?""Oh, I help father, and go to school when there is one.""Well," said the old light-keeper, fixing his eyes on the boy, "how should you like to help to keep a lighthouse for three weeks?""Me?" said Dave eagerly."Yes, you. You know I have an assistant, Timothy Waters. He wants to be off on a vacation for three weeks, and I must have somebody to take his place. I want somebody who can work in there, sort of spry and handy. Now, I think you would do. How should you like it?""When do you want to know?""The last of this week.""I will go home to-morrow and talk it over with the folks, and I can get you an answer by day after to-morrow.""Yes, that will do."Dave went home, obtained the consent of his parents, and the boat that brought Timothy Waters to Shipton to begin his vacation took back to the lighthouse Dave Fletcher and his trunk. It was the light-keeper, Mr. Toby Tolman, who brought the former assistant to Shipton, and then accompanied Dave to Black Rocks. It was a mild summer day. The wind seemed too lazy to blow, and the sea too lazy to roll. There were faint little puffs of air at intervals, and along the bar and the shore the low surf turned slowly over as if weary. The light-tower and its red annex the fog-signal tower rose up out of one sea of blue into another of gold, and then above this sea of sunshine rolled another of blue again, where the white-sailed clouds seemed to be all becalmed. It was low tide, and the light-keeper's dory brushed against the exposed masses of the ledge, weed-matted and brown, on which the lighthouse rested."This looks like home to me," said the keeper, when they had climbed the ladder and gained the door in the fog-signal tower. When they entered the light-tower the keeper detained Dave and said, "I want to tell you something about my home here on the rocks. There, this tower is about seventy feet high. It is built as strong as they can make stone masonry. This is the first room. We keep various stores here. Do you see this?"Mr. Tolman with his foot tapped a round iron cover in the floor and then raised it."Down here is the tank where we keep our fresh water."The iron cover went down with a dull slam; and then he pointed out various stores in the room--vegetables, wood, coal, and a quantity of hand-grenades (glass flasks filled with a chemical, to be used in putting out fires)."How thick are the walls here, Mr. Tolman?""Four feet here of stone, solid; and then there is an inner wall of brick, foot and a half thick. Now we will go up into the kitchen. You saw those hand-grenades of ours. Precious little here that will burn. You see the stairways from room to room are of iron, and then every floor has an iron deck covered with hard pine. Ah, my fire is still in!"Yes, the kitchen stove had guarded well its fire, and the heat of the room was tempered by a mild, cool draught of air that came through an opened window from the flashing sea without. Besides a softly-cushioned rocking-chair near the stove, there were three chairs ranged near a small dining-room table, and their language was, "You will find a welcome here." Clock, looking-glass, cupboard, lamp-shelf, and other conveniences were in the room."Let's take a peep at the next room," said the keeper.Again they climbed an iron staircase, and reached a bedroom. Besides a single bed, there were a clothes-closet, three green chairs, a green stand, a gilt-framed looking-glass, and on the wall several pictures of sea-life. The floor was covered with oil-cloth, and directly before the bed was a rag mat that had a very domestic look."There--this is my room; and now we will go up into the assistant's, your quarters. We will bring up your trunk directly," said the keeper. This room was furnished like the keeper's, only it had two chairs, and before the bed was a strip of woollen carpet."I can put my trunk anywhere, I suppose, Mr. Tolman?""Anywhere you please.""Mother gave me a few pictures, too, that she said I could stick up, to make it look homelike.""Just what I like to have you do. Now for the watch-room."This was at the head of another iron stairway, and held a small table, a library-case, a green chest, two chairs, and a closet for the keeping of curtains that might be used in the lantern, and other useful apparatus."This room is where we can sit and watch the lantern," explained the keeper."And what is this?" asked Dave, pointing at a weight that hung down from the ceiling."That weight? It is a part of the machinery that turns round the lens in the lantern. Now, let us go up into the lantern."The lantern was a circular room. The walls were of iron, up to the height of three feet, and cased with wood, and then there was a succession of big panes of the clearest glass, making a broad window that extended about all the lantern. In the centre was a lens of "the fourth order," shaped like a cone, and consisting of very strong magnifying prisms of glass. Within this lens was a kerosene-lamp."There!" said Mr. Tolman; "all this tower of stone, all the arrangements of the place, all the serving of the keeper and his assistant, all the doing by day and the watching by night, is just to keep that little lamp a-going. Put out the lamp at night, and you might just as well send the keepers home and tear down the lighthouse.""It is not so big a lamp as I supposed.""No; that is a small lamp for so big a light as folks outside see. It is this lens that does the work of magnifying.""Can I step outside, sir? I wanted to when we were down here that night, but we did not have so good a chance for looking about.""Oh yes."Outside of the lantern was a "deck," about six feet broad, and compassing the lantern. It was a shelf of stone covered with iron."Good view here," said the keeper."Yes; nothing to hide the prospect," replied Dave. "There is Shipton up beyond the harbour, and there is the sea in the other direction."Only sea, sea, sea, to north, south, east--one wide, restless play of blue water."The wind must blow up here sometimes, Mr. Tolman.""Blow! That is a mild word for it; and in winter it is cold. It is no warm job when we have to scrape the snow and ice off the lantern. Folks outside must see, and it is our place to let them see."When the keeper and Dave returned to the kitchen, preparations for dinner were started, and then Mr. Tolman said, "We have a few minutes to spare, and I guess we will take up our boat.""Take it up?""Well, if it should promise to be a quiet day I could moor it near the light; but, of course, in rough weather, when everything is tumbling round the rocks, I had better have it h'isted into a safe place. I'll show you.""Isn't it going to be quiet?" asked Dave eagerly. "I'd like to see a storm out here.""Better see it than feel it, I tell ye. I don't know but that it will be fair," said the keeper, at the door of the fog-signal tower, looking out upon the water, while a light breeze gently lifted and dropped the thin gray locks on his brow. "May be fair, but still--still--I don't know. A bit hazy in the no'th-east.""Oh, if it would storm!" said Dave enthusiastically.The keeper smiled at his eagerness, and said: "I think you'll have your wish before you get through; and it's a tough place out here in a storm, the wind howling round the light, the big breakers thundering and smashing along the bar, the spray flying up to the lantern, or, if there is a fog, the old fog-horn screeching dismally. What do you think of it? That don't suit you, does it?""Oh, splendidly!""Well, we will get the boat up. You see we have 'tackle and falls' right here at the door, rigged overhead, you see, and we can get up 'most anything. If you will go down and make the boat fast, we will then raise her."Dave descended, attached the boat at her stern and bows to the suspended tackle, and returned to the keeper's side. Then they pulled on the ropes. The boat came readily up, and hung opposite the door of the fog-signal tower."Now we are all right," declared Dave. "This is a fortress where we have a boat, and can go off if we wish, but no enemy can get to us."All this increased the keeper's pleasure in witnessing the eagerness of Dave. At dinner the keeper rehearsed his duties, and added,--"May not seem as if there was much to be done, but to keep everything in good condition it takes some time, and then there may be fogs--oh my!"This made Dave, of course, none the less anxious to hear the big breakers booming against the lighthouse, and as an accompaniment the fog-horn moaning hoarsely. The keeper gave Dave his course of duties during the day; and while they despatched dinner he told Dave also about a heavy storm just "ten years ago that very day." And this only fired up Dave's anxiety to see what the keeper termed "a howler.""Don't you feel lonely here sometimes, sir?""Well, we get used to almost everything. I am only lonely when my assistant is away; and if I am occupied, then loneliness don't bother me much. I am generally pretty busy. By sunrise my light must be out in the lantern. I must make a trip upstairs for that, any way. Then there is breakfast. People's appetites are apt to be pretty good out here, and sometimes it is no small job just to do the cooking. I believe in living well--in having plenty to eat, and in having a variety. After breakfast, first thing, Timothy and I have prayers--same as folks do at home, you know. Then we look after the lantern. That takes time--to trim the lamp, keep the lens clean, and see that the windows of the lantern are polished bright. Then in the forenoon I do my baking--bread, cake, and so on. Well, if the fog should set in, that would upset other arrangements, and we must watch the fog-signal. Oh, there is a lot to be done! Noon comes before one knows it. In the afternoon I like to get a little time to read; but then it may be foggy, or one must go to town, or perhaps the town may come to us. I have a good many visitors in summer-time. That makes a pleasant change.""How do you manage at night?""We relieve one another. One is on watch till twelve, and the other takes his turn till sunrise. I will make it as easy for you as I can, and--""Oh, I can stand it.""Well, we will see. But speaking about daytime, one must make up then for the sleep he loses at night. So you see the hours are filled up. I read in the night considerable. I am going to propose one thing. You will find some valuable books up in the library-case in the watch-room. I want you to select one and read it. I have been astonished to see how much I could read by keeping at it sort of steady, as we say; giving myself a stint perhaps every day, and sticking to it. Hadn't you better try it?""I think I will."Dave noticed that the light-keeper was very particular to have prayers each morning directly after breakfast, and then at some other time during the day he would be likely to be bending over his Bible. It was an impressive sight. The ocean might be rolling the heavy breakers across the bar as if driving heavy, white-headed battering-rams toward the land. Against the tower itself the ponderous billows would throw themselves, and sweep in a crashing torrent between the light and fog-signal towers. Within, in the sheltered kitchen, the light-keeper would sit at his table bending over his Bible, his countenance at rest as the shadow of God's great protecting promises fell over him.
[image]"Nearer and nearer came the 'Relentless' to that foaming bar."Page 43]
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"Nearer and nearer came the 'Relentless' to that foaming bar."Page 43]
"Ninety feet now!" thought Dave. "Will the shock upset her, pitch us out, or what?"
Sixty feet now!
"The bar looks sort of ugly!" remarked Johnny Richards.
Thirty feet now!
"Wish I was in bed!" thought Jimmy Davis.
Twenty feet now!
Had the schooner halted? The boys clustered in the bow and looked anxiously over to the bar.
"Boys, she holds, I do believe," said Dave.
"All right!" shouted Dick--"all right! The anchor holds!"
It did seem an innocent, all-right situation: just the quiet sea, the musically-rolling surf along the bar, the stately lighthouse at the left, and that schooner quietly halting in the harbour.
"Now, boys," exclaimed Dick, "we can--"
"I thought you were going to swim to the lighthouse?" observed Dab.
"Oh, that won't be necessary now," replied Dick. "We are just masters of the situation. The moment the tide turns we can weigh anchor and drift back again just as easy! Be in our old quarters by morning, and nobody know the difference. Old Sylvester himself might come down the river, and he would find everything all right. Ha! ha!"
Dick's confidence was contagious, and when he proposed "Haul the Bow-line," his companions sang with him, and sang with a will. How the notes echoed over the sea! Such a queer place to be singing in!
"Mr. Toby Tolman," said Dick, facing the lighthouse, "we propose to wake you up! Let him have a rouser. Give him 'Reuben Ranzo!'"
While they were administering a "rouser" to Mr. Toby Tolman, somebody at the stern was dropping into the sea. He had stripped himself for his swim, and now struck out boldly for the bar. Reaching its uncovered sands he ran along to the boat, lying on the channel side of the bar and not that of the lighthouse, leaped into the boat, and, shoving off, rowed round to the bow of the schooner. There was a pause in the singing, and Dick Pray was saying, "This place makes you think of mermen," when Dab Richards, looking over the vessel's side, said, "Ugh! if there isn't one now!"
"Where--where?" asked Johnny.
"Ship ahoy!" shouted Dave from the boat. "How many days out? Where you bound? Short of provisions?"
"Three cheers for this shipwrecked mariner just arrived!" cried Dab. And the hurrahs went up triumphantly in the moonlight. Dave threw up to the boys the much-desired painter, and the runaway boat was securely fastened.
"There, Dave!" said Dick, as he welcomed on deck the merman: "I was just going after that thing myself, just thinking of jumping into the water, but you got ahead of me. Somehow, I hate to leave this old craft."
"I expect," said Dab Richards, a boy with short, stubby black hair and blue eyes, and lips that easily twisted in scorn, "we shall have such hard work to get Dick away from this concern that we shall have to bring a police-officer, arrest, and lug him off that way."
"Shouldn't wonder," replied Dick. "Couldn't be persuaded to abandon this dear old tub."
"Well, boys, I'm going to the lighthouse as soon as I'm dressed," said Dave.
There was a hubbub of inquiries and comments.
"What for?" asked Dick. "Ain't we all right?"
"I hope so; but I want to keep all right. I want to ask the light-keeper--"
"But all we have got to do is to pull up anchor when the tide comes, and drift back."
"Oh yes; we can drift back, but where? We can't steer the schooner. We don't know what currents may lay hold of her and take her where we don't want to go. There are some rocks with an ugly name."
"'Sharks' Fins!'" said Jimmy. "Booh!"
"What if we ran on to them?" said Dave. "We had better go and ask Toby Tolman's opinion. He may suggest something--tell us of some good way to get out of this scrape. He knows the harbour, the currents, the tides, and so on. Any way, it won't do any harm to speak to him. I won't bother anybody to go with me. Stay here and make yourselves comfortable; I will dress and shove off."
When Dave had dressed and returned, he found every boy in the boat. Dick Pray was the first that had entered.
"Hullo!" shouted Dave. "All here, are you? That's good. The more the merrier."
"Dave, we loved you so much we couldn't leave you," asserted Dick.
"We will have a good time," said Dave. "All ready! Shove off! Bound for the lighthouse!"
The old schooner was left to its own reflections in the sober moonlight, and the boat slowly crept over the quiet waters to the tall lighthouse tower.
III.
DID THE SCHOONER COME BACK?
Mr. Toby Tolman sat in the snug little kitchen of the lighthouse tower. He was alone, but the clock ticked on the wall, and the kettle purred contentedly on the stove. Music and company in those sounds.
The light-keeper had just visited the lantern, had seen that the lamp was burning satisfactorily, had looked out on the wide sea to detect, if possible, any sign of fog, had "felt of the wind," as he termed it, but did not discover any hint of rough weather. Having pronounced all things satisfactory, he had come down to the kitchen to read awhile in his Bible. The gray-haired keeper loved his Bible. It was a companion to him when lonely, a pillow of rest when his soul was weary with cares, a lamp of guidance when he was uncertain about the way for his feet, a high, strong rock of refuge when sorrows hunted his soul.
"I just love my Bible," he said.
He had reason to say it. What book can match it?
As he sat contentedly reading its beautiful promises, he caught the sound of singing.
"Some fishermen going home," he said, and read on. After a while he heard the sound of a vigorous pounding on the lighthouse door.
"Why, why!" he exclaimed in amazement, "what is that?"
He rose and hastily descended the stair-way leading to the entrance of the lighthouse. To gain admission to the lighthouse, one first passed through the fog-signal tower. The lighthouse proper was built of stone; the other tower was of iron. They rose side by side. A covered passage-way five feet long connected the two towers, and entrance from the outside was first through the fog-signal tower. The foundation of each tower was a stubborn ledge that the sea would cover at high-water, and it was now necessary to have all doors beyond the reach of the roughly-grasping breakers. Otherwise they would have unpleasantly pressed for admittance, and might have gained it. The entrance to the fog-signal tower was about twenty feet above the summit of the ledge, and from the door dropped a ladder closely fastened to the tower's red wall. Around the door was a railed platform of iron, and through a hole in the platform a person stepped down upon the rounds of the ladder. Toby Tolman seized a lantern, and crossing the passage-way connecting the two towers, entered the fog-signal tower, and so gained the entrance. Just above the threshold of the door he saw the head and shoulders of a boy standing on the ladder.
"Why! who's this, at this time of night?" said Toby.
"Good-evening, sir. Excuse me, but I wanted to ask you something."
It was Dave Fletcher.
"Any trouble?"
"Well, yes."
"Come in, come in! Don't be bashful. Lighthouses are for folks in trouble."
"Thank you."
When Dave had climbed into the tower Dick Fray's curly head appeared.
"Oh, any more of you?" asked the keeper. "Bring him along."
"Good-evening," said Dick.
Then Jimmy Davis thrust up his head.
"Oh, another?" asked Toby. "How many?"
"Not through yet, Mr. Tolman," said Dave, laughing.
Johnny Richards stuck up his grinning face above the threshold.
"Any more?" said the light-keeper.
And this inquiry Dab Richards answered in person, relieving the ladder of its last load.
"Why, why! wasn't expecting this! All castaways?"
"Pretty near it, Mr. Tolman," said Dick.
"Come up into the kitchen, and then let us have your story, boys."
They followed the light-keeper into the kitchen, so warm, so cheerfully lighted.
In the boat Dick Pray had been very bold, and said he would go ahead and "beard the lion in his den;" but when at the foot of the lighthouse, he concluded he would silently allow Dave to precede him. The warmth of the kitchen thawed out Dick's tongue, and now that he was inside he kept a part of his word, and made an explanation to the light-keeper. He stated that they had had permission to "picnic" on the schooner, had--had--"got adrift"--somehow--and were caught on the bar, and the question was what to do.
"Perhaps you can advise us still further," explained Dave. "One suggestion is that when the tide turns we pull up anchor and drift back with the tide."
"Anchor?" asked Mr. Toby Tolman. "I thought you went on because you couldn't help it. Didn't know you dropped anchor there."
Dick blushed and cleared his throat.
"The schooner was anchored, but," said Dick, choking a little, "we--we--got--got--into water too deep for our anchor, and kept on drifting till the anchor caught in the bar."
"Oh!" said the light-keeper, who now saw a little deeper into the mystery, though all was not clear to him yet. "What will you do now? It is a good rule generally, when you don't know which way to move, not to move. Now, if you pull up anchor and let the next tide take you back, there is no telling where it will take you. Some bad rocks in our harbour as well as a lot of sand. 'Sharks' Fins' you know about. An ugly place. Now let me think a moment."
The light-keeper in deep thought walked up and down the floor, while the five boys clustered about the stove like bees flocking to a flaming hollyhock.
"See here: I advise this. Don't trouble that anchor to-night. The sea is quiet. No harm will be done the schooner, and her anchor has probably got a good grip on some rocks down below, and the tide won't start her. A tug will bring down a new schooner from Shipton to-morrow, and I will signal to the cap'n, and you can get him to tow you back. What say?" asked the keeper. "'Twill cost something."
"That plan looks sensible," said Dave. "I will give my share of the expense."
Dick looked down in silence. He wanted to get back without any exposure of his fault. The tug meant exposure, for the world outside would know it. The tide as motive power, drifting the schooner back, would tell no tales if the schooner went to the right place. There would, however, be danger of collision with rocks, and then the bill of expense would be greater and the exposure more mortifying. He scratched his head and hesitated, but finally assented to the tug-boat plan, and so did the other boys.
"Very well, then," said the keeper, "make yourselves at home, and I'll do all I can to make you comfortable."
What, stay there? Did he mean it? He meant a night of comfort in the lighthouse.
What a night that was!
"I wouldn't have missed it for twenty pounds," Johnny Richards said to those at home.
And the breakfast! It was without parallel. The schooner was held by its anchor inside the bar, and the boys in the morning visited their provision-baskets, and brought off such a heap of delicacies that the light-keeper declared it to be the "most satisfyin' meal" he had ever had inside those stone walls.
About nine o'clock he said, "Now, boys, I expect the tug-boat will be down with that schooner. When the cap'n of the tug-boat has carried her through the channel, I will signal to him--he and I have an understanding about it--and he will come round and tow you up, I don't doubt. You might be a-watching for her smoke."
Soon Dab Richards, looking up the harbour, cried out, "Smoke! she's coming!"
Yes, there was the tug-boat, throwing up a column of black smoke from her chimney, and behind her were the freshly-painted hull, and new, clean rigging of the lately launched schooner. The boys, save Dave, went to theRelentless, as the light-keeper said he would fix everything with the tug-boat, "make a bargain, and so on," and Dave could hear the terms and accept them for the party if he wished. The light-keeper had also promised in his own boat to put Dave aboard the tug.
But what other tug-boat was it the boys on theRelentlesssaw steaming down the harbour? They stood in the bow and watched her approach.
"She looks as if she were going to run into us," declared Dick.
"She certainly is pointing this way," thought Johnny.
"Our friends may be alarmed for us," was Dab's suggestion.
This could not be, the other boys thought, and they dismissed it as a teasing remark by Dab. And yet the tug-boat was coming toward them like an arrow feathered with black smoke and shot out by a strong arm.
"It is certainly coming toward us," cried Dick in alarm. Who was it his black eyes detected among the people leaning over the rail of the nearing tug-boat?
He looked again.
He took a third look.
"Boys," he shouted, "put!"
How rapidly he rushed for a hatchway, descending an old ladder still in place and leading into the schooner's hold! Fear is catching. Had Dick seen a policeman sent out in a special tug to hunt up the boys and secure the vessel? Johnny Richards flew after Dick. Jimmy Davis followed Johnny. Dab was quickly at the heels of Jimmy. Down into the dark, smelling hold, stumbling over the keelson, splashing into the bilge water, and frightening the rats, hurried the still more frightened boys.
"Who was it, Dick?" asked Dab.
"Keep still boys; don't say anything."
"Can't you tell his name?" whispered Johnny.
There it was, down in the dark, that Dick whispered the fearful name. When the tug-boat, theLeopard, carrying Dave neared the schooner, the captain said, "You have another tug there. It is thePanther."
TheLeopardhated thePanther, and would gladly have clawed it out of shape and sunk it.
"I don't understand why thePantheris there," said Dave; "I really don't know what it means."
"You see," said the master of theLeopardfiercely, "if that other boat is a-goin' to do the job, let her do it (he will probably cheat you). I can't fool away my time. TheSally Janeis waitin' up stream to be towed down, and I would like to get the job."
"We will soon find out what it means, sir. Just put me alongside the schooner."
"I will put my boat there, and you can jump out."
Who was it that Dave saw on the schooner's deck? Dave trembled at the prospect. He could imagine what was coming, and it came.
"Here, young man, what have you been up to? A precious set of young rascals to be running off with my property. I thought you said you would be particular. The state prison is none too good for you," said this unexpected and gruff personage.
"Squire Sylvester," replied Dave with dignity, "just wait before you condemn after that fashion; wait till you get the facts. I did try to be particular. I don't think it was intended when it was done; boys don't think, you know--"
"When what was done?"
"Why, the anchor lifted--weighed--"
"Anchor lifted!" growled Squire Sylvester. "What for?"
"Just to see it move, and have a little ride, I think."
"Have a little sail! Didn't you know, sir, it was exposing property to have a little sail?"
Here the squire silently levelled a stout red forefinger at this opprobrious wretch, this villain, this thief, this robber on the high seas, this--with what else did that finger mean to label David Fletcher?
"But the anchor was dropped again, and it was thought, sir, that it--that it would stop--"
"And the vessel did not stop! Might have guessed that, I should say. You got into deep water."
"We were going to hire theLeopardto tow it back, and any damages would have been paid. I am very sorry--"
"No apologies, young man. What's done is done. I have got a tug-boat to take the vessel back."
"And you don't want me?" here shouted the captain of theLeopard.
"Of course not," muttered the captain of thePanther, showing some white teeth in derision.
"I don't know anything about you," said Squire Sylvester to the captain of theLeopard; "this other party may settle with you."
"I'll pay any bill," said Dave to theLeopard, whose steam was escaping in a low growl.
"Can't waste any more time," snarled theLeopard. He rang the signal-bell to the engineer, and off went his tug.
"Well, where are your companions?" said Squire Sylvester to Dave.--"O Giles," he added to thePanther, "you may start up your boat if you have made fast to the schooner."
"Weigh the anchor fust, sir."
"Oh yes, Giles."
The anchor weighed, thePantherthen sneezed, splashed, frothed, and theRelentlessfollowed it. Squire Sylvester declared that he must find the other runaways; that they must be on board the schooner, and he would hunt for them. He discovered them down in the hold, and out of the shadows crawled four sheepish, mortified hide-aways.
And so back to its moorings went the old schooner.
Back to his office went Squire Sylvester, mad with others, and mad with himself because mad with others.
Back to their homes went a shabby picnic party, and after them came a bill for the expense of theRelentless'sreturn trip. It costs something in this life to find out that the thing easily started may not be the thing easily stopped.
IV.
WHAT WAS HE HERE FOR?
Bartie Trafton,aliasLittle Mew, was crouching behind a clump of hollyhocks in a little garden fronting the Trafton home. It was a favourite place of retreat when things went poorly with Little Mew. They had certainly gone unsatisfactorily one day not long after the sail that was not a sail. He had perpetrated a blunder that had brought out from Gran'sir Trafton the encouraging remark that he did not see what the boy was in this world for. Bartie had retreated to the hollyhock clump to think the situation over. He was ten years old, and life did have a hard look to Little Mew. He never supposed that his father cared much for him. When the father was ashore he was drunk; when he came to his senses, and was sober, then he went to sea. Bart sometimes wondered if his mother thought of him and knew how he was situated.
"She's up in heaven," thought Bart among the hollyhocks, and to Bart heaven was somewhere among the soft, white clouds, floating like the wings of big gulls far above the tops of the elms that overhung the roof of the house and looked down upon this poor little unfortunate. If earth brought so little happiness, because bringing so little usefulness, then why was Bart on the earth at all?
"I don't see," he murmured.
The question was a puzzle to him. He was still looking up when he heard the voice of somebody calling.
"It is somebody at the fence," he said. It was a musical voice, and Bart wondered if his mother wouldn't call that way. He turned; and what a sweet face he saw at the fence!--a young lady with sparkling eyes of hazel, fair complexion, and cheeks that prettily dimpled when she laughed. He surely thought it must be his mother grown young and come back to earth again. There was some difference between that face, so picturesquely bordered with its summer hat, and the puzzled, irregular features under the old, ragged straw hat that Bart wore.
"Are you the little fellow I heard about that got into the water one day?" asked the young lady.
"Yes'm," said Bart, pleased to be noticed because he had been in the water, while thankful to be out of it.
"Well, I'm getting up a Sunday-school class, and I should like very much to have you in it. Would you like to come?"
"Yes'm," said Bart eagerly, "if--if granny and gran'sir would let me."
"Where are they? You let me ask them."
"She's got a lot of tunes in her voice," thought Bart, eagerly leading the young lady into the presence of granny and gran'sir.
They were in a flutter at the advent of so much beauty and grace, and gave a ready permission.
"Now, Bartie--that is your name, I believe--"
"Yes'm."
"I shall expect you next Sunday down at that brick church, Grace Church, just on the corner of Front Street."
"I know where it is."
"And one thing more. Do you suppose you could get anybody else to come?" asked the young lady.
"I'll try."
"That's right. Do so. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
Bart was puzzled to know whom to solicit for the Sunday school. Gran'sir was so much interested in the young lady that Bart concluded gran'sir would be willing to go if asked and if well enough; but Bart concluded that gran'sir was too old, and he said nothing. Sunday itself, on his way to the church, Bart saw a recruit. It was Dave Fletcher.
"Oh, you will go with me, won't you? I haven't anybody yet," he said eagerly.
"What do you mean?" replied the wondering Dave.
"Oh, go to Sunday school with me. I said I would try to bring some one."
Dave smiled, and Bart interpreted the smile as one half of an assent.
"Oh, do go! I said I would try. And she's real pretty."
"Who? your teacher?"
"Yes."
"Well, that is an inducement. But I am only going to be here a Sunday or two. My visit is almost over."
"Oh, well, it would please teacher."
Dave smiled again, and this Bart interpreted as the other half of the assent desired.
"Oh, I am so glad! I'll tell you where it is."
"W-e-l-l! It won't do any harm. I can go as visitor, and I suppose it would please my family--"
"Family?"
"My father and mother and sister, if they should know I had visited the Sunday school. Come along! We don't want to be late, you know. I'll be visitor, and perhaps they will want me to make a speech at the school. Ha! ha!"
Bart pulled Dave eagerly into the entry of the church, and then looked through the open door into the room where he knew the Sunday school met; for Bart had been a visitor once in that very same place.
"Oh, I see teacher," thought Bart, spying his friend in a seat not far from the door. Her back was turned toward him, but he had not forgotten the pretty summer hat with its fluttering ribbons of blue. Dave, with a smile, followed the little fellow, who was timorously conveying his prize to the waiting young lady. She looked up as Bart exclaimed, "Here, teacher! I've got one."
[image]"'Here, teacher! I've got a recruit.'"Page 63.
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"'Here, teacher! I've got a recruit.'"Page 63.
"Why, Dave," she exclaimed, "where did you come from?"
"Annie--this you?" he said. The two began to laugh. Bart in surprise looked at them.
"This is my sister, Bart," explained Dave. "Ha! ha!"
That beautiful young lady and the big boy who had saved him sister and brother? He might have guessed such a friend as Dave would have such a sister as this nice young lady. She was visiting at Uncle Ferguson's.
"You see, Dave, when I began my visit I did not expect to teach while here; but I met the minister, Mr. Porter, and he said he wished I would start another class for him in his Sunday school and teach it while here, and I could not say no; and went to work, and have been picking up my class. I didn't happen to tell you."
The Rev. Charles Porter, at this time the clergyman at Grace Church, was an old friend of the Fletcher family. Meeting Annie in the streets of Shipton, and knowing what valuable material there was in the young lady, he desired to set her to work at once; and when her stay in town might be over, he could, as he said, "find a teacher, somebody to continue to open the furrow that she had started."
Dave enjoyed the situation.
"I will play that I am superintendent, Annie, and have come to inspect your class, and will sit here while you teach."
"I don't know about allowing you to stay here, sir, unless you become a member of the class and answer my questions, Dave."
Annie was relieved of the presence of this inspector; for a gentleman at the head of a class opposite, noticing a big boy among Annie's flock of little fellows, kindly invited Dave to sit with his older lads.
"I am Mr. Tolman," said the gentleman. "Make yourself at home among the boys."
"Thank you, sir," said Dave; and his sister, with a roguish smile, bowed him out of her class.
That Sunday was an eventful day to Little Mew. It was pleasant any way to be near this young lady, who seemed to him to be some beautiful being from a sphere above the human kind in which he moved. And then Bart was interested in the subject Annie presented. She talked about heaven and its people. She talked about God; but she did not make him that far-off being that Bart thought he must be, so that the louder people prayed the quicker they would bring him. She told how near he was, all about us, so that we could seem to hear his voice in the pleasant wind, and feel his touch in the soft, warm sunshine.
"But--but," said Bart, "he seems to be behind a curtain. I don't see him."
And then the teacher, her voice to Bart's ear playing a sweeter tune than ever, told how God took away the curtain; how he came in the Lord Jesus Christ; that the Saviour was the divine expression of God's love; and men could see that love going about their streets, coming into their homes, healing their sick, and then hanging on the cross that the world might be brought to God. Bart had been told all this before, but somehow it never got so near him.
"What she says somehow gets into me," thought Bart, looking up into the teacher's face. He thought he would like to ask her one question when he was alone with her. The school was dismissed, and Bart lingered that he might walk away with the teacher.
"Could I ask you about something?" he said, trotting at her side and lifting his queer, oldish face towards her.
"Certainly; ask all the questions you want. I can't say that I can answer them, but there's no harm in asking them."
"Well, what am I in this world for?"
He said it so abruptly that it amused Annie.
"What are you in this world for?"
"Yes'm. I don't seem to amount to much."
Bart eagerly watched the face above him, that had suddenly grown serious; for Annie was thinking of the little fellow's home--of its unattractiveness, of the two old people there that seemed so uninteresting, especially the grandfather, who, as Annie recalled him, seemed to be only a compound of a whining voice, a gloomy face, a bad cough, and a clumsy cane. Then she recalled the slighting way in which she heard people speak of this odd little fellow, who seemed to be a figure out of place in life's problem; one who seemed to run into life's misfortunes, not waiting that they might run into him--one ill-adjusted and awry. Well, what should she say? She thought in silence. Then she stopped him, and looked down into his face.
Bart never forgot it. It was as if all of heaven's beautiful angels she had told about that day were looking at him through her face, and all of heaven's beautiful voices were speaking in her tones.
"Bart," she said, "the great reason why you are in this world is because--God loves you."
What? He wanted to think that over.
"Because what?" he said.
"Why, Bart," she said, "God is a Father--a great, dear Father."
Bart began to think he was; but he had been getting his idea of God through gran'sir's style of religion, and God seemed more like a judge or a big police-officer--catching up people and always marching them off to punishment.
"God is a great, dear Father," the tuneful voice was saying, "and he wants somebody to love him; and the more people he makes, the more there are to love him, or should be, and so he made you. But oh, if we don't love him, it disappoints and grieves him!"
"Does it?" said Bart, thoughtfully, soberly.
"When you are at home--alone, upstairs--you tell God how you feel about it, just as you would tell your mother--"
"Or teacher," thought Bart.
"As you would tell your mother if she were on the earth."
That day, all alone hi his diminutive chamber, kneeling by a little bed whose clothing was all too scanty in cold weather, a boy told God he wanted to love him. When Bart rose from his knees he said to himself, "Now, I must try to love other people."
He went downstairs. Gran'sir was lying on a hard old lounge, making believe that he was trying to read his Bible, and at the same time he was very sleepy. Bart hesitated, and then said,--
"Gran'sir, don't you--you--want me to get you a pillow and put under your head?"
"Oh, that's a nice little boy!" said the weary old grandfather, when his head dropped on the soft pillow now covering the hard arm of the lounge.
"And, gran'sir, I ain't much on readin'; but perhaps, if you'd let me, I might read something, you know."
"Oh, that's a dear little feller," said gran'sir, closing his eyes, so old and tired. He had been trying to read about Jacob and the angels at Beth-el; but the lounge was so tough that the feature of the story gran'sir seemed to appreciate most sensibly was that Jacob slept on a pillow of stones. I can't say how much of the story, as Bart read it, gran'sir heard that day, for he was soon as much lost to the outside world as tired Jacob was. He had, though, a beautiful dream, he afterwards told granny. Yes; in his sleep he seemed to see the ladder with its shining, silver rounds, climbing the sky, and on them were so many angels, oh, so many angels!
"And, granny," whispered gran'sir, "I was a little startled, for one of them angels seemed to have Bartie's face. I hope nothin' is goin' to happen, for I am beginnin' to think we should miss that little chap ever so much."
V.
THE LIGHTHOUSE.
"You say this is your last Sunday at Shipton. Sorry! We shall miss you in the class," said Dave's new Sunday-school acquaintance, Mr. Tolman.
"Thank you, sir," replied Dave; "but as this is only my second Sunday in your class, you won't miss me much."
"Oh yes, we shall. See here, David. There is going to be some company at my house to-morrow night. Bring your sister round to tea."
Dave and Annie were at Mr. Tolman's the evening of the next day; and who was it Dave saw trying to shrink into one corner? A stout, fat man, altogether too big for the corner.
"He looks natural," thought Dave.
At this point the man saw Dave. He had been looking very lonely, but his face now brightened as if he had suddenly seen an old and valued acquaintance.
"Think you don't remember me!" he said, advancing toward Dave, and extending a large brown hand shaped something like a flounder. Dave thought at once of a lighthouse, a sand-bar, and an old schooner halting on the bar.
"Oh, the light-keeper, Mr. Tolman!" cried Dave. "You here?"
"It is my uncle from Black Rocks," said the younger Mr. Tolman, stepping up to this party of two. "Uncle Toby doesn't get off very often from the light, and we thought he ought to have a little vacation, and come and see his relatives."
"My nephew James is very good," said Mr. Toby Tolman. "The last time I saw you," he added, addressing Dave, "I put you on board that tug-boat."
Dave dropped his head.
"Oh, you needn't be ashamed of that affair. I didn't think at the time you could be the cause of the mischief, and I've been told since who it was that was to blame for it."
Dave raised his head.
"Fact is I've been a-thinking of you. Want a job, young man?"
"Me, sir? I expect to go home to-morrow."
"Got to return for anything special?"
"Well, my visit is out."
"Nothing special to call you home?"
"Oh, I help father, and go to school when there is one."
"Well," said the old light-keeper, fixing his eyes on the boy, "how should you like to help to keep a lighthouse for three weeks?"
"Me?" said Dave eagerly.
"Yes, you. You know I have an assistant, Timothy Waters. He wants to be off on a vacation for three weeks, and I must have somebody to take his place. I want somebody who can work in there, sort of spry and handy. Now, I think you would do. How should you like it?"
"When do you want to know?"
"The last of this week."
"I will go home to-morrow and talk it over with the folks, and I can get you an answer by day after to-morrow."
"Yes, that will do."
Dave went home, obtained the consent of his parents, and the boat that brought Timothy Waters to Shipton to begin his vacation took back to the lighthouse Dave Fletcher and his trunk. It was the light-keeper, Mr. Toby Tolman, who brought the former assistant to Shipton, and then accompanied Dave to Black Rocks. It was a mild summer day. The wind seemed too lazy to blow, and the sea too lazy to roll. There were faint little puffs of air at intervals, and along the bar and the shore the low surf turned slowly over as if weary. The light-tower and its red annex the fog-signal tower rose up out of one sea of blue into another of gold, and then above this sea of sunshine rolled another of blue again, where the white-sailed clouds seemed to be all becalmed. It was low tide, and the light-keeper's dory brushed against the exposed masses of the ledge, weed-matted and brown, on which the lighthouse rested.
"This looks like home to me," said the keeper, when they had climbed the ladder and gained the door in the fog-signal tower. When they entered the light-tower the keeper detained Dave and said, "I want to tell you something about my home here on the rocks. There, this tower is about seventy feet high. It is built as strong as they can make stone masonry. This is the first room. We keep various stores here. Do you see this?"
Mr. Tolman with his foot tapped a round iron cover in the floor and then raised it.
"Down here is the tank where we keep our fresh water."
The iron cover went down with a dull slam; and then he pointed out various stores in the room--vegetables, wood, coal, and a quantity of hand-grenades (glass flasks filled with a chemical, to be used in putting out fires).
"How thick are the walls here, Mr. Tolman?"
"Four feet here of stone, solid; and then there is an inner wall of brick, foot and a half thick. Now we will go up into the kitchen. You saw those hand-grenades of ours. Precious little here that will burn. You see the stairways from room to room are of iron, and then every floor has an iron deck covered with hard pine. Ah, my fire is still in!"
Yes, the kitchen stove had guarded well its fire, and the heat of the room was tempered by a mild, cool draught of air that came through an opened window from the flashing sea without. Besides a softly-cushioned rocking-chair near the stove, there were three chairs ranged near a small dining-room table, and their language was, "You will find a welcome here." Clock, looking-glass, cupboard, lamp-shelf, and other conveniences were in the room.
"Let's take a peep at the next room," said the keeper.
Again they climbed an iron staircase, and reached a bedroom. Besides a single bed, there were a clothes-closet, three green chairs, a green stand, a gilt-framed looking-glass, and on the wall several pictures of sea-life. The floor was covered with oil-cloth, and directly before the bed was a rag mat that had a very domestic look.
"There--this is my room; and now we will go up into the assistant's, your quarters. We will bring up your trunk directly," said the keeper. This room was furnished like the keeper's, only it had two chairs, and before the bed was a strip of woollen carpet.
"I can put my trunk anywhere, I suppose, Mr. Tolman?"
"Anywhere you please."
"Mother gave me a few pictures, too, that she said I could stick up, to make it look homelike."
"Just what I like to have you do. Now for the watch-room."
This was at the head of another iron stairway, and held a small table, a library-case, a green chest, two chairs, and a closet for the keeping of curtains that might be used in the lantern, and other useful apparatus.
"This room is where we can sit and watch the lantern," explained the keeper.
"And what is this?" asked Dave, pointing at a weight that hung down from the ceiling.
"That weight? It is a part of the machinery that turns round the lens in the lantern. Now, let us go up into the lantern."
The lantern was a circular room. The walls were of iron, up to the height of three feet, and cased with wood, and then there was a succession of big panes of the clearest glass, making a broad window that extended about all the lantern. In the centre was a lens of "the fourth order," shaped like a cone, and consisting of very strong magnifying prisms of glass. Within this lens was a kerosene-lamp.
"There!" said Mr. Tolman; "all this tower of stone, all the arrangements of the place, all the serving of the keeper and his assistant, all the doing by day and the watching by night, is just to keep that little lamp a-going. Put out the lamp at night, and you might just as well send the keepers home and tear down the lighthouse."
"It is not so big a lamp as I supposed."
"No; that is a small lamp for so big a light as folks outside see. It is this lens that does the work of magnifying."
"Can I step outside, sir? I wanted to when we were down here that night, but we did not have so good a chance for looking about."
"Oh yes."
Outside of the lantern was a "deck," about six feet broad, and compassing the lantern. It was a shelf of stone covered with iron.
"Good view here," said the keeper.
"Yes; nothing to hide the prospect," replied Dave. "There is Shipton up beyond the harbour, and there is the sea in the other direction."
Only sea, sea, sea, to north, south, east--one wide, restless play of blue water.
"The wind must blow up here sometimes, Mr. Tolman."
"Blow! That is a mild word for it; and in winter it is cold. It is no warm job when we have to scrape the snow and ice off the lantern. Folks outside must see, and it is our place to let them see."
When the keeper and Dave returned to the kitchen, preparations for dinner were started, and then Mr. Tolman said, "We have a few minutes to spare, and I guess we will take up our boat."
"Take it up?"
"Well, if it should promise to be a quiet day I could moor it near the light; but, of course, in rough weather, when everything is tumbling round the rocks, I had better have it h'isted into a safe place. I'll show you."
"Isn't it going to be quiet?" asked Dave eagerly. "I'd like to see a storm out here."
"Better see it than feel it, I tell ye. I don't know but that it will be fair," said the keeper, at the door of the fog-signal tower, looking out upon the water, while a light breeze gently lifted and dropped the thin gray locks on his brow. "May be fair, but still--still--I don't know. A bit hazy in the no'th-east."
"Oh, if it would storm!" said Dave enthusiastically.
The keeper smiled at his eagerness, and said: "I think you'll have your wish before you get through; and it's a tough place out here in a storm, the wind howling round the light, the big breakers thundering and smashing along the bar, the spray flying up to the lantern, or, if there is a fog, the old fog-horn screeching dismally. What do you think of it? That don't suit you, does it?"
"Oh, splendidly!"
"Well, we will get the boat up. You see we have 'tackle and falls' right here at the door, rigged overhead, you see, and we can get up 'most anything. If you will go down and make the boat fast, we will then raise her."
Dave descended, attached the boat at her stern and bows to the suspended tackle, and returned to the keeper's side. Then they pulled on the ropes. The boat came readily up, and hung opposite the door of the fog-signal tower.
"Now we are all right," declared Dave. "This is a fortress where we have a boat, and can go off if we wish, but no enemy can get to us."
All this increased the keeper's pleasure in witnessing the eagerness of Dave. At dinner the keeper rehearsed his duties, and added,--
"May not seem as if there was much to be done, but to keep everything in good condition it takes some time, and then there may be fogs--oh my!"
This made Dave, of course, none the less anxious to hear the big breakers booming against the lighthouse, and as an accompaniment the fog-horn moaning hoarsely. The keeper gave Dave his course of duties during the day; and while they despatched dinner he told Dave also about a heavy storm just "ten years ago that very day." And this only fired up Dave's anxiety to see what the keeper termed "a howler."
"Don't you feel lonely here sometimes, sir?"
"Well, we get used to almost everything. I am only lonely when my assistant is away; and if I am occupied, then loneliness don't bother me much. I am generally pretty busy. By sunrise my light must be out in the lantern. I must make a trip upstairs for that, any way. Then there is breakfast. People's appetites are apt to be pretty good out here, and sometimes it is no small job just to do the cooking. I believe in living well--in having plenty to eat, and in having a variety. After breakfast, first thing, Timothy and I have prayers--same as folks do at home, you know. Then we look after the lantern. That takes time--to trim the lamp, keep the lens clean, and see that the windows of the lantern are polished bright. Then in the forenoon I do my baking--bread, cake, and so on. Well, if the fog should set in, that would upset other arrangements, and we must watch the fog-signal. Oh, there is a lot to be done! Noon comes before one knows it. In the afternoon I like to get a little time to read; but then it may be foggy, or one must go to town, or perhaps the town may come to us. I have a good many visitors in summer-time. That makes a pleasant change."
"How do you manage at night?"
"We relieve one another. One is on watch till twelve, and the other takes his turn till sunrise. I will make it as easy for you as I can, and--"
"Oh, I can stand it."
"Well, we will see. But speaking about daytime, one must make up then for the sleep he loses at night. So you see the hours are filled up. I read in the night considerable. I am going to propose one thing. You will find some valuable books up in the library-case in the watch-room. I want you to select one and read it. I have been astonished to see how much I could read by keeping at it sort of steady, as we say; giving myself a stint perhaps every day, and sticking to it. Hadn't you better try it?"
"I think I will."
Dave noticed that the light-keeper was very particular to have prayers each morning directly after breakfast, and then at some other time during the day he would be likely to be bending over his Bible. It was an impressive sight. The ocean might be rolling the heavy breakers across the bar as if driving heavy, white-headed battering-rams toward the land. Against the tower itself the ponderous billows would throw themselves, and sweep in a crashing torrent between the light and fog-signal towers. Within, in the sheltered kitchen, the light-keeper would sit at his table bending over his Bible, his countenance at rest as the shadow of God's great protecting promises fell over him.