IX.THAT OPEN BOOK.Toby Tolman, keeper of the light at Black Rocks, sat by the kitchen stove in this lighthouse on the frothing, stony rim of the sea. He liked the seclusion of this kitchen in the strong rock tower. He liked to hear the steady beating of the clock--"tick, tick, tick, tick." He liked the feeling, too, of the warm fire, and especially on this cool, windy day. True it was August, but then the wind was blowing from the north-west as if from an ice-floe up in Alaska, and the air was chilly. As he glanced out of either of the two windows--the deep recessed windows in the kitchen--he saw a cold, angry sea broken up into little waves, each seeming to carry a white snow-flake of the size of the crest of the wave. The distant ships, too, had a cold look, as if they also were snowflakes."A cool day," thought the light-keeper; "and the fire feels good."While he was in the kitchen Dave was up in the watch-room, hunting in the little library for a history he meant to read, in accordance with a plan suggested by the keeper, "a little every day, and to keep at it."Mr. Tolman had a book in his lap--"The best book in the world," he said to himself. It was his big-print Bible, and especially did he rejoice in that sense of protection, its promises give on days like this, when he heard the wind rushing and storming at the window, suggestive of the wild tempests that might blow any hour.Just this moment the keeper was not reading. He was thinking, and the Bible was the occasion of his meditation about Dave Fletcher."I don't see Dave reading his Bible much," he said to himself; "and I don't believe he cares very much about prayer--acts that way, at any rate. I should like to help him; but how?"He called Dave before his mind, this brown-haired, blue-eyed boy, with his quiet manners and methods, but, as the keeper put it, "loaded with a lot of grit.""Yes, I should like to help that boy," continued the keeper in his thoughts. "I would like to influence him to be a Christian; but how, I wonder? He is one of that kind of self-reliant chaps you feel that he had rather find out a thing himself than be told of it. He doesn't want me, I know, to tell him all the time about his duty, and yet--yet--I should like to influence him, and I wonder how?"Of course, there was one's example first of all."Try to do what I can here," thought the keeper. "I might speak to him, though I don't want to run the thing into the ground. Well, I shall be guided."The thought came to him, "Now there is a bit of a thing I can do which certainly won't do harm."The thought was just to leave his Bible open on the kitchen table."Perhaps he may see a verse," thought the keeper, "and it will set him to thinking."After that on the table would lie the keeper's Bible turned back to some impressive chapter. Dave would have been uneasy if in contact with some styles of religion, but such a kindly natured, sunny, generous, and tolerant soul as Toby Tolman he could not find disagreeable. Toby's religion was never obtrusive, never unpleasantly in the way of people; though always prominent, out in open sight, it was the prominence of the sunshine, of a bird's happy singing, of nature on a spring morning. Dave felt it, but he was a silent lad over important subjects. He was different from his sister Annie. If her soul were stirred by any profound emotion, she must in some way give expression to it. Dave, though, would look very serious and continue silent. His mother, who knew him so well, said that Dave felt most when he said the least, and the hours of his greatest stillness were to her the surest signs of an intense activity within."Dave is fullest when he seems to be emptiest," Mrs. Fletcher would say. Because now-a-days at the light he would often have long seasons of silence, was it any sign of mental occupation?"I don't think I understand that boy yet," was Toby Tolman's thought. "He is thinking about something, I know."It was a day near the close of Dave's stay at the lighthouse that the keeper said in the morning,--"Beautiful day! Everything just as calm! It seems as if it would stay so always, but it won't."How the sea might rock and roar in twenty-four hours! The lighthouse was very peaceful. The morning's work was despatched promptly, and the tower was very quiet. With any rocking, roaring sea would come a change in the life of the tower. There would be hurrying feet, and the fog-signal would shriek out its sharp, piercing warning.The flow of life in nature, though, out on the sea, up in the sky, was undisturbed all that day, and in the tower of the fog-signal the machinery stirred not, while the light breeze playing around the mouth of the fog-trumpets aroused no answering blast. It was peaceful on the sea and in the tower. And yet in the light-keeper's own bosom it seemed that afternoon as if an ocean tempest had been evoked and was suddenly raging. About three Dave, who chanced to be in the storeroom of the tower, heard a voice outside."There's some one down at the foot of the ladder," thought Dave. "I will see who it is."He went to the door of the signal-tower and looked down."Ho! that you, Timothy? Coming back?" said Dave.Down in a boat lightly resting on the smooth, glassy water was Toby Tolman's assistant, Timothy Waters. Dave knew that Timothy was coming back very soon, and he thought that Timothy might have concluded to anticipate the date appointed for his return and resume work now."Not just yet," replied Timothy. "Get the cap'n soon as you can. I won't come up. Spry, please."The keeper was quickly at the door."What's wanted, Timothy? Coming up, are you not?""Wish I could, cap'n, but I want to take you to town. Your--is--very--"The sea heaved just then sufficiently to disturb the speaker's balance and also to interfere with his message. There he stood, trying to steady himself by the help of the mooring-rope and then looking up again."What? who?" asked the keeper."Why, your granddarter May, cap'n," replied Timothy. "She is very sick. They don't know that she will live. She has been begging to see you, and if you could come a few hours I will get you back again all right afterwards.""I will be with you right off." The keeper turned to Dave: "You heard that. It's ugly news. Now if I go, can't you light up and watch till half-past eight? I'll be back, sure. Don't worry. It will be a quiet night; no sign just yet of any change in the weather.""Oh yes, Mr. Tolman; that is all right. You go. I would if I were you. I will look after things. I can handle them.""I think you can; and I shall be obleeged to you. My, my! this is sudden. Wasn't looking for May's sickness."He was quickly in the boat with Timothy Waters; and then Dave watched the two men pulling stoutly on their oars and making quick progress landward. The boat turned the corner of a bluff projecting into the harbour and disappeared. Dave stepped back into the lighthouse, and sat down beside the kitchen stove. It was very peaceful there. The clock ticked as usual on the wall; and on the table, lying open, as if laid down a moment ago by the keeper, was his Bible. Dave glanced at the opened pages a moment. As his eyes slipped down the line of verses he noticed such assurances as these:--"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.... Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night.... For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."He lingered a moment looking at these passages, and then turned away."I will go upstairs," he said, "into the lantern, and make sure that everything is ready for the lighting at sunset. That's sudden about May Tolman," he began to reflect. "Why, I seem to see her going up and down these stairs the day she was here, so full of life."He could hear her voice; he could see her black, glowing eyes, that had a peculiar fascination for Dave."Sorry," he said. "That's real sudden. Things do happen quick in this life sometimes."Dave felt unusually sober that day. If he had told all his thoughts to any one, he would have confessed to a singular soberness of feeling for some time.He had been shut up for several weeks with a man whose religion, without any pretence, any show, and any peculiarities, controlled his life, and came prominently to the surface in everything. Dave felt his sister's religious influence at home; but there were influences interfering with it and partly neutralizing it. Dave Fletcher's mother was too busy, she assured herself, to attend to religion; and Dave's father declared--also to himself--that he did not "feel the need of it." "I am as good as my neighbours; and I guess that will do," he said. He quoted in his thoughts Dave's lack of interest, saying, "There is Dave, good boy; and he takes his father's view of things."But here at the lighthouse Dave declared that he was "cornered." Here was a simple, humble, unselfish life living in communion with his heavenly Father, bringing that presence down to that lonely tower in the sea, and filling it, and surrounding the boy who was the light-keeper's companion. No neutralizing associations here."It sets me to thinking," declared Dave, as he climbed the successive stairways to the lantern the afternoon of the keeper's absence. "And May Tolman's sickness--that is sudden. Nothing is certain. Well, we must just look after matters right around us. One can't give his thoughts to all these possibilities of accident. I'll just remember that I am a keeper of a lighthouse."Keeper of a lighthouse! The moment he uttered this thought to himself there settled down upon his shoulders a new and serious weight of responsibility. He began to realize that for several hours he must carry the burden of a keeper's duties. He must look after the fog-signal, if a dusky veil of mist should suddenly be dropped from the sky and curtain off both the sea and the land. If there should be any accident upon the sea in the neighbourhood of the lighthouse, where the keeper might be expected to give any aid, Dave must render that help. When night came, or sunset rather, he must light the lamp in the lantern, and he must watch it, and see that for the sake of the many vessels upon the sea this light burned with steady lustre. Upon just a boy's shoulders how heavy a care seemed to be pressing down!"I can stand it," he said, in pride and confidence. The very pressure of the responsibility aroused within him a corresponding measure of strength. However, it did not lessen the shadow of that sober thinking in which he often walked nowadays."I'll take that history I am reading," he said on his return from the lantern, "and get over a good number of pages to-day."He read until supper-time, but somehow his thoughts did not seem to stay on his book. They were like birds on the telegraph wires along the railroad track--flying off and then alighting again, only to lift their wings and beat the air in another flight."A long afternoon!" he said finally, laying down his book. "I am glad it is tea-time."How lonely the kitchen began to seem! The rattle of his knife and fork, the clink of his spoon, the occasional clatter of dishes, usually such pleasant sounds to a hungry man, now sounded lonely and harsh."Don't like eating by myself," declared Dave. "Glad tea is over. Wonder when Mr. Tolman will be here?" He looked at the clock and said, "I believe he thought he should be back by half-past eight. I wonder how May Tolman is getting along. Poor girl!"The sun seemed that night a longer time than usual in setting, as if it were an invalid, and there must be a very deliberate and lengthy bundling up in yellow blankets."At last the sun is about going down," said Dave. He was now up in the lantern, match in hand. He looked off through the broad windows of glass upon the surface of the sea, growing calmer and more shining in the west; but in the east its lustre had faded out, and there was a great expanse of dull, heavy, lead-like shades. Two fishing-boats were creeping into harbour. The surf on the bar rolled lazily, as if it would like to go to sleep, even as the sun. A schooner was creeping along the channel, its sails hanging in loose, flapping folds."There goes the sun!" thought Dave, watching the disappearance of the last embers of its fires below a blue hill. He turned with relief to the lamp, removed its chimney, kindled its wick, replaced the chimney, and then carefully adjusted the flame."There--that is done! Now do your duty, and burn all right," was Dave's direction. Rising, he looked away, and saw that in other lighthouses their keepers had kindled guiding tapers, burning slender and silvery in the still lingering daylight."Everything here is all right, I believe," said Dave, looking about the lantern. "Holloa! what is that up there in the corner? A cobweb? Guess I must take it down. Don't want the window to have that thing up there. Can't reach it. I will get a little box down in the watch-room. That will elevate me."When he had brought the box, standing on it he saw that the web was on the outside of the lantern, and he went without to remove the film from the glass."There!" he said, reaching up to the corner of the window as he stood on the box. "Come down here. Don't have cobwebs on the windows of this lantern."He now turned about, and chanced to face the tall red pipes projecting from the roof of the signal-tower with their trumpet-shaped mouths."Is one of those pipes damaged?" wondered Dave. "Afraid so. I must take a sharper look at that."At the foot of the railing of the parapet he placed the box, and from that elevation, leaning his arms on the railing, inspected as closely as he could the fog-signal. This parapet for timorous people was an ugly spot. When the wind blew hard it was not easy to maintain one's footing outside the lantern. One could cling to the railing, which was firm, but it consisted only of an iron bar resting on upright iron rods three feet apart. There was no danger of a fence-break, but the gaps between the iron rods were wide and ugly, and if one should chance to drop on the smooth stone floor and just tip a little--over--toward--the--edge--ugh! One did not like to think of that fall down--down--into the sea--perhaps upon the Black Rocks when the tide was out. Toby Tolman had told Dave that for a long time he did not care to go near the rail about the lantern and stand there a while, as it made him "nervous;' but he had ceased to be a "land-lubber," and could now face, sailor-like in confidence, any quarter of the sea and sky, just clinging to that little rail. Dave had felt pleased with his steadiness of nerve when he found he could look over that rail and then down upon the whirling sea without very much trepidation."Shouldn't like to have a dizzy fit when I was looking over," he said. "No danger, though."He repeated this as he now stood on the box planted at the foot of one of the iron supports of the rail, and continuing to rest his arms on the rail, inspected closely, as already said, the fog-signal. Suddenly his arms slipped, and over the horrible edge of that narrow little railing he found himself going. Sometimes we compress years into moments apparently. We go back, we go forward, we gather it all up into the thought of a very brief now. But oh, how vivid!--like all the electric force in a great mass of cloud concentrated in one dazzling, blinding lightning-stroke. As Dave felt that his body was sliding over that rail, he seemed to realize where he had been in the past. He thought of his parents--his home--Uncle Ferguson at Shipton--how it was that he came to the lighthouse, and then he seemed to realize vividly his situation there in the lighthouse: that he was there as the responsible keeper just then; that the safety of many vessels at sea all relied on the thoroughness of his watch; and yet he was sliding over that rail, going down toward the waves, the rocks--he dared not look toward them! He could see only this one thing between him and death: beneath his hands was an iron support of the railing. There was no other object he could grasp for three feet on each side of him. It is true there was the granite rim of this lantern-deck, so called sometimes, but he could not grasp it. His hands would slide over it. Just that iron stanchion was his hope, and as he was sinking down he convulsively clutched at it, caught it, clung to it--shutting his eyes as if blinded. He dared not look anywhere until he felt that his grasp was sure, and then he somehow worked himself back, up, over the railing, and the whole of his body was on the lantern-deck again. He crawled into the lantern, shut the door, and threw himself on the floor weak as a baby."Horrible!" was his one word. There he lay thinking. What if he had gone down into that yawning pit of the sea! When would they have found his body? Horrible! horrible! When he was steady enough he slowly crept down the stairs. He entered the kitchen. It had seemed as if everything threatened to fall when he was in danger of going down into the sea--lantern, watch-room, lighthouse--all into the merciless sea. But here was the kitchen. No change here. It was so quiet, so restful. A lamp burned on the table. The fire murmured in the stove. The clock sang its cheerful little tune of a single note. And there was the old light-keeper's Bible. It still lay open, its pages shining in the lamp-light, and there were the promises of the psalm Dave had already noticed. What did it say? "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."Dave started. Up on the high lantern-deck had any mighty angel stepped between him and death, lifting him back on the floor of stone? Who could say it was not so? Dave sat down in a chair, and then bowed his head and rested it on the table. Here was God, the kindest, dearest being in the universe, Dave's great Father, from whose arms he had been turning away, trying to avoid them; and now, up on the lofty parapet, they had been held out, restraining him, saving him."Oh, I can't go on this way any longer," thought Dave. "And Iwon't, either! If God will only have me--will only--"He fell on his knees. What he whispered to God he never could recall. He only knew that he felt very sorry that he had been neglecting God--pushing away the arms reached out to him and feeling after him. He murmured something about gratitude, something about forgiveness. Then he was conscious of a surrender, of sliding down--not into a horrible pit from the lighthouse parapet, but into arms tender yet strong, that went about him, that bore him up, that held him. How long he stayed there he knew not. Some time he arose, and went upstairs to see if the lantern were all right. Its light burned steadily, vividly, hopefully. He looked out on the lantern-deck. There was the box still on the floor. With a shudder he took it in and went downstairs again. Then he prayed once more, and said aloud the words, "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." He was so thankful for this night's deliverance, so sorry for his forgetfulness of God in the long past! He rose to read again. He heard a step at last in the passage-way between the fog-signal tower and the lighthouse,--a heavy, echoing step, now in the tank-room, then on the stairway to the kitchen.Dave sprang up to meet the keeper, and he held the lamp in the shadowy stairway."Glad to see you, Mr. Tolman.""Same to you. Here I am, all right, you see. Glad I went.""How is May?""Better. Yes, thank God, she is better. There was a sudden change, and the doctor has hope. She has been in a pretty hard place, but I think she is out of it.""Good! That's the way I feel myself.""What!" The light-keeper looked at Dave for an explanation, but Dave was silent. He could not tell everything at once, or even a little to-night. The keeper went to the table, saying to himself, "He meant May when he said that. Ah!" he thought, "my book is turned round. Guess Dave has been reading this. Good! I thought he would get to it some time."That was a very peaceful night whose hush was on the great sea, on the surf gently rolling along the bar, and in the lighthouse tower. The deepest peace was in Dave Fletcher's soul.Dave's stay at the lighthouse was exceedingly brief after this event in his life."I am really sorry to have you go," said Toby Tolman the day that Dave left. "I shall miss you. I will take you up to town, as Timothy has come back."Dave received his pay from Timothy, for whom he had acted as substitute, and then with the keeper left the lighthouse.The journey to Shipton over, Dave quickly walked to Uncle Ferguson's, and was welcomed warmly.X.THE CHRISTMAS GIFT.Christmas was approaching--Christmas with its white fields, and its skies that seem to part like the opening of doors in a big blue wall, and from it issue the sweet songs of the Bethlehem angels. Still more acceptable is it when our souls seem to open like doors that fly apart, and out to our neighbour and all souls everywhere go assurances of peace and good-will.To Dave Fletcher and Dick Pray Christmas meant an end of school-days and a return home."You will come and see us 'fore you go," was Bart Trafton's meek request to Dick and Dave when he met them in the street. Dick made the first call, just three days before Christmas. Things did not have a festival appearance in the Trafton home that day. Gran'sir was lying on a lounge not far from the fire, and his cough was shaking him harder than ever. Bart, just before Dick's call, had been down on the shore of the river to see if the last tide had remembered the poor, and deposited any more drift on the beach. He brought back only a puny armful, and this armful he divided between the oven and the fire, the first half to dry and be ready to start up the flames which the other half would be quite sure to put down and almost put out. Granny had been calling at a neighbour's, to borrow timidly a little tea, and met Dick just outside the door of the Trafton home. Such a difference as there was between youth with its ruddy cheeks and bright eyes, between plenty with its cheerful and contented spirit, and poor old Granny Trafton!"Bartie wanted me to call," said Dick."Come in, come in," said granny, hospitably. "We're poor folks, but we're glad to see people."When Dick went away he said to himself, "'Poor folks,'--they're all that. I wish something could be done for them."Dave made his call, and he left the house saying, "Something must be done."The two callers met in the street the day of Dave's call, and the same thought was in their minds."Dick, see here. Those Traftons are real poor," said Dave. "I wonder if we couldn't get them a little something for Christmas.""Dave, that very thought was in my mind, and I wanted to speak of it. Come on. It's done."Hardly done; but that was Dick's way, and when a soul may be timid and discouraged, that confident, self-assured style in another is very strengthening."Let's see. There is no other way than to go right round and ask our friends. I know they will give something, Dick.""Hold on, hold on, Dave. That is a slow way, Let's make a dash and capture the enemy at once. I will pick out some millionaire--"Here Dick turned round as if to see which "millionaire" he would select from all of Shipton's wealthy residents."Yes," he continued; "I will look after that. Don't you give yourself a moment of uneasiness on that score. I will pick out some rich fellow, tell him what he ought to do, and bag the game on the spot. There!"Dave laughed. He knew Dick's style thoroughly. At the same time it did give one like Dave, who shrank from begging, new courage to have Dick talk so boldly."Let's see, Dick. It is now Monday. We might meet on Wednesday at your cousin's store, and find out how we stand, and send our things to the Traftons on Wednesday afternoon; and Christmas is on Thursday, you know.""Dave, don't worry about the wherewithal." Here Dick, with a very solemn air of assurance, looked Dave steadily in the eye. "I purpose to bag a millionaire and make him do his duty, Dave Fletcher."The two friends laughed, shook hands, and separated. Dave listened as he was about turning a corner of the street, for he heard somebody whistling. It was Dick whistling, in a loud, bold, cheery way."Well," thought Dave, "I'll make a beginning now. I will speak to Aunt Nancy soon as I get home."Aunt Nancy was stoning raisins in preparation for a Christmas baking."Will I give something to the Traftons? Oh, certainly. I expect a good warm blanket would be just the thing for gran'sir, and I'll give that as my share.Myshare, remember. Your uncle must give his mite. I tell ye, David," said Aunt Nancy in a whisper, "your uncle has some first-class Baldwins down in the cellar. Just touch him upon those.""I will, aunt, thank you."And next, would the home of James Tolman give anything?"Pies and potatoes; you can count on us for some of both kinds," said Mrs. Tolman.The next place was the home of the light-keeper, Toby Tolman, when ashore. His wife was dead, and a widowed daughter and her only child, May, lived in his house. He preferred to keep up the home, although personally there but a very little of the time."Should we like to give anything? Of course," said the keeper's daughter; "that is what Christmas is for. Only last week I heard father say we could give some wood off our pile, for he calculated we had more than enough to carry us through the winter.""Don't you let young folks help?" asked a silvery voice, sending at Dave an arch look out of two penetrating black eyes. "You must not think I am an invalid and past helping, if I was so sick last summer. Now I can just go round in the neighbourhood and get together some eatables, I know, and perhaps clothing that might do for Bart.""That would be splendid," said Dave, stirred deeply by those black eyes, and wishing that in every house visited he was the individual of whom May Tolman would solicit.When Dave brought these donations into one collection, he found not only the blanket for gran'sir but a shawl for granny. There also were clothes for Bart, and any amount of things for the Christmas dinner.The next point was how to get them taken up to the Traftons. For the clothing and eatables Dave borrowed Uncle Ferguson's cart, but for the wood only James Tolman's waggon would answer. That procession of two teams, the waggon and the cart, had a Christmas look that would have been recognized anywhere."Whoa-a-a!" shouted Dave, as the procession neared the boot and shoe shop kept by Dick's cousin Sam. Dick was behind the counter waiting on a customer. As he saw Dave entering he ran his hand through his hair in a nervous, despairing style, but said nothing until the customer had left."There, Dave, it is too bad, but--but--whose are those teams out in the street?""Just things I picked up.""And the wood?""Going to the same place.""That's good. Then I don't feel so bad.""Well, anything you find, good, you know, for Christmas, why, send it along.""I shouldn't wonder, though, if--if--it might be too late now; but--you have got something--if--I should be too late--and I do believe I am too late. Sorry. Glad, though, I put you up to it. I knew you would attend to it."With a triumphant wave of his hand, as if he were permitting Dave to drive off with a donation that Dick Pray had gathered, he accompanied Dave to the door and then retreated to the counter."If that isn't Dick Pray all over!" said Dave.It would be difficult to tell the feelings of joy occasioned in the Trafton home by those gifts."Davie," said Bart, "I had a dream last night, and I guess it is a-comin' true. I thought I saw that ladder that Jacob had a look at, you know, when the angels were a-goin' up and down, and comin' down they had bundles in their arms."Dave entered the house, bringing in bundle after bundle. Bart thought the angels looked somewhat like that."Hadn't you better try this shawl?" said Dave to granny, who looked cold and purple. And would gran'sir be willing to be wrapped in the blanket? The thin, worn consumptive responded with a glad smile, and said in a whisper that he hadn't been so comfortable since he was sick. And the wood--how it set that old stove to shaking and laughing and glowing till its front seemed like a jolly face full of sparkling eyes! That is one good result coming from a stove cracked everywhere in front.Granny told the minister, Mr. Potter, two days after, how all this generosity affected gran'sir."Why, sir, it made him just heavenly! He cried and laughed--it was so good to be warm, you know. And he's softened so, sir. I think it begun when Bartie begun to read the Bible to him, and it has been a-keepin' on, sir, a-softenin', sir--don't scold, you know, or be harsh-like. I--I--I--" Here granny buried her face in her apron and cried. "I'm afraid--sir--may be--he won't live--long--he's--softened so--sir--he has."It was nothing wonderful. Like the warm breath of the spring on the chilled and torpid flowers, arousing them into the activity of bud and blossom time, the thoughtful kindness of God's creatures brought God nigh to gran'sir; brought the breath of his benediction to gran'sir's soul, and gave him a new life."God has been so good--he draws me," gran'sir said to granny an early day in January. "It is--like he's callin' me--and--I guess I'll go."His going was so peaceful that to say when it was would be like marking the spot where the current crosses the line between the river and the ocean; and yet his soul did cross from time, so short and river-like, into the broad and boundless ocean of eternity. People said it would be as well for the comfort of granny and Little Mew, and even better, for gran'sir they declared to be exacting. They did not know how it was. Granny and Little Mew felt that they were the exacting ones, for they wanted gran'sir to stay. Little Mew's soul was clouded by the shadow of a thought that by the death of gran'sir his mission in this world was very much abridged. He was tempted to wonder again for what God had sent a little fellow like him into this world.XI.AT SHIPTON AGAIN."Nothing for me?""Nothing.""Sure?""Well--"The postmistress, in response to Dave Fletcher's anxious inquiry, looked again at a package of letters she had been handling."Oh yes, here is something! I didn't see it the first time. Beg pardon.""All right. I wasn't really expecting anything, but it is so long since I have had a letter that I was kind of hungry for one."Dave took his letter from the postmistress and walked away."Postmarked Shipton!" said Dave, looking at the envelope. "Don't seem to know the address. Let's break that and see what it says."He glanced down at the name with which the letter closed."James Tolman; what does he want?" wondered Dave. He then returned to the first line and began to read:--"DEAR DAVID,--I have not forgotten that you were in my Sunday-school class when in Shipton, and I felt that I knew you well enough to ask you to take this into consideration, whether you wouldn't like to come and be my clerk. I am in the ship-chandlery business, and have two clerks. One of them is going away, and may leave me for good. I have promised to keep his place open for him three months. At the end of that time he may come back. Now, if I ask you to come for three months, I know--"Dave crumpled the letter in his hand, thrust it into his pocket, and springing into his waggon, cried, "Get up there, Jimmy! Don't know that you and I will be travelling this road together much longer. Get up there!""Jimmy" was urged at an unusual rate over the road, and pricked up his ears in astonishment as his master cried, "Faster, faster!""There, mother!" said Dave, when he entered the Fletcher kitchen; "just what I wanted has happened.""What is that?" replied Mrs. Fletcher."Read this, mother, and you will see.""For three months, Dave, and perhaps no longer, it means.""Oh, well, it will be a stepping-stone to something, if I have to leave it. Just get started in Shipton and I can go it.""But you haven't read about the pay, Dave.""Well, mother, the fact is I like the place--I mean Shipton. I love to be near the salt water and where I can see the ships--""And the lighthouse--""Yes.""And May Tolman," sang out a voice from the adjoining sitting-room, and Annie Fletcher appeared at the kitchen door, asking, "How is it, Dave?"Dave felt it to be the wisest course to keep still and blush.In a few days he was ready to start for Shipton. He called one evening to see some of his old acquaintances, and the next day started for Shipton.On arriving he reported for duty at the shop of "James Tolman, Ship-chandler." He was now eighteen, and he felt that active life was beginning in earnest. The shop was an old one, and before James Tolman's business days it had been kept by his father. It was packed with all kinds of goods available for ship-furnishings. As one opened the door a scent of tar issued, strong enough to make the most thorough-going old salt say, "This seems like home." There were coils of rope of every size ranged on either side of the passage-way. There were capstans and anchors and blocks and ring-bolts. There were all kinds of shining tin and copper ware for the cook's galley. There were compasses, and ship-lanterns, and speaking-trumpets, and sheath-knives, and suits of oiled clothing, and slouching "tarpaulins." On stormy days, when Dave from the back windows could see that the waves in the river had stuck in their crests saucy feathers of foam, it seemed to him as if he heard the coils of rope creak in the store and the suits of sailors' clothing rustle; and what wonder if some old salt had waddled forward in one of those stiff suits, and, seizing a trumpet, cried in ringing tones to the pots and kettles hanging from the brown, dusty beams, "Furl your top-sails." It was a pleasure to Dave when an old Shipton sea-captain might heave in sight on stormy days, and, entering the shop, take a seat by the crackling fire and tell of gales round Cape Horn or in the Bay of Biscay."I believe I am cut out for this business," said Dave.His former Shipton acquaintances were glad to see him back. Dick Pray for six months had been in town, a clerk in his cousin's shop. He now came to bring his congratulations to Dave."Glad to see you, Dave," he said."Thanks, Dick. How is business?""Oh, booming! booming!"All business that Dick's magnificent abilities came in contact with either had "boomed," or was "booming," or would "boom" very soon. No tame word was fit to describe Dick's business ventures.And the boy who came shyly, timidly after Dick was--Bart Trafton."You well, Bartie?" asked Dave."Oh, better!""Why?""Because you've got back," said the caller, with snapping eyes."That's encouraging. And granny, is she well?""Oh yes, when--"He did not finish. If he had completed his sentence, he would have said "when father isn't at home."The same day two other people were in the shop whom Dave had met previously, though he did not recognize them at once. There stood before the counter a rather tall man, wearing a tall hat and closely muffled about the face, for the day was one of cold blasts of storm."I want a good ship's lantern," said the customer."Yes, sir," replied Dave, ranging before the man an array of lantern goods."You have come to be clerk?" asked the man.Dave looked up more carefully, and saw that the man wore spectacles."Yes, sir," replied Dave.The man inquired the price of the lanterns, selected one, and went out."Halloo! he has given me twopence too much!" exclaimed Dave."That doesn't matter," said a man who was watching through a window in the door the storm driving without."Oh yes, it does," murmured Dave.--"Johnny!" he called aloud to a younger clerk in the counting-room, "just look after things a moment while I go out."Johnny came out into the shop, and Dave seized his cap and ran after the customer. The latter was a fast walker, and was hurrying round a corner of the street when Dave overtook him."See here, sir! A mistake in the change. I counted it, and you gave me too much.""Oh--ah! Thank you! I see you don't know me."The man slipped down a scarf wrapped about his face, took off his spectacles, and there was--somebody, but Dave could not say who."Not so rough up here as down at the bar--in a schooner, say.""O--Squire Sylvester!""That's it. I think I was too rough with you that day, for I found out afterward you had nothing to do with it.""Oh, well, sir--I--""I just wanted to say that, and am glad you think enough of another man's property, though only two-pence, to chase after him and give it to him."Then the tall man tramped on."It shows," thought Dave, "that he hasn't forgotten what happened some time ago, and I suppose he had been wanting to say what he got off to me. I don't harbour it against you, Squire Sylvester. When a man's property has been run off with, it would be a wonder if he didn't say something."When Dave returned to the store the man at the door still stood there, looking out through the little window."I think I know that chap's face," thought Dave, "but I really can't say who it is."The man was disposed to talk. "Did you catch the squire?" he asked."Oh yes.""Did he take the twopence?""Oh yes.""Catch him not take it! The squire would hold on to a halfpenny till it cankered if he could possibly git along without spendin' it. I don't believe in worryin' yourself about sich people.""Twopence didn't seem much, but then it wasn't mine.""I see you don't mean to be rich?""I mean to be honest.""And die poor?""That doesn't follow.""Oh, it does 'em good--these rich fellers--to lose a little now and then.""But they ought not to lose it if we have it and it is theirs.""Oh, you are too honest. Say, I see you don't know me.""Well, yes, I ought to know your face.""I've let my whiskers grow. I didn't have any the last time you saw me. Cut all these off," said the man, lifting a big beard, "and it would make a big difference. Don't you remember Timothy Waters, at the lighthouse?""Why, yes. You Timothy?""Yes.""And are you at the light now?""Just the same.""How is Mr. Tolman?""Holdin' on. Oh, he likes it! You must come and see us."Having given this invitation, Timothy left the store. Dave watched him as he moved down the street, turning at last into a little lane leading down to the wharves. Then he thought of Timothy rowing his dory down the river, tossing on the uneasy tide, battling his way forward until he halted at the foot of a great gray-stone tower in the sea. Looking up at the doorway of the tower, Dave saw the keeper's familiar face.
IX.
THAT OPEN BOOK.
Toby Tolman, keeper of the light at Black Rocks, sat by the kitchen stove in this lighthouse on the frothing, stony rim of the sea. He liked the seclusion of this kitchen in the strong rock tower. He liked to hear the steady beating of the clock--"tick, tick, tick, tick." He liked the feeling, too, of the warm fire, and especially on this cool, windy day. True it was August, but then the wind was blowing from the north-west as if from an ice-floe up in Alaska, and the air was chilly. As he glanced out of either of the two windows--the deep recessed windows in the kitchen--he saw a cold, angry sea broken up into little waves, each seeming to carry a white snow-flake of the size of the crest of the wave. The distant ships, too, had a cold look, as if they also were snowflakes.
"A cool day," thought the light-keeper; "and the fire feels good."
While he was in the kitchen Dave was up in the watch-room, hunting in the little library for a history he meant to read, in accordance with a plan suggested by the keeper, "a little every day, and to keep at it."
Mr. Tolman had a book in his lap--"The best book in the world," he said to himself. It was his big-print Bible, and especially did he rejoice in that sense of protection, its promises give on days like this, when he heard the wind rushing and storming at the window, suggestive of the wild tempests that might blow any hour.
Just this moment the keeper was not reading. He was thinking, and the Bible was the occasion of his meditation about Dave Fletcher.
"I don't see Dave reading his Bible much," he said to himself; "and I don't believe he cares very much about prayer--acts that way, at any rate. I should like to help him; but how?"
He called Dave before his mind, this brown-haired, blue-eyed boy, with his quiet manners and methods, but, as the keeper put it, "loaded with a lot of grit."
"Yes, I should like to help that boy," continued the keeper in his thoughts. "I would like to influence him to be a Christian; but how, I wonder? He is one of that kind of self-reliant chaps you feel that he had rather find out a thing himself than be told of it. He doesn't want me, I know, to tell him all the time about his duty, and yet--yet--I should like to influence him, and I wonder how?"
Of course, there was one's example first of all.
"Try to do what I can here," thought the keeper. "I might speak to him, though I don't want to run the thing into the ground. Well, I shall be guided."
The thought came to him, "Now there is a bit of a thing I can do which certainly won't do harm."
The thought was just to leave his Bible open on the kitchen table.
"Perhaps he may see a verse," thought the keeper, "and it will set him to thinking."
After that on the table would lie the keeper's Bible turned back to some impressive chapter. Dave would have been uneasy if in contact with some styles of religion, but such a kindly natured, sunny, generous, and tolerant soul as Toby Tolman he could not find disagreeable. Toby's religion was never obtrusive, never unpleasantly in the way of people; though always prominent, out in open sight, it was the prominence of the sunshine, of a bird's happy singing, of nature on a spring morning. Dave felt it, but he was a silent lad over important subjects. He was different from his sister Annie. If her soul were stirred by any profound emotion, she must in some way give expression to it. Dave, though, would look very serious and continue silent. His mother, who knew him so well, said that Dave felt most when he said the least, and the hours of his greatest stillness were to her the surest signs of an intense activity within.
"Dave is fullest when he seems to be emptiest," Mrs. Fletcher would say. Because now-a-days at the light he would often have long seasons of silence, was it any sign of mental occupation?
"I don't think I understand that boy yet," was Toby Tolman's thought. "He is thinking about something, I know."
It was a day near the close of Dave's stay at the lighthouse that the keeper said in the morning,--"Beautiful day! Everything just as calm! It seems as if it would stay so always, but it won't."
How the sea might rock and roar in twenty-four hours! The lighthouse was very peaceful. The morning's work was despatched promptly, and the tower was very quiet. With any rocking, roaring sea would come a change in the life of the tower. There would be hurrying feet, and the fog-signal would shriek out its sharp, piercing warning.
The flow of life in nature, though, out on the sea, up in the sky, was undisturbed all that day, and in the tower of the fog-signal the machinery stirred not, while the light breeze playing around the mouth of the fog-trumpets aroused no answering blast. It was peaceful on the sea and in the tower. And yet in the light-keeper's own bosom it seemed that afternoon as if an ocean tempest had been evoked and was suddenly raging. About three Dave, who chanced to be in the storeroom of the tower, heard a voice outside.
"There's some one down at the foot of the ladder," thought Dave. "I will see who it is."
He went to the door of the signal-tower and looked down.
"Ho! that you, Timothy? Coming back?" said Dave.
Down in a boat lightly resting on the smooth, glassy water was Toby Tolman's assistant, Timothy Waters. Dave knew that Timothy was coming back very soon, and he thought that Timothy might have concluded to anticipate the date appointed for his return and resume work now.
"Not just yet," replied Timothy. "Get the cap'n soon as you can. I won't come up. Spry, please."
The keeper was quickly at the door.
"What's wanted, Timothy? Coming up, are you not?"
"Wish I could, cap'n, but I want to take you to town. Your--is--very--"
The sea heaved just then sufficiently to disturb the speaker's balance and also to interfere with his message. There he stood, trying to steady himself by the help of the mooring-rope and then looking up again.
"What? who?" asked the keeper.
"Why, your granddarter May, cap'n," replied Timothy. "She is very sick. They don't know that she will live. She has been begging to see you, and if you could come a few hours I will get you back again all right afterwards."
"I will be with you right off." The keeper turned to Dave: "You heard that. It's ugly news. Now if I go, can't you light up and watch till half-past eight? I'll be back, sure. Don't worry. It will be a quiet night; no sign just yet of any change in the weather."
"Oh yes, Mr. Tolman; that is all right. You go. I would if I were you. I will look after things. I can handle them."
"I think you can; and I shall be obleeged to you. My, my! this is sudden. Wasn't looking for May's sickness."
He was quickly in the boat with Timothy Waters; and then Dave watched the two men pulling stoutly on their oars and making quick progress landward. The boat turned the corner of a bluff projecting into the harbour and disappeared. Dave stepped back into the lighthouse, and sat down beside the kitchen stove. It was very peaceful there. The clock ticked as usual on the wall; and on the table, lying open, as if laid down a moment ago by the keeper, was his Bible. Dave glanced at the opened pages a moment. As his eyes slipped down the line of verses he noticed such assurances as these:--
"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.... Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night.... For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."
He lingered a moment looking at these passages, and then turned away.
"I will go upstairs," he said, "into the lantern, and make sure that everything is ready for the lighting at sunset. That's sudden about May Tolman," he began to reflect. "Why, I seem to see her going up and down these stairs the day she was here, so full of life."
He could hear her voice; he could see her black, glowing eyes, that had a peculiar fascination for Dave.
"Sorry," he said. "That's real sudden. Things do happen quick in this life sometimes."
Dave felt unusually sober that day. If he had told all his thoughts to any one, he would have confessed to a singular soberness of feeling for some time.
He had been shut up for several weeks with a man whose religion, without any pretence, any show, and any peculiarities, controlled his life, and came prominently to the surface in everything. Dave felt his sister's religious influence at home; but there were influences interfering with it and partly neutralizing it. Dave Fletcher's mother was too busy, she assured herself, to attend to religion; and Dave's father declared--also to himself--that he did not "feel the need of it." "I am as good as my neighbours; and I guess that will do," he said. He quoted in his thoughts Dave's lack of interest, saying, "There is Dave, good boy; and he takes his father's view of things."
But here at the lighthouse Dave declared that he was "cornered." Here was a simple, humble, unselfish life living in communion with his heavenly Father, bringing that presence down to that lonely tower in the sea, and filling it, and surrounding the boy who was the light-keeper's companion. No neutralizing associations here.
"It sets me to thinking," declared Dave, as he climbed the successive stairways to the lantern the afternoon of the keeper's absence. "And May Tolman's sickness--that is sudden. Nothing is certain. Well, we must just look after matters right around us. One can't give his thoughts to all these possibilities of accident. I'll just remember that I am a keeper of a lighthouse."
Keeper of a lighthouse! The moment he uttered this thought to himself there settled down upon his shoulders a new and serious weight of responsibility. He began to realize that for several hours he must carry the burden of a keeper's duties. He must look after the fog-signal, if a dusky veil of mist should suddenly be dropped from the sky and curtain off both the sea and the land. If there should be any accident upon the sea in the neighbourhood of the lighthouse, where the keeper might be expected to give any aid, Dave must render that help. When night came, or sunset rather, he must light the lamp in the lantern, and he must watch it, and see that for the sake of the many vessels upon the sea this light burned with steady lustre. Upon just a boy's shoulders how heavy a care seemed to be pressing down!
"I can stand it," he said, in pride and confidence. The very pressure of the responsibility aroused within him a corresponding measure of strength. However, it did not lessen the shadow of that sober thinking in which he often walked nowadays.
"I'll take that history I am reading," he said on his return from the lantern, "and get over a good number of pages to-day."
He read until supper-time, but somehow his thoughts did not seem to stay on his book. They were like birds on the telegraph wires along the railroad track--flying off and then alighting again, only to lift their wings and beat the air in another flight.
"A long afternoon!" he said finally, laying down his book. "I am glad it is tea-time."
How lonely the kitchen began to seem! The rattle of his knife and fork, the clink of his spoon, the occasional clatter of dishes, usually such pleasant sounds to a hungry man, now sounded lonely and harsh.
"Don't like eating by myself," declared Dave. "Glad tea is over. Wonder when Mr. Tolman will be here?" He looked at the clock and said, "I believe he thought he should be back by half-past eight. I wonder how May Tolman is getting along. Poor girl!"
The sun seemed that night a longer time than usual in setting, as if it were an invalid, and there must be a very deliberate and lengthy bundling up in yellow blankets.
"At last the sun is about going down," said Dave. He was now up in the lantern, match in hand. He looked off through the broad windows of glass upon the surface of the sea, growing calmer and more shining in the west; but in the east its lustre had faded out, and there was a great expanse of dull, heavy, lead-like shades. Two fishing-boats were creeping into harbour. The surf on the bar rolled lazily, as if it would like to go to sleep, even as the sun. A schooner was creeping along the channel, its sails hanging in loose, flapping folds.
"There goes the sun!" thought Dave, watching the disappearance of the last embers of its fires below a blue hill. He turned with relief to the lamp, removed its chimney, kindled its wick, replaced the chimney, and then carefully adjusted the flame.
"There--that is done! Now do your duty, and burn all right," was Dave's direction. Rising, he looked away, and saw that in other lighthouses their keepers had kindled guiding tapers, burning slender and silvery in the still lingering daylight.
"Everything here is all right, I believe," said Dave, looking about the lantern. "Holloa! what is that up there in the corner? A cobweb? Guess I must take it down. Don't want the window to have that thing up there. Can't reach it. I will get a little box down in the watch-room. That will elevate me."
When he had brought the box, standing on it he saw that the web was on the outside of the lantern, and he went without to remove the film from the glass.
"There!" he said, reaching up to the corner of the window as he stood on the box. "Come down here. Don't have cobwebs on the windows of this lantern."
He now turned about, and chanced to face the tall red pipes projecting from the roof of the signal-tower with their trumpet-shaped mouths.
"Is one of those pipes damaged?" wondered Dave. "Afraid so. I must take a sharper look at that."
At the foot of the railing of the parapet he placed the box, and from that elevation, leaning his arms on the railing, inspected as closely as he could the fog-signal. This parapet for timorous people was an ugly spot. When the wind blew hard it was not easy to maintain one's footing outside the lantern. One could cling to the railing, which was firm, but it consisted only of an iron bar resting on upright iron rods three feet apart. There was no danger of a fence-break, but the gaps between the iron rods were wide and ugly, and if one should chance to drop on the smooth stone floor and just tip a little--over--toward--the--edge--ugh! One did not like to think of that fall down--down--into the sea--perhaps upon the Black Rocks when the tide was out. Toby Tolman had told Dave that for a long time he did not care to go near the rail about the lantern and stand there a while, as it made him "nervous;' but he had ceased to be a "land-lubber," and could now face, sailor-like in confidence, any quarter of the sea and sky, just clinging to that little rail. Dave had felt pleased with his steadiness of nerve when he found he could look over that rail and then down upon the whirling sea without very much trepidation.
"Shouldn't like to have a dizzy fit when I was looking over," he said. "No danger, though."
He repeated this as he now stood on the box planted at the foot of one of the iron supports of the rail, and continuing to rest his arms on the rail, inspected closely, as already said, the fog-signal. Suddenly his arms slipped, and over the horrible edge of that narrow little railing he found himself going. Sometimes we compress years into moments apparently. We go back, we go forward, we gather it all up into the thought of a very brief now. But oh, how vivid!--like all the electric force in a great mass of cloud concentrated in one dazzling, blinding lightning-stroke. As Dave felt that his body was sliding over that rail, he seemed to realize where he had been in the past. He thought of his parents--his home--Uncle Ferguson at Shipton--how it was that he came to the lighthouse, and then he seemed to realize vividly his situation there in the lighthouse: that he was there as the responsible keeper just then; that the safety of many vessels at sea all relied on the thoroughness of his watch; and yet he was sliding over that rail, going down toward the waves, the rocks--he dared not look toward them! He could see only this one thing between him and death: beneath his hands was an iron support of the railing. There was no other object he could grasp for three feet on each side of him. It is true there was the granite rim of this lantern-deck, so called sometimes, but he could not grasp it. His hands would slide over it. Just that iron stanchion was his hope, and as he was sinking down he convulsively clutched at it, caught it, clung to it--shutting his eyes as if blinded. He dared not look anywhere until he felt that his grasp was sure, and then he somehow worked himself back, up, over the railing, and the whole of his body was on the lantern-deck again. He crawled into the lantern, shut the door, and threw himself on the floor weak as a baby.
"Horrible!" was his one word. There he lay thinking. What if he had gone down into that yawning pit of the sea! When would they have found his body? Horrible! horrible! When he was steady enough he slowly crept down the stairs. He entered the kitchen. It had seemed as if everything threatened to fall when he was in danger of going down into the sea--lantern, watch-room, lighthouse--all into the merciless sea. But here was the kitchen. No change here. It was so quiet, so restful. A lamp burned on the table. The fire murmured in the stove. The clock sang its cheerful little tune of a single note. And there was the old light-keeper's Bible. It still lay open, its pages shining in the lamp-light, and there were the promises of the psalm Dave had already noticed. What did it say? "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."
Dave started. Up on the high lantern-deck had any mighty angel stepped between him and death, lifting him back on the floor of stone? Who could say it was not so? Dave sat down in a chair, and then bowed his head and rested it on the table. Here was God, the kindest, dearest being in the universe, Dave's great Father, from whose arms he had been turning away, trying to avoid them; and now, up on the lofty parapet, they had been held out, restraining him, saving him.
"Oh, I can't go on this way any longer," thought Dave. "And Iwon't, either! If God will only have me--will only--"
He fell on his knees. What he whispered to God he never could recall. He only knew that he felt very sorry that he had been neglecting God--pushing away the arms reached out to him and feeling after him. He murmured something about gratitude, something about forgiveness. Then he was conscious of a surrender, of sliding down--not into a horrible pit from the lighthouse parapet, but into arms tender yet strong, that went about him, that bore him up, that held him. How long he stayed there he knew not. Some time he arose, and went upstairs to see if the lantern were all right. Its light burned steadily, vividly, hopefully. He looked out on the lantern-deck. There was the box still on the floor. With a shudder he took it in and went downstairs again. Then he prayed once more, and said aloud the words, "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." He was so thankful for this night's deliverance, so sorry for his forgetfulness of God in the long past! He rose to read again. He heard a step at last in the passage-way between the fog-signal tower and the lighthouse,--a heavy, echoing step, now in the tank-room, then on the stairway to the kitchen.
Dave sprang up to meet the keeper, and he held the lamp in the shadowy stairway.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Tolman."
"Same to you. Here I am, all right, you see. Glad I went."
"How is May?"
"Better. Yes, thank God, she is better. There was a sudden change, and the doctor has hope. She has been in a pretty hard place, but I think she is out of it."
"Good! That's the way I feel myself."
"What!" The light-keeper looked at Dave for an explanation, but Dave was silent. He could not tell everything at once, or even a little to-night. The keeper went to the table, saying to himself, "He meant May when he said that. Ah!" he thought, "my book is turned round. Guess Dave has been reading this. Good! I thought he would get to it some time."
That was a very peaceful night whose hush was on the great sea, on the surf gently rolling along the bar, and in the lighthouse tower. The deepest peace was in Dave Fletcher's soul.
Dave's stay at the lighthouse was exceedingly brief after this event in his life.
"I am really sorry to have you go," said Toby Tolman the day that Dave left. "I shall miss you. I will take you up to town, as Timothy has come back."
Dave received his pay from Timothy, for whom he had acted as substitute, and then with the keeper left the lighthouse.
The journey to Shipton over, Dave quickly walked to Uncle Ferguson's, and was welcomed warmly.
X.
THE CHRISTMAS GIFT.
Christmas was approaching--Christmas with its white fields, and its skies that seem to part like the opening of doors in a big blue wall, and from it issue the sweet songs of the Bethlehem angels. Still more acceptable is it when our souls seem to open like doors that fly apart, and out to our neighbour and all souls everywhere go assurances of peace and good-will.
To Dave Fletcher and Dick Pray Christmas meant an end of school-days and a return home.
"You will come and see us 'fore you go," was Bart Trafton's meek request to Dick and Dave when he met them in the street. Dick made the first call, just three days before Christmas. Things did not have a festival appearance in the Trafton home that day. Gran'sir was lying on a lounge not far from the fire, and his cough was shaking him harder than ever. Bart, just before Dick's call, had been down on the shore of the river to see if the last tide had remembered the poor, and deposited any more drift on the beach. He brought back only a puny armful, and this armful he divided between the oven and the fire, the first half to dry and be ready to start up the flames which the other half would be quite sure to put down and almost put out. Granny had been calling at a neighbour's, to borrow timidly a little tea, and met Dick just outside the door of the Trafton home. Such a difference as there was between youth with its ruddy cheeks and bright eyes, between plenty with its cheerful and contented spirit, and poor old Granny Trafton!
"Bartie wanted me to call," said Dick.
"Come in, come in," said granny, hospitably. "We're poor folks, but we're glad to see people."
When Dick went away he said to himself, "'Poor folks,'--they're all that. I wish something could be done for them."
Dave made his call, and he left the house saying, "Something must be done."
The two callers met in the street the day of Dave's call, and the same thought was in their minds.
"Dick, see here. Those Traftons are real poor," said Dave. "I wonder if we couldn't get them a little something for Christmas."
"Dave, that very thought was in my mind, and I wanted to speak of it. Come on. It's done."
Hardly done; but that was Dick's way, and when a soul may be timid and discouraged, that confident, self-assured style in another is very strengthening.
"Let's see. There is no other way than to go right round and ask our friends. I know they will give something, Dick."
"Hold on, hold on, Dave. That is a slow way, Let's make a dash and capture the enemy at once. I will pick out some millionaire--"
Here Dick turned round as if to see which "millionaire" he would select from all of Shipton's wealthy residents.
"Yes," he continued; "I will look after that. Don't you give yourself a moment of uneasiness on that score. I will pick out some rich fellow, tell him what he ought to do, and bag the game on the spot. There!"
Dave laughed. He knew Dick's style thoroughly. At the same time it did give one like Dave, who shrank from begging, new courage to have Dick talk so boldly.
"Let's see, Dick. It is now Monday. We might meet on Wednesday at your cousin's store, and find out how we stand, and send our things to the Traftons on Wednesday afternoon; and Christmas is on Thursday, you know."
"Dave, don't worry about the wherewithal." Here Dick, with a very solemn air of assurance, looked Dave steadily in the eye. "I purpose to bag a millionaire and make him do his duty, Dave Fletcher."
The two friends laughed, shook hands, and separated. Dave listened as he was about turning a corner of the street, for he heard somebody whistling. It was Dick whistling, in a loud, bold, cheery way.
"Well," thought Dave, "I'll make a beginning now. I will speak to Aunt Nancy soon as I get home."
Aunt Nancy was stoning raisins in preparation for a Christmas baking.
"Will I give something to the Traftons? Oh, certainly. I expect a good warm blanket would be just the thing for gran'sir, and I'll give that as my share.Myshare, remember. Your uncle must give his mite. I tell ye, David," said Aunt Nancy in a whisper, "your uncle has some first-class Baldwins down in the cellar. Just touch him upon those."
"I will, aunt, thank you."
And next, would the home of James Tolman give anything?
"Pies and potatoes; you can count on us for some of both kinds," said Mrs. Tolman.
The next place was the home of the light-keeper, Toby Tolman, when ashore. His wife was dead, and a widowed daughter and her only child, May, lived in his house. He preferred to keep up the home, although personally there but a very little of the time.
"Should we like to give anything? Of course," said the keeper's daughter; "that is what Christmas is for. Only last week I heard father say we could give some wood off our pile, for he calculated we had more than enough to carry us through the winter."
"Don't you let young folks help?" asked a silvery voice, sending at Dave an arch look out of two penetrating black eyes. "You must not think I am an invalid and past helping, if I was so sick last summer. Now I can just go round in the neighbourhood and get together some eatables, I know, and perhaps clothing that might do for Bart."
"That would be splendid," said Dave, stirred deeply by those black eyes, and wishing that in every house visited he was the individual of whom May Tolman would solicit.
When Dave brought these donations into one collection, he found not only the blanket for gran'sir but a shawl for granny. There also were clothes for Bart, and any amount of things for the Christmas dinner.
The next point was how to get them taken up to the Traftons. For the clothing and eatables Dave borrowed Uncle Ferguson's cart, but for the wood only James Tolman's waggon would answer. That procession of two teams, the waggon and the cart, had a Christmas look that would have been recognized anywhere.
"Whoa-a-a!" shouted Dave, as the procession neared the boot and shoe shop kept by Dick's cousin Sam. Dick was behind the counter waiting on a customer. As he saw Dave entering he ran his hand through his hair in a nervous, despairing style, but said nothing until the customer had left.
"There, Dave, it is too bad, but--but--whose are those teams out in the street?"
"Just things I picked up."
"And the wood?"
"Going to the same place."
"That's good. Then I don't feel so bad."
"Well, anything you find, good, you know, for Christmas, why, send it along."
"I shouldn't wonder, though, if--if--it might be too late now; but--you have got something--if--I should be too late--and I do believe I am too late. Sorry. Glad, though, I put you up to it. I knew you would attend to it."
With a triumphant wave of his hand, as if he were permitting Dave to drive off with a donation that Dick Pray had gathered, he accompanied Dave to the door and then retreated to the counter.
"If that isn't Dick Pray all over!" said Dave.
It would be difficult to tell the feelings of joy occasioned in the Trafton home by those gifts.
"Davie," said Bart, "I had a dream last night, and I guess it is a-comin' true. I thought I saw that ladder that Jacob had a look at, you know, when the angels were a-goin' up and down, and comin' down they had bundles in their arms."
Dave entered the house, bringing in bundle after bundle. Bart thought the angels looked somewhat like that.
"Hadn't you better try this shawl?" said Dave to granny, who looked cold and purple. And would gran'sir be willing to be wrapped in the blanket? The thin, worn consumptive responded with a glad smile, and said in a whisper that he hadn't been so comfortable since he was sick. And the wood--how it set that old stove to shaking and laughing and glowing till its front seemed like a jolly face full of sparkling eyes! That is one good result coming from a stove cracked everywhere in front.
Granny told the minister, Mr. Potter, two days after, how all this generosity affected gran'sir.
"Why, sir, it made him just heavenly! He cried and laughed--it was so good to be warm, you know. And he's softened so, sir. I think it begun when Bartie begun to read the Bible to him, and it has been a-keepin' on, sir, a-softenin', sir--don't scold, you know, or be harsh-like. I--I--I--" Here granny buried her face in her apron and cried. "I'm afraid--sir--may be--he won't live--long--he's--softened so--sir--he has."
It was nothing wonderful. Like the warm breath of the spring on the chilled and torpid flowers, arousing them into the activity of bud and blossom time, the thoughtful kindness of God's creatures brought God nigh to gran'sir; brought the breath of his benediction to gran'sir's soul, and gave him a new life.
"God has been so good--he draws me," gran'sir said to granny an early day in January. "It is--like he's callin' me--and--I guess I'll go."
His going was so peaceful that to say when it was would be like marking the spot where the current crosses the line between the river and the ocean; and yet his soul did cross from time, so short and river-like, into the broad and boundless ocean of eternity. People said it would be as well for the comfort of granny and Little Mew, and even better, for gran'sir they declared to be exacting. They did not know how it was. Granny and Little Mew felt that they were the exacting ones, for they wanted gran'sir to stay. Little Mew's soul was clouded by the shadow of a thought that by the death of gran'sir his mission in this world was very much abridged. He was tempted to wonder again for what God had sent a little fellow like him into this world.
XI.
AT SHIPTON AGAIN.
"Nothing for me?"
"Nothing."
"Sure?"
"Well--"
The postmistress, in response to Dave Fletcher's anxious inquiry, looked again at a package of letters she had been handling.
"Oh yes, here is something! I didn't see it the first time. Beg pardon."
"All right. I wasn't really expecting anything, but it is so long since I have had a letter that I was kind of hungry for one."
Dave took his letter from the postmistress and walked away.
"Postmarked Shipton!" said Dave, looking at the envelope. "Don't seem to know the address. Let's break that and see what it says."
He glanced down at the name with which the letter closed.
"James Tolman; what does he want?" wondered Dave. He then returned to the first line and began to read:--
"DEAR DAVID,--I have not forgotten that you were in my Sunday-school class when in Shipton, and I felt that I knew you well enough to ask you to take this into consideration, whether you wouldn't like to come and be my clerk. I am in the ship-chandlery business, and have two clerks. One of them is going away, and may leave me for good. I have promised to keep his place open for him three months. At the end of that time he may come back. Now, if I ask you to come for three months, I know--"
Dave crumpled the letter in his hand, thrust it into his pocket, and springing into his waggon, cried, "Get up there, Jimmy! Don't know that you and I will be travelling this road together much longer. Get up there!"
"Jimmy" was urged at an unusual rate over the road, and pricked up his ears in astonishment as his master cried, "Faster, faster!"
"There, mother!" said Dave, when he entered the Fletcher kitchen; "just what I wanted has happened."
"What is that?" replied Mrs. Fletcher.
"Read this, mother, and you will see."
"For three months, Dave, and perhaps no longer, it means."
"Oh, well, it will be a stepping-stone to something, if I have to leave it. Just get started in Shipton and I can go it."
"But you haven't read about the pay, Dave."
"Well, mother, the fact is I like the place--I mean Shipton. I love to be near the salt water and where I can see the ships--"
"And the lighthouse--"
"Yes."
"And May Tolman," sang out a voice from the adjoining sitting-room, and Annie Fletcher appeared at the kitchen door, asking, "How is it, Dave?"
Dave felt it to be the wisest course to keep still and blush.
In a few days he was ready to start for Shipton. He called one evening to see some of his old acquaintances, and the next day started for Shipton.
On arriving he reported for duty at the shop of "James Tolman, Ship-chandler." He was now eighteen, and he felt that active life was beginning in earnest. The shop was an old one, and before James Tolman's business days it had been kept by his father. It was packed with all kinds of goods available for ship-furnishings. As one opened the door a scent of tar issued, strong enough to make the most thorough-going old salt say, "This seems like home." There were coils of rope of every size ranged on either side of the passage-way. There were capstans and anchors and blocks and ring-bolts. There were all kinds of shining tin and copper ware for the cook's galley. There were compasses, and ship-lanterns, and speaking-trumpets, and sheath-knives, and suits of oiled clothing, and slouching "tarpaulins." On stormy days, when Dave from the back windows could see that the waves in the river had stuck in their crests saucy feathers of foam, it seemed to him as if he heard the coils of rope creak in the store and the suits of sailors' clothing rustle; and what wonder if some old salt had waddled forward in one of those stiff suits, and, seizing a trumpet, cried in ringing tones to the pots and kettles hanging from the brown, dusty beams, "Furl your top-sails." It was a pleasure to Dave when an old Shipton sea-captain might heave in sight on stormy days, and, entering the shop, take a seat by the crackling fire and tell of gales round Cape Horn or in the Bay of Biscay.
"I believe I am cut out for this business," said Dave.
His former Shipton acquaintances were glad to see him back. Dick Pray for six months had been in town, a clerk in his cousin's shop. He now came to bring his congratulations to Dave.
"Glad to see you, Dave," he said.
"Thanks, Dick. How is business?"
"Oh, booming! booming!"
All business that Dick's magnificent abilities came in contact with either had "boomed," or was "booming," or would "boom" very soon. No tame word was fit to describe Dick's business ventures.
And the boy who came shyly, timidly after Dick was--Bart Trafton.
"You well, Bartie?" asked Dave.
"Oh, better!"
"Why?"
"Because you've got back," said the caller, with snapping eyes.
"That's encouraging. And granny, is she well?"
"Oh yes, when--"
He did not finish. If he had completed his sentence, he would have said "when father isn't at home."
The same day two other people were in the shop whom Dave had met previously, though he did not recognize them at once. There stood before the counter a rather tall man, wearing a tall hat and closely muffled about the face, for the day was one of cold blasts of storm.
"I want a good ship's lantern," said the customer.
"Yes, sir," replied Dave, ranging before the man an array of lantern goods.
"You have come to be clerk?" asked the man.
Dave looked up more carefully, and saw that the man wore spectacles.
"Yes, sir," replied Dave.
The man inquired the price of the lanterns, selected one, and went out.
"Halloo! he has given me twopence too much!" exclaimed Dave.
"That doesn't matter," said a man who was watching through a window in the door the storm driving without.
"Oh yes, it does," murmured Dave.--"Johnny!" he called aloud to a younger clerk in the counting-room, "just look after things a moment while I go out."
Johnny came out into the shop, and Dave seized his cap and ran after the customer. The latter was a fast walker, and was hurrying round a corner of the street when Dave overtook him.
"See here, sir! A mistake in the change. I counted it, and you gave me too much."
"Oh--ah! Thank you! I see you don't know me."
The man slipped down a scarf wrapped about his face, took off his spectacles, and there was--somebody, but Dave could not say who.
"Not so rough up here as down at the bar--in a schooner, say."
"O--Squire Sylvester!"
"That's it. I think I was too rough with you that day, for I found out afterward you had nothing to do with it."
"Oh, well, sir--I--"
"I just wanted to say that, and am glad you think enough of another man's property, though only two-pence, to chase after him and give it to him."
Then the tall man tramped on.
"It shows," thought Dave, "that he hasn't forgotten what happened some time ago, and I suppose he had been wanting to say what he got off to me. I don't harbour it against you, Squire Sylvester. When a man's property has been run off with, it would be a wonder if he didn't say something."
When Dave returned to the store the man at the door still stood there, looking out through the little window.
"I think I know that chap's face," thought Dave, "but I really can't say who it is."
The man was disposed to talk. "Did you catch the squire?" he asked.
"Oh yes."
"Did he take the twopence?"
"Oh yes."
"Catch him not take it! The squire would hold on to a halfpenny till it cankered if he could possibly git along without spendin' it. I don't believe in worryin' yourself about sich people."
"Twopence didn't seem much, but then it wasn't mine."
"I see you don't mean to be rich?"
"I mean to be honest."
"And die poor?"
"That doesn't follow."
"Oh, it does 'em good--these rich fellers--to lose a little now and then."
"But they ought not to lose it if we have it and it is theirs."
"Oh, you are too honest. Say, I see you don't know me."
"Well, yes, I ought to know your face."
"I've let my whiskers grow. I didn't have any the last time you saw me. Cut all these off," said the man, lifting a big beard, "and it would make a big difference. Don't you remember Timothy Waters, at the lighthouse?"
"Why, yes. You Timothy?"
"Yes."
"And are you at the light now?"
"Just the same."
"How is Mr. Tolman?"
"Holdin' on. Oh, he likes it! You must come and see us."
Having given this invitation, Timothy left the store. Dave watched him as he moved down the street, turning at last into a little lane leading down to the wharves. Then he thought of Timothy rowing his dory down the river, tossing on the uneasy tide, battling his way forward until he halted at the foot of a great gray-stone tower in the sea. Looking up at the doorway of the tower, Dave saw the keeper's familiar face.