FIGHTING THE SEA

Frontispiece—“Away went the shot”(p.319).FIGHTING THE SEAORWinter at the Life–Saving Station.BYEDWARD A. RANDAUTHOR OF“HER CHRISTMAS AND HER EASTER”; “UP THE LADDER SERIES,”—“THEKNIGHTS OF THE WHITE SHIELD,” “THE SCHOOL IN THE LIGHTHOUSE,”“YARDSTICK AND SCISSORS,” “THE CAMP AT SURF BLUFF,” “OUTOF THE BREAKERS”, “SCHOOL AND CAMP SERIES,”—“PUSHINGAHEAD,” “ROY’S DORY AT THE SEASHORE,” “LITTLEBROWN–TOP,” “NELLIE’S NEW YEAR,” ETC., ETC.New YorkTHOMAS WHITTAKER2 and 3 Bible House1887Copyright, 1887,ByThomas Whittaker.DedicatedTO THEBRAVE SURFMENOF THEU.S. LIFE SAVING SERVICEANDTheir efficient Superintendent,Hon.S. I. KIMBALL.PREFACE.Visiting a Life Saving Station on our coast, and passing a night there, I became deeply interested in the work of the hardy crew. I have examined with an absorbing gratification various reports of the Service. We may fittingly have a national pride in the intent and achievement of this department. The element of the heroic runs through and makes luminous the pages of what on the face are only ordinary governmental reports. May the accompanying story interest our young people in the work of the Life Saving Service. While they accept, make theirs, and build upon the principles of honesty, reverence, and temperance laid down in this story, may they extend their sympathy and prayers also to the brave men who watch the sea while we are sleeping, and whose generous daring may well provoke us to courage and self–sacrifice in other spheres.CONTENTS.CHAP.PAGEI.The Man on the Steeple7II.The Winter Ride16III.The Life–Saving Station26IV.The Patrol38V.Turning the Corner49VI.The Store62VII.Standing Firm82VIII.At the Station117IX.The Hall Service130X.The Boat–Race156XI.The Surf–Boy179XII.On his Beat193XIII.Under Fire207XIV.Two Bad Cases220XV.The Barney Literary Club231XVI.An Ugly Night249XVII.A Soul in Need274XVIII.Dark Depths Uncovered286XIX.A Wild Storm309XX.Christmas339FIGHTING THE SEA.CHAPTER I.THE MAN ON THE STEEPLE.“Oh—oh, grandfather! There’s—that—man—on the—steeple—and he—can’t—get—down!”“Why, yes, he can! He’s got a ladder!” said the old boat–builder, Zebulon Smith, looking up from the boat he had partly framed, and addressing his grandson, who had run excitedly into the shop and was now making an almost breathless appeal.“No, he—hasn’t;—he dropped—it!”“Ladder dropped from the steeple?”“Yes—gone—all—all—to smash!”“You don’t say, Cyrus!”Feeling it might be the man who had come down thus abruptly, and “gone all to smash,” the boat–builder ran outdoors and gave ahasty look up at the steeple. He breathed more easily when he saw the man far up the steeple, clinging to a ball that supported the vane. The steeple, though, was bare of any ladder, for this lay in fragments on the ground.“That is interestin’!” exclaimed the boat–builder.Of course it was. Is it not exceedingly interesting, the situation of a man on the steeple of a church, without ladders, rope, or staging, that may have taken him there? What if he grow dizzy and—but who likes to think of the consequences of such dizziness? Let me tell how this man got there, and why there.Zebulon Smith lived near the church, and was its sexton. Besides the church, he had no neighbor for three quarters of a mile. A stranger called at the boat–shop one day, and inquired the price of Zebulon’s wares. He added, “I b’long to a life savin’ station crew, and am interested in that thing, you know.”“The station beyond us?”“Ezackly! And see here! Don’t you want somebody to fix your vane on the steeple of the church, for I s’pose you go there. I’m used to climbin’. I have been a sailor.”“Yes, I go there. I’m the saxton. That vane does need fixin’; but I can’t seem to getat it. It’s fearfully twisted. I s’pose you’d want suthin for it.”“Oh, I wouldn’t ask much. I won’t ask nothin’, if I don’t fix it.”“All right. Cyrus, you get the ladder back of the shop.”Cyrus was a boy of sixteen, on a day’s visit to his grandparents, and he had met there by appointment a boy living in another direction and a good half–hour’s walk away, Walter Plympton, the hero of our story. The two boys were interested in archery, and had brought their apparatus to this accepted meeting–ground for a trial of skill. They suspended shooting when they knew the church–steeple was to be climbed, and carried the ladder across the road to the little white church on the edge of a grove of tall pines that at every touch of the wind stirred and murmured softly, musically, in response, as if an orchestra were hidden away in their spreading, fan–like branches. Zebulon and his assistant mounted the stairs leading to the belfry. There was a little railing outside the belfry, and planting his ladder inside this railing, the stranger climbed up to another railing surrounding the base of the steeple. Here he pulled up his ladder, and planted it now against the steeple.“I shan’t want you any longer,” called out the stranger. “If you’re busy, you can go back. I can manage.”“Got your hammer?” asked Zebulon.“Yes, the one you lent me. I’ll knock that vane into shape.”The boat–builder was indeed anxious to resume his work, and he now returned to his shop. The man from the life saving station had planted his ladder so that its summit rested between two projections of the wood–work of the steeple, that promised to firmly hold it in position. He then climbed his ladder, and from the topmost round he could reach a gilded ball beneath the vane. He had planned to draw himself up to the ball, sit astride this gilded throne in the air, there swing his hammer like a king flourishing his scepter, and knock that rebellious vane into an attitude of obedience. Alas, our best expectations sometimes fail us! Was not that ladder an old one? How could it help growing old, when its owner, Zebulon, was growing old himself, and complained of rheumatism in his joints? Rheumatism! That must have been the trouble with the topmost round of the ladder. But who really expects that an old ladder will give way to–day? It may to–morrow; but it has served so many years, it will certainlynot fail us this one day. But, the day had come when that ladder was bound to give way. Zebulon did not anticipate it, or he would never have assigned it to any steeple–duty. The stranger of course was not looking for it. The ladder kept its own secret however, and having, made up its mind to break that very day and hour, when the man grasped the ball above and springing violently gave a corresponding push to the ladder–round, it broke out into open rebellion. It cracked, split, parted hopelessly! That was not all. The ladder was jarred and pushed out of position, and as the man went up, and seated himself upon the ball, the ladder went down and took a position on the ground! As the ladder struck, various rheumatic joints parted, and this old servant of the sexton lay there at the foot of the church–tower in fragments.“Oh, pshaw!” exclaimed the man on the ball. “That’s a poser!”He thought a moment.“Well,” he exclaimed philosophically, “I’ll do what I came here for!”Swinging his hammer, he knocked the vane into proper shape. Zebulon heard the rapping of the hammer, as orderly and musical as the sound of any hammer strokes down on theground. He was surprised when he was summoned to see the hammerer up in the air and the broken ladder on the ground.“Oh, Zebulon!” shrieked a voice. “Git a ladder! Why don’t ye?”“That’s Nancy!” he said to himself.Yes, after this voice came a woman, and Zebulon’s wife, rushing up to his side, put her hands up to her eyes to fence off the sunlight, and then looked at the occupant of that gilt ball on the church–steeple.“Git a ladder?” the old sexton murmured. “Where?”Yes, where? There was no other about the premises, and to visit a neighbor for that purpose would use up a half–hour, and in the meantime what if—a person does not like to think what might happen.“Oh dear, Zebulon! What did you let him go up for?” asked his wife.“If—if—you had asked that question afore he went up, there would have been some sense to it. He wanted to go,” replied the old sexton impatiently. “The thing to do now, is to git him down.”“Git him down! What if he should come down whether he wants to or not? What if he gits dizzy? Oh my!”“You don’t ketch me jest a lookin’ at him. I’m a goin’ to bring a ladder, find it somewhere.”“Hold on, Zebulon! Hark, boys!”The boat–builder and the two young archers, thus addressed by Nancy, now listened in silence, and at the same time looked up. There they all stood, with upturned faces, and the man above called down to them:“Sho—o—o—t! Send—a—string—g!”As he thus called, his hands let go their hold upon the rod that bore the vane, and clinging with his feet alone, he went through the motions of one shooting an arrow from a bow.“Oh—oh!” shrieked Nancy. “He’s beginnin’ to fall.”With a horrified expression of countenance, she turned away and faced the other side of the road.“Oh, no!” cried Walter Plympton. “He is not falling. He is making believe shoot. I see what he wants.”“What?” asked Zebulon.“Why—why, shoot with our bows and arrow up there, tying a piece of string to it. It is not a very high steeple.”“Yes,” said Cyrus, “and he’ll pull it up, and then a stouter one.”“Oh, yes! Good! Well, boys, get your bows, and I will get the stuff,” said the boat–builder.How carefully those young archers shot steepleward their arrows, first attaching to the latter a long, stout thread!Oh, hands of the archers, tremble not! Oh, winds above, blow not! And—and—over, yes, just across the vane went the thread fastened to Walter Plympton’s arrow! A cord was now tied to the thread, the man carefully pulling it up, and then there went to him a new clothes–line, and down he came.“Much obleeged to you!” he said.“And we are obleeged to you!” replied the sexton. “And here’s your money for the job.”As the stranger turned to go away, he laid his hand on Walter’s shoulder, and said, “I saw it was your arrer that did the work. I won’t forgit it.”Away he walked, disappearing down the road that wound its dusty line through the green forest.All the time he had been with his new acquaintances, he had not given his name. Indeed, nobody asked for it. Walter remembered him only as a man with a bushy beard.“Wonder if I shall ever see him again!” thought Walter.We shall find out.The weeks slipped by, and winter at last powdered the land as if it wished to give the earth’s bald head a white wig.CHAPTER II.THE WINTER RIDE.“I’m going to be warm,” said Walter Plympton’s father, a man with rather sharp features, of slender build, and nervous, sensitive temperament. “Yes, I’m going to be warm, and bundle up accordingly.”“You will look like an Eskimo,” replied his wife, who in her very laugh, so easy and deliberate, as well as in her stout physical build, was the opposite of her husband. “Those who see you, Ezra, won’t fall in love with such a stuffed creature.”“They may keep the love, Louisa, and I’ll hold on to the comfort. I believe in going warm like the Chinese, who are said in cold weather to increase the amount of their clothing, rather than their heating apparatus. How that may be, I don’t know; but I do know that I mean to be warm. Kitty harnessed, Walter?”“Yes, father, and she’s waiting in the stable.”“We will go out then. Oh, the family umbrella!”The family umbrella was an immense institution, suspended like a big blue dome above its holder, and promising to make a good parachute. It had been bought at an auction, and was one of those peculiarities often coming up to the surface at such sales. For years, it had proved a good friend on rough, rainy days.“Do you expect a rain, father?”“No, but I want to hold it up against the wind. Hoist the sail, and our craft will be off. Good–bye, Louisa. We will be home to–morrow night, if a possible thing.”“Good–bye, mother.”“Good–bye. Do take care of yourselves.” And after she said this, she watched the departing team as Kitty slowly pulled the sleigh through the white snow that had not settled since its fall the day before, but stretched its diminutive drifts in almost uninterrupted succession across the road.Kitty patiently plodded on, but she found the snow deeper than she liked to pull the sleigh through. The wind blew keen and strong, and was like an axe–blade wielded by winter; but the riders in the sleigh were safe behind the blue umbrella.Walter Plympton differed, as well as his mother, from Mr. Plympton. He was in looks a “mother’s boy,” though his character was varied with some of his father’s features of mind. He was a stout, heavy youth of sixteen, one of those growing boys too, from whose feet their trousers, recently new, are soon discovered to be running away, and whose wrists persist in getting far below their coat–sleeves. He had his mother’s round, full face. His complexion was a rich brown, rather than fair and white. His eyes were a bright hazel, and his hair of a shade between brown and black. His voice was rather heavy for one of his years, and was certain to be heard among those shouting at “baseball,” or “fox in the wall.” He shared in his father’s sensitiveness of temperament, and like him was enthusiastic. Unlike either father or mother, the imaginative element was strongly developed in his character. As to other qualities, he was generous, rather thoughtless, and his strong, ringing voice put him among those unfortunate boys who are often told, “Don’t speak so loud.” He had a very good sized estimate of himself, was quite sure to be among the speakers—and successful speakers—at a school exhibition, and was ambitious to throw, in after years, as large a shadow across the surface oflife’s events as Walter Plympton’s abilities would possibly permit. There was no concealment in his moves or motives; but open, honest, and naturally confiding, he was sometimes the dupe of boys cunning and suspicious. He was too bright to be a dupe twice in the same day, and when he discovered an enemy’s tricks, would resent an invasion of rights as promptly, stoutly, and noisily, as anybody. His good nature and sociability made him popular. He was rather fond of his books, was not afraid to ask questions, and this made him an interesting, intelligent companion. While there was a large lump of the “boy” in him, he was a youth of promise, and bade fair to be in after years a success. His mother stated his greatest need, when she said, “Walter needs a rudder to steer him. He needs conversion, that is it. He prays, and once in awhile reads his Bible, and has no really bad habits. I want him to go farther. I would like to see him beginning an active religious life, openly, avowedly; and I do hope soon he will confess his Saviour.”Motherly Mrs. Plympton! How her thoughts and her prayers went after her boy, like the wings of a mother bird, flying after and hovering over her young. And this winter morning she had not forgotten to put up the often ascendingprayer for her boy’s better life. She stood at the window awhile, watching Kitty and her load, and then stepped back to her kitchen duties.“Pretty hard going, father,” said the younger occupant of the sleigh.“It will be better out in the main road, and we shall strike it soon. I wouldn’t start to–day, but this is the last chance for going to the life saving station as I promised, before you leave for school; and you leave day after to–morrow, and it is evident we must go to the station to–day, if we go at all. But I think it will be all right out in the main road.”“Don’t the trees look handsome?”“Yes, I never saw them prettier.”The late fall of snow had draped forest and field.As our travelers proceeded on their journey, the drifts deepened, rather than lessened. It was toilsome traveling. By and by, they came to a road skirted with telegraph–poles. Here they were obliged to jump out and push the sleigh.“Father, let us begin to count the telegraph–poles. That will help pass the time.”“All right. One!” shouted Mr. Plympton, as they passed the first of the long line of tall,wooden travelers lining the highway, and stretching ahead into the dark, green forest.“Two–o–o!” cried Walter, so glad when he could count off a single pole. They trudged through the snow, pushing the sleigh, pulling Kitty forward, calling out at intervals, “Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight!”“Look, father! See those men!”“I notice. I wonder what they are doing!”Two men, a little distance ahead, ran out of the woods dragging a long piece of timber.“I guess they’re going to fix the telegraph wire, Walter. The storm broke down some of the wires.”The men dropped the long timber directly across the road and then darted into the woods again.“That’s cool, Walter! What do they want to drop that in our path for?” The men were now back again, sticking forked branches in the snow; and they then laid the timber in the forks.“Can’t we go through?” asked Mr. Plympton in a somewhat provoked tone.“I wouldn’t advise you to, Cap’n,” replied one of the men who wore a red woolen jacket. “You see the snow up ’long, is piled higher than your horse’s back. We know, ’cause we’vebeen breakin’ out the road; but the snow does blow in wuss than pizen, and we concluded to quit until the wind quits. Where you goin’, Cap’n?”“Down to the life saving station.”“Wall, that’s your right road to take, the one to the right, Cap’n. Of course, you can go ahead, if you wish, but we don’t advise it, as we have been thar, and know how rough it is. That t’other road is the one you want to take.”“Thank you, sir.”“Father, I want to ask—”Mr. Plympton laughed, knowing Walter’s disposition to ask questions, and that the process once begun might be protracted too far for the convenience of travelers.“I will hold on if you will only asktwoquestions.”“I—I promise,” and laughing, Walter leaped out into the snow, and walked up to the men. He did not like to be limited to two questions, but he submitted to his chains, and having inquired about the depth of the snow and the length of the road, he returned to the sleigh.“Only three miles by the road we take, father, to Uncle Boardman’s.”“It is a new way to me. I have been accustomed to travel by the road that is blocked, but if this is a better road I am glad.”As Kitty began to jingle her bells again, Mr. Plympton said, “There, Walter! That’s a good lesson. I call that a lesson about God’s providence, which stops us from taking a certain course, and we may feel as I did when those men stopped me; but we are led to take a better way. Left to ourselves, just now, we would have run into a big drift.”“I see, though in this life Providence does not always make explanations, father.”“No, we must wait till we get into another life, to have all things explained.”The road led through a forest of pines, heavily coated. In a slow, stately fashion, these swayed their tall, plumy tops. Beyond this forest, the road was drifted once more. The travelers had now a long tug at road–breaking, but the drifts were all conquered. The country grew more and more familiar. “The last woods!” said Walter, as they passed a strip of trees, whose trunks, coated on one side by the storm, seemed like marble pillars, bearing up a roof of green porphyry. Just beyond this, Walter cried out, “Look, father!”Mr. Plympton raised his eyes, and beyondthe white glitter of the snow, saw a strip of vivid blue.“The sea, father!”“Ah, so it is!”The sea stretched far away under the cold, dark, frowning sky, and out of its waves rose distant snow–covered islands, like frosted cakes on a very blue table.“There is Uncle Boardman’s, too, Walter.”This was a farmhouse located near one corner of the forest.“Wonder if Uncle Boardman knows we are so near, Walter?” asked Mr. Plympton, as Kitty pulled the sleigh up to the open space between the road and the green front door.“Knows?” At that very moment, Boardman Blake’s much loved, but much worn old beaver, was about turning the corner of the house, and under the beaver was Boardman. Aunt Lydia’s spectacles were already at the front door, and it was now swinging on its hinges.“Land sakes! Where did you come from? I seed you from our back winder the moment you turned out of the woods,” shrieked Aunt Lydia. “I told Boardman it was some of our folks, but he thought he knew better.”“Well, well,” said a deeper, more agreeablevoice, under the beaver, “what are you up to? Why didn’t you wait till six feet more of snow had fallen? Come in, come in. I’ll look after your horse.”The green front door quickly closed on the travelers, and soon after Kitty disappeared behind a red barn–door.The wind had its own way once more in the road, and undisturbed, kept the light snow whirling, as if its mission were that of a broom, to sweep if possible the open space before the home of that honored couple, Boardman and Lydia Blake.CHAPTER III.THE LIFE SAVING STATION.“Here we are,” exclaimed Mr. Plympton, entering with Walter the life saving station. “Jotham, how are you?”“Ezra, I am really glad to see you,” replied Jotham Barney, the keeper of the station, with much heartiness. “Take off your riggin’, and make yourself at home.”“Cap’n Barney,” as he was often labeled, was a person about forty–five years old. He was a sandy haired, sandy whiskered man, with a light complexion, sharp, prominent nose, and blue eyes that had a way of letting out flashes when he spoke. “Cap’n Barney” was a very social, talkative man, who had been “about considerable,” though not always in first class conveyances, and was ready to talk on almost any subject. What he had not seen, what hedid not know, was not worth the seeing or knowing. He thought very much of his own opinion, and liked to brag; but he was a kindly natured man, and people bore with his conceit, because he was so chatty and pleasant. The station to which “Uncle Sam” had appointed him as the “keeper,” was a yellow building about forty–five feet long, and perhaps eighteen wide; and how tall was it? The roof supported in its center a little railed platform called the “lookout,” and this was between twenty and twenty–five feet from the ground. In the rear of the station was the living–room, through whose preface of a little entry, Mr. Plympton and Walter passed; then, entering the apartment which was not only a kitchen, but a dining–room; and not only a dining–room but a sitting–room, a parlor, and everything, except an apartment for sleeping. This living–room was a little, unambitious place, lighted by two windows toward the east. Between the windows, was a cook–stove; and over this was a wooden rack, from which hung a row of towels. A clock stamped “U. S. L. S. S.” was ticking steadfastly on one wall, and near it was a barometer. In one corner, was a case marked “U. S. L. S. S. Library, No.—.” Two patrol lanterns were suspended below, and there werealso two sockets for Coston signals. Around the walls in different places, were the overcoats, hats, jackets, comforters, the station crew had shed. Upon the entrance door, that served as a kind of handy bulletin–board, were tacked various circulars: “Merriman’s Patent Waterproof Dress and Life–Preservers,” “Watchman’s Improved Time–Detector”; circulars from the Treasury Department about care of “Marine Glasses,” upon “Leaves of absence,” and other matters. The only other interesting objects in the room were human, and these were members of the station crew. They were all young men. One was weaving a net. Two were playing checkers. A fourth was officiating as cook; and he was now cutting up salt fish.Walter noticed everything with eager curiosity. His father and the keeper had once been schoolboys together, and as they were very busily talking, Walter’s eyes could without interruption travel from one object to another.“Three doors in this room,” thought Walter; “and one goes outdoors; and I wonder where the other two go.”He was relieved when the keeper said, “Ezra, come upstairs, and see how we bunk for the night. Then I will show you the boat–room.”“That disposes of those two doors, I guess,” reflected Walter.One of these, approached from the kitchen floor by a single step, the keeper was now opening.“Tumble up, Ezra, and see where we stay nights,” was the keeper’s ready invitation. Up the brown, unpainted stairs, they passed into a little room, which seemed to be also an entry, connecting the keeper’s room, at the left over the kitchen, and the men’s quarters, at the right.“Here is my den,” said the keeper, turning to the left. “Plain, you see everything is, but at night when a feller is asleep, he doesn’t know whether a Brussels carpet is on the floor, or whether it is unpainted, like this. That is my bed in the corner, and there you see I have two windows toward the east, so I know when it is sunrise. There’s my writin’ desk, they allow me a chair or two, and so on.”“Who rooms with you?” asked Mr. Plympton.“The clock up there! That is my chum; always makin’ a noise, yet never in the way.”“Oh! Then this is your room wholly, Jotham?”“Of course,” said Jotham, turning away withas much dignity as a sovereign leaving a bed–chamber hung with royal purple.“Now we will come back into the little entry again at the head of the stairs.” It was an entry that was also a narrow room.“Here’s a bed, you see, in the corner; and I have had the stove that was in my room set here. It throws the heat into the men’s quarters. We have a store–room on this floor,” said the keeper, opening a door in a wooden partition; “and we chuck various things in there. Step into the men’s room.”They passed into a long, low room in the western end of the building. Here were six wooden cot–beds ranged along two sides of the room; and under the thick army blankets that covered them, it seemed as if any tired surfman would be comfortable. Near each bed was either a blue chest or a trunk. At the two ends of the room, were various articles suspended from rows of hooks. Here were trousers, and coats, and shirts; and one man, who could not have believed in the beard movement, had here hung his shaving–mug and razor–strop. Near the windows in the western gable of the sloping roof, was a row of paper signal–flags.“What are those?” asked Walter.“They are only pictures of signals that oneof the men cut out of the signal–book. The real signals, the cloth ones, we keep under the lookout.”“Could I see them?”“Sartin. Come up this way,” and the obliging keeper turned to climb a wooden stairway running up from this room to the “lookout” on the roof. Before they reached the lookout, Walter saw in a little recess under the roof, a box.“There,” said the keeper, pulling the box forward. “This is all full of little flags, or signals, by which we can communicate with any craft on the water. We keep ’em here, because it is handy to have the signals where they can be taken out to the lookout, and run up on the flag–staff quick as possible.”Walter looked up through the open scuttle, and saw the lookout with its railing, and above all rose the tapering flag–staff.“We have one more room,” said the keeper.“What’s that, Jotham?” inquired Mr. Plympton.“The boat–room. Come downstairs.”They passed from the living–room directly into a treasure house, whose contents made Walter’s eyes sparkle with eager interest.“That the boat!” exclaimed Walter.“Yes, she’s a beauty,” replied the keeper, fondly stroking its gunwale as if it were a thing of life, and would feel every touch of his caressing hand. “That’s our surf–boat.”The surf–boat had the place of honor in the room, occupying all its center, and reaching almost from the wall of the living–room to the big door in the western wall.“It must be over twenty feet long,” thought Walter, who began to fill up with questions, until his brain seemed charged as fully as a loaded mitrailleuse. How many articles there were in that boat–room, adapted to the life–saving work, and in such readiness, that a wreck near shore might be sure of a visit and of rescue, if there were any possible chance for such relief! There were guns for throwing lines, and there were the lines to be thrown. There was a life–car, that could be swung along a line to a wreck; and there was a breeches–buoy, and there were—Oh how many articles! The desire for information was swelling to an intolerable size within Walter’s soul, and he was about to gratify the longing, when to his great disappointment, a door opened, and a face with a bushy beard was thrust into the boat–room from the living–room.“Cap’n!” called out Bush–beard.“What say?”“Could I see you ’bout my patrollin’ to–night, one minute?”“Why, father,” said Walter, in a low voice to Mr. Plympton, “that is the man that fixed the vane on the steeple!”The man of the steeple had recognized them, and was now saying, “How d’ye do?” at the same time he advanced, and held out a broad, brown hand to the visiting party.“Glad to see you,” said Mr. Plympton.“You know Tom Walker?” asked the station–keeper.“Guess I do,” replied Walter, readily gripping Tom Walker’s brown hand.“I s’pose, Tom, you want to see me about your beat. Let me see. You are on watch from eight till twelve?”“That’s it, Cap’n. All right, if you understand it. That is what I wanted.”“I—I wish—” Walter stopped.“What is it?” asked Mr. Plympton.“Why, I was thinking I would like to go with Tom Walker, a while you know, just to see what it is like.”“You can, if you wish and your father is willing. Tom would like ’mazin’ well to have company,” said the keeper.“Sartin!” cried Tom eagerly.“I’m willing, Walter,” said Mr. Plympton. “Only don’t be gone too long, as your Aunt Lydia would like, I guess, to have the house shut up before twelve. We will go over there now. Thank you, Jotham, for showing us round.”“You’re welcome. I will expect your boy to–night. He’d better be here before eight.”“I’ll give him a welcome,” added Tom. “I haven’t forgotten a kindness he did me.”“I will be on hand,” declared the happy Walter.Mr. Plympton and Walter turned away from the station, and took a narrow lane running from the beach up to Boardman Blake’s; and there the lane was promoted, and became a highway. As if to acknowledge that promotion, and wave the road a graceful, stately wish for success on its travels, a single elm had been planted where the way widened. The Blake home had been standing there about fifty years; having been built by Boardman Blake’s father. It was a two–story house; its green front door piercing the wall exactly in the middle. On one side of the front door was the parlor, open only on great occasions, like funerals, or “comp’ny.” Behind this was the kitchen.On the other side of the front door, the right, was the store; and in its rear, the sitting–room.“I like to have things handy,” said Uncle Boardman to Walter’s father; “and I can jest slip from our sittin’–room to the store and ’tend to customers, and then slip back.”It was in the sitting–room, that Uncle Boardman, Aunt Lydia, and the Plymptons were gathered before the large, open–mouthed fire–place. Supper had been spread at an early hour on the round dining–table in the kitchen, and the light had not wholly faded from the west, when the Blakes and their guests withdrew to the sitting–room. One could look from the fire on the hearth, to those flames the sun had kindled on a rival hearth, about the western hills; but the glow of the latter went out, leaving only ashy clouds behind; while Boardman’s fire continued to flare and crackle into the night.“You did have courage to start to–day to come down here,” said Aunt Lydia to Walter’s father, having adjusted herself in her easy rocking–chair, and having adjusted also in her waist the corn–cob that held and steadied her knitting.“Yes, but it was our last chance before Walter went away. Then when I started, Idid not know it was so bad. I thought when I struck the main road after leaving our house, we could get along easily enough. I think, too, over this way, you have had more snow than we. I didn’t know these facts; and when one has begun, you know he don’t like to give it up.”“There, if that isn’t Boardman!” exclaimed Aunt Lydia, throwing down her knitting–work in her lap as if to emphasize her point. “There has been a man round, Bezaleel Baggs (I call him Belzebub), and he wants to buy up a lot of Boardman’s woodland. Boardman has got the idea he’d better sell, and he does hate to give it up! I don’t like that Beza—no, Belzebub. I don’t like his looks or—”“Tinkle, tinkle,” went a little bell in the direction of the store.“Store, store!” now shrieked Aunt Lydia in the ears of her spouse, and there was need of the shriek. Uncle Boardman had contentedly folded his hands in his ample lap, and his head was rising and falling with as much regularity as the tides out in the adjacent ocean; but of course much oftener. “Store,” though, was the magic word that could bring Boardman any time out of the depths of the most profound evening nap. Rising promptly, he made his wayto the sitting–room door, and then into the store lighted by its one kerosene lamp on the scarred wooden counter. Aunt Lydia followed him softly to the door, and thrust forward her sharply featured face. She came back with a pair of flashing dark eyes, flashing all the brighter behind her spectacles; and holding up one hand significantly, said in a half–whisper, “I took a peek! It’she! I knowed as much.”“Who?” inquired Walter’s father.“Belzebub—there, Boardman says I ought not to call him that! Well, it’s the same old fox, that Baggs.”“You don’t like him?”“No, not one bit!” and in her intensity of feeling she sat down forcibly on the corn–cob, that ally in Aunt Lydia’s knitting–work, and carelessly left in her chair.“There!” said she jumping up. “I’ve broken that ’ere cob. I wish it had been Bel—there, I s’pose I ought not to say that.”Walter felt that the situation at Uncle Boardman’s had suddenly become very interesting; but he remembered his appointment at the station. He rose and began to put on his overcoat.CHAPTER IV.THE PATROL.Walter was sitting in the living–room of the station. It was almost eight o’clock. Two men came stumbling downstairs, and with a sleepy air entered the room. Seating themselves, they began to put on their huge rubber boots. One of the men was Tom Walker.“How are ye?” he said, nodding to Walter in a friendly way. “Goin’?”“That’s what I am here for.”A footstep in the entry was now heard. A man entered, wearing a stout, heavy black coat, and black trousers, and he carried a lantern in his hand. It was the patrol from the easterly end of the beach.“Cold!” was his one word of greeting, as he set his lantern on the table. He also deposited there a leather pouch attached to a long leather strap.Another step was heard in the entry, and a man appeared who wore a thick blue blouse and blue trousers, and had a very much padded look. He was the patrol from the westerly end of the beach. He expressed his opinion that it was cold by silently going to the stove; and there he stood rubbing his hands in the warm atmosphere. He had already deposited a leather pouch on the table. Tom Walker and the other arrival from upstairs, were dressing for their duty as patrolmen in the place of the two whose chilling wintry beat had just been accomplished. Tom put on a Guernsey jacket, and then drew over it a short, thick sack coat. He pulled a cap of shaggy cloth down over his hair, drew close the ear–laps, and then took up a pair of thick, warm mittens lying under the stove.“Here,” said the keeper to Walter. “Before you start, let me show you what the men take with them.”As he spoke, he lifted a leather pouch that had been deposited on the table. It was a circular case of leather, about four inches in diameter, containing a “time–detector”; its works resembling those of a chronometer. Taking out a key and opening the detector, the keeper said, “I thought you might like to seethis. There, I have put this round card in the detector. You see it is marked off into hours, and ten minutes, and five minutes, and is called the dial. The patrol takes it with him, and at the end of his beat he puts a key in that hole you see, and gives the key a turn. A kind of punch, stamped like a die, is forced down on the dial. In the morning, I open the detector, and there is the dial that tells if he has done his duty. These dials I forward once a week to Washington.”“Supposing the man don’t want to go his beat, and turns the key somewhere this side of the end of the route?” asked Walter.“Ah,” said the keeper, “the feller can’t play ’possum that way. He must go to the end of his beat to get his key. It is at a house there. He must go that far, you see, anyway.”“As any feller of honor would, key or no key,” growled Tom Walker.“Oh, sartin, sartin, Tom,” replied the keeper. “They didn’t get it up for you, but for the fellers in some—some—other station.”And Tom’s growl changed to a pleasant laugh. “Where’s my Coston signal?” he asked.“Here it is,” replied the keeper.“What’s that?” asked Walter.“It is for signaling to anybody on the water in the night, and this burns a red light.”The Coston signal was a few inches long, marked on the bottom with the word, “Patrol.”“This,” said the keeper, “fits into a socket on one end of this wooden handle which you see I have. At the other end is that brass knob. When I want to use my signal, I strike that knob, and it forces a rod up into a little hole in the end of the signal. That strikes a percussion cap, and ignites a fusee, and out flashes a red light. That is my explanation of it.”Out into the cold, shadowy night, they went. Tom led off, slouching along heavily, carelessly yet doggedly; as if he had a duty before him which he did not wholly relish, but meant to put it through, like a horse in a treadmill, whose greatest concern is to put one foot before the other, and to keep putting until lunch time. There was a bright glitter of stars in the sky, and the land was white with the pure snow; but where the sea stretched toward the east, was one vast mass of blackness. Out of this blackness, came a voice, that shouted all along the shore, “Ho—ho—ho—ho!” The sea was very smooth, and the sound of the surf was not heavy enough tointerrupt the conversation between Tom and Walter.“I suppose,” began Walter, “these stations are scattered all along the coast.”“They are all over the country in spots. I ’magine in some places they are few as muskeeters in December. Then again they are pretty thick, say on the Jersey coast. Government takes care of ’em all. So many stations—more or less—makin’ a deestrict, under the care of a superintendent. Then all these deestricts are under Gen. Sumner I. Kimball at Washington. Every deestrict, too, has its inspector.”“How many men do you have to have at this station?”“There is the keeper, Keeper Barney—we Cap’n him jest among ourselves—and there are seven surfmen here. We have a cook also. I am a surfman and then I am called a patrolman too. I’m a patrolman now, but just let a vessel show itself off there, and I should be a surfman in less than no time.”“You don’t stay here all the time?”“Through the year? No, we come on the first of September, and we go off the first of May. They don’t have the same dates in all the stations. The idea is to be here whenthere’s the most danger. Our keeper, though, has to be lookin’ arter things, comin’ here now and then, through the year. He’s keeper, summer and winter.”“How do you like your work?”“Well, I like the pay, fifty dollars a month, but it’s hard, resky work.”“How long have you been on?”“Nine years.”“What is your worst kind of weather?”“Well, it’s tough when there’s a light snow, and a stiff nor’–west wind keeps it a blowin’, or a nor’–east storm, when it hails and comes slashin’ into your face. It’s bad most any time when the lantern goes out. You see we have to pick our way; good enough on the sand when it’s hard, but among the rocks, it’s hobbly; and it may be pretty snowy if you can’t foller the beach.”“Does your lantern go out?”“Sometimes. You have to grope your way the best you can, then.”“You must have seen some tough times.”“I’ve been an hour and a half goin’ a mile,” exclaimed Tom with the air of a veteran who has fought his hundred battles, and won at least ninety–nine. “Poky work, I tell ye!”“How do you divide your watches?”“We have four watches, and two men go out at a time. I go to this end of the beach, and t’other man goes to t’other end. Where two station deestricts join, the patrolmen from the stations meet, and exchange what they call ‘checks,’ that they give to their keepers.”“How is it your watches run?”“Oh, the hours? From sunset till eight, is the first watch, and from eight to twelve is the second, and from twelve till four is the third; and then there’s from four till sunrise. Then by day, we have to watch. If it’s thick weather, fog, or rain, or snow, if we can’t see two miles each way from the station, we have to go out agin. If it is clear weather, we just watch from the lookout, on the buildin’. One man has to be on the lookout, and he reports all vessels goin’ by. You saw the lookout?”“Oh, yes. Do you ever use that Coston signal?”“Yes, though not much this winter thus far. I have only used mine twice thus far. A fishin’ vessel was the last one. She got in too near shore, and I burned my light, so that she might take the hint and haul off.”“The ice must be piled up bad on the beach, sometimes.”“Yes; I’ve seen it twenty feet high. Thewind drives the snow down on the beach, and the sea washes over it, and it freezes; and then more snow may come to be washed and to freeze over, and so on.”“Out in a cold rain or hail, don’t it bother you?”“Yes; take hail, and it’s tough. Why, I’ve seen a man come into the station, and his clothes would be so stiff and frozen, he—he—couldn’t get ’em off hisself.”By this time, Tom had reached the end of his beat. He slouched along in the rear of a barn, turned its corner, and then stopped before an object that shone in the light of the lantern. It was a key attached by a chain to the wall. Tom took the key, put it into a hole in his detector, turned it till a sharp click was heard; and then Walter knew this faithful recorder had made its mark on the dial. The patrolman turned, and began the journey back to the station. Crossing a field of snow, they struck the shore rocks once more, and then moved out upon the wet, sloping sands. A short walk brought them again to the upper rim of the beach, strewn with snow.The lantern flashed its light down upon a footprint.“Whose is that?” asked Walter.“T’other patrol’s; one afore me. He’s got a foot big enough to cover up a pumpkin hill.”Slowly, Tom and Walter returned to the station.“I suppose I must say good night, and go to my aunt’s now.”“WishIhad an aunt’s to go to, now. My beat is short, and I must go over it twice more, afore I turn in at twelve. If you are down at the station in the morning, you’ll see on my detector the proof that I’ve been faithful; but I would be, without the thing,” said the sensitive knight of the beach. Walter watched Tom as he turned his face again toward the dark sea and the lonely beach. The light of the lantern steadily dwindled till it seemed like that of a star about to dip beneath the waters of the ocean and disappear; and dip and disappear it did, as Tom stumbled over the shore rocks down upon the beach. Walter went slowly along the lane to Uncle Boardman’s.In the morning, he was at the station again.“Do you want to see me open the detectors?” said the keeper to Walter. “Come here then.”Walter watched the keeper as he opened one of the detectors.“There,” he said, removing a card or dial. “Do you see those marks?”“And we might have had to run out the boat”(p.47).Walter could detect little stamps in the form of a cross.“There is Tom Walker’s record,” said the keeper. “One stamp was fifteen minutes of nine, when you went down; another at ten minutes of ten, and the third at eleven. That shows that Tom Walker did his duty.”“And he would have done it anyway,” growled the sensitive Tom. “I don’t like to have that thing nag me round. I do my duty.”“Oh yes, yes, sartin,” replied the keeper in a mollifying tone.“Did you burn your light after I left you?” inquired Walter. “I mean your signal.”“No, nothin’ turned up.”“What would you have done if it had?” inquired Walter. “Say, if you had seen a wreck, what then?”“What would he have done?” said the keeper, answering for the surfman, and answering in an oratorical fashion. “What would he have done? My! Wouldn’t he have flown round! He’d have out with that signal and burnt it in less than no time. Then he would have run to the station, big rubber boots and all, roused the crew, and we might have had to run out the boat and get a line to the wreck,” andthe keeper, as he proceeded, seeing the effect his earnestness had on his young auditor, grew quite dramatic in his gestures.“Wish I could see it!” thought Walter. But that was not possible. His return home must be effected that very afternoon.“I am leaving so many things behind,” he reasoned, “that I really ought not to go. There are so many things about the station I would like to understand; and what a funny store Uncle Boardman has! And there is that man, ‘Belzebub’ Baggs; I wonder if he will get Uncle Boardman to sell him that land!”There was no alternative; Walter must go. He left behind, Uncle Boardman, and Aunt Lydia, the store, “Belzebub” Baggs, the station, Tom Walker, Capt. Barney, the crew, the wide, blue ocean so full of unrest and storm.“Get up, Katy!” shouted Mr. Plympton. “Now, home with ye!”

Frontispiece—“Away went the shot”(p.319).

Winter at the Life–Saving Station.

EDWARD A. RAND

AUTHOR OF

“HER CHRISTMAS AND HER EASTER”; “UP THE LADDER SERIES,”—“THEKNIGHTS OF THE WHITE SHIELD,” “THE SCHOOL IN THE LIGHTHOUSE,”“YARDSTICK AND SCISSORS,” “THE CAMP AT SURF BLUFF,” “OUTOF THE BREAKERS”, “SCHOOL AND CAMP SERIES,”—“PUSHINGAHEAD,” “ROY’S DORY AT THE SEASHORE,” “LITTLEBROWN–TOP,” “NELLIE’S NEW YEAR,” ETC., ETC.

New YorkTHOMAS WHITTAKER2 and 3 Bible House1887

Dedicated

TO THE

BRAVE SURFMEN

OF THE

U.S. LIFE SAVING SERVICE

AND

Their efficient Superintendent,

Hon.S. I. KIMBALL.

PREFACE.Visiting a Life Saving Station on our coast, and passing a night there, I became deeply interested in the work of the hardy crew. I have examined with an absorbing gratification various reports of the Service. We may fittingly have a national pride in the intent and achievement of this department. The element of the heroic runs through and makes luminous the pages of what on the face are only ordinary governmental reports. May the accompanying story interest our young people in the work of the Life Saving Service. While they accept, make theirs, and build upon the principles of honesty, reverence, and temperance laid down in this story, may they extend their sympathy and prayers also to the brave men who watch the sea while we are sleeping, and whose generous daring may well provoke us to courage and self–sacrifice in other spheres.

Visiting a Life Saving Station on our coast, and passing a night there, I became deeply interested in the work of the hardy crew. I have examined with an absorbing gratification various reports of the Service. We may fittingly have a national pride in the intent and achievement of this department. The element of the heroic runs through and makes luminous the pages of what on the face are only ordinary governmental reports. May the accompanying story interest our young people in the work of the Life Saving Service. While they accept, make theirs, and build upon the principles of honesty, reverence, and temperance laid down in this story, may they extend their sympathy and prayers also to the brave men who watch the sea while we are sleeping, and whose generous daring may well provoke us to courage and self–sacrifice in other spheres.

CONTENTS.CHAP.PAGEI.The Man on the Steeple7II.The Winter Ride16III.The Life–Saving Station26IV.The Patrol38V.Turning the Corner49VI.The Store62VII.Standing Firm82VIII.At the Station117IX.The Hall Service130X.The Boat–Race156XI.The Surf–Boy179XII.On his Beat193XIII.Under Fire207XIV.Two Bad Cases220XV.The Barney Literary Club231XVI.An Ugly Night249XVII.A Soul in Need274XVIII.Dark Depths Uncovered286XIX.A Wild Storm309XX.Christmas339

FIGHTING THE SEA.

CHAPTER I.THE MAN ON THE STEEPLE.“Oh—oh, grandfather! There’s—that—man—on the—steeple—and he—can’t—get—down!”“Why, yes, he can! He’s got a ladder!” said the old boat–builder, Zebulon Smith, looking up from the boat he had partly framed, and addressing his grandson, who had run excitedly into the shop and was now making an almost breathless appeal.“No, he—hasn’t;—he dropped—it!”“Ladder dropped from the steeple?”“Yes—gone—all—all—to smash!”“You don’t say, Cyrus!”Feeling it might be the man who had come down thus abruptly, and “gone all to smash,” the boat–builder ran outdoors and gave ahasty look up at the steeple. He breathed more easily when he saw the man far up the steeple, clinging to a ball that supported the vane. The steeple, though, was bare of any ladder, for this lay in fragments on the ground.“That is interestin’!” exclaimed the boat–builder.Of course it was. Is it not exceedingly interesting, the situation of a man on the steeple of a church, without ladders, rope, or staging, that may have taken him there? What if he grow dizzy and—but who likes to think of the consequences of such dizziness? Let me tell how this man got there, and why there.Zebulon Smith lived near the church, and was its sexton. Besides the church, he had no neighbor for three quarters of a mile. A stranger called at the boat–shop one day, and inquired the price of Zebulon’s wares. He added, “I b’long to a life savin’ station crew, and am interested in that thing, you know.”“The station beyond us?”“Ezackly! And see here! Don’t you want somebody to fix your vane on the steeple of the church, for I s’pose you go there. I’m used to climbin’. I have been a sailor.”“Yes, I go there. I’m the saxton. That vane does need fixin’; but I can’t seem to getat it. It’s fearfully twisted. I s’pose you’d want suthin for it.”“Oh, I wouldn’t ask much. I won’t ask nothin’, if I don’t fix it.”“All right. Cyrus, you get the ladder back of the shop.”Cyrus was a boy of sixteen, on a day’s visit to his grandparents, and he had met there by appointment a boy living in another direction and a good half–hour’s walk away, Walter Plympton, the hero of our story. The two boys were interested in archery, and had brought their apparatus to this accepted meeting–ground for a trial of skill. They suspended shooting when they knew the church–steeple was to be climbed, and carried the ladder across the road to the little white church on the edge of a grove of tall pines that at every touch of the wind stirred and murmured softly, musically, in response, as if an orchestra were hidden away in their spreading, fan–like branches. Zebulon and his assistant mounted the stairs leading to the belfry. There was a little railing outside the belfry, and planting his ladder inside this railing, the stranger climbed up to another railing surrounding the base of the steeple. Here he pulled up his ladder, and planted it now against the steeple.“I shan’t want you any longer,” called out the stranger. “If you’re busy, you can go back. I can manage.”“Got your hammer?” asked Zebulon.“Yes, the one you lent me. I’ll knock that vane into shape.”The boat–builder was indeed anxious to resume his work, and he now returned to his shop. The man from the life saving station had planted his ladder so that its summit rested between two projections of the wood–work of the steeple, that promised to firmly hold it in position. He then climbed his ladder, and from the topmost round he could reach a gilded ball beneath the vane. He had planned to draw himself up to the ball, sit astride this gilded throne in the air, there swing his hammer like a king flourishing his scepter, and knock that rebellious vane into an attitude of obedience. Alas, our best expectations sometimes fail us! Was not that ladder an old one? How could it help growing old, when its owner, Zebulon, was growing old himself, and complained of rheumatism in his joints? Rheumatism! That must have been the trouble with the topmost round of the ladder. But who really expects that an old ladder will give way to–day? It may to–morrow; but it has served so many years, it will certainlynot fail us this one day. But, the day had come when that ladder was bound to give way. Zebulon did not anticipate it, or he would never have assigned it to any steeple–duty. The stranger of course was not looking for it. The ladder kept its own secret however, and having, made up its mind to break that very day and hour, when the man grasped the ball above and springing violently gave a corresponding push to the ladder–round, it broke out into open rebellion. It cracked, split, parted hopelessly! That was not all. The ladder was jarred and pushed out of position, and as the man went up, and seated himself upon the ball, the ladder went down and took a position on the ground! As the ladder struck, various rheumatic joints parted, and this old servant of the sexton lay there at the foot of the church–tower in fragments.“Oh, pshaw!” exclaimed the man on the ball. “That’s a poser!”He thought a moment.“Well,” he exclaimed philosophically, “I’ll do what I came here for!”Swinging his hammer, he knocked the vane into proper shape. Zebulon heard the rapping of the hammer, as orderly and musical as the sound of any hammer strokes down on theground. He was surprised when he was summoned to see the hammerer up in the air and the broken ladder on the ground.“Oh, Zebulon!” shrieked a voice. “Git a ladder! Why don’t ye?”“That’s Nancy!” he said to himself.Yes, after this voice came a woman, and Zebulon’s wife, rushing up to his side, put her hands up to her eyes to fence off the sunlight, and then looked at the occupant of that gilt ball on the church–steeple.“Git a ladder?” the old sexton murmured. “Where?”Yes, where? There was no other about the premises, and to visit a neighbor for that purpose would use up a half–hour, and in the meantime what if—a person does not like to think what might happen.“Oh dear, Zebulon! What did you let him go up for?” asked his wife.“If—if—you had asked that question afore he went up, there would have been some sense to it. He wanted to go,” replied the old sexton impatiently. “The thing to do now, is to git him down.”“Git him down! What if he should come down whether he wants to or not? What if he gits dizzy? Oh my!”“You don’t ketch me jest a lookin’ at him. I’m a goin’ to bring a ladder, find it somewhere.”“Hold on, Zebulon! Hark, boys!”The boat–builder and the two young archers, thus addressed by Nancy, now listened in silence, and at the same time looked up. There they all stood, with upturned faces, and the man above called down to them:“Sho—o—o—t! Send—a—string—g!”As he thus called, his hands let go their hold upon the rod that bore the vane, and clinging with his feet alone, he went through the motions of one shooting an arrow from a bow.“Oh—oh!” shrieked Nancy. “He’s beginnin’ to fall.”With a horrified expression of countenance, she turned away and faced the other side of the road.“Oh, no!” cried Walter Plympton. “He is not falling. He is making believe shoot. I see what he wants.”“What?” asked Zebulon.“Why—why, shoot with our bows and arrow up there, tying a piece of string to it. It is not a very high steeple.”“Yes,” said Cyrus, “and he’ll pull it up, and then a stouter one.”“Oh, yes! Good! Well, boys, get your bows, and I will get the stuff,” said the boat–builder.How carefully those young archers shot steepleward their arrows, first attaching to the latter a long, stout thread!Oh, hands of the archers, tremble not! Oh, winds above, blow not! And—and—over, yes, just across the vane went the thread fastened to Walter Plympton’s arrow! A cord was now tied to the thread, the man carefully pulling it up, and then there went to him a new clothes–line, and down he came.“Much obleeged to you!” he said.“And we are obleeged to you!” replied the sexton. “And here’s your money for the job.”As the stranger turned to go away, he laid his hand on Walter’s shoulder, and said, “I saw it was your arrer that did the work. I won’t forgit it.”Away he walked, disappearing down the road that wound its dusty line through the green forest.All the time he had been with his new acquaintances, he had not given his name. Indeed, nobody asked for it. Walter remembered him only as a man with a bushy beard.“Wonder if I shall ever see him again!” thought Walter.We shall find out.The weeks slipped by, and winter at last powdered the land as if it wished to give the earth’s bald head a white wig.

THE MAN ON THE STEEPLE.

“Oh—oh, grandfather! There’s—that—man—on the—steeple—and he—can’t—get—down!”

“Why, yes, he can! He’s got a ladder!” said the old boat–builder, Zebulon Smith, looking up from the boat he had partly framed, and addressing his grandson, who had run excitedly into the shop and was now making an almost breathless appeal.

“No, he—hasn’t;—he dropped—it!”

“Ladder dropped from the steeple?”

“Yes—gone—all—all—to smash!”

“You don’t say, Cyrus!”

Feeling it might be the man who had come down thus abruptly, and “gone all to smash,” the boat–builder ran outdoors and gave ahasty look up at the steeple. He breathed more easily when he saw the man far up the steeple, clinging to a ball that supported the vane. The steeple, though, was bare of any ladder, for this lay in fragments on the ground.

“That is interestin’!” exclaimed the boat–builder.

Of course it was. Is it not exceedingly interesting, the situation of a man on the steeple of a church, without ladders, rope, or staging, that may have taken him there? What if he grow dizzy and—but who likes to think of the consequences of such dizziness? Let me tell how this man got there, and why there.

Zebulon Smith lived near the church, and was its sexton. Besides the church, he had no neighbor for three quarters of a mile. A stranger called at the boat–shop one day, and inquired the price of Zebulon’s wares. He added, “I b’long to a life savin’ station crew, and am interested in that thing, you know.”

“The station beyond us?”

“Ezackly! And see here! Don’t you want somebody to fix your vane on the steeple of the church, for I s’pose you go there. I’m used to climbin’. I have been a sailor.”

“Yes, I go there. I’m the saxton. That vane does need fixin’; but I can’t seem to getat it. It’s fearfully twisted. I s’pose you’d want suthin for it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t ask much. I won’t ask nothin’, if I don’t fix it.”

“All right. Cyrus, you get the ladder back of the shop.”

Cyrus was a boy of sixteen, on a day’s visit to his grandparents, and he had met there by appointment a boy living in another direction and a good half–hour’s walk away, Walter Plympton, the hero of our story. The two boys were interested in archery, and had brought their apparatus to this accepted meeting–ground for a trial of skill. They suspended shooting when they knew the church–steeple was to be climbed, and carried the ladder across the road to the little white church on the edge of a grove of tall pines that at every touch of the wind stirred and murmured softly, musically, in response, as if an orchestra were hidden away in their spreading, fan–like branches. Zebulon and his assistant mounted the stairs leading to the belfry. There was a little railing outside the belfry, and planting his ladder inside this railing, the stranger climbed up to another railing surrounding the base of the steeple. Here he pulled up his ladder, and planted it now against the steeple.

“I shan’t want you any longer,” called out the stranger. “If you’re busy, you can go back. I can manage.”

“Got your hammer?” asked Zebulon.

“Yes, the one you lent me. I’ll knock that vane into shape.”

The boat–builder was indeed anxious to resume his work, and he now returned to his shop. The man from the life saving station had planted his ladder so that its summit rested between two projections of the wood–work of the steeple, that promised to firmly hold it in position. He then climbed his ladder, and from the topmost round he could reach a gilded ball beneath the vane. He had planned to draw himself up to the ball, sit astride this gilded throne in the air, there swing his hammer like a king flourishing his scepter, and knock that rebellious vane into an attitude of obedience. Alas, our best expectations sometimes fail us! Was not that ladder an old one? How could it help growing old, when its owner, Zebulon, was growing old himself, and complained of rheumatism in his joints? Rheumatism! That must have been the trouble with the topmost round of the ladder. But who really expects that an old ladder will give way to–day? It may to–morrow; but it has served so many years, it will certainlynot fail us this one day. But, the day had come when that ladder was bound to give way. Zebulon did not anticipate it, or he would never have assigned it to any steeple–duty. The stranger of course was not looking for it. The ladder kept its own secret however, and having, made up its mind to break that very day and hour, when the man grasped the ball above and springing violently gave a corresponding push to the ladder–round, it broke out into open rebellion. It cracked, split, parted hopelessly! That was not all. The ladder was jarred and pushed out of position, and as the man went up, and seated himself upon the ball, the ladder went down and took a position on the ground! As the ladder struck, various rheumatic joints parted, and this old servant of the sexton lay there at the foot of the church–tower in fragments.

“Oh, pshaw!” exclaimed the man on the ball. “That’s a poser!”

He thought a moment.

“Well,” he exclaimed philosophically, “I’ll do what I came here for!”

Swinging his hammer, he knocked the vane into proper shape. Zebulon heard the rapping of the hammer, as orderly and musical as the sound of any hammer strokes down on theground. He was surprised when he was summoned to see the hammerer up in the air and the broken ladder on the ground.

“Oh, Zebulon!” shrieked a voice. “Git a ladder! Why don’t ye?”

“That’s Nancy!” he said to himself.

Yes, after this voice came a woman, and Zebulon’s wife, rushing up to his side, put her hands up to her eyes to fence off the sunlight, and then looked at the occupant of that gilt ball on the church–steeple.

“Git a ladder?” the old sexton murmured. “Where?”

Yes, where? There was no other about the premises, and to visit a neighbor for that purpose would use up a half–hour, and in the meantime what if—a person does not like to think what might happen.

“Oh dear, Zebulon! What did you let him go up for?” asked his wife.

“If—if—you had asked that question afore he went up, there would have been some sense to it. He wanted to go,” replied the old sexton impatiently. “The thing to do now, is to git him down.”

“Git him down! What if he should come down whether he wants to or not? What if he gits dizzy? Oh my!”

“You don’t ketch me jest a lookin’ at him. I’m a goin’ to bring a ladder, find it somewhere.”

“Hold on, Zebulon! Hark, boys!”

The boat–builder and the two young archers, thus addressed by Nancy, now listened in silence, and at the same time looked up. There they all stood, with upturned faces, and the man above called down to them:

“Sho—o—o—t! Send—a—string—g!”

As he thus called, his hands let go their hold upon the rod that bore the vane, and clinging with his feet alone, he went through the motions of one shooting an arrow from a bow.

“Oh—oh!” shrieked Nancy. “He’s beginnin’ to fall.”

With a horrified expression of countenance, she turned away and faced the other side of the road.

“Oh, no!” cried Walter Plympton. “He is not falling. He is making believe shoot. I see what he wants.”

“What?” asked Zebulon.

“Why—why, shoot with our bows and arrow up there, tying a piece of string to it. It is not a very high steeple.”

“Yes,” said Cyrus, “and he’ll pull it up, and then a stouter one.”

“Oh, yes! Good! Well, boys, get your bows, and I will get the stuff,” said the boat–builder.

How carefully those young archers shot steepleward their arrows, first attaching to the latter a long, stout thread!

Oh, hands of the archers, tremble not! Oh, winds above, blow not! And—and—over, yes, just across the vane went the thread fastened to Walter Plympton’s arrow! A cord was now tied to the thread, the man carefully pulling it up, and then there went to him a new clothes–line, and down he came.

“Much obleeged to you!” he said.

“And we are obleeged to you!” replied the sexton. “And here’s your money for the job.”

As the stranger turned to go away, he laid his hand on Walter’s shoulder, and said, “I saw it was your arrer that did the work. I won’t forgit it.”

Away he walked, disappearing down the road that wound its dusty line through the green forest.

All the time he had been with his new acquaintances, he had not given his name. Indeed, nobody asked for it. Walter remembered him only as a man with a bushy beard.

“Wonder if I shall ever see him again!” thought Walter.

We shall find out.

The weeks slipped by, and winter at last powdered the land as if it wished to give the earth’s bald head a white wig.

CHAPTER II.THE WINTER RIDE.“I’m going to be warm,” said Walter Plympton’s father, a man with rather sharp features, of slender build, and nervous, sensitive temperament. “Yes, I’m going to be warm, and bundle up accordingly.”“You will look like an Eskimo,” replied his wife, who in her very laugh, so easy and deliberate, as well as in her stout physical build, was the opposite of her husband. “Those who see you, Ezra, won’t fall in love with such a stuffed creature.”“They may keep the love, Louisa, and I’ll hold on to the comfort. I believe in going warm like the Chinese, who are said in cold weather to increase the amount of their clothing, rather than their heating apparatus. How that may be, I don’t know; but I do know that I mean to be warm. Kitty harnessed, Walter?”“Yes, father, and she’s waiting in the stable.”“We will go out then. Oh, the family umbrella!”The family umbrella was an immense institution, suspended like a big blue dome above its holder, and promising to make a good parachute. It had been bought at an auction, and was one of those peculiarities often coming up to the surface at such sales. For years, it had proved a good friend on rough, rainy days.“Do you expect a rain, father?”“No, but I want to hold it up against the wind. Hoist the sail, and our craft will be off. Good–bye, Louisa. We will be home to–morrow night, if a possible thing.”“Good–bye, mother.”“Good–bye. Do take care of yourselves.” And after she said this, she watched the departing team as Kitty slowly pulled the sleigh through the white snow that had not settled since its fall the day before, but stretched its diminutive drifts in almost uninterrupted succession across the road.Kitty patiently plodded on, but she found the snow deeper than she liked to pull the sleigh through. The wind blew keen and strong, and was like an axe–blade wielded by winter; but the riders in the sleigh were safe behind the blue umbrella.Walter Plympton differed, as well as his mother, from Mr. Plympton. He was in looks a “mother’s boy,” though his character was varied with some of his father’s features of mind. He was a stout, heavy youth of sixteen, one of those growing boys too, from whose feet their trousers, recently new, are soon discovered to be running away, and whose wrists persist in getting far below their coat–sleeves. He had his mother’s round, full face. His complexion was a rich brown, rather than fair and white. His eyes were a bright hazel, and his hair of a shade between brown and black. His voice was rather heavy for one of his years, and was certain to be heard among those shouting at “baseball,” or “fox in the wall.” He shared in his father’s sensitiveness of temperament, and like him was enthusiastic. Unlike either father or mother, the imaginative element was strongly developed in his character. As to other qualities, he was generous, rather thoughtless, and his strong, ringing voice put him among those unfortunate boys who are often told, “Don’t speak so loud.” He had a very good sized estimate of himself, was quite sure to be among the speakers—and successful speakers—at a school exhibition, and was ambitious to throw, in after years, as large a shadow across the surface oflife’s events as Walter Plympton’s abilities would possibly permit. There was no concealment in his moves or motives; but open, honest, and naturally confiding, he was sometimes the dupe of boys cunning and suspicious. He was too bright to be a dupe twice in the same day, and when he discovered an enemy’s tricks, would resent an invasion of rights as promptly, stoutly, and noisily, as anybody. His good nature and sociability made him popular. He was rather fond of his books, was not afraid to ask questions, and this made him an interesting, intelligent companion. While there was a large lump of the “boy” in him, he was a youth of promise, and bade fair to be in after years a success. His mother stated his greatest need, when she said, “Walter needs a rudder to steer him. He needs conversion, that is it. He prays, and once in awhile reads his Bible, and has no really bad habits. I want him to go farther. I would like to see him beginning an active religious life, openly, avowedly; and I do hope soon he will confess his Saviour.”Motherly Mrs. Plympton! How her thoughts and her prayers went after her boy, like the wings of a mother bird, flying after and hovering over her young. And this winter morning she had not forgotten to put up the often ascendingprayer for her boy’s better life. She stood at the window awhile, watching Kitty and her load, and then stepped back to her kitchen duties.“Pretty hard going, father,” said the younger occupant of the sleigh.“It will be better out in the main road, and we shall strike it soon. I wouldn’t start to–day, but this is the last chance for going to the life saving station as I promised, before you leave for school; and you leave day after to–morrow, and it is evident we must go to the station to–day, if we go at all. But I think it will be all right out in the main road.”“Don’t the trees look handsome?”“Yes, I never saw them prettier.”The late fall of snow had draped forest and field.As our travelers proceeded on their journey, the drifts deepened, rather than lessened. It was toilsome traveling. By and by, they came to a road skirted with telegraph–poles. Here they were obliged to jump out and push the sleigh.“Father, let us begin to count the telegraph–poles. That will help pass the time.”“All right. One!” shouted Mr. Plympton, as they passed the first of the long line of tall,wooden travelers lining the highway, and stretching ahead into the dark, green forest.“Two–o–o!” cried Walter, so glad when he could count off a single pole. They trudged through the snow, pushing the sleigh, pulling Kitty forward, calling out at intervals, “Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight!”“Look, father! See those men!”“I notice. I wonder what they are doing!”Two men, a little distance ahead, ran out of the woods dragging a long piece of timber.“I guess they’re going to fix the telegraph wire, Walter. The storm broke down some of the wires.”The men dropped the long timber directly across the road and then darted into the woods again.“That’s cool, Walter! What do they want to drop that in our path for?” The men were now back again, sticking forked branches in the snow; and they then laid the timber in the forks.“Can’t we go through?” asked Mr. Plympton in a somewhat provoked tone.“I wouldn’t advise you to, Cap’n,” replied one of the men who wore a red woolen jacket. “You see the snow up ’long, is piled higher than your horse’s back. We know, ’cause we’vebeen breakin’ out the road; but the snow does blow in wuss than pizen, and we concluded to quit until the wind quits. Where you goin’, Cap’n?”“Down to the life saving station.”“Wall, that’s your right road to take, the one to the right, Cap’n. Of course, you can go ahead, if you wish, but we don’t advise it, as we have been thar, and know how rough it is. That t’other road is the one you want to take.”“Thank you, sir.”“Father, I want to ask—”Mr. Plympton laughed, knowing Walter’s disposition to ask questions, and that the process once begun might be protracted too far for the convenience of travelers.“I will hold on if you will only asktwoquestions.”“I—I promise,” and laughing, Walter leaped out into the snow, and walked up to the men. He did not like to be limited to two questions, but he submitted to his chains, and having inquired about the depth of the snow and the length of the road, he returned to the sleigh.“Only three miles by the road we take, father, to Uncle Boardman’s.”“It is a new way to me. I have been accustomed to travel by the road that is blocked, but if this is a better road I am glad.”As Kitty began to jingle her bells again, Mr. Plympton said, “There, Walter! That’s a good lesson. I call that a lesson about God’s providence, which stops us from taking a certain course, and we may feel as I did when those men stopped me; but we are led to take a better way. Left to ourselves, just now, we would have run into a big drift.”“I see, though in this life Providence does not always make explanations, father.”“No, we must wait till we get into another life, to have all things explained.”The road led through a forest of pines, heavily coated. In a slow, stately fashion, these swayed their tall, plumy tops. Beyond this forest, the road was drifted once more. The travelers had now a long tug at road–breaking, but the drifts were all conquered. The country grew more and more familiar. “The last woods!” said Walter, as they passed a strip of trees, whose trunks, coated on one side by the storm, seemed like marble pillars, bearing up a roof of green porphyry. Just beyond this, Walter cried out, “Look, father!”Mr. Plympton raised his eyes, and beyondthe white glitter of the snow, saw a strip of vivid blue.“The sea, father!”“Ah, so it is!”The sea stretched far away under the cold, dark, frowning sky, and out of its waves rose distant snow–covered islands, like frosted cakes on a very blue table.“There is Uncle Boardman’s, too, Walter.”This was a farmhouse located near one corner of the forest.“Wonder if Uncle Boardman knows we are so near, Walter?” asked Mr. Plympton, as Kitty pulled the sleigh up to the open space between the road and the green front door.“Knows?” At that very moment, Boardman Blake’s much loved, but much worn old beaver, was about turning the corner of the house, and under the beaver was Boardman. Aunt Lydia’s spectacles were already at the front door, and it was now swinging on its hinges.“Land sakes! Where did you come from? I seed you from our back winder the moment you turned out of the woods,” shrieked Aunt Lydia. “I told Boardman it was some of our folks, but he thought he knew better.”“Well, well,” said a deeper, more agreeablevoice, under the beaver, “what are you up to? Why didn’t you wait till six feet more of snow had fallen? Come in, come in. I’ll look after your horse.”The green front door quickly closed on the travelers, and soon after Kitty disappeared behind a red barn–door.The wind had its own way once more in the road, and undisturbed, kept the light snow whirling, as if its mission were that of a broom, to sweep if possible the open space before the home of that honored couple, Boardman and Lydia Blake.

THE WINTER RIDE.

“I’m going to be warm,” said Walter Plympton’s father, a man with rather sharp features, of slender build, and nervous, sensitive temperament. “Yes, I’m going to be warm, and bundle up accordingly.”

“You will look like an Eskimo,” replied his wife, who in her very laugh, so easy and deliberate, as well as in her stout physical build, was the opposite of her husband. “Those who see you, Ezra, won’t fall in love with such a stuffed creature.”

“They may keep the love, Louisa, and I’ll hold on to the comfort. I believe in going warm like the Chinese, who are said in cold weather to increase the amount of their clothing, rather than their heating apparatus. How that may be, I don’t know; but I do know that I mean to be warm. Kitty harnessed, Walter?”

“Yes, father, and she’s waiting in the stable.”

“We will go out then. Oh, the family umbrella!”

The family umbrella was an immense institution, suspended like a big blue dome above its holder, and promising to make a good parachute. It had been bought at an auction, and was one of those peculiarities often coming up to the surface at such sales. For years, it had proved a good friend on rough, rainy days.

“Do you expect a rain, father?”

“No, but I want to hold it up against the wind. Hoist the sail, and our craft will be off. Good–bye, Louisa. We will be home to–morrow night, if a possible thing.”

“Good–bye, mother.”

“Good–bye. Do take care of yourselves.” And after she said this, she watched the departing team as Kitty slowly pulled the sleigh through the white snow that had not settled since its fall the day before, but stretched its diminutive drifts in almost uninterrupted succession across the road.

Kitty patiently plodded on, but she found the snow deeper than she liked to pull the sleigh through. The wind blew keen and strong, and was like an axe–blade wielded by winter; but the riders in the sleigh were safe behind the blue umbrella.

Walter Plympton differed, as well as his mother, from Mr. Plympton. He was in looks a “mother’s boy,” though his character was varied with some of his father’s features of mind. He was a stout, heavy youth of sixteen, one of those growing boys too, from whose feet their trousers, recently new, are soon discovered to be running away, and whose wrists persist in getting far below their coat–sleeves. He had his mother’s round, full face. His complexion was a rich brown, rather than fair and white. His eyes were a bright hazel, and his hair of a shade between brown and black. His voice was rather heavy for one of his years, and was certain to be heard among those shouting at “baseball,” or “fox in the wall.” He shared in his father’s sensitiveness of temperament, and like him was enthusiastic. Unlike either father or mother, the imaginative element was strongly developed in his character. As to other qualities, he was generous, rather thoughtless, and his strong, ringing voice put him among those unfortunate boys who are often told, “Don’t speak so loud.” He had a very good sized estimate of himself, was quite sure to be among the speakers—and successful speakers—at a school exhibition, and was ambitious to throw, in after years, as large a shadow across the surface oflife’s events as Walter Plympton’s abilities would possibly permit. There was no concealment in his moves or motives; but open, honest, and naturally confiding, he was sometimes the dupe of boys cunning and suspicious. He was too bright to be a dupe twice in the same day, and when he discovered an enemy’s tricks, would resent an invasion of rights as promptly, stoutly, and noisily, as anybody. His good nature and sociability made him popular. He was rather fond of his books, was not afraid to ask questions, and this made him an interesting, intelligent companion. While there was a large lump of the “boy” in him, he was a youth of promise, and bade fair to be in after years a success. His mother stated his greatest need, when she said, “Walter needs a rudder to steer him. He needs conversion, that is it. He prays, and once in awhile reads his Bible, and has no really bad habits. I want him to go farther. I would like to see him beginning an active religious life, openly, avowedly; and I do hope soon he will confess his Saviour.”

Motherly Mrs. Plympton! How her thoughts and her prayers went after her boy, like the wings of a mother bird, flying after and hovering over her young. And this winter morning she had not forgotten to put up the often ascendingprayer for her boy’s better life. She stood at the window awhile, watching Kitty and her load, and then stepped back to her kitchen duties.

“Pretty hard going, father,” said the younger occupant of the sleigh.

“It will be better out in the main road, and we shall strike it soon. I wouldn’t start to–day, but this is the last chance for going to the life saving station as I promised, before you leave for school; and you leave day after to–morrow, and it is evident we must go to the station to–day, if we go at all. But I think it will be all right out in the main road.”

“Don’t the trees look handsome?”

“Yes, I never saw them prettier.”

The late fall of snow had draped forest and field.

As our travelers proceeded on their journey, the drifts deepened, rather than lessened. It was toilsome traveling. By and by, they came to a road skirted with telegraph–poles. Here they were obliged to jump out and push the sleigh.

“Father, let us begin to count the telegraph–poles. That will help pass the time.”

“All right. One!” shouted Mr. Plympton, as they passed the first of the long line of tall,wooden travelers lining the highway, and stretching ahead into the dark, green forest.

“Two–o–o!” cried Walter, so glad when he could count off a single pole. They trudged through the snow, pushing the sleigh, pulling Kitty forward, calling out at intervals, “Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight!”

“Look, father! See those men!”

“I notice. I wonder what they are doing!”

Two men, a little distance ahead, ran out of the woods dragging a long piece of timber.

“I guess they’re going to fix the telegraph wire, Walter. The storm broke down some of the wires.”

The men dropped the long timber directly across the road and then darted into the woods again.

“That’s cool, Walter! What do they want to drop that in our path for?” The men were now back again, sticking forked branches in the snow; and they then laid the timber in the forks.

“Can’t we go through?” asked Mr. Plympton in a somewhat provoked tone.

“I wouldn’t advise you to, Cap’n,” replied one of the men who wore a red woolen jacket. “You see the snow up ’long, is piled higher than your horse’s back. We know, ’cause we’vebeen breakin’ out the road; but the snow does blow in wuss than pizen, and we concluded to quit until the wind quits. Where you goin’, Cap’n?”

“Down to the life saving station.”

“Wall, that’s your right road to take, the one to the right, Cap’n. Of course, you can go ahead, if you wish, but we don’t advise it, as we have been thar, and know how rough it is. That t’other road is the one you want to take.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Father, I want to ask—”

Mr. Plympton laughed, knowing Walter’s disposition to ask questions, and that the process once begun might be protracted too far for the convenience of travelers.

“I will hold on if you will only asktwoquestions.”

“I—I promise,” and laughing, Walter leaped out into the snow, and walked up to the men. He did not like to be limited to two questions, but he submitted to his chains, and having inquired about the depth of the snow and the length of the road, he returned to the sleigh.

“Only three miles by the road we take, father, to Uncle Boardman’s.”

“It is a new way to me. I have been accustomed to travel by the road that is blocked, but if this is a better road I am glad.”

As Kitty began to jingle her bells again, Mr. Plympton said, “There, Walter! That’s a good lesson. I call that a lesson about God’s providence, which stops us from taking a certain course, and we may feel as I did when those men stopped me; but we are led to take a better way. Left to ourselves, just now, we would have run into a big drift.”

“I see, though in this life Providence does not always make explanations, father.”

“No, we must wait till we get into another life, to have all things explained.”

The road led through a forest of pines, heavily coated. In a slow, stately fashion, these swayed their tall, plumy tops. Beyond this forest, the road was drifted once more. The travelers had now a long tug at road–breaking, but the drifts were all conquered. The country grew more and more familiar. “The last woods!” said Walter, as they passed a strip of trees, whose trunks, coated on one side by the storm, seemed like marble pillars, bearing up a roof of green porphyry. Just beyond this, Walter cried out, “Look, father!”

Mr. Plympton raised his eyes, and beyondthe white glitter of the snow, saw a strip of vivid blue.

“The sea, father!”

“Ah, so it is!”

The sea stretched far away under the cold, dark, frowning sky, and out of its waves rose distant snow–covered islands, like frosted cakes on a very blue table.

“There is Uncle Boardman’s, too, Walter.”

This was a farmhouse located near one corner of the forest.

“Wonder if Uncle Boardman knows we are so near, Walter?” asked Mr. Plympton, as Kitty pulled the sleigh up to the open space between the road and the green front door.

“Knows?” At that very moment, Boardman Blake’s much loved, but much worn old beaver, was about turning the corner of the house, and under the beaver was Boardman. Aunt Lydia’s spectacles were already at the front door, and it was now swinging on its hinges.

“Land sakes! Where did you come from? I seed you from our back winder the moment you turned out of the woods,” shrieked Aunt Lydia. “I told Boardman it was some of our folks, but he thought he knew better.”

“Well, well,” said a deeper, more agreeablevoice, under the beaver, “what are you up to? Why didn’t you wait till six feet more of snow had fallen? Come in, come in. I’ll look after your horse.”

The green front door quickly closed on the travelers, and soon after Kitty disappeared behind a red barn–door.

The wind had its own way once more in the road, and undisturbed, kept the light snow whirling, as if its mission were that of a broom, to sweep if possible the open space before the home of that honored couple, Boardman and Lydia Blake.

CHAPTER III.THE LIFE SAVING STATION.“Here we are,” exclaimed Mr. Plympton, entering with Walter the life saving station. “Jotham, how are you?”“Ezra, I am really glad to see you,” replied Jotham Barney, the keeper of the station, with much heartiness. “Take off your riggin’, and make yourself at home.”“Cap’n Barney,” as he was often labeled, was a person about forty–five years old. He was a sandy haired, sandy whiskered man, with a light complexion, sharp, prominent nose, and blue eyes that had a way of letting out flashes when he spoke. “Cap’n Barney” was a very social, talkative man, who had been “about considerable,” though not always in first class conveyances, and was ready to talk on almost any subject. What he had not seen, what hedid not know, was not worth the seeing or knowing. He thought very much of his own opinion, and liked to brag; but he was a kindly natured man, and people bore with his conceit, because he was so chatty and pleasant. The station to which “Uncle Sam” had appointed him as the “keeper,” was a yellow building about forty–five feet long, and perhaps eighteen wide; and how tall was it? The roof supported in its center a little railed platform called the “lookout,” and this was between twenty and twenty–five feet from the ground. In the rear of the station was the living–room, through whose preface of a little entry, Mr. Plympton and Walter passed; then, entering the apartment which was not only a kitchen, but a dining–room; and not only a dining–room but a sitting–room, a parlor, and everything, except an apartment for sleeping. This living–room was a little, unambitious place, lighted by two windows toward the east. Between the windows, was a cook–stove; and over this was a wooden rack, from which hung a row of towels. A clock stamped “U. S. L. S. S.” was ticking steadfastly on one wall, and near it was a barometer. In one corner, was a case marked “U. S. L. S. S. Library, No.—.” Two patrol lanterns were suspended below, and there werealso two sockets for Coston signals. Around the walls in different places, were the overcoats, hats, jackets, comforters, the station crew had shed. Upon the entrance door, that served as a kind of handy bulletin–board, were tacked various circulars: “Merriman’s Patent Waterproof Dress and Life–Preservers,” “Watchman’s Improved Time–Detector”; circulars from the Treasury Department about care of “Marine Glasses,” upon “Leaves of absence,” and other matters. The only other interesting objects in the room were human, and these were members of the station crew. They were all young men. One was weaving a net. Two were playing checkers. A fourth was officiating as cook; and he was now cutting up salt fish.Walter noticed everything with eager curiosity. His father and the keeper had once been schoolboys together, and as they were very busily talking, Walter’s eyes could without interruption travel from one object to another.“Three doors in this room,” thought Walter; “and one goes outdoors; and I wonder where the other two go.”He was relieved when the keeper said, “Ezra, come upstairs, and see how we bunk for the night. Then I will show you the boat–room.”“That disposes of those two doors, I guess,” reflected Walter.One of these, approached from the kitchen floor by a single step, the keeper was now opening.“Tumble up, Ezra, and see where we stay nights,” was the keeper’s ready invitation. Up the brown, unpainted stairs, they passed into a little room, which seemed to be also an entry, connecting the keeper’s room, at the left over the kitchen, and the men’s quarters, at the right.“Here is my den,” said the keeper, turning to the left. “Plain, you see everything is, but at night when a feller is asleep, he doesn’t know whether a Brussels carpet is on the floor, or whether it is unpainted, like this. That is my bed in the corner, and there you see I have two windows toward the east, so I know when it is sunrise. There’s my writin’ desk, they allow me a chair or two, and so on.”“Who rooms with you?” asked Mr. Plympton.“The clock up there! That is my chum; always makin’ a noise, yet never in the way.”“Oh! Then this is your room wholly, Jotham?”“Of course,” said Jotham, turning away withas much dignity as a sovereign leaving a bed–chamber hung with royal purple.“Now we will come back into the little entry again at the head of the stairs.” It was an entry that was also a narrow room.“Here’s a bed, you see, in the corner; and I have had the stove that was in my room set here. It throws the heat into the men’s quarters. We have a store–room on this floor,” said the keeper, opening a door in a wooden partition; “and we chuck various things in there. Step into the men’s room.”They passed into a long, low room in the western end of the building. Here were six wooden cot–beds ranged along two sides of the room; and under the thick army blankets that covered them, it seemed as if any tired surfman would be comfortable. Near each bed was either a blue chest or a trunk. At the two ends of the room, were various articles suspended from rows of hooks. Here were trousers, and coats, and shirts; and one man, who could not have believed in the beard movement, had here hung his shaving–mug and razor–strop. Near the windows in the western gable of the sloping roof, was a row of paper signal–flags.“What are those?” asked Walter.“They are only pictures of signals that oneof the men cut out of the signal–book. The real signals, the cloth ones, we keep under the lookout.”“Could I see them?”“Sartin. Come up this way,” and the obliging keeper turned to climb a wooden stairway running up from this room to the “lookout” on the roof. Before they reached the lookout, Walter saw in a little recess under the roof, a box.“There,” said the keeper, pulling the box forward. “This is all full of little flags, or signals, by which we can communicate with any craft on the water. We keep ’em here, because it is handy to have the signals where they can be taken out to the lookout, and run up on the flag–staff quick as possible.”Walter looked up through the open scuttle, and saw the lookout with its railing, and above all rose the tapering flag–staff.“We have one more room,” said the keeper.“What’s that, Jotham?” inquired Mr. Plympton.“The boat–room. Come downstairs.”They passed from the living–room directly into a treasure house, whose contents made Walter’s eyes sparkle with eager interest.“That the boat!” exclaimed Walter.“Yes, she’s a beauty,” replied the keeper, fondly stroking its gunwale as if it were a thing of life, and would feel every touch of his caressing hand. “That’s our surf–boat.”The surf–boat had the place of honor in the room, occupying all its center, and reaching almost from the wall of the living–room to the big door in the western wall.“It must be over twenty feet long,” thought Walter, who began to fill up with questions, until his brain seemed charged as fully as a loaded mitrailleuse. How many articles there were in that boat–room, adapted to the life–saving work, and in such readiness, that a wreck near shore might be sure of a visit and of rescue, if there were any possible chance for such relief! There were guns for throwing lines, and there were the lines to be thrown. There was a life–car, that could be swung along a line to a wreck; and there was a breeches–buoy, and there were—Oh how many articles! The desire for information was swelling to an intolerable size within Walter’s soul, and he was about to gratify the longing, when to his great disappointment, a door opened, and a face with a bushy beard was thrust into the boat–room from the living–room.“Cap’n!” called out Bush–beard.“What say?”“Could I see you ’bout my patrollin’ to–night, one minute?”“Why, father,” said Walter, in a low voice to Mr. Plympton, “that is the man that fixed the vane on the steeple!”The man of the steeple had recognized them, and was now saying, “How d’ye do?” at the same time he advanced, and held out a broad, brown hand to the visiting party.“Glad to see you,” said Mr. Plympton.“You know Tom Walker?” asked the station–keeper.“Guess I do,” replied Walter, readily gripping Tom Walker’s brown hand.“I s’pose, Tom, you want to see me about your beat. Let me see. You are on watch from eight till twelve?”“That’s it, Cap’n. All right, if you understand it. That is what I wanted.”“I—I wish—” Walter stopped.“What is it?” asked Mr. Plympton.“Why, I was thinking I would like to go with Tom Walker, a while you know, just to see what it is like.”“You can, if you wish and your father is willing. Tom would like ’mazin’ well to have company,” said the keeper.“Sartin!” cried Tom eagerly.“I’m willing, Walter,” said Mr. Plympton. “Only don’t be gone too long, as your Aunt Lydia would like, I guess, to have the house shut up before twelve. We will go over there now. Thank you, Jotham, for showing us round.”“You’re welcome. I will expect your boy to–night. He’d better be here before eight.”“I’ll give him a welcome,” added Tom. “I haven’t forgotten a kindness he did me.”“I will be on hand,” declared the happy Walter.Mr. Plympton and Walter turned away from the station, and took a narrow lane running from the beach up to Boardman Blake’s; and there the lane was promoted, and became a highway. As if to acknowledge that promotion, and wave the road a graceful, stately wish for success on its travels, a single elm had been planted where the way widened. The Blake home had been standing there about fifty years; having been built by Boardman Blake’s father. It was a two–story house; its green front door piercing the wall exactly in the middle. On one side of the front door was the parlor, open only on great occasions, like funerals, or “comp’ny.” Behind this was the kitchen.On the other side of the front door, the right, was the store; and in its rear, the sitting–room.“I like to have things handy,” said Uncle Boardman to Walter’s father; “and I can jest slip from our sittin’–room to the store and ’tend to customers, and then slip back.”It was in the sitting–room, that Uncle Boardman, Aunt Lydia, and the Plymptons were gathered before the large, open–mouthed fire–place. Supper had been spread at an early hour on the round dining–table in the kitchen, and the light had not wholly faded from the west, when the Blakes and their guests withdrew to the sitting–room. One could look from the fire on the hearth, to those flames the sun had kindled on a rival hearth, about the western hills; but the glow of the latter went out, leaving only ashy clouds behind; while Boardman’s fire continued to flare and crackle into the night.“You did have courage to start to–day to come down here,” said Aunt Lydia to Walter’s father, having adjusted herself in her easy rocking–chair, and having adjusted also in her waist the corn–cob that held and steadied her knitting.“Yes, but it was our last chance before Walter went away. Then when I started, Idid not know it was so bad. I thought when I struck the main road after leaving our house, we could get along easily enough. I think, too, over this way, you have had more snow than we. I didn’t know these facts; and when one has begun, you know he don’t like to give it up.”“There, if that isn’t Boardman!” exclaimed Aunt Lydia, throwing down her knitting–work in her lap as if to emphasize her point. “There has been a man round, Bezaleel Baggs (I call him Belzebub), and he wants to buy up a lot of Boardman’s woodland. Boardman has got the idea he’d better sell, and he does hate to give it up! I don’t like that Beza—no, Belzebub. I don’t like his looks or—”“Tinkle, tinkle,” went a little bell in the direction of the store.“Store, store!” now shrieked Aunt Lydia in the ears of her spouse, and there was need of the shriek. Uncle Boardman had contentedly folded his hands in his ample lap, and his head was rising and falling with as much regularity as the tides out in the adjacent ocean; but of course much oftener. “Store,” though, was the magic word that could bring Boardman any time out of the depths of the most profound evening nap. Rising promptly, he made his wayto the sitting–room door, and then into the store lighted by its one kerosene lamp on the scarred wooden counter. Aunt Lydia followed him softly to the door, and thrust forward her sharply featured face. She came back with a pair of flashing dark eyes, flashing all the brighter behind her spectacles; and holding up one hand significantly, said in a half–whisper, “I took a peek! It’she! I knowed as much.”“Who?” inquired Walter’s father.“Belzebub—there, Boardman says I ought not to call him that! Well, it’s the same old fox, that Baggs.”“You don’t like him?”“No, not one bit!” and in her intensity of feeling she sat down forcibly on the corn–cob, that ally in Aunt Lydia’s knitting–work, and carelessly left in her chair.“There!” said she jumping up. “I’ve broken that ’ere cob. I wish it had been Bel—there, I s’pose I ought not to say that.”Walter felt that the situation at Uncle Boardman’s had suddenly become very interesting; but he remembered his appointment at the station. He rose and began to put on his overcoat.

THE LIFE SAVING STATION.

“Here we are,” exclaimed Mr. Plympton, entering with Walter the life saving station. “Jotham, how are you?”

“Ezra, I am really glad to see you,” replied Jotham Barney, the keeper of the station, with much heartiness. “Take off your riggin’, and make yourself at home.”

“Cap’n Barney,” as he was often labeled, was a person about forty–five years old. He was a sandy haired, sandy whiskered man, with a light complexion, sharp, prominent nose, and blue eyes that had a way of letting out flashes when he spoke. “Cap’n Barney” was a very social, talkative man, who had been “about considerable,” though not always in first class conveyances, and was ready to talk on almost any subject. What he had not seen, what hedid not know, was not worth the seeing or knowing. He thought very much of his own opinion, and liked to brag; but he was a kindly natured man, and people bore with his conceit, because he was so chatty and pleasant. The station to which “Uncle Sam” had appointed him as the “keeper,” was a yellow building about forty–five feet long, and perhaps eighteen wide; and how tall was it? The roof supported in its center a little railed platform called the “lookout,” and this was between twenty and twenty–five feet from the ground. In the rear of the station was the living–room, through whose preface of a little entry, Mr. Plympton and Walter passed; then, entering the apartment which was not only a kitchen, but a dining–room; and not only a dining–room but a sitting–room, a parlor, and everything, except an apartment for sleeping. This living–room was a little, unambitious place, lighted by two windows toward the east. Between the windows, was a cook–stove; and over this was a wooden rack, from which hung a row of towels. A clock stamped “U. S. L. S. S.” was ticking steadfastly on one wall, and near it was a barometer. In one corner, was a case marked “U. S. L. S. S. Library, No.—.” Two patrol lanterns were suspended below, and there werealso two sockets for Coston signals. Around the walls in different places, were the overcoats, hats, jackets, comforters, the station crew had shed. Upon the entrance door, that served as a kind of handy bulletin–board, were tacked various circulars: “Merriman’s Patent Waterproof Dress and Life–Preservers,” “Watchman’s Improved Time–Detector”; circulars from the Treasury Department about care of “Marine Glasses,” upon “Leaves of absence,” and other matters. The only other interesting objects in the room were human, and these were members of the station crew. They were all young men. One was weaving a net. Two were playing checkers. A fourth was officiating as cook; and he was now cutting up salt fish.

Walter noticed everything with eager curiosity. His father and the keeper had once been schoolboys together, and as they were very busily talking, Walter’s eyes could without interruption travel from one object to another.

“Three doors in this room,” thought Walter; “and one goes outdoors; and I wonder where the other two go.”

He was relieved when the keeper said, “Ezra, come upstairs, and see how we bunk for the night. Then I will show you the boat–room.”

“That disposes of those two doors, I guess,” reflected Walter.

One of these, approached from the kitchen floor by a single step, the keeper was now opening.

“Tumble up, Ezra, and see where we stay nights,” was the keeper’s ready invitation. Up the brown, unpainted stairs, they passed into a little room, which seemed to be also an entry, connecting the keeper’s room, at the left over the kitchen, and the men’s quarters, at the right.

“Here is my den,” said the keeper, turning to the left. “Plain, you see everything is, but at night when a feller is asleep, he doesn’t know whether a Brussels carpet is on the floor, or whether it is unpainted, like this. That is my bed in the corner, and there you see I have two windows toward the east, so I know when it is sunrise. There’s my writin’ desk, they allow me a chair or two, and so on.”

“Who rooms with you?” asked Mr. Plympton.

“The clock up there! That is my chum; always makin’ a noise, yet never in the way.”

“Oh! Then this is your room wholly, Jotham?”

“Of course,” said Jotham, turning away withas much dignity as a sovereign leaving a bed–chamber hung with royal purple.

“Now we will come back into the little entry again at the head of the stairs.” It was an entry that was also a narrow room.

“Here’s a bed, you see, in the corner; and I have had the stove that was in my room set here. It throws the heat into the men’s quarters. We have a store–room on this floor,” said the keeper, opening a door in a wooden partition; “and we chuck various things in there. Step into the men’s room.”

They passed into a long, low room in the western end of the building. Here were six wooden cot–beds ranged along two sides of the room; and under the thick army blankets that covered them, it seemed as if any tired surfman would be comfortable. Near each bed was either a blue chest or a trunk. At the two ends of the room, were various articles suspended from rows of hooks. Here were trousers, and coats, and shirts; and one man, who could not have believed in the beard movement, had here hung his shaving–mug and razor–strop. Near the windows in the western gable of the sloping roof, was a row of paper signal–flags.

“What are those?” asked Walter.

“They are only pictures of signals that oneof the men cut out of the signal–book. The real signals, the cloth ones, we keep under the lookout.”

“Could I see them?”

“Sartin. Come up this way,” and the obliging keeper turned to climb a wooden stairway running up from this room to the “lookout” on the roof. Before they reached the lookout, Walter saw in a little recess under the roof, a box.

“There,” said the keeper, pulling the box forward. “This is all full of little flags, or signals, by which we can communicate with any craft on the water. We keep ’em here, because it is handy to have the signals where they can be taken out to the lookout, and run up on the flag–staff quick as possible.”

Walter looked up through the open scuttle, and saw the lookout with its railing, and above all rose the tapering flag–staff.

“We have one more room,” said the keeper.

“What’s that, Jotham?” inquired Mr. Plympton.

“The boat–room. Come downstairs.”

They passed from the living–room directly into a treasure house, whose contents made Walter’s eyes sparkle with eager interest.

“That the boat!” exclaimed Walter.

“Yes, she’s a beauty,” replied the keeper, fondly stroking its gunwale as if it were a thing of life, and would feel every touch of his caressing hand. “That’s our surf–boat.”

The surf–boat had the place of honor in the room, occupying all its center, and reaching almost from the wall of the living–room to the big door in the western wall.

“It must be over twenty feet long,” thought Walter, who began to fill up with questions, until his brain seemed charged as fully as a loaded mitrailleuse. How many articles there were in that boat–room, adapted to the life–saving work, and in such readiness, that a wreck near shore might be sure of a visit and of rescue, if there were any possible chance for such relief! There were guns for throwing lines, and there were the lines to be thrown. There was a life–car, that could be swung along a line to a wreck; and there was a breeches–buoy, and there were—Oh how many articles! The desire for information was swelling to an intolerable size within Walter’s soul, and he was about to gratify the longing, when to his great disappointment, a door opened, and a face with a bushy beard was thrust into the boat–room from the living–room.

“Cap’n!” called out Bush–beard.

“What say?”

“Could I see you ’bout my patrollin’ to–night, one minute?”

“Why, father,” said Walter, in a low voice to Mr. Plympton, “that is the man that fixed the vane on the steeple!”

The man of the steeple had recognized them, and was now saying, “How d’ye do?” at the same time he advanced, and held out a broad, brown hand to the visiting party.

“Glad to see you,” said Mr. Plympton.

“You know Tom Walker?” asked the station–keeper.

“Guess I do,” replied Walter, readily gripping Tom Walker’s brown hand.

“I s’pose, Tom, you want to see me about your beat. Let me see. You are on watch from eight till twelve?”

“That’s it, Cap’n. All right, if you understand it. That is what I wanted.”

“I—I wish—” Walter stopped.

“What is it?” asked Mr. Plympton.

“Why, I was thinking I would like to go with Tom Walker, a while you know, just to see what it is like.”

“You can, if you wish and your father is willing. Tom would like ’mazin’ well to have company,” said the keeper.

“Sartin!” cried Tom eagerly.

“I’m willing, Walter,” said Mr. Plympton. “Only don’t be gone too long, as your Aunt Lydia would like, I guess, to have the house shut up before twelve. We will go over there now. Thank you, Jotham, for showing us round.”

“You’re welcome. I will expect your boy to–night. He’d better be here before eight.”

“I’ll give him a welcome,” added Tom. “I haven’t forgotten a kindness he did me.”

“I will be on hand,” declared the happy Walter.

Mr. Plympton and Walter turned away from the station, and took a narrow lane running from the beach up to Boardman Blake’s; and there the lane was promoted, and became a highway. As if to acknowledge that promotion, and wave the road a graceful, stately wish for success on its travels, a single elm had been planted where the way widened. The Blake home had been standing there about fifty years; having been built by Boardman Blake’s father. It was a two–story house; its green front door piercing the wall exactly in the middle. On one side of the front door was the parlor, open only on great occasions, like funerals, or “comp’ny.” Behind this was the kitchen.On the other side of the front door, the right, was the store; and in its rear, the sitting–room.

“I like to have things handy,” said Uncle Boardman to Walter’s father; “and I can jest slip from our sittin’–room to the store and ’tend to customers, and then slip back.”

It was in the sitting–room, that Uncle Boardman, Aunt Lydia, and the Plymptons were gathered before the large, open–mouthed fire–place. Supper had been spread at an early hour on the round dining–table in the kitchen, and the light had not wholly faded from the west, when the Blakes and their guests withdrew to the sitting–room. One could look from the fire on the hearth, to those flames the sun had kindled on a rival hearth, about the western hills; but the glow of the latter went out, leaving only ashy clouds behind; while Boardman’s fire continued to flare and crackle into the night.

“You did have courage to start to–day to come down here,” said Aunt Lydia to Walter’s father, having adjusted herself in her easy rocking–chair, and having adjusted also in her waist the corn–cob that held and steadied her knitting.

“Yes, but it was our last chance before Walter went away. Then when I started, Idid not know it was so bad. I thought when I struck the main road after leaving our house, we could get along easily enough. I think, too, over this way, you have had more snow than we. I didn’t know these facts; and when one has begun, you know he don’t like to give it up.”

“There, if that isn’t Boardman!” exclaimed Aunt Lydia, throwing down her knitting–work in her lap as if to emphasize her point. “There has been a man round, Bezaleel Baggs (I call him Belzebub), and he wants to buy up a lot of Boardman’s woodland. Boardman has got the idea he’d better sell, and he does hate to give it up! I don’t like that Beza—no, Belzebub. I don’t like his looks or—”

“Tinkle, tinkle,” went a little bell in the direction of the store.

“Store, store!” now shrieked Aunt Lydia in the ears of her spouse, and there was need of the shriek. Uncle Boardman had contentedly folded his hands in his ample lap, and his head was rising and falling with as much regularity as the tides out in the adjacent ocean; but of course much oftener. “Store,” though, was the magic word that could bring Boardman any time out of the depths of the most profound evening nap. Rising promptly, he made his wayto the sitting–room door, and then into the store lighted by its one kerosene lamp on the scarred wooden counter. Aunt Lydia followed him softly to the door, and thrust forward her sharply featured face. She came back with a pair of flashing dark eyes, flashing all the brighter behind her spectacles; and holding up one hand significantly, said in a half–whisper, “I took a peek! It’she! I knowed as much.”

“Who?” inquired Walter’s father.

“Belzebub—there, Boardman says I ought not to call him that! Well, it’s the same old fox, that Baggs.”

“You don’t like him?”

“No, not one bit!” and in her intensity of feeling she sat down forcibly on the corn–cob, that ally in Aunt Lydia’s knitting–work, and carelessly left in her chair.

“There!” said she jumping up. “I’ve broken that ’ere cob. I wish it had been Bel—there, I s’pose I ought not to say that.”

Walter felt that the situation at Uncle Boardman’s had suddenly become very interesting; but he remembered his appointment at the station. He rose and began to put on his overcoat.

CHAPTER IV.THE PATROL.Walter was sitting in the living–room of the station. It was almost eight o’clock. Two men came stumbling downstairs, and with a sleepy air entered the room. Seating themselves, they began to put on their huge rubber boots. One of the men was Tom Walker.“How are ye?” he said, nodding to Walter in a friendly way. “Goin’?”“That’s what I am here for.”A footstep in the entry was now heard. A man entered, wearing a stout, heavy black coat, and black trousers, and he carried a lantern in his hand. It was the patrol from the easterly end of the beach.“Cold!” was his one word of greeting, as he set his lantern on the table. He also deposited there a leather pouch attached to a long leather strap.Another step was heard in the entry, and a man appeared who wore a thick blue blouse and blue trousers, and had a very much padded look. He was the patrol from the westerly end of the beach. He expressed his opinion that it was cold by silently going to the stove; and there he stood rubbing his hands in the warm atmosphere. He had already deposited a leather pouch on the table. Tom Walker and the other arrival from upstairs, were dressing for their duty as patrolmen in the place of the two whose chilling wintry beat had just been accomplished. Tom put on a Guernsey jacket, and then drew over it a short, thick sack coat. He pulled a cap of shaggy cloth down over his hair, drew close the ear–laps, and then took up a pair of thick, warm mittens lying under the stove.“Here,” said the keeper to Walter. “Before you start, let me show you what the men take with them.”As he spoke, he lifted a leather pouch that had been deposited on the table. It was a circular case of leather, about four inches in diameter, containing a “time–detector”; its works resembling those of a chronometer. Taking out a key and opening the detector, the keeper said, “I thought you might like to seethis. There, I have put this round card in the detector. You see it is marked off into hours, and ten minutes, and five minutes, and is called the dial. The patrol takes it with him, and at the end of his beat he puts a key in that hole you see, and gives the key a turn. A kind of punch, stamped like a die, is forced down on the dial. In the morning, I open the detector, and there is the dial that tells if he has done his duty. These dials I forward once a week to Washington.”“Supposing the man don’t want to go his beat, and turns the key somewhere this side of the end of the route?” asked Walter.“Ah,” said the keeper, “the feller can’t play ’possum that way. He must go to the end of his beat to get his key. It is at a house there. He must go that far, you see, anyway.”“As any feller of honor would, key or no key,” growled Tom Walker.“Oh, sartin, sartin, Tom,” replied the keeper. “They didn’t get it up for you, but for the fellers in some—some—other station.”And Tom’s growl changed to a pleasant laugh. “Where’s my Coston signal?” he asked.“Here it is,” replied the keeper.“What’s that?” asked Walter.“It is for signaling to anybody on the water in the night, and this burns a red light.”The Coston signal was a few inches long, marked on the bottom with the word, “Patrol.”“This,” said the keeper, “fits into a socket on one end of this wooden handle which you see I have. At the other end is that brass knob. When I want to use my signal, I strike that knob, and it forces a rod up into a little hole in the end of the signal. That strikes a percussion cap, and ignites a fusee, and out flashes a red light. That is my explanation of it.”Out into the cold, shadowy night, they went. Tom led off, slouching along heavily, carelessly yet doggedly; as if he had a duty before him which he did not wholly relish, but meant to put it through, like a horse in a treadmill, whose greatest concern is to put one foot before the other, and to keep putting until lunch time. There was a bright glitter of stars in the sky, and the land was white with the pure snow; but where the sea stretched toward the east, was one vast mass of blackness. Out of this blackness, came a voice, that shouted all along the shore, “Ho—ho—ho—ho!” The sea was very smooth, and the sound of the surf was not heavy enough tointerrupt the conversation between Tom and Walter.“I suppose,” began Walter, “these stations are scattered all along the coast.”“They are all over the country in spots. I ’magine in some places they are few as muskeeters in December. Then again they are pretty thick, say on the Jersey coast. Government takes care of ’em all. So many stations—more or less—makin’ a deestrict, under the care of a superintendent. Then all these deestricts are under Gen. Sumner I. Kimball at Washington. Every deestrict, too, has its inspector.”“How many men do you have to have at this station?”“There is the keeper, Keeper Barney—we Cap’n him jest among ourselves—and there are seven surfmen here. We have a cook also. I am a surfman and then I am called a patrolman too. I’m a patrolman now, but just let a vessel show itself off there, and I should be a surfman in less than no time.”“You don’t stay here all the time?”“Through the year? No, we come on the first of September, and we go off the first of May. They don’t have the same dates in all the stations. The idea is to be here whenthere’s the most danger. Our keeper, though, has to be lookin’ arter things, comin’ here now and then, through the year. He’s keeper, summer and winter.”“How do you like your work?”“Well, I like the pay, fifty dollars a month, but it’s hard, resky work.”“How long have you been on?”“Nine years.”“What is your worst kind of weather?”“Well, it’s tough when there’s a light snow, and a stiff nor’–west wind keeps it a blowin’, or a nor’–east storm, when it hails and comes slashin’ into your face. It’s bad most any time when the lantern goes out. You see we have to pick our way; good enough on the sand when it’s hard, but among the rocks, it’s hobbly; and it may be pretty snowy if you can’t foller the beach.”“Does your lantern go out?”“Sometimes. You have to grope your way the best you can, then.”“You must have seen some tough times.”“I’ve been an hour and a half goin’ a mile,” exclaimed Tom with the air of a veteran who has fought his hundred battles, and won at least ninety–nine. “Poky work, I tell ye!”“How do you divide your watches?”“We have four watches, and two men go out at a time. I go to this end of the beach, and t’other man goes to t’other end. Where two station deestricts join, the patrolmen from the stations meet, and exchange what they call ‘checks,’ that they give to their keepers.”“How is it your watches run?”“Oh, the hours? From sunset till eight, is the first watch, and from eight to twelve is the second, and from twelve till four is the third; and then there’s from four till sunrise. Then by day, we have to watch. If it’s thick weather, fog, or rain, or snow, if we can’t see two miles each way from the station, we have to go out agin. If it is clear weather, we just watch from the lookout, on the buildin’. One man has to be on the lookout, and he reports all vessels goin’ by. You saw the lookout?”“Oh, yes. Do you ever use that Coston signal?”“Yes, though not much this winter thus far. I have only used mine twice thus far. A fishin’ vessel was the last one. She got in too near shore, and I burned my light, so that she might take the hint and haul off.”“The ice must be piled up bad on the beach, sometimes.”“Yes; I’ve seen it twenty feet high. Thewind drives the snow down on the beach, and the sea washes over it, and it freezes; and then more snow may come to be washed and to freeze over, and so on.”“Out in a cold rain or hail, don’t it bother you?”“Yes; take hail, and it’s tough. Why, I’ve seen a man come into the station, and his clothes would be so stiff and frozen, he—he—couldn’t get ’em off hisself.”By this time, Tom had reached the end of his beat. He slouched along in the rear of a barn, turned its corner, and then stopped before an object that shone in the light of the lantern. It was a key attached by a chain to the wall. Tom took the key, put it into a hole in his detector, turned it till a sharp click was heard; and then Walter knew this faithful recorder had made its mark on the dial. The patrolman turned, and began the journey back to the station. Crossing a field of snow, they struck the shore rocks once more, and then moved out upon the wet, sloping sands. A short walk brought them again to the upper rim of the beach, strewn with snow.The lantern flashed its light down upon a footprint.“Whose is that?” asked Walter.“T’other patrol’s; one afore me. He’s got a foot big enough to cover up a pumpkin hill.”Slowly, Tom and Walter returned to the station.“I suppose I must say good night, and go to my aunt’s now.”“WishIhad an aunt’s to go to, now. My beat is short, and I must go over it twice more, afore I turn in at twelve. If you are down at the station in the morning, you’ll see on my detector the proof that I’ve been faithful; but I would be, without the thing,” said the sensitive knight of the beach. Walter watched Tom as he turned his face again toward the dark sea and the lonely beach. The light of the lantern steadily dwindled till it seemed like that of a star about to dip beneath the waters of the ocean and disappear; and dip and disappear it did, as Tom stumbled over the shore rocks down upon the beach. Walter went slowly along the lane to Uncle Boardman’s.In the morning, he was at the station again.“Do you want to see me open the detectors?” said the keeper to Walter. “Come here then.”Walter watched the keeper as he opened one of the detectors.“There,” he said, removing a card or dial. “Do you see those marks?”“And we might have had to run out the boat”(p.47).Walter could detect little stamps in the form of a cross.“There is Tom Walker’s record,” said the keeper. “One stamp was fifteen minutes of nine, when you went down; another at ten minutes of ten, and the third at eleven. That shows that Tom Walker did his duty.”“And he would have done it anyway,” growled the sensitive Tom. “I don’t like to have that thing nag me round. I do my duty.”“Oh yes, yes, sartin,” replied the keeper in a mollifying tone.“Did you burn your light after I left you?” inquired Walter. “I mean your signal.”“No, nothin’ turned up.”“What would you have done if it had?” inquired Walter. “Say, if you had seen a wreck, what then?”“What would he have done?” said the keeper, answering for the surfman, and answering in an oratorical fashion. “What would he have done? My! Wouldn’t he have flown round! He’d have out with that signal and burnt it in less than no time. Then he would have run to the station, big rubber boots and all, roused the crew, and we might have had to run out the boat and get a line to the wreck,” andthe keeper, as he proceeded, seeing the effect his earnestness had on his young auditor, grew quite dramatic in his gestures.“Wish I could see it!” thought Walter. But that was not possible. His return home must be effected that very afternoon.“I am leaving so many things behind,” he reasoned, “that I really ought not to go. There are so many things about the station I would like to understand; and what a funny store Uncle Boardman has! And there is that man, ‘Belzebub’ Baggs; I wonder if he will get Uncle Boardman to sell him that land!”There was no alternative; Walter must go. He left behind, Uncle Boardman, and Aunt Lydia, the store, “Belzebub” Baggs, the station, Tom Walker, Capt. Barney, the crew, the wide, blue ocean so full of unrest and storm.“Get up, Katy!” shouted Mr. Plympton. “Now, home with ye!”

THE PATROL.

Walter was sitting in the living–room of the station. It was almost eight o’clock. Two men came stumbling downstairs, and with a sleepy air entered the room. Seating themselves, they began to put on their huge rubber boots. One of the men was Tom Walker.

“How are ye?” he said, nodding to Walter in a friendly way. “Goin’?”

“That’s what I am here for.”

A footstep in the entry was now heard. A man entered, wearing a stout, heavy black coat, and black trousers, and he carried a lantern in his hand. It was the patrol from the easterly end of the beach.

“Cold!” was his one word of greeting, as he set his lantern on the table. He also deposited there a leather pouch attached to a long leather strap.

Another step was heard in the entry, and a man appeared who wore a thick blue blouse and blue trousers, and had a very much padded look. He was the patrol from the westerly end of the beach. He expressed his opinion that it was cold by silently going to the stove; and there he stood rubbing his hands in the warm atmosphere. He had already deposited a leather pouch on the table. Tom Walker and the other arrival from upstairs, were dressing for their duty as patrolmen in the place of the two whose chilling wintry beat had just been accomplished. Tom put on a Guernsey jacket, and then drew over it a short, thick sack coat. He pulled a cap of shaggy cloth down over his hair, drew close the ear–laps, and then took up a pair of thick, warm mittens lying under the stove.

“Here,” said the keeper to Walter. “Before you start, let me show you what the men take with them.”

As he spoke, he lifted a leather pouch that had been deposited on the table. It was a circular case of leather, about four inches in diameter, containing a “time–detector”; its works resembling those of a chronometer. Taking out a key and opening the detector, the keeper said, “I thought you might like to seethis. There, I have put this round card in the detector. You see it is marked off into hours, and ten minutes, and five minutes, and is called the dial. The patrol takes it with him, and at the end of his beat he puts a key in that hole you see, and gives the key a turn. A kind of punch, stamped like a die, is forced down on the dial. In the morning, I open the detector, and there is the dial that tells if he has done his duty. These dials I forward once a week to Washington.”

“Supposing the man don’t want to go his beat, and turns the key somewhere this side of the end of the route?” asked Walter.

“Ah,” said the keeper, “the feller can’t play ’possum that way. He must go to the end of his beat to get his key. It is at a house there. He must go that far, you see, anyway.”

“As any feller of honor would, key or no key,” growled Tom Walker.

“Oh, sartin, sartin, Tom,” replied the keeper. “They didn’t get it up for you, but for the fellers in some—some—other station.”

And Tom’s growl changed to a pleasant laugh. “Where’s my Coston signal?” he asked.

“Here it is,” replied the keeper.

“What’s that?” asked Walter.

“It is for signaling to anybody on the water in the night, and this burns a red light.”

The Coston signal was a few inches long, marked on the bottom with the word, “Patrol.”

“This,” said the keeper, “fits into a socket on one end of this wooden handle which you see I have. At the other end is that brass knob. When I want to use my signal, I strike that knob, and it forces a rod up into a little hole in the end of the signal. That strikes a percussion cap, and ignites a fusee, and out flashes a red light. That is my explanation of it.”

Out into the cold, shadowy night, they went. Tom led off, slouching along heavily, carelessly yet doggedly; as if he had a duty before him which he did not wholly relish, but meant to put it through, like a horse in a treadmill, whose greatest concern is to put one foot before the other, and to keep putting until lunch time. There was a bright glitter of stars in the sky, and the land was white with the pure snow; but where the sea stretched toward the east, was one vast mass of blackness. Out of this blackness, came a voice, that shouted all along the shore, “Ho—ho—ho—ho!” The sea was very smooth, and the sound of the surf was not heavy enough tointerrupt the conversation between Tom and Walter.

“I suppose,” began Walter, “these stations are scattered all along the coast.”

“They are all over the country in spots. I ’magine in some places they are few as muskeeters in December. Then again they are pretty thick, say on the Jersey coast. Government takes care of ’em all. So many stations—more or less—makin’ a deestrict, under the care of a superintendent. Then all these deestricts are under Gen. Sumner I. Kimball at Washington. Every deestrict, too, has its inspector.”

“How many men do you have to have at this station?”

“There is the keeper, Keeper Barney—we Cap’n him jest among ourselves—and there are seven surfmen here. We have a cook also. I am a surfman and then I am called a patrolman too. I’m a patrolman now, but just let a vessel show itself off there, and I should be a surfman in less than no time.”

“You don’t stay here all the time?”

“Through the year? No, we come on the first of September, and we go off the first of May. They don’t have the same dates in all the stations. The idea is to be here whenthere’s the most danger. Our keeper, though, has to be lookin’ arter things, comin’ here now and then, through the year. He’s keeper, summer and winter.”

“How do you like your work?”

“Well, I like the pay, fifty dollars a month, but it’s hard, resky work.”

“How long have you been on?”

“Nine years.”

“What is your worst kind of weather?”

“Well, it’s tough when there’s a light snow, and a stiff nor’–west wind keeps it a blowin’, or a nor’–east storm, when it hails and comes slashin’ into your face. It’s bad most any time when the lantern goes out. You see we have to pick our way; good enough on the sand when it’s hard, but among the rocks, it’s hobbly; and it may be pretty snowy if you can’t foller the beach.”

“Does your lantern go out?”

“Sometimes. You have to grope your way the best you can, then.”

“You must have seen some tough times.”

“I’ve been an hour and a half goin’ a mile,” exclaimed Tom with the air of a veteran who has fought his hundred battles, and won at least ninety–nine. “Poky work, I tell ye!”

“How do you divide your watches?”

“We have four watches, and two men go out at a time. I go to this end of the beach, and t’other man goes to t’other end. Where two station deestricts join, the patrolmen from the stations meet, and exchange what they call ‘checks,’ that they give to their keepers.”

“How is it your watches run?”

“Oh, the hours? From sunset till eight, is the first watch, and from eight to twelve is the second, and from twelve till four is the third; and then there’s from four till sunrise. Then by day, we have to watch. If it’s thick weather, fog, or rain, or snow, if we can’t see two miles each way from the station, we have to go out agin. If it is clear weather, we just watch from the lookout, on the buildin’. One man has to be on the lookout, and he reports all vessels goin’ by. You saw the lookout?”

“Oh, yes. Do you ever use that Coston signal?”

“Yes, though not much this winter thus far. I have only used mine twice thus far. A fishin’ vessel was the last one. She got in too near shore, and I burned my light, so that she might take the hint and haul off.”

“The ice must be piled up bad on the beach, sometimes.”

“Yes; I’ve seen it twenty feet high. Thewind drives the snow down on the beach, and the sea washes over it, and it freezes; and then more snow may come to be washed and to freeze over, and so on.”

“Out in a cold rain or hail, don’t it bother you?”

“Yes; take hail, and it’s tough. Why, I’ve seen a man come into the station, and his clothes would be so stiff and frozen, he—he—couldn’t get ’em off hisself.”

By this time, Tom had reached the end of his beat. He slouched along in the rear of a barn, turned its corner, and then stopped before an object that shone in the light of the lantern. It was a key attached by a chain to the wall. Tom took the key, put it into a hole in his detector, turned it till a sharp click was heard; and then Walter knew this faithful recorder had made its mark on the dial. The patrolman turned, and began the journey back to the station. Crossing a field of snow, they struck the shore rocks once more, and then moved out upon the wet, sloping sands. A short walk brought them again to the upper rim of the beach, strewn with snow.

The lantern flashed its light down upon a footprint.

“Whose is that?” asked Walter.

“T’other patrol’s; one afore me. He’s got a foot big enough to cover up a pumpkin hill.”

Slowly, Tom and Walter returned to the station.

“I suppose I must say good night, and go to my aunt’s now.”

“WishIhad an aunt’s to go to, now. My beat is short, and I must go over it twice more, afore I turn in at twelve. If you are down at the station in the morning, you’ll see on my detector the proof that I’ve been faithful; but I would be, without the thing,” said the sensitive knight of the beach. Walter watched Tom as he turned his face again toward the dark sea and the lonely beach. The light of the lantern steadily dwindled till it seemed like that of a star about to dip beneath the waters of the ocean and disappear; and dip and disappear it did, as Tom stumbled over the shore rocks down upon the beach. Walter went slowly along the lane to Uncle Boardman’s.

In the morning, he was at the station again.

“Do you want to see me open the detectors?” said the keeper to Walter. “Come here then.”

Walter watched the keeper as he opened one of the detectors.

“There,” he said, removing a card or dial. “Do you see those marks?”

“And we might have had to run out the boat”(p.47).

Walter could detect little stamps in the form of a cross.

“There is Tom Walker’s record,” said the keeper. “One stamp was fifteen minutes of nine, when you went down; another at ten minutes of ten, and the third at eleven. That shows that Tom Walker did his duty.”

“And he would have done it anyway,” growled the sensitive Tom. “I don’t like to have that thing nag me round. I do my duty.”

“Oh yes, yes, sartin,” replied the keeper in a mollifying tone.

“Did you burn your light after I left you?” inquired Walter. “I mean your signal.”

“No, nothin’ turned up.”

“What would you have done if it had?” inquired Walter. “Say, if you had seen a wreck, what then?”

“What would he have done?” said the keeper, answering for the surfman, and answering in an oratorical fashion. “What would he have done? My! Wouldn’t he have flown round! He’d have out with that signal and burnt it in less than no time. Then he would have run to the station, big rubber boots and all, roused the crew, and we might have had to run out the boat and get a line to the wreck,” andthe keeper, as he proceeded, seeing the effect his earnestness had on his young auditor, grew quite dramatic in his gestures.

“Wish I could see it!” thought Walter. But that was not possible. His return home must be effected that very afternoon.

“I am leaving so many things behind,” he reasoned, “that I really ought not to go. There are so many things about the station I would like to understand; and what a funny store Uncle Boardman has! And there is that man, ‘Belzebub’ Baggs; I wonder if he will get Uncle Boardman to sell him that land!”

There was no alternative; Walter must go. He left behind, Uncle Boardman, and Aunt Lydia, the store, “Belzebub” Baggs, the station, Tom Walker, Capt. Barney, the crew, the wide, blue ocean so full of unrest and storm.

“Get up, Katy!” shouted Mr. Plympton. “Now, home with ye!”

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