Chapter XIV.
The following morning Kate waited with exceeding patience for the proper moment to arrive in which to speak to Frank regarding theCloverand Mr. North.
“And I told him, Frank,” she went on to say, as he stood glowering at her from his superior height, “that the boat cost—I mean that papa paid forty—”
“It was fifty dollars, Kate,” ejaculated Frank, “that was paid for the boat; and if you hadn’t—”
“O, Frank!” besought Kate, with an eager tremble in her voice, “I am so sorry I forgot. I thought it was forty; but you can tell him and then you’ll get back ten dollars that you can spend just as you please; and you are always wanting new things, you know. You can buy, Frank, that nice new kind of a fishpole that you asked papa for, or you can get—”
“Just like you,” returned Frank, interrupting her suggestion. “A fishpole would do me a good deal of good without theCloverto go with it. I’ll tell you what, I’ll just keep my boat and get the pole in some way. Mother will help me out with it.”
“O, Frank Hallock! if you only knew what mamma is doing, and going to do, this winter, you’d never think of asking her for a penny. When you are gone,Mary is going away and we will only have the cook and mamma, and I am going to do all Mary’s work; and I heard papa talking about having only Hugo or some one other man to do everything that is to be done outside of the house. I shall enjoy helping about everything so much, dear Frank, when I think that you are having a good time at school and it is making you happier.”
Frank turned away without a word and went out into the sweet, cool air of the morning.
Kate ran lightly up the staircase, and in two minutes came down again with hat and wrappings on to drive her father to the railway station.
Mr. Hallock appeared presently, looking very grave and anxious. As he came, Kate said: “All ready, papa, and waiting for you.”
“Kate, dear,” he replied, “I have a reason for wishing that Frank should go with me this morning, and you may meet me this afternoon at five. I’m coming home early to-day. Good-bye, my child,” and he gave the disappointed face a kiss and went out. Kate followed, thinking to find Frank for her father. The boy was already at the stable.
“Come, Frank!” said Mr. Hallock, “I wish you to go with me this morning.”
“Can’t Kate go, or Hugo?” returned Frank. “The tide is just right for fishing and it will use up half an hour or more.”
“Get in,” said his father, sternly. With a frown and a surly air, Frank slipped into the light wagon and threw himself upon the seat.
“Never mind, Frank,” urged Kate in a low voice, close to the wheel on Frank’s side. As the horse started, she added: “I’ll have the fishing-tackle all ready for you, and the bait, too, if I can.”
Mr. Hallock drove and not a word had been spoken when they reached the village. As they were passing along the principal street, Mr. Hallock said:
“My son, I am in the midst of cares and business difficulties that you cannot understand. Your mother and myself are willing to do many things this winter, in order to send you to school. We do it gladly, out of love for you. If you could stay fourteen a year or two, it would not matter so much whether or not you went this winter; but time is precious. Now, my boy, Kate told me last night that Mr. North suggested taking your boat, and I wish you to part from it cheerfully and without a word of repining. It is yours, and it is you who must write to him to-day and tell him that he can have it.”
“But, father—” and then came the signal of the advancing train. In two minutes Mr. Hallock was upon it on his way to New York and Frank was rushing with speed through the village on his way home, cherishing, as he went, no very kind feeling toward his sister Kate.
Having left the horse, he was going toward the boathouse, when Kate appeared on the highway, carrying a basket.
“I was afraid to stay a minute longer,” she said, when they came within speaking distance. “I was so afraid you would be gone, Frank. I found a fewclams—look! enough to keep you in bait quite awhile,” Kate continued, speaking very rapidly, as though apprehensive of interruption. “You know, Frank, you are going to be a beautiful brother and let Mr. North have theClover; and mamma said I might go fishing with you to-day, if you would keep inside the harbor.”
“Kate Hallock!” exclaimed Frank, “it was none of your business to go telling father what Mr. North said. I could tell him myself, when I wanted him to know anything about it. No! I won’t let you go with me just because you did tell.”
“O, Frank! I thought papa would be so very glad, because I heard him say that he needed every single dollar he could save; and I thought you would be as happy as I was myself, when he said he would do it. And I went and got your lines and clams and everything; and I don’t care to fish, so I’ll bait your hook every time.”
“No, Kate; I’ve got to give up the boat, and I will have it all to myself this last day; besides, it is still, and if I see Captain Green outside, I’m going out beyond the island to fish. So you see you could not go.”
“O, Frank, don’t go alone; please don’t! Get Harry Cornwall to go with you,” she urged; but he resisted that appeal, and saying there was no time to spare in hunting up Harry, who was doubtless off in some potato field or other, kept on his way to the little boathouse where theCloverlay.
“I’ll tell you what, Frank,” said Kate, her heart beating fast with hope, “I’ll run across lots to theLane and find him, and I’m sure he’ll go if I ask him; and you can wait and fish a few minutes down by the coal dock, till he has time to get there. I’ll be as quick as ever I can. I don’t believe mamma will care if I do not stop to go back and ask her.”
Kate was running by the time she finished speaking, and she did not hear Frank’s last call, which was “I sha’n’t wait a minute for anybody”; and she did not stop until she reached the stone wall that separated the meadow lands from the highway. When she stood within the low doorway of Mrs. Dobson’s kitchen, she could only gasp forth,
“Where’s Harry?”
“What is the matter with you, Kittie, my Clover? You’re as—”
“Please tell me quick where Harry is,” panted forth Kate. “I must find him.”
“Then you come right in and sit down until you get your breath and I’ll go call him. He’s topping corn this morning.”
Now Kate knew the Dobson cornfield just as well as anyone, and off she started, before Mrs. Dobson could take down her sunbonnet and shawl from its peg on the kitchen wall.
Arrived there, she shouted for Harry, who presently appeared out of the corn and hastened to the fence where Kate waited.
It seemed so trivial, this calling Harry away from real, necessary-to-be-done work to go fishing, just because Frank would run into danger, that for an instant, as Harry came forward, she resolved to letFrank go; but the wave of fear returned upon her by the time he reached the fence and she cried out:
“O, Harry, will you do something for me? Tell me ‘yes’ quick!”
“You know I will, Kittie,” said Harry, removing his hat to wipe his forehead—for he had been working fast.
“Then go fishing right off with Frank; it’s the last time he’s going in theClover, and he would go off to the island. Make haste now and you can catch him at the coal dock. He has gone down the harbor and he is all alone, and if the wind should blow”—she said, with a sudden tremble in her tones—“or if the fog should come and he off there fishing all alone—”
Whether it were the pleading of Kate’s eyes or of her voice, or the arguments she used that influenced Harry, it were impossible to determine; but he went in haste across field and meadow to the coal dock, only to see Frank and theClovermaking great speed outside the harbor toward the island.
As he stood there, helpless, on the beach, watching the boat, Kate reached his side, and, seeing her brother in the distance, she burst into tears.
“I’m sure I did everything I could,” she sobbed. “Only if Frank should get lost, I never, never could forgive myself for having told papa!” and Kate sank down on the sand and cried out her sorrow and disappointment, as well as her weariness.
Harry waited patiently until the little storm was over. Then he said:
“If you were to tell me all about it, don’t you think I could help you a little?”
“I wanted to tell you ever since I knew,” sighed Kate, with one tear-dimmed glance seaward, “only I thought that perhaps papa and mamma might wish it not spoken of; but now I am sure—” and then Kate went on to tell Harry all that she knew and thought, and a good deal that she felt, about affairs at home. At last she said, “I can bear everything but to let Neptune go. If poor Nep goes, Harry, I want to go with him. He’s my friend—just as Josh is Mrs. Dobson’s; and O, Harry,doyou think I ought to tell papa he may sell him?”
Harry was trying to see Frank’sClover, but somehow it looked very much as though it had been caught in a sudden fog; but it was a fog easily brushed away from the lad’s eyes, as he turned to say to Kate:
“If, Kittie, it comes to selling Neptune, promise me one thing—that you will not let him go until you have told me about it.”
“I promise, Harry; but what good will that do?”
“We will see when the time comes. I am glad you have told me. But, Kittie, I must not spend my morning here. If the wind blows hard, I will go to the town wharf and get a boat to go out after Frank.”
“Mamma has not the least idea that I am not gone with Frank. I must go home and tell her,” said Kate; and thus they parted, Kate going by the way of the brown house to explain her conduct to Mrs. Dobson, and Harry to the cornfield, summing up as he went, for the fortieth or fiftieth time, his little earthlyall and wondering whether or not it would do any good to get it all together, in readiness for an emergency.
The day went on, bright and warm for the season, until the afternoon came, and with it there breathed in from the sea a cool, damp air, that presently, almost before one thought of it, changed all the atmosphere to dense fog.
Kate had many times during the morning hours made little visits to the tower room and adjusted the glass, to take into view Frank’s boat. Seeing it, lying off the island and nearby another boat—Captain Green’s, without doubt—she had ceased to feel troubled. Even Mrs. Hallock was satisfied with Kate’s reports, as they came to her from time to time, and contented herself, being very busy in preparing Frank’s clothing for school, until she saw the fog sweep past the windows. Hugo was sent off in haste to learn the whereabouts of Captain Green and the whole household grew anxious and restless.
Kate drove Neptune to the station to meet her father, and greeted him with the news that Frank was off fishing outside of the island, all alone, when the fog came down.
The September twilight followed. It was night and still the fog held down. The old sea began to roll with an easterly swell, and Frank was not heard from. Kate put every lamp that she could muster into the tower room, for a lighthouse.