The next morning Seth was gloomy and uncommunicative. At the breakfast table, when Brown glanced up from his plate, he several times caught the lightkeeper looking intently at him with the distrustful, half-suspicious gaze of the night before. Though quite aware of this scrutiny, he made no comment upon it until the meal was nearly over; then he observed suddenly:
“It's all right; you needn't.”
“Needn't what?” demanded Atkins, in astonishment.
“Look at me as if you expected me to explode at any minute. I sha'n't. I'm not loaded.”
Seth colored, under his coat of sunburn, and seemed embarrassed.
“I don't know what you're talkin' about,” he stammered. “Have the moskeeters affected YOUR brains?”
“No. My brains, such as they are, are all right, and I want to keep them so. That's why I request you not to look at me in that way.”
“How was I lookin' at you? I don't know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. You are wondering how much I know. I don't know anything and I'm not curious. That's the truth. Now why not let it go at that?”
“See here, young feller, I—”
“No; you see here. I'm not an Old Sleuth; I haven't any ambitions that way. I don't know anything about you—what you've been, what you've done—”
“Done!” Seth leaned across the table so suddenly that he upset his chair. “Done?” he cried; “what do you mean by that? Who said I'd done anything? It's a lie.”
“What is a lie?”
“Why—why—er—whatever they said!”
“Who said?”
“Why, the ones that—that said what you said they said.”
“I didn't say anyone had said anything.”
“Then what do you mean by—by hintin'? Hey? What do you mean by it?”
He brandished a clenched fist over the breakfast dishes. Brown leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
“Call me when the patient recovers his senses,” he drawled wearily. “This delirium is painful to a sensitive nature.”
Atkins's fist wavered in mid-air, opened, and was drawn across its owner's forehead.
“Well, by jiminy!” exclaimed the lightkeeper with emphasis, “this is—is— . . . I guess I BE crazy. If I ain't, you are. Would you mind tellin' me what in time you mean by THAT?”
“It is not the mosquitoes,” continued his companion, in apparent soliloquy; “there are no mosquitoes at present. It must be the other thing, of course. But so early in the morning, and so violent. Alcohol is—”
“SHUT UP!” It was not a request, but an order. Brown opened his eyes.
“You were addressing me?” he asked, blandly. “Yes?”
“Addressin' you! For thunder sakes, who else would I be ad— . . . There! there! Now I cal'late you're hintin' that I'm drunk. I ain't.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, indeed. And I ain't out of my head—not yet; though keepin' company with a Bedlamite may have some effect, I shouldn't wonder. Mr. John Brown—if that's your name, which I doubt—you listen to me.”
“Very well, Mr. Seth Atkins—if that is your name, which I neither doubt nor believe, not being particularly interested—I'm listening. Proceed.”
“You told me last night that you wanted the job of assistant keeper here at these lights. Course you didn't mean it.”
“I did.”
“You DID! . . . Well, YOU must be drunk or loony.”
“I'm neither. And I meant it. I want the job.”
Seth looked at him, and he looked at Seth. At length the lightkeeper spoke again.
“Well,” he said, slowly, “I don't understand it at all, but never mind. Whatever happens, we've got to understand each other. Mind I don't say the job's yours, even if we do; but we can't even think of it unless we understand each other plain. To begin with, I want to tell you that I ain't done nothin' that's crooked, nor wicked, nor nothin' but what I think is right and what I'd do over again. Do you believe that?”
“Certainly. As I told you, I'm not interested, but I'll believe it with pleasure if you wish me to.”
“I don't wish nothin'. You've GOT to believe it. And whether you stay here ten minutes or ten years you've got to mind your own business. I won't have any hints or questions about me—from you nor nobody else. 'Mind your own business,' that's the motto of Eastboro Twin-Lights, while I'm boss of 'em. If you don't like it—well, the village is only five mile off, and I'll p'int out the road to you.”
He delivered this ultimatum with extraordinary energy. Then he reached for his overturned chair, set it on its legs, and threw himself into it. “Well,” he demanded, after a moment; “what do you say to that?”
“Hurrah!” replied Mr. Brown cheerfully.
“Hurrah? For the land sakes! . . . Say, CAN'T you talk sensible, if you try real hard and set your mind to it? What is there to hurrah about?”
“Everything. The whole situation. Atkins,” Brown leaned forward now and spoke with earnestness, “I like your motto. It suits me. 'Mind your own business' suits me down to the ground. It proves that you and I were made to work together in a place just like this.”
“Does, hey? I want to know!”
“You do know. Why, just think: each of us has pleaded 'not guilty.' We've done nothing—we're entirely innocent—and we want to forget it. I agree not to ask you how old you are, nor why you wear your brand of whiskers, nor how you like them, nor—nor anything. I agree not to ask questions at all.”
“Humph! but you asked some last night.”
“Purely by accident. You didn't answer them. You asked me some, also, if you will remember, and I didn't answer them, either. Good! We forget everything and agree not to do it again.”
“Ugh! I tell you I ain't done nothin'.”
“I know. Neither have I. Let the dead past be its own undertaker, so far as we are concerned. I'm honest, Atkins, and tolerably straight. I believe you are; I really do. But we don't care to talk about ourselves, that's all. And, fortunately, kind Providence has brought us together in a place where there's no one else TO talk. I like you, I credit you with good taste; therefore, you must like me.”
“Hey? Ho, ho!” Seth laughed, in spite of himself. “Young man,” he observed, “you ain't cultivated your modesty under glass, have you?”
Brown smiled. “Joking aside,” he said, “I don't see why I shouldn't, in time, make an ideal assistant lightkeeper. Give me a trial, at any rate. I need an employer; you need a helper. Here we both are. Come; it is a bargain, isn't it? Any brass to be scrubbed—boss?”
Of course, had Eastboro Twin-Lights been an important station, the possibility of John Brown's remaining there would have been nonexistent. If it had been winter, or even early spring or fall, a regular assistant would have been appointed at once, and the castaway given his walking papers. If Seth Atkins had not been Seth Atkins, particular friend of the district superintendent, matters might have been different. But the Eastboro lights were unimportant, merely a half-way mark between Orham on the one hand and the powerful Seaboard Heights beacon on the other. It was the beginning of summer, when wrecks almost never occurred. And the superintendent liked Seth, and Seth liked him. So, although Mr. Atkins still scoffed at his guest's becoming a permanent fixture at the lights, and merely consented, after more parley, to see if he couldn't arrange for him to “hang around and help a spell until somebody else was sent,” the conversation with the superintendent over the long distance 'phone resulted more favorably for Brown than that nonchalant young gentleman had a reasonable right to expect.
“The Lord knows who I can send you now, Atkins!” said the superintendent. “I can't think of a man anywhere that can be spared. If you can get on for a day or two longer, I'll try to get a helper down! but where he's coming from I don't see.”
Then Seth sprung the news that he had a “sort of helper” already. “He's a likely young chap enough,” admitted the lightkeeper, whispering the words into the transmitter, in order that the “likely young chap” might not hear; “but he's purty green yet. He wants the reg'lar job and, give me time enough, I cal'late I can break him in. Yes, I'm pretty sure I can. And it's the off season, so there really ain't no danger. In a month he'd be doin' fust-rate.”
“Who is he? Where did he come from?” asked the superintendent.
“Name's Brown. He come from—from off here a ways,” was the strictly truthful answer. “He used to be on a steamboat.”
“All right. If you'll take a share of the responsibility, I'll take the rest. And, as soon as I can, I'll send you a regular man.”
“I can't pay you no steady wages,” Seth explained to his new helper. “Salaries come from the gov'ment, and, until they say so, I ain't got no right to do it. And I can't let you monkey with the lights, except to clean up around and such. If you want to stay a spell, until an assistant's app'inted, I'll undertake to be responsible for your keep. And if you need some new shoes or stockin's or a cap, or the like of that, I'll see you get 'em. Further'n that I can't go yet. It's a pretty poor job for a fellow like you, and if I was you I wouldn't take it.”
“Oh, yes, you would,” replied Brown, with conviction. “If you were I, you would take it with bells on. Others may yearn for the strenuous life, but not your humble servant. As for me, I stay here and 'clean up around.'”
And stay he did, performing the cleaning up and other duties with unexpected success and zeal. Atkins, for the first day or two, watched him intently, being still a trifle suspicious and fearful of his “substitute assistant.” But as time passed and the latter asked no more questions, seemed not in the least curious concerning his superior, and remained the same cool, easy-going, cheerful individual whom Seth had found asleep on the beach, the lightkeeper's suspicions were ended. It was true that Brown was as mysterious and secretive as ever concerning his own past, but that had been a part of their bargain. Atkins, who prided himself on being a judge of human nature, decided that his helper was a young gentleman in trouble, but that the trouble, whatever it might be, involved nothing criminal or dishonest. That he was a gentleman, he was sure—his bearing and manner proved that; but he was a gentleman who did not “put on airs.” Not that there was any reason why he should put on airs, but, so far as that was concerned, there was no apparent reason for the monumental conceit and condescension of some of the inflated city boarders in the village. Brown was not like those people at all.
Seth had taken a fancy to him at their first meeting. Now his liking steadily increased. Companionship in a lonely spot like Eastboro Twin-Lights is a test of a man's temper. Brown stood the test well. If he made mistakes in the work—and he did make some ridiculous ones—he cheerfully undid them when they were pointed out to him. He was, for the most part, good-natured and willing to talk, though there were periods when he seemed depressed and wandered off by himself along the beach or sat by the edge of the bluff, staring out to sea. The lightkeeper made no comment on this trait in his character. It helped to confirm his own judgment concerning the young fellow's trouble. People in trouble were subject to fits of the “blues,” and during these fits they liked to be alone. Seth knew this from his own experience. There were times when he, too, sought solitude.
He trusted his helper more and more. He did not, of course, permit him to take the night watch in the lights, but he did trust him to the extent of leaving him alone for a whole afternoon while he drove the old horse, attached to the antique “open wagon”—both steed and vehicle a part of the government property—over to Eastboro to purchase tobacco and newspapers at the store. On his return he found everything as it should be, and this test led him to make others, each of which was successful in proving John Brown faithful over a few things and, therefore, in time, to be intrusted with many and more important ones.
Brown, on his part, liked Seth. He had professed to like him during the conversation at the breakfast table which resulted in his remaining at the lights, but then he was not entirely serious. He was, of course, grateful for the kindness shown him by the odd longshoreman and enjoyed the latter's society and droll remarks as he would have enjoyed anything out of the ordinary and quaintly amusing. But now he really liked the man. Seth Atkins was a countryman, and a marked contrast to any individual Brown had ever met, but he was far from being a fool. He possessed a fund of dry common sense, and his comments on people and happenings in the world—a knowledge of which he derived from the newspapers and magazines obtained on his trips to Eastboro—were a constant delight. And, more than all, he respected his companion's desire to remain a mystery. Brown decided that Atkins was, as he had jokingly called him, a man with a past. What that past might be, he did not know or try to learn. “Mind your own business,” Seth had declared to be the motto of Eastboro Twin-Lights, and that motto suited both parties to the agreement.
The lightkeeper stood watch in the tower at night. During most of the day he slept; but, after the first week was over, and his trust in his helper became more firm, he developed the habit of rising at two in the afternoon, eating a breakfast—or dinner, or whatever the meal might be called—and wandering off along the crooked road leading south and in the direction of Pounddug Slough. The road, little used and grass grown, twisted and turned amid the dunes until it disappeared in a distant grove of scrub oaks and pitch pines. Each afternoon—except on Sundays and on the occasions of his excursions to the village—Atkins would rise from the table, saunter to the door to look at the weather, and then, without excuse or explanation, start slowly down the road. For the first hundred yards he sauntered, then the saunter became a brisk walk, and when he reached the edge of the grove he was hurrying almost at a dog trot. Sometimes he carried a burden with him, a brown paper parcel brought from Eastboro, a hammer, a saw, or a coil of rope. Once he descended to the boathouse at the foot of the bluff by the inlet and emerged bearing a big bundle of canvas, apparently an old sail; this he arranged, with some difficulty, on his shoulder and stumbled up the slope, past the corner of the house and away toward the grove. Brown watched him wonderingly. Where was he going, and why? What was the mysterious destination of all these tools and old junk? Where did Seth spend his afternoons and why, when he returned, did his hands and clothes smell of tar? The substitute assistant was puzzled, but he asked no questions. And Seth volunteered no solution of the puzzle.
Yet the solution came, and in an unexpected way. Seth drove to the village one afternoon and returned with literature, smoking materials and an announcement. The latter he made during supper.
“I tried to buy that fly paper we wanted today,” he observed, as a preliminary. “Couldn't get none. All out.”
“But will have some in very shortly, I presume,” suggested the assistant, who knew the idiosyncrasies of country stores.
“Oh, yes, sartin! Expectin' it every minute. That store's got a consider'ble sight more expectations in it than it has anything else. They're always six months ahead of the season or behind it in that store. When it's so cold that the snow birds get chilblains they'll have the shelves chuck full of fly paper. Now, when it's hotter than a kittle of pepper tea, the bulk of their stock is ice picks and mittens. Bah! However, they're goin' to send the fly paper over when it comes, along with the dog.”
“The dog?” repeated Brown in amazement.
“Yup. That's what I was goin' to tell you—about the dog. I ordered a dog today. Didn't pay nothin' for him, you understand. Henry G., the storekeeper, gave him to me. The boy'll fetch him down when he fetches the fly paper.”
“A dog? We're—you're going to keep a dog—here?”
“Sure thing. Why not? Got room enough to keep a whole zoological menagerie if we wanted to, ain't we? Besides, a dog'll be handy to have around. Bill Foster, the life saver, told me that somebody busted into the station henhouse one night a week ago and got away with four of their likeliest pullets. He cal'lates 'twas tramps or boys. We don't keep hens, but there's some stuff in that boathouse I wouldn't want stole, and, bein' as there's no lock on the door, a dog would be a sort of protection, as you might say.”
“But thieves would never come way down here.”
“Why not? 'Tain't any further away from the rest of creation than the life savin' station, is it? Anyhow, Henry G. give the dog to me free for nothin', and that's a miracle of itself. You'd say so, too, if you knew Henry. I was so surprised that I said I'd take it right off; felt 'twould be flyin' in the face of Providence not to. A miracle—jumpin' Judas! I never knew Henry to give anybody anything afore—unless 'twas the smallpox, and then 'twan't a genuine case, nothin' but varioloid.”
“But what kind of a dog is it?”
“I don't know. Henry used to own the mother of it, and she was one quarter mastiff and the rest assorted varieties. This one he's givin' me ain't a whole dog, you see; just a half-grown pup. The varioloid all over again—hey? Ho, ho! I didn't really take him for sartin, you understand; just on trial. If we like him, we'll keep him, that's all.”
The third afternoon following this announcement, Brown was alone in the kitchen, and busy. Seth had departed on one of his mysterious excursions, carrying a coil of rope, a pulley and a gallon can of paint. Before leaving the house he had given his helper some instructions concerning supper.
“Might's well have a lobster tonight,” he said. “Ever cook a lobster, did you?”
No, Mr. Brown had never cooked a lobster.
“Well, it's simple enough. All you've got to do is bile him. Bile him in hot water till he's done.”
“I see.” The substitute assistant was not enthusiastic. Cooking he did not love.
“Humph!” he grunted. “I imagined if he was boiled at all, it was be in hot water, not cold.”
Atkins chuckled. “I mean you want to have the water bilin' hot when you put him in,” he explained. “Wait till she biles up good and then souse him; see?”
“I guess so. How do you know when he's done?”
“Oh—er—I can't tell you. You'll have to trust to your instinct, I cal'late. When he looks done, he IS done, most gen'rally speakin'.”
“Dear me! how clear you make it. Would you mind hintin' as to how he looks when he's done?”
“Why—why, DONE, of course.”
“Yes, of course. How stupid of me! He is done when he looks done, and when he looks done he is done. Any child could follow those directions. HOW is he done—brown?”
“No. Brown! the idea! Red, of course. He's green when you put him in the kittle, and when you take him out, he's red. That's one way you can tell.”
“Yes, that will help some. All right, I'll boil him till he's red, you needn't worry about that.”
“Oh, I sha'n't worry. So long. I'll be back about six or so. Put him in when the water's good and hot, and you'll come out all right.”
“Thank you. I hope HE will, but I have my doubts. Where is he?”
“Who? the lobster? There's dozens down in the car by the wharf. Lift the cover and fish one out with the dip net. Pick out the biggest one you can find, 'cause I'm likely to be hungry when I get back, and your appetite ain't a hummin' bird's. There! I've got to go if I want to get anything done afore— . . . Humph! never mind. So long.”
He hurried away, as if conscious that he had said more than he intended. At the corner of the house he turned to call:
“I say! Brown! be kind of careful when you dip him out. None of 'em are plugged.”
“What?”
“I say none of them lobsters' claws are plugged. I didn't have time to plug the last lot I got from my pots, so you want to handle 'em careful like, else they'll nip you. Tote the one you pick out up to the house in the dip-net; then you'll be all right.”
Evidently considering this warning sufficient to prevent any possible trouble, he departed. John Brown seated himself in the armchair by the door and gazed at the sea. He gazed and thought until he could bear to think no longer; then he rose and entered the kitchen, where he kindled a fire in the range and filled a kettle with water. Having thus made ready the sacrificial altar, he took the long-handled dip-net from its nail and descended the bluff to the wharf.
The lobster car, a good-sized affair of laths with a hinged cover closing the opening in its upper surface, was floating under the wharf, to which it was attached by a rope. Brown knelt on the string-piece and peered down at it. It floated deep in the water, the tide rippling strongly through it, between the laths. The cover was fastened with a wooden button.
The substitute assistant, after a deal of futile and exasperating poking with the handle of the net, managed to turn the button and throw back the leather-hinged cover. Through the square opening the water beneath looked darkly green. There was much seaweed in the car, and occasionally this weed was stirred by living things which moved sluggishly.
John Brown reversed the net, and, lying flat on the wharf, gingerly thrust the business end of the contrivance through the opening and into the dark, weed-streaked water. Then he began feeling for his prey.
He could feel it. Apparently the car was alive with lobsters. As he moved the net through the water there was always one just before it or behind it; but at least ten minutes elapsed before he managed to get one in it. At length, when his arms were weary and his patience almost exhausted, the submerged net became heavy, and the handle shook in his grasp. He shortened his hold and began to pull in hand over hand. He had a lobster, a big lobster.
He could see a pair of claws opening and shutting wickedly. He raised the creature through the opening, balanced the net on its edge, rose on one knee, tried to stand erect, stumbled, lost his hold on the handle and shot the lobster neatly out of the meshes, over the edge of the car, and into the free waters of the channel. Then he expressed his feelings aloud and with emphasis.
Five minutes later he got another, but it was too small to be of use. In twenty minutes he netted three more, two of which got away. The third, however, he dragged pantingly to the wharf and sat beside it, gloating. It was his for keeps, and it was a big one, the great-grandaddy of lobsters. Its claws clashed and snapped at the twine of the net like a pair of giant nut crackers.
Carrying it as far from his body as its weight at the end of the handle would permit, he bore it in triumph to the kitchen. To boil a lobster alive had seemed a mean trick, and cruel, when Seth Atkins first ordered him to do it. Now he didn't mind; it would serve the thing right for being so hard to catch. Entering the kitchen, he balanced the net across a chair and stepped to the range to see if the water was boiling. It was not, and for a very good reason—the fire had gone out. Again Mr. Brown expressed his feelings.
The fire, newly kindled, had burned to the last ash. If he had been there to add more coal in season, it would have survived; but he had been otherwise engaged. There was nothing to be done except rake out the ashes and begin anew. This he did. When he removed the kettle he decided at once that it was much too small for the purpose required of it. To boil a lobster of that size in a kettle of that size would necessitate boiling one end at a time, and that, both for the victim and himself, would be troublesome and agonizing. He hunted about for a larger kettle and, finding none, seized in desperation upon the wash boiler, filled it, and lifted it to the top of the stove above the flickering new fire.
The fire burned slowly, and he sat down to rest and wait. As he sank into the chair—not that across which the netted lobster was balanced, but another—he became aware of curious sounds from without. Distant sounds they were, far off and faint, but growing steadily louder; wails and long-drawn howls, mournful and despairing.
“A-a-oo-ow! Aa-ow-ooo!”
“What in the world?” muttered Brown, and ran out of the kitchen and around the corner of the house.
There was nothing in sight, nothing strange or unusual, that is. Joshua, Seth's old horse, picketted to a post in the back yard and grazing, or trying to graze, on the stubby beach grass, was the only living exhibit. But the sounds continued and grew louder.
“Aa-ow-ooo! Ow-oo-ow-ooo!”
Over the rise of a dune, a hundred yards off, where the road to Eastboro village dipped towards a swampy hollow, appeared a horse's head and the top of a covered wagon. A moment later the driver became visible, a freckled faced boy grinning like a pumpkin lantern. The horse trotted through the sand up to the lights. Joshua whinnied as if he enjoyed the prospect of company. From the back of the wagon, somewhere beneath the shade of the cover, arose a heartrending wail, reeking of sorrow and agony.
“Aa-ow-OOO! Ooo-aa-OW!”
“For heaven's sake,” exclaimed the lightkeeper's helper, running to meet the vehicle, “what is the matter?”
The boy grinned more expansively than ever. “Whoa!” he shouted, to the horse he was driving. The animal stopped in his tracks, evidently glad of the opportunity. Another howl burst from the covered depths of the wagon.
“I've got him,” said the boy, with a triumphant nod and a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “He's in there.”
“He? Who? What?”
“Job. He's in there. Hear him? He's been goin' on like that ever since he finished his bone, and that was over two mile back. Say,” admiringly, “he's some singer, ain't he! Hear that, will ye?”
Another wail arose from the wagon. Brown hastened to the rear of the vehicle, on the canvas side of which were painted the words “Henry G. Goodspeed, Groceries, Dry and Fancy Goods and Notions, Eastboro,” and peered in over the tailboard. The interior of the wagon was well nigh filled by a big box with strips of board nailed across its top. From between these strips a tawny nose was uplifted. As the helper stared wonderingly at the box and the nose, the boy sprang from his seat and joined him.
“That's him,” declared the boy. “Hi, there, Job, tune up now! What's the matter with ye?”
His answer was an unearthly howl from the box, accompanied by a mighty scratching. The boy laughed delightedly.
“Ain't he a wonder?” he demanded. “Ought to be in church choir, hadn't he.”
Brown stepped on the hub of a rear wheel, and, clinging to the post of the wagon cover, looked down into the box. The creature inside was about the size of a month old calf.
“It's a—it's a dog,” he exclaimed. “A dog, isn't it?”
“Sure, it's a dog. Or he'll be a dog when he grows up. Nothin' but a pup now, he ain't. Where's Seth?”
“Seth? Oh, Mr. Atkins; he's not here.”
“Ain't he? Where's he gone?”
“I don't know.”
“Don't ye? When's he comin' back? HUSH UP!” This last was a command to the prisoner in the box, who paid absolutely no attention to it.
“I don't know when he'll be back. Do you want to see him personally? Won't I do? I'm in charge here till he returns.”
“Be ye? Oh, you're the new assistant from Boston. You'll do. All I want to do is unload him—Job, I mean—and leave a couple bundles of fly paper Seth ordered. Here!” lowering the tailboard and climbing into the wagon, “you catch aholt of t'other end of the box, and I'll shove on this one. Hush up, Job! Nobody's goin' to eat ye—'less it's the moskeeters. Now, then, mister, here he comes.”
He began pushing the box toward the open end of the wagon. The dog's whines and screams and scratchings furnished an accompaniment almost deafening.
“Wait! Stop! For heaven's sake, wait!” shouted Brown. “What are you putting that brute off here for? I don't want him.”
“Yes, you do. Seth does, anyhow. Henry G. made him a present of Job last time Seth was over to the store. Didn't he tell ye?”
Then the substitute assistant remembered. This was the “half-grown pup” Atkins had said was to be brought over by the grocery boy. This was the creature they were to accept “on trial.”
“Well, by George!” he exclaimed in disgust.
“Didn't Seth tell ye?” asked the boy again.
“Yes. . . . Yes, I believe he did. But—”
“Then stand by while I unload him. Here he comes now. H'ist him down easy as you can.”
That was not too easy, for the end of the box slid from the tail-board to the ground with a thump that shook the breath from the prisoner within. But the breath came back again and furnished motive power for more and worse howls and whines. Joshua pricked up his ears and trotted to the further end of his halter.
“There!” said Henry G.'s boy, jumping to the ground beside the box, “that's off my hands, thank the mercy! Here's your fly paper. Five dozen sheets. You must have pretty nigh as many flies down here as you have moskeeters. Well, so long. I got to be goin'.”
“Wait a minute,” pleaded Brown. “What shall I do with this—er—blessed dog? Is he savage? Why did you bring him in a crate—like a piano?”
“'Cause 'twas the easiest way. You couldn't tie him up, not in a cart no bigger'n this. Might's well tie up an elephant. Besides, he won't stay tied up nowheres. Busted more clotheslines than I've got fingers and toes, that pup has. He needs a chain cable to keep him to his moorin's. Don't ye, Job, you old earthquake? Hey?”
He pounded on the box, and the earthquake obliged with a renewed series of shocks and shakings.
The lightkeeper's assistant smiled in spite of himself.
“Who named him Job?” he asked.
“Henry G.'s cousin from Boston. He said he seemed to be always sufferin' and fillin' the land with roarin's, like Job in the Bible. So, bein' as he hadn't no name except cuss words, that one stuck. I cal'late Henry G.'s glad enough to get rid of him. Ho! ho!”
“Did Mr. Atkins see his—this—did he see his present before he accepted it?”
“No. That's the best part of the joke. Well,” clambering to his seat and picking up the reins, “I've got five mile of sand and moskeeters to navigate, so I've got to be joggin'. Oh, say! goin' to leave him in the box there, be ye?”
“I guess so, for the present.”
“Well, I wouldn't leave him too long. He's stronger'n Samson and the Philippines rolled together, and he's humped up his back so much on the way acrost that he's started most of the nails in them slats over top of him. I tell ye what you do: Give him a bone or a chunk of tough meat to chaw on. Then he'll rest easy for a spell. Goodbye. I wish I could stay and see Seth when he looks at his present, but I can't. Gid-dap, January.”
The grocery wagon rolled out of the yard. The forsaken Job sent a roar of regret after him. Also, he “humped us his back,” and the nails holding the slats in place started and gave alarmingly. John Brown hastened to the house in quest of a bone.
He found one, after a time, the relic of a ham, with a good deal of meat on it. Atkins, economical soul, would have protested in horror against the sinful waste, but his helper would cheerfully have sacrificed a whole hog to quiet the wails from the box in the yard. He pushed the ham bone between the slats, and Job received it greedily. The howls and whines ceased and were succeeded by gnawings and crunchings. Brown returned to the kitchen to inspect his neglected fire.
This time the fire was not out, but it burned slowly. The water in the wash boiler was only lukewarm. The big lobster in the net balanced on the chair clashed his claws wickedly as the substitute assistant approached. The door had been left open, and the room hummed with flies. Brown shut the door and, while waiting for the water to heat, separated a dozen sheets of the sticky fly paper and placed them in conspicuous places. He wondered as he did so what some of his former acquaintances would say if they could see him. He—HE—a cook, and a roustabout, a dishwasher and a scrubber of brass at Eastboro Twin-Lights! How long must he stay there? For months at least. He should be thankful that he was there; thankful that there was such a place, where no one came and where he could remain until he was forgotten. He was thankful, of course he was. But what a life to live!
He wondered what Atkins thought of him; how much the lightkeeper guessed concerning his identity and his story. He could not guess within miles of the truth, but he must indulge in some curious speculations. Then he fell to wondering about Seth himself. What was it that the light-keeper was hiding from the world? Odd that two people, each possessing a secret, should come together at that lonely spot. Where was it that Seth went almost every afternoon? Had these daily absences any connection with the great mystery?
He distributed the sheets of fly paper about the room, in places where he judged them likely to do the most good, and had the satisfaction of seeing a number of the tormenting insects caught immediately. Then he tested the water in the boiler. It was warmer, even hot, but not boiling.
He had almost forgotten the dog, but now was reminded by the animal itself, who, having apparently swallowed the bone whole, began once more to howl lugubriously. Brown decided to let him howl for the present, and, going into the living-room, picked up an old magazine and began listlessly to read.
The howls from the yard continued, swelled to a crescendo of shrieks and then suddenly ceased. A moment later there was a thump and a mighty scratching at the kitchen door. The substitute assistant dropped the magazine and sprang from his chair.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed; “I believe—”
He did not finish the sentence. There was no need. If he had any doubts as to the cause of the racket at the door they were dispelled by a howl like a fog whistle. “Job” had escaped from durance vile and was seeking companionship.
Brown muttered an exclamation of impatience and, opening the door a very little way, peeped through the crack. The pup—he looked like a scrawny young lion—hailed his appearance with a series of wild yelps. His mouth opened like a Mammoth Cave in miniature, and a foot of red tongue flapped like a danger signal.
“Get out, you brute!” ordered Brown.
Job did not get out. Instead he yelped again and capered with the grace of a cow. His feet and legs seemed to have grown out of proportion to the rest of him; they were enormous. Down the length of his yellow back were three raw furrows which the nails of the box cover had scraped as he climbed from under them.
“Nice dog!” coaxed the lightkeeper's helper. “Nice doggie! Good old boy!”
The good old boy pranced joyfully and made a charge at the door. Brown slammed it shut just in time.
“Clear out!” he yelled, from behind it. “Go away! Go and lie down!”
The answer was a mighty howl of disappointment and an assault on the door which threatened to shatter the panels. Job's paws were armed with claws proportionate to their size.
This would never do. The paint on that door had been furnished by the government, and Atkins was very careful of it. Brown, within, pounded a protest and again commanded the dog to go and lie down. Job, without, thumped and scratched and howled louder than ever. He had decidedly the best of the duet, and the door was suffering every second. Brown picked up the fire shovel and threw the door wide open.
“Get out!” he roared. “Get out or I'll kill you!”
He brandished the shovel, expecting an assault. But none came. It was evident that Job knew a shovel when he saw it, had encountered other shovels in the course of his brief young life. His ears and tail drooped, and he backed away.
“Clear out!” repeated Brown, advancing threateningly. With each step of the advance, Job retreated a corresponding distance. When the assistant stopped, he stopped. Brown lowered the shovel and looked at him. The dog grovelled in the sand and whined dolefully.
“Humph!” grunted the young man; “I guess you're not as dangerous as you look. Stay where you are and keep still.”
He turned to enter the kitchen, turning again just in time to find the pup at his heels. He lifted the shovel, and Job jumped frantically out of reach, sat down in a clump of beach grass, lifted his nose to the sky and expressed his feelings in a howl of utter misery.
“Good—heavens!” observed John Brown fervently, and, shifting the shovel to his left hand, rubbed his forehead with his right. Job howled once more and gazed at him with sorrowful appeal. The situation was so ridiculous that the young man began to laugh. This merriment appeared to encourage the pup, who stopped howling and began to caper, throwing the loose sand from beneath his paws in showers.
“What's the matter, old boy?” inquired Brown. “Lonesome, are you?”
Job was making himself the center of a small-sized sand spout.
“Humph! Well . . . well, all right. I'm not going to hurt you. Stay where you are, and I won't shut the door.”
But this compromise was not satisfactory, because the moment the young man started to cross the threshold the dog started to follow. When Brown halted, he followed suit—and howled. Then the substitute assistant surrendered unconditionally.
“All right,” he said. “Come in, then, if you want to. Come in! but for goodness sake keep still when you are in.”
He strode into the kitchen, leaving the door open. Job slunk after him, and crouched with his muzzle across the sill, evidently not yet certain that his victory was complete. He did not howl, however, and his late adversary was thankful for the omission.
Brown bethought himself of the water in the wash boiler and, removing the cover, tested it with his finger. It was steadily heating, but not yet at the boiling point. He pushed the boiler aside, lifted a lid of the range and inspected the fire. From behind him came a yelp, another, a thump, and then a series of thumps and yelps. He turned and saw Job in the center of the floor apparently having a fit.
The moment his back was turned, the pup had sneaked into the kitchen. It was not a large kitchen, and Job was distinctly a large dog. Also, he was suspicious of further assaults with the fire shovel and had endeavored to find a hiding place under the table. In crawling beneath this article of furniture he had knocked off a sheet of the fly paper. This had fallen “butter side down” upon his back, and stuck fast. He reached aft to pull it loose with his teeth and had encountered a second sheet laid on a chair. This had stuck to his neck. Job was an apprehensive animal by nature and as the result of experience, and his nerves were easily unstrung. He forgot the shovel, forgot the human whom he had been fearfully trying to propitiate, forgot everything except the dreadful objects which clung to him and pulled his hair. He rolled from beneath the table, a shrieking, kicking, snapping cyclone. And that kitchen was no place for a cyclone.
He rolled and whirled for an instant, then scrambled to his feet and began running in widening circles. Brown tried to seize him as he passed, but he might as well have seized a railroad train. Another chair, also loaded with fly paper, upset, and Job added a third sheet to his collection. This one plastered itself across his nose and eyes. He ceased running forward and began to leap high in the air and backwards. The net containing the big lobster fell to the floor. Then John Brown fled to the open air, leaned against the side of the building and screamed with laughter.
Inside the kitchen the uproar was terrific. Howls, shrill yelps, thumps and crashes. Then came a crash louder than any preceding it, a splash of water across the sill, and from the doorway leaped, or flew, an object steaming and dripping, fluttering with fly paper, and with a giant lobster clamped firmly to its tail. The lobster was knocked off against the door post, but the rest of the exhibit kept on around the corner of the house, shrieking as it flew. Brown collapsed in the sand and laughed until his sides ached and he was too weak to laugh longer.
At last he got up and staggered after it. He was still laughing when he reached the back yard, but there he stopped laughing and uttered an exclamation of impatience and some alarm.
Of Job there was no sign, though from somewhere amid the dunes sounded yelps, screams and the breaking of twigs as the persecuted one fled blindly through the bayberry and beachplum bushes. But Brown was not anxious about the dog. What caused him to shout and then break into a run was the sight of Joshua, the old horse, galloping at top speed along the road to the south. Even his sedate and ancient calm had not been proof against the apparition which burst from the kitchen. In his fright he had broken his halter rope and managed—a miracle, considering his age—to leap the pasture fence and run.
That horse was the apple of Seth Atkins's eye. The lightkeeper believed him to be a wonder of strength and endurance, and never left the lights without cautioning his helper to keep an eye on Joshua, “'cause if anything happened to him I'd have to hunt a mighty long spell to find another that could tech him.” Brown accepted this trust with composure, feeling morally certain that the only thing likely to happen to Joshua was death from overeating or old age. And now something had happened—Joshua was running away.
There was but one course to take; Brown must leave the government's property in its own care and capture that horse. He had laughed until running seemed an impossibility, but run he must, and did, after a fashion. But Joshua was running, too, and he was frightened. He galloped like a colt, and the assistant lightkeeper gained upon him very slowly.
The road was crooked and hilly, and the sand in its ruts was deep. Brown would not have gained at all, but for the fact that the horse, from long habit, kept to the roadway and never tried short cuts. His pursuer did, and, therefore, just as Joshua entered the grove on the bluff above Pounddug Slough, Brown caught up with him and made a grab at the end of the trailing halter. He missed it, and the horse took a fresh start.
The road through the grove was overgrown with young trees and bushes, and amid these the animal had a distinct advantage. Not until the outer edge of the grove was reached did the panting assistant get another opportunity at the rope. This time he seized it and held on.
“Whoa!” he shouted. “Whoa!”
But Joshua did not “whoa” at once. He kept on along the edge of the high, sandy slope. Brown, from the tail of his eye, caught a glimpse of the winding channel of the Slough beneath him, of a small schooner heeled over on the mud flat at its margin, and of the figure of a man at work beside it.
“Whoa!” he ordered once more. “Whoa, Josh! stand still!”
Perhaps the horse would have stood still—he seemed about to do so—but from the distance, somewhere on the road he had just traversed, came a howl, long-drawn and terrifyingly familiar. Joshua heard it, jumped sidewise, jerked at the halter and, as if playing “snap the whip,” sent his would-be captor heels over head over the edge of the bank and rolling down the sandy slope. The halter flew from Brown's hands, he rolled and bumped and clutched at clumps of grass and bushes. Then he struck the beach and stopped, spread-eagled on the wet sand.
A voice said: “Well—by—TIME!”
Brown looked up. Seth Atkins, a paint pail in one hand and a dripping brush in the other, was standing beside him, blank astonishment written on his features.
“Well—by time!” said Seth again, and with even stronger emphasis.
The substitute assistant raised himself to his knees, rubbed his back with one hand, and then, turning, sat in the sand and returned his superior's astonished gaze with one of equal bewilderment.
“Hello!” he gasped. “Well, by George! it's you, isn't it! What are you doing here?”
The lightkeeper put down the pail of paint.
“What am I doin'?” he repeated. “What am I doin'—? Say!” His astonishment changed to suspicion and wrath. “Never you mind what I'm doin',” he went on. “That's my affairs. What are YOU doin' here? That's what I want to know.”
Brown rubbed the sand out of his hair.
“I don't know exactly what I am doing—yet,” he panted.
“You don't, hey? Well, you'd better find out. Maybe I can help you to remember. Sneakin' after me, wa'n't you? Spyin', to find out what I was up to, hey?”
He shook the wet paint brush angrily at his helper. Brown looked at him for an instant; then he rose to his feet.
“Spyin' on me, was you?” repeated Seth.
“Didn't I tell you that mindin' your own business was part of our dicker if you was goin' to stay at Eastboro lighthouse? Didn't I tell you that?”
The young man answered with a contemptuous shrug. Turning on his heel, he started to walk away. Atkins sprang after him.
“Answer me,” he ordered. “Didn't I say you'd got to mind your own business?”
“You did,” coldly.
“You bet I did! And was you mindin' it?”
“No. I was minding yours—like a fool. Now you may mind it yourself.”
“Hold on there! Where you goin'?”
“Back to the lights. And you may go to the devil, or anywhere else that suits your convenience, and take your confounded menagerie with you.”
“My menag—What on earth? Say, hold on! Mercy on us, what's that?”
From the top of the bluff came a crashing and a series of yelps. Through the thicket of beachplum bushes was thrust a yellow head, fringed with torn fragments of fly paper.
“What's that?” demanded the astonished lightkeeper.
Brown looked at the whining apparition in the bushes and smiled maliciously.
“That,” he observed, “is Job.”
“JOB?”
“Yes.” From somewhere in the grove came a thrashing of branches and a frightened neigh. “And that,” he continued, “is Joshua, I presume. If there are more Old Testament patriarchs in the vicinity, I don't know where they are, and I don't care. You may hunt for them yourself. I'm going to follow your advice and mind my own business. Good by.”
He strode off up the beach. Job, at the top of the bank, started to follow, but a well-aimed pebble caused him to dodge back.
“Hold on!” roared the lightkeeper. “Maybe I made a mistake. Perhaps you wa'n't spyin' on me. Don't go off mad. I . . . Wait!”
But John Brown did not wait. He strode rapidly away up the beach. Seth stared after him. From the grove, where his halter had caught firmly in the fork of a young pine, Joshua thrashed and neighed.
“Aa-oo-ow!” howled Job, from the bushes.
An hour later Atkins, leading the weary and homesick Joshua by the bridle, trudged in at the lighthouse yard. Job, still ornamented with remnants of the fly paper, slunk at his heels. Seth stabled the horse and, after some manoeuvering, managed to decoy the dog down the slope to the boathouse, where he closed the door upon him and his whines. Then he climbed back to the kitchen.
The table was set for one, and in the wash boiler on the range the giant lobster was cooking. Of the substitute assistant keeper there was no sign, but, after searching, Seth found him in his room.
“Well?” observed Atkins, gruffly, “we might 's well have supper, hadn't we?”
Brown did not seem interested. “Your supper is ready, I think,” he answered. “I tried not to forget anything.”
“I guess 'tis; seems to be. Come on, and we'll eat.”
“I have eaten, thank you.”
“You have? Alone?”
“Yes. That, too,” with emphasis, “is a part of my business.”
The lightkeeper stared, grunted, and then went out of the room. He ate a lonely meal, not of the lobster—he kept that for another occasion—but one made up of cold scraps from the pantry. He wandered uneasily about the premises, quieted Job's wails for the time by a gift of eatable odds and ends tossed into the boathouse, smoked, tried to read, and, when it grew dusk, lit the lamps in the towers. At last he walked to the closed door of his helper's room and rapped.
“Well?” was the ungracious response.
“It's me, Atkins,” he announced, hesitatingly. “I'd like to speak to you, if you don't mind.”
“On business?”
“Well, no—not exactly. Say, Brown, I guess likely I'd ought to beg your pardon again. I cal'late I've made another mistake. I jedge you wa'n't spyin' on me when you dove down that bankin'.”
“Your judgment is good this time. I was not.”
“No, I'm sartin you wa'n't. I apologize and take it all back. Now can I come in?”
The door was thrown open. Seth entered, looking sheepish, and sat down in the little cane-seated rocker.
“Say,” he began, after a moment of uncomfortable silence, “would you mind—now that I've begged your pardon and all—tellin' me what did happen while I was away. I imagine, judgin' by the looks of things in the kitchen, that there was—er—well, consider'ble doin', as the boys say.”
He grinned. Brown tried to be serious, but was obliged to smile in return.
“I'll tell you,” he said. “Of course you know where that—er—remarkable dog came from?”
“I can guess,” drily. “Henry G.'s present, ain't he? Humph! Well, I'd ought to have known that anything Henry would GIVE away was likely to be remarkable in all sorts of ways. All right! that's one Henry's got on me. Tomorrow afternoon me and Job take a trip back to Eastboro, and one of us stays there. It may be me, but I have my doubts. I agreed to take a DOG on trial, not a yeller-jaundiced cow with a church organ inside of it. Hear the critter whoopin' down there in the boathouse! And he's eat everything that's chewable on the reservation already. He's a famine on legs, that pup. But never mind him. He's been tried—and found guilty. Tell me what happened.”
Brown began the tale of the afternoon's performances, beginning with his experience as a lobster catcher. Seth smiled, then chuckled, and finally burst into roars of laughter, in which the narrator joined.
“Jiminy crimps!” exclaimed Seth, when the story was finished. “Oh, by jiminy crimps! that beats the Dutch, and everybody's been told what the Dutch beat. Ha, ha! ho, ho! Brown, I apologize all over again. I don't wonder you was put out when I accused you of spyin'. Wonder you hadn't riz up off that sand and butchered me where I stood. Cal'late that's what I'd have done in your place. Well, I hope there's no hard feelin's now.”
“No. Your apology, is accepted.”
“That's good. Er—er—say, you—you must have been sort of surprised to see me paintin' the Daisy M.”
“The which?”
“The Daisy M. That's the name of that old schooner I was to work on.”
“Indeed. . . . How is the weather tonight, clear?”
“Yes, it's fair now, but looks sort of thick to the east'ard. I say you must have been surprised to see me paintin' the Daisy M. I've been tinkerin' on that old boat, off and on, ever since last fall. Bought her for eight dollars of the feller that owned her, and she was a hulk for sartin then. I've caulked her up and rigged her, after a fashion. Now she might float, if she had a chance. Every afternoon, pretty nigh, I've been at her. Don't know exactly why I do it, neither. And yet I do, too. Prob'ly you've wondered where I was takin' all that old canvas and stuff. I—”
“Excuse me, Atkins. I mind my own business, you know. I ask no questions, and you are under no obligation to tell me anything.”
“I know, I know.” The lightkeeper nodded solemnly. He clasped his knee with his hands and rocked back and forth in his chair. “I know,” he went on, an absent, wistful look in his eye; “but you must have wondered, just the same. I bought that craft because—well, because she reminded me of old times, I cal'late. I used to command a schooner like her once; bigger and lots more able, of course, but a fishin' schooner, same as she used to be. And I was a good skipper, if I do say it. My crews jumped when I said the word, now I tell you. That's where I belong—on the deck of a vessel. I'm a man there—a man.”
He paused. Brown made no comment. Seth continued to rock and to talk; he seemed to be thinking aloud.
“Yes, sir,” he declared, with a sigh; “when I was afloat I was a man, and folks respected me. I just do love salt water and sailin' craft. That's why I bought the Daisy M. I've been riggin' her and caulkin' her just for the fun of doin' it. She'll never float again. It would take a tide like a flood to get her off them flats. But when I'm aboard or putterin' around her, I'm happy—happier, I mean. It makes me forget I'm a good-for-nothin' derelict, stranded in an old woman's job of lightkeepin'. Ah, hum-a-day, young feller, you don't know what it is to have been somebody, and then, because you was a fool and did a fool thing, to be nothin'—nothin'! You don't know what that is.”
John Brown caught his breath. His fist descended upon the window ledge beside him.
“Don't I!” he groaned. “By George, don't I! Do you suppose—”
He stopped short. Atkins started and came out of his dream.
“Why—why, yes,” he said, hastily; “I s'pose likely you do. . . . Well, good night. I've got to go on watch. See you in the mornin'.”