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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Woman-Haters, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Woman-Haters
+
+Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+Release Date: May 16, 2006 [EBook #2372]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN-HATERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN-HATERS
+
+
+By Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+(By Way of Explanation)
+
+A story of mine called, like this, "The Woman-Haters," appeared
+recently in one of the magazines. That story was not this one, except in
+part--the part dealing with "John Brown" and Miss Ruth Graham. Readers
+of the former tale who perhaps imagine they know all about Seth Atkins
+and Mrs. Emeline Bascom will be surprised to find they really know so
+little. The truth is that, when I began to revise and rearrange the
+magazine story for publication as a book, new ideas came, grew, and
+developed. I discovered that I had been misinformed concerning the
+lightkeeper's past and present relations with the housekeeper at the
+bungalow. And there was "Bennie D." whom I had overlooked, had not
+mentioned at all; and that rejuvenated craft, the Daisy M.; and the
+high tide which is, or should be, talked about in Eastboro even yet; all
+these I had omitted for the very good reason that I never knew of them.
+I have tried to be more careful this time. During the revising process
+"The Woman-Haters" has more than doubled in length and, let us hope, in
+accuracy. Even now it is, of course, not a novel, but merely a summer
+farce-comedy, a "yarn." And this, by the way, is all that it pretends to
+be.
+
+JOSEPH C. LINCOLN.
+
+May, 1911.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.--   MR. SETH ATKINS
+
+II.--  MR. JOHN BROWN
+
+III.-- MR. BROWN PUTS IN AN APPLICATION
+
+IV.--  THE COMING OF JOB
+
+V.--   THE GOING OF JOSHUA
+
+VI.--  THE PICNIC
+
+VII.-- OUT OF THE BAG
+
+VIII.--NEIGHBORS AND WASPS
+
+IX.--  THE BUNGALOW GIRL
+
+X.--   THE BUNGALOW WOMAN
+
+XI.--  BEHIND THE SAND DUNE
+
+XII.-- THE LETTER AND THE 'PHONE
+
+XIII.--"JOHN BROWN" CHANGES HIS NAME
+
+XIV.-- "BENNIE D."
+
+XV.--  THE VOYAGE OF THE Daisy M.
+
+XVI.-- THE EBB TIDE
+
+XVII.--WOMAN-HATERS
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN-HATERS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MR. SETH ATKINS
+
+
+The stars, like incandescent lights fed by a fast weakening dynamo, grew
+pale, faded, and, one by one, went out. The slate-colored sea, with its
+tumbling waves, changed color, becoming a light gray, then a faint blue,
+and, as the red sun rolled up over the edge of the eastern horizon, a
+brilliant sapphire, trimmed with a silver white on the shoals and along
+the beach at the foot of the bluff.
+
+Seth Atkins, keeper of the Eastboro Twin-Lights, yawned, stretched,
+and glanced through the seaward windows of the octagon-shaped,
+glass-enclosed room at the top of the north tower, where he had spent
+the night just passed. Then he rose from his chair and extinguished the
+blaze in the great lantern beside him. Morning had come, the mists had
+rolled away, and the dots scattered along the horizon--schooners,
+tugs, and coal barges, for the most part--no longer needed the glare
+of Eastboro Twin-Lights to warn them against close proximity to
+the dangerous, shoal-bordered coast. Incidentally, it was no longer
+necessary for Mr. Atkins to remain on watch. He drew the curtains over
+the polished glass and brass of the lantern, yawned again, and descended
+the winding iron stairs to the door at the foot of the tower, opened it
+and emerged into the sandy yard.
+
+Crossing this yard, before the small white house which the government
+provided as a dwelling place for its lightkeepers, he opened the door of
+the south tower, mounted the stairs there and repeated the extinguishing
+process with the other lantern. Before again descending to earth,
+however, he stepped out on the iron balcony surrounding the light
+chamber and looked about him.
+
+The view, such as it was, was extensive. To the east the open sea,
+the wide Atlantic, rolling lazily in the morning light, a faint breeze
+rippling the surfaces of the ground-swell. A few sails in sight, far
+out. Not a sound except the hiss and splash of the surf, which, because
+of a week of calms and light winds, was low even for that time of
+year--early June.
+
+To the north stretched the shores of the back of the Cape. High clay
+bluffs, rain-washed and wrinkled, sloping sharply to the white sand
+of the beach a hundred feet below. Only one building, except
+those connected with the lighthouses, near at hand, this a small,
+gray-shingled bungalow about two hundred yards away, separated from the
+lights by the narrow stream called Clam Creek--Seth always spoke of it
+as the "Crick"--which, turning in behind the long surf-beaten sandspit
+known, for some forgotten reason, as "Black Man's Point," continued to
+the salt-water pond which was named "The Cove." A path led down from the
+lighthouses to a bend in the "Crick," and there, on a small wharf, was a
+shanty where Seth kept his spare lobster and eel-pots, dory sails, nets,
+and the like. The dory itself, with the oars in her, was moored in the
+cove.
+
+A mile off, to the south, the line of bluffs was broken by another
+inlet, the entrance to Pounddug Slough. This poetically named channel
+twisted and wound tortuously inland through salt marshes and between
+mudbanks, widening at last to become Eastboro Back Harbor, a good-sized
+body of water, with the village of Eastboro at its upper end. In the
+old days, when Eastboro amounted to something as a fishing port, the
+mackerel fleet unloaded its catch at the wharves in the Back Harbor.
+Then Pounddug Slough was kept thoroughly dredged and buoyed. Now it was
+weed-grown and neglected. Only an occasional lobsterman's dory traversed
+its winding ways, which the storms and tides of each succeeding winter
+rendered more difficult to navigate. The abandoned fish houses along its
+shores were falling to pieces, and at intervals the stranded hulk of
+a fishing sloop or a little schooner, rotting in the sun, was a dismal
+reminder that Eastboro's ambitious young men no longer got their living
+alongshore. The town itself had gone to sleep, awakening only in the
+summer, when the few cottagers came and the Bay Side Hotel was opened
+for its short season.
+
+Behind the lighthouse buildings, to the west--and in the direction
+of the village--were five miles of nothing in particular. A desolate
+wilderness of rolling sand-dunes, beach grass, huckleberry and bayberry
+bushes, cedar swamps, and small clumps of pitch-pines. Through this
+desert the three or four rutted, crooked sand roads, leading to and
+from the lights, turned and twisted. Along their borders dwelt no human
+being; but life was there, life in abundance. Ezra Payne, late assistant
+keeper at the Twin-Lights, was ready at all times to furnish evidence
+concerning the existence of this life.
+
+"My godfreys domino!" Ezra had exclaimed, after returning from a drive
+to Eastboro village, "I give you my word, Seth, they dummed nigh et
+me alive. They covered the horse all up, so that he looked for all the
+world like a sheep, woolly. I don't mind moskeeters in moderation, but
+when they roost on my eyelids and make 'em so heavy I can't open 'em,
+then I'm ready to swear. But I couldn't get even that relief, because
+every time I unbattened my mouth a million or so flew in and choked me.
+That's what I said--a million. Some moskeeters are fat, but these don't
+get a square meal often enough to be anything but hide-racks filled with
+cussedness. Moskeeters! My godfreys domino!"
+
+Ezra was no longer assistant lightkeeper. He and his superior had
+quarreled two days before. The quarrel was the culmination, on Ezra's
+part, of a gradually developing "grouch" brought on by the loneliness of
+his surroundings. After a night of duty he had marched into the house,
+packed his belongings in a battered canvas extension case, and announced
+his intention of resigning from the service.
+
+"To the everlastin' brimstone with the job!" he snarled, addressing Mr.
+Atkins, who, partially dressed, emerged from the bedroom in bewilderment
+and sleepy astonishment. "To thunder with it, I say! I've had all the
+gov'ment jobs I want. Life-savin' service was bad enough, trampin' the
+condemned beach in a howlin' no'theaster, with the sand cuttin'
+furrers in your face, and the icicles on your mustache so heavy you
+got round-shouldered luggin' 'em. But when your tramp was over, you had
+somebody to talk to. Here, by godfreys! there ain't nothin' nor nobody.
+I'm goin' fishin' again, where I can be sociable."
+
+"Humph!" commented Seth, "you must be lonesome all to once. Ain't my
+company good enough for you?"
+
+"Company! A heap of company you are! When I'm awake you're asleep and
+snorin' and--"
+
+"I never snored in my life," was the indignant interruption
+
+"What? YOU'LL snore when you're dead, and wake up the whole graveyard.
+Lonesome!" he continued, without giving his companion a chance to
+retort, "lonesome ain't no name for this place. No company but green
+flies and them moskeeters, and nothin' to look at but salt water and
+sand and--and--dummed if I can think of anything else. Five miles from
+town and the only house in sight shut tight. When I come here you told
+me that bungalow was opened up every year--"
+
+"So it has been till this season."
+
+"And that picnics come here every once in a while."
+
+"Don't expect picnickers to be such crazy loons as to come here in
+winter time, do you?"
+
+"I don't know. If they're fools enough to come here ANY time, I wouldn't
+be responsible for 'em. There ain't so many moskeeters in winter. But
+just LOOK at this hole. Just put on your specs and LOOK at it! Not a
+man--but you--not a woman, not a child, not a girl--"
+
+"Ah ha! ah ha! NOW we're gettin' at it! Not a girl! That's what's the
+matter with you. You want to be up in the village, where you can go
+courtin'. You're too fur from Elsie Peters, that's where the shoe
+pinches. I've heard how you used to set out in her dad's backyard, with
+your arm round her waist, lookin' at each other, mushy as a couple of
+sassers of hasty-puddin'. Bah! I'll take care my next assistant ain't
+girl-struck."
+
+"Girl-struck! I'd enough sight ruther be girl-struck than always ravin'
+and rippin' against females. And all because some woman way back in
+Methusalem's time had sense enough to heave you over. At least, that's
+what everybody cal'lates must be the reason. You pretend to be a
+woman-hater. All round this part of the Cape you've took pains to get up
+that kind of reputation; but--"
+
+"There ain't no pretendin' about it. I've got brains enough to keep
+clear of petticoats. And when you get to be as old as I be and know as
+much as I do--though that ain't no ways likely, even if you live to be
+nine hundred and odd, like Noah in Scripture--you'll feel the same way."
+
+"Aw, come off! Woman-hater! You hate women same as the boy at the
+poorhouse hated ice cream--'cause there ain't none around. Why, I
+wouldn't trust you as fur as I could see you!"
+
+This was the end of the dialogue, because Mr. Payne was obliged to break
+off his harangue and dodge the stove-lifter flung at him by the outraged
+lightkeeper. As the lifter was about to be followed by the teakettle,
+Ezra took to his heels, bolted from the house and began his long tramp
+to the village. When he reached the first clumps of bayberry bushes
+bordering the deeply rutted road, a joyful cloud of mosquitoes rose and
+settled about him like a fog.
+
+So Seth Atkins was left alone to do double duty at Eastboro Twin-Lights,
+pending the appointment of another assistant. The two days and nights
+following Ezra's departure had been strenuous and provoking. Doing
+all the housework, preparation of meals included, tending both lights,
+rubbing brass work, sweeping and scouring, sleeping when he could and
+keeping awake when he must, nobody to talk to, nobody to help--the
+forty-eight hours of solitude had already convinced Mr. Atkins that the
+sooner a helper was provided the better. At times he even wished the
+disrespectful Payne back again, wished that he had soothed instead of
+irritated the departed one. Then he remembered certain fragments of
+their last conversation and wished the stove-lifter had been flung with
+better aim.
+
+Now, standing on the gallery of the south tower, he was conscious of
+a desire for breakfast. Preparing that meal had been a part of his
+assistant's duties. Now he must prepare it himself, and he was hungry
+and sleepy. He mentally vowed that he would no longer delay notifying
+the authorities of the desertion, and would urge them to hurry in
+sending some one to fill the vacant place.
+
+Grumbling aloud to himself, he moved around the circle of the gallery
+toward the door. His hand was on the latch, when, turning, he cast
+another glance over the rail, this time directly downward toward the
+beach below. And there he saw something which caused him to forget
+hunger and grievances of all kinds; something which, after one horrified
+look to make sure, led him to dart into the light chamber, spring at a
+reckless gait down the winding stair, out of the tower, rush to the edge
+of the bluff, and plunge headlong down the zigzag path worn in the clay.
+
+On the sand, at the foot of the bluff below the lights, just beyond
+reach of the wash of the surf, lay a man, or the dead body of a man,
+stretched at full length.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MR. JOHN BROWN
+
+
+Once before, during his years of service as keeper of Eastboro
+Twin-Lights, had Seth seen such a sight as that which now caused him to
+make his dash for the shore. Once before, after the terrible storm of
+1905, when the great steamer Bay Queen went down with all on board, the
+exact spot of her sinking unknown even to this day. Then the whole ocean
+side of the Cape, from Race Point to Orham, was strewn with ghastly
+relics. But the Bay Queen met her fate in the winter season, amid a gale
+such as even the oldest residents could not remember. Now it was early
+summer; the night before had been a flat calm. There had been no wreck,
+or the lifesavers would have told him of it. There would be no excuse
+for a wreck, anyway.
+
+All this, in disjointed fragments, passed through the lightkeeper's
+mind as he descended the path in frantic bounds and plowed through
+the ankle-deep white sand of the beach. As he approached the recumbent
+figure he yelled a panted "Hi, there!" He did not expect the hail to be
+answered or even noticed. Therefore, he was pleasantly disappointed when
+the figure rolled over, raised itself on one elbow, looked at him in a
+dazed sort of way and replied cheerfully but faintly, "Hello!"
+
+Seth stopped short, put a hand to the breast of his blue flannel shirt,
+and breathed a mighty sigh of relief.
+
+"Gosh!" he exclaimed with fervor. Then, changing his labored gallop
+for a walk, he continued his progress toward the man, who, as if his
+momentary curiosity was satisfied, lay down again. He did not rise when
+the lightkeeper reached his side, but remained quiet, looking up from a
+pair of gray eyes and smiling slightly with lips that were blue. He was
+a stranger to Atkins, a young fellow, rather good looking, dressed in
+blue serge trousers, negligee shirt, blue socks, and without shoes
+or hat. His garments were soaked, and the salt water dripped from his
+shoulders to the sand. The lightkeeper stared at him, and he returned
+the stare.
+
+"Gosh!" repeated Seth, after an instant of silence. "Jiminy crimps! I
+feel better."
+
+The stranger's smile broadened. "Glad to hear it, I'm sure," he said,
+slowly. "So do I, though there's still room for improvement. What was
+your particular ailment? Mine seems to have been water on the brain."
+
+He sat up and shakily ran a hand through his wet hair as he spoke.
+Atkins, his surprise doubled by this extraordinary behavior, could think
+of nothing to say.
+
+"Good morning," continued the young man, as if the meeting had been the
+most casual and ordinary possible; "I think you said a moment ago that
+you were feeling better. No relapse, I trust."
+
+"Relapse? What in the world? Are you crazy? I ain't sick."
+
+"That's good. I must have misunderstood you. Pleasant morning, isn't it?
+
+"Pleasant morn--Why, say! I--I--what in time are you doin', layin' there
+all soaked through? You scared me pretty nigh to death. I thought you
+was drowned, sure and sartin."
+
+"Did you? Well, to be honest, so did I, for a while. In fact, I'm not
+absolutely sure that I'm not, even yet. You'll excuse me if I lie down
+again, won't you? I never tried a seaweed pillow before, but it isn't so
+bad."
+
+He again stretched himself on the sand. Seth shook his head.
+
+"Well, if this don't beat me!" he exclaimed. "You're the coolest critter
+that ever I--I--"
+
+"I am cool," admitted the young man, with a slight shiver. "This
+stretch of ocean here isn't exactly a Turkish bath. I've been swimming
+since--well, an hour or two ago, and I am just a little chilled."
+
+He shivered again.
+
+"Swimmin'! An hour or two? Where on earth did you come from?"
+
+"Oh, I fell overboard from a steamer off here somewhere. I--"
+
+Another and emphatic shiver caused him to pause. The lightkeeper awoke
+to the realities of the situation.
+
+"Good land of love!" he exclaimed. "What am I thinkin' of? Seein' you
+this way, and you talkin' so kind of every-day and funny drove my senses
+clean out, I guess. Get right up off that wet place this minute. Come up
+to the house, quick! Can you walk?"
+
+"Don't know. I am willing to try. Would you mind giving me a lift?"
+
+Seth didn't mind, which was fortunate, as his new acquaintance couldn't
+have risen unaided. His knees shook under him when he stood erect, and
+he leaned heavily on the lightkeeper's arm.
+
+"Steady now," counselled Atkins; "no hurry. Take it easy. If you've
+navigated water all alone for hours, I cal'late between us we can manage
+to make a five-minute cruise on dry land. . . . Even if the course we
+steer would make an eel lame tryin' to follow it," he added, as the
+castaway staggered and reeled up the beach. "Now don't try to talk. Let
+your tongue rest and give your feet a chance."
+
+The climbing of the steep bluff was a struggle, but they accomplished
+it, and at length the stranger was seated in a chair in the kitchen.
+
+"Now, the fust thing," observed Seth, "is to get them wet clothes
+off you. Usually I'd have a good fire here, but that miserable Ezry
+has--that is, my assistant's left me, and I have to go it alone, as
+you might say. So we'll get you to bed and . . . No, you can't undress
+yourself, neither. Set still, and I'll have you peeled in a jiffy."
+
+His guest was making feeble efforts to remove his socks. Atkins pushed
+him back into the chair and stripped the blue and dripping rags from
+feet which were almost as blue from cold. The castaway attempted a weak
+resistance, but gave it up and said, with a whimsical smile:
+
+"I'm mightily obliged to you. I never realized before that a valet was
+such a blessing. Most of mine have been confounded nuisances."
+
+"Hey?" queried Seth, looking up.
+
+"Nothing. Pardon me for comparing you with a valet."
+
+"Land sakes! I don't care what you call me. I was out of my head once
+myself--typhoid fever 'twas--and they say the things I called the doctor
+was somethin' scandalous. You ain't responsible. You're beat out, and
+your brain's weak, like the rest of you. Now hold on till I get you a
+nightgown."
+
+He started for the bedroom. The young man seemed a bit troubled.
+
+"Just a minute," he observed. "Don't you think I had better move to
+a less conspicuous apartment? The door is open, and if any of your
+neighbors should happen by--any ladies, for instance, I--"
+
+"Ladies!" Mr. Atkins regarded him frowningly. "In the fust place, there
+ain't a neighbor nigher'n four miles; and, in the next, I'd have you
+understand no women come to this house. If you knew me better, young
+feller, you'd know that. Set where you be."
+
+The nightshirt was one of the lightkeeper's own, and, although Seth was
+a good-sized man, it fitted the castaway almost too tightly for comfort.
+However, it was dry and warm and, by leaving a button or two unfastened
+at the neck, answered the purpose well enough. The stranger was piloted
+to the bedroom, assisted into the depths of a feather bed, and covered
+with several layers of blankets and patchwork quilts.
+
+"There!" observed Seth, contentedly, "now you go to sleep. If you get to
+sweatin', so much the better. 'Twill get some of that cold water out of
+you. So long!"
+
+He departed, closing the door after him. Then he built a fire in the
+range, got breakfast, ate it, washed the dishes and continued his
+forenoon's work. Not a sound from the bedroom. Evidently the strange
+arrival had taken the advice concerning going to sleep. But all the time
+he was washing dishes, rubbing brass work or sweeping, Mr. Atkins's
+mind was busy with the puzzle which fate had handed him. Occasionally he
+chuckled, and often he shook his head. He could make nothing out of
+it. One thing only was certain--he had never before met a human being
+exactly like this specimen.
+
+It was half past twelve before there were signs of life in the bedroom.
+Seth was setting the table for dinner, when the door of the room opened
+a little way, and a voice said:
+
+"I say, are you there?"
+
+"I be. What do you want?"
+
+"Would you mind telling me what you've done with my clothes?"
+
+"Not a bit. I've got 'em out on the line, and they ain't dry yet. If
+you'll look on the chair by the sou'west window you'll find a rig-out of
+mine. I'm afraid 'twill fit you too quick--you're such an elephant--but
+I'll risk it if you will."
+
+Apparently the stranger was willing to risk it, for in a few moments
+he appeared, dressed in the Atkins Sunday suit of blue cloth, and with
+Seth's pet carpet slippers on his feet.
+
+"Hello!" was the lightkeeper's greeting. "How you feelin'?--better?"
+
+"Tip top, thank you. Where do you wash, when it's necessary?"
+
+"Basin right there in the sink. Soap in the becket over top of it.
+Roller towel on the closet door. Ain't you had water enough for a
+spell?"
+
+"Not fresh water, thank you. I'm caked with salt from head to foot."
+
+"Does make a feller feel like a split herrin', if he ain't used to it.
+Think you can eat anything?"
+
+"Can I?" The response was enthusiastic. "You watch me! My last meal was
+yesterday noon."
+
+"Yesterday NOON! Didn't you eat no supper?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, I--well, to be frank, because I hadn't the price. It took my last
+cent to pay my fare on that blessed steamer."
+
+"Great land of love! What time was it when you fell overboard?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Two o'clock, perhaps."
+
+"Two o'clock! What was you doin' up at two o'clock? Why wasn't you in
+your stateroom asleep?"
+
+"I hadn't any stateroom. Staterooms cost money."
+
+"My soul! And you swum three hours on an empty stomach?"
+
+"Not altogether. Part of it on my back. But, if you'll excuse
+familiarity on short acquaintance, those things you're cooking smell
+good to me."
+
+"Them's clam fritters, and, if YOU'LL excuse my sayin' so that
+shouldn't, they ARE good. Set down and fill up."
+
+The visitor ate nine of the fritters, a slice of dried-apple pie, and
+drank two cups of coffee. Seth, between intervals of frying and eating,
+watched him with tremendous curiosity and as much patience as he could
+muster. When the pie was finished he asked the first of the questions
+with which he had been bursting all the forenoon.
+
+"Tell me," he said, "how'd you come to fall overboard?"
+
+"I'm not very certain just how it happened. I remember leaning over the
+rail and watching the waves. Then I was very dizzy all at once. The next
+thing I knew I was in the water."
+
+"Dizzy, hey? Seasick, may be."
+
+"I guess not. I'm a pretty good sailor. I'm inclined to think the cause
+was that empty stomach you mentioned."
+
+"Um-hm. You didn't have no supper. Still, you ate the noon afore."
+
+"Not much. Only a sandwich."
+
+"A sandwich! What did you have for breakfast?"
+
+"Well, the fact is, I overslept and decided to omit the breakfast."
+
+"Gosh! no wonder you got dizzy. If I went without meals for a whole
+day I cal'late I'd be worse than dizzy. What did you do when you found
+yourself in the water?"
+
+"Yelled at first, but no one heard me. Then I saw some lights off in
+this direction and started to swim for them. I made the shore finally,
+but I was so used up that I don't remember anything after the landing.
+Think I took a nap."
+
+"I presume likely. Wonder 'twasn't your everlastin' nap! Tut! tut! tut!
+Think of it!"
+
+"I don't want to, thank you. It isn't pleasant enough to think of. I'm
+here and--by the way, where IS here?"
+
+"This is Eastboro township--Eastboro, Cape Cod. Them lights out there
+are Eastboro Twin-Lights. I'm the keeper of 'em. My name's Atkins, Seth
+Atkins."
+
+"Delighted to meet you, Mr. Atkins. And tremendously obliged to you,
+besides."
+
+"You needn't be. I ain't done nothin'. Let me see, you said your name
+was--"
+
+"Did I?" The young man seemed startled, almost alarmed. "When?"
+
+Seth was embarrassed, but not much. "Well," he admitted, "I don't know's
+you did say it, come to think of it. What IS your name?"
+
+"My name?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, why--my name is Brown--er--John Brown. Not the gentleman who was
+hanged, of course; distant relative, that's all."
+
+"Hum! John Brown, hey? What steamer did you fall off of?"
+
+"Why--why--I can't seem to remember. That's odd, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, I should say 'twas. Where was she bound?"
+
+"Bound? Oh, you mean where was she going?"
+
+"Sartin."
+
+"I think--I think she was going to--to. . . . Humph! how strange this
+is!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why, that I should forget all these things."
+
+The lightkeeper regarded his guest with suspicion.
+
+"Yaas," he drawled slowly, "when you call it strange you ain't
+exaggeratin' none wuth mentionin'. I s'pose," he added, after a moment,
+during which he stared intently at Mr. Brown, who smiled in polite
+acknowledgment of the stare; "I s'pose likely you couldn't possibly
+remember what port you hailed from?"
+
+"I suppose not," was the calm reply.
+
+Seth rose from the table.
+
+"Well," he observed, "I've been up all night, too, and it's past my
+bedtime. As I told you, my assistant's left all of a sudden and I'm
+alone in charge of gov'ment property. I ought to turn in, but--" he
+hesitated.
+
+John Brown also rose.
+
+"Mr. Atkins," he said, "my memory seems to be pretty bad, but I haven't
+forgotten everything. For instance," his smile disappeared, and his tone
+became earnest, "I can remember perfectly well that I'm not a crook,
+that I haven't done anything to be ashamed of--as I see it--that I'm
+very grateful to you, and that I don't steal. If you care to believe
+that and, also, that, being neither a sneak or a thief, I sha'n't clear
+out with the spoons while you're asleep, you might--well, you might risk
+turning in."
+
+The lightkeeper did not answer immediately. The pair looked each other
+straight in the eye.
+
+Then Seth yawned and turned toward the bedroom.
+
+"I'll risk it," he said, curtly. "If I ain't awake by six o'clock I
+wish you'd call me. You'll find some spare clay pipes and tobacco on the
+mantelpiece by the clock. So long."
+
+He entered the bedroom and closed the door. Mr. Brown stepped over to
+the mantel and helped himself to a pipe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MR. BROWN PUTS IN AN APPLICATION
+
+
+At half past five the lightkeeper opened the bedroom door and peeped
+out. The kitchen was empty. There was no sign of Mr. Brown. It took Seth
+just four minutes to climb into the garments he had discarded and reach
+the open air. His guest was seated on the bench beside the house, one of
+the clay pipes in his hand. He was looking out to sea. He spoke first:
+
+"Hello!" he said. "You're up ahead of time, aren't you? It isn't six
+yet."
+
+Atkins grinned. "No," he answered, "'tain't! not quite. But sence Ezry
+cleared out I've been a kind of human alarm clock, as you might say.
+Feelin' all right, are you?"
+
+"Yes, thank you. I say," holding up the pipe and regarding it
+respectfully, "is this tobacco of yours furnished by the government?"
+
+"No. Some I bought myself last time I was over to the Center. Why,
+what's the matter with it? Ain't it good?"
+
+"Perhaps so."
+
+"Then what made you ask? Ain't it strong enough?"
+
+"Strong enough! You're disposed to be sarcastic. It's stronger than I
+am. What do they flavor it with--tar?"
+
+"Say, let's see that plug. THAT ain't smokin' tobacco."
+
+"What is it, then--asphalt?"
+
+"Why, haw! haw! That's a piece of Ezry's chewin'. Some he left when he
+went away. It's 'Honest Friend.' 'TIS flavored up consider'ble. And you
+tried to smoke it! Ho! ho!"
+
+The young man joined in the laugh.
+
+"That explains why it bubbled so," he said. "I used twenty-two matches,
+by actual count, and then gave it up. Bah!" he smacked his lips
+disgustedly and made a face: "'Honest Friend'--is that the name of it?
+Meaning that it'll stick to you through life, I presume. Water has no
+effect on the taste; I've tried it."
+
+"Maybe some supper might help. I'll wash the dinner dishes and start
+gettin' it. All there seems to be to this job of mine just now is
+washin' dishes. And how I hate it!"
+
+He reentered the kitchen. Then he uttered an exclamation:
+
+"Why, what's become of the dishes?" he demanded. "I left 'em here on the
+table."
+
+Brown arose from the bench and sauntered to the door.
+
+"I washed them," he said. "I judged that you would have to if I didn't,
+and it seemed the least I could do, everything considered."
+
+"Sho! You washed the dishes, hey? Where'd you put 'em?"
+
+"In the closet there. That's where they belong, isn't it?"
+
+Seth went to the closet, took a plate from the pile and inspected it.
+
+"Um!" he grunted, turning the plate over, "that ain't such a bad job.
+Not so all-fired bad, for a green hand. What did you wash 'em with?"
+
+"A cloth I found hanging by the sink."
+
+"I see. Yes, yes. And you wiped 'em on--what?"
+
+"Well, to tell you the truth, I didn't see any towels in sight, except
+that one on the door; and, for various reasons, I judged that wasn't a
+dish towel."
+
+"Good judgment. 'Tisn't. Go on."
+
+"So I hunted around, and in the closet in the parlor, or living room, or
+whatever you call it, I found a whole stack of things that looked like
+towels; so I used one of those."
+
+"Is this it?" Seth picked up a damp and bedraggled cloth from the table.
+
+"That's it. I should have hung it up somewhere, I suppose. I'll lose my
+job if I don't look out."
+
+"Um! Well, I'm much obliged to you, only--"
+
+"Only?"
+
+"Only you washed them dishes with the sink cloth and wiped 'em with a
+piller case."
+
+The volunteer dishwasher's mouth opened.
+
+"NO!" he gasped.
+
+"Ya-as."
+
+"A pillow case! Well, by George!"
+
+"Um-hm. I jedge you ain't washed many dishes in your lifetime."
+
+"Not so very many. No."
+
+They looked at each other and burst into a roar of laughter. Brown was
+the first to recover.
+
+"Well," he observed, "I guess it's up to me. If you'll kindly put me
+next to a genuine cloth, or sponge, or whatever is the proper caper for
+dish-washing, I'll undertake to do them over again. And, for heaven's
+sake, lock up the pillow cases."
+
+Seth protested, declaring that the dishes need not be rewashed that very
+minute, and that when he got a chance he would do them himself. But the
+young man was firm, and, at last, the lightkeeper yielded.
+
+"It's real kind of you," he declared, "and bein' as I've consider'ble
+to do, I don't know but I'll let you. Here's a couple of dishcloths, and
+there's the towels. I'm goin' out to see to the lights, and I'll be back
+pretty soon and get supper."
+
+Later in the evening, after supper, the housework done, they sat again
+on the bench beside the door, each with a pipe, filled, this time,
+with genuine smoking tobacco. Before and below them was the quiet sea,
+rolling lazily under the stars. Overhead the big lanterns in the towers
+thrust their parallel lances of light afar into the darkness. The
+only sounds were the low wash of the surf and the hum of the eager
+mosquitoes. Brown was silent, alternately puffing at the pipe and
+slapping at the insects, which latter, apparently finding his skin
+easier to puncture than that of the tanned and leathery Atkins, were
+making the most of their opportunity.
+
+Seth, whose curiosity had been checked but not smothered by his
+companion's evident desire to say nothing concerning himself, was busy
+thinking of various guileful schemes with which to entrap the castaway
+into the disclosure of his identity. Having prepared his bait, he
+proceeded to get over a line.
+
+"Mr. Brown," he said, "I ain't mentioned it to you afore, 'count of your
+needin' rest and grub and all after your fallin' overboard last night.
+But tomorrer you'll be feelin' fustrate again, and I cal'late you'll be
+wantin' to get word to your folks. Now we can telephone to the Eastboro
+depot, where there's a telegraph, and the depot master'll send a
+dispatch to your people, lettin' 'em know you're all safe and sound. If
+you'll just give me the address and what you want to say, I'll 'tend
+to it myself. The depot master's a good friend of mine, and he'll risk
+sending the dispatch 'collect' if I tell him to."
+
+"Thank you," replied Brown, shortly.
+
+"Oh, don't mention it. Now who'll I send it to?"
+
+"You needn't send it. I couldn't think of putting you to further
+trouble."
+
+"Trouble! 'Tain't no trouble to telephone. Land sakes, I do it four or
+five times a day. Now who'll I send it to?"
+
+"You needn't send it."
+
+"Oh, well, of course, if you'd ruther send it yourself--"
+
+"I sha'n't send it. It really isn't worth while 'phoning or telegraphing
+either. I didn't drown, and I'm very comfortable, thank you--or should
+be if it weren't for these mosquitoes."
+
+"Comf'table! Yes, you're comf'table, but how about your folks? Won't
+they learn, soon's that steamer gets into--into Portland--or--or--New
+York or Boston--or . . . Hey?"
+
+"I didn't speak."
+
+Seth swallowed hard and continued. "Well, wherever she was bound," he
+snapped. "Won't they learn that you sot sail in her and never got there?
+Then they'll know that you MUST have fell overboard."
+
+John Brown drew a mouthful of smoke through the stem of the pipe and
+blew it spitefully among the mosquitoes.
+
+"I don't see how they'll learn it," he replied.
+
+"Why, the steamer folks'll wire em right off."
+
+"They'll have to find them first."
+
+"That'll be easy enough. There'll be your name, 'John Brown,' of such
+and such a place, written right on the purser's book, won't it."
+
+"No," drawled Mr. Brown, "it won't."
+
+The lightkeeper felt very much as if this particular road to the truth
+had ended suddenly in a blind alley. He pulled viciously at his chin
+whiskers. His companion shifted his position on the bench. Silence fell
+again, as much silence as the mosquitoes would permit.
+
+Suddenly Brown seemed to reach a determination.
+
+"Atkins," he said briskly, and with considerable bitterness in his tone,
+"don't you worry about my people. They don't know where I am, and--well,
+some of them, at least, don't care. Maybe I'm a rolling stone--at any
+rate, I haven't gathered any moss, any financial moss. I'm broke. I
+haven't any friends, any that I wish to remember; I haven't any job.
+I am what you might call down and out. If I had drowned when I fell
+overboard last night, it might have been a good thing--or it might not.
+We won't argue the question, because just now I'm ready to take either
+side. But let's talk about yourself. You're lightkeeper here?"
+
+"I be, yes."
+
+"And these particular lights seem to be a good way from everywhere and
+everybody."
+
+"Five mile from Eastboro Center, sixteen from Denboro, and two from the
+nighest life savin' station. Why?"
+
+"Oh, just for instance. No neighbors, you said?"
+
+"Nary one."
+
+"I noticed a bungalow just across the brook here. It seems to be shut
+up. Who owns it?"
+
+"Bunga--which? Oh, that cottage over on t'other side the crick? That
+b'longs to a couple of paintin' fellers from up Boston way. Not house
+painters, you understand, but fellers that put in their time paintin'
+pictures of the water and the beach and the like of that. Seems a pretty
+silly job for grown-up men, but they're real pleasant and folksy. Don't
+put on no airs nor nothin.' They're most gen'rally here every June and
+July and August, but I understand they ain't comin' this year, so the
+cottage'll be shut up. I'll miss 'em, kind of. One of 'em's name is
+Graham and t'other's Hamilton."
+
+"I see. Many visitors to the lights?"
+
+"Not many. Once in a while a picnic comes over in a livery four-seater,
+but not often. The same gang never comes twice. Road's too bad, and they
+complain like fury about the moskeeters."
+
+"Do they? How peevish! Atkins, you're not married?"
+
+It was an innocent question, but it had an astonishing effect. The
+lightkeeper bounced on the bench as if someone had kicked it violently
+from beneath.
+
+"What?" he quavered shrilly. "Wha--what's that?"
+
+Brown was surprised. "I asked if you were married, that's all," he said.
+"I can't see--"
+
+"Stop!" Seth's voice shook, and he bent down to glare through the
+darkness at his companion's face. "Stop!" he ordered. "You asked me if I
+was--married?"
+
+"Yes. Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you? See here, young feller, you--you--what made you ask
+that?"
+
+"What made me?"
+
+"Stop sayin' my words after me. Are you a man or a poll-parrot? Can't
+you understand plain United States language? What made you? Or WHO made
+you? Who told you to ask me that question?"
+
+He pounded the bench with his fist. The pair stared at each other for a
+moment; then Brown leaned back and began to whistle. Seth seized him by
+the shoulders.
+
+"Quit that foolishness, d'you hear?" he snarled. "Quit it, and answer
+me!"
+
+The answer was prefaced by a pitying shake of the head.
+
+"It's the mosquitoes," observed the young man, musingly. "They get
+through and puncture the brain after a time, I presume. I'm not
+surprised exactly, but," with a sigh, "I'm very sorry."
+
+"What are you talkin' about," demanded Atkins. "Be you crazy?"
+
+"No-o. I'M not."
+
+"YOU'RE not! Do you mean that I am?"
+
+"Well," slowly, "I'm not an expert in such cases, but when a perfectly
+simple, commonplace question sets a chap to pounding and screaming and
+offering violence, then--well, it's either insanity or an attempt at
+insult, one or the other. I've given you the benefit of the doubt."
+
+He scratched a match on his heel and relit his pipe. The lightkeeper
+still stared, suspicious and puzzled. Then he drew a long breath.
+
+"I--I didn't mean to insult you," he stammered.
+
+"Glad to hear it, I'm sure. If I were you, however, I should see a
+doctor for the other trouble."
+
+"And I ain't crazy, neither. I beg your pardon for hollerin' and
+grabbin' hold of you."
+
+"Granted."
+
+"Thank ye. Now," hesitatingly, "would you mind tellin' me why you asked
+me if I was married?"
+
+"Not in the least. I asked merely because it occurred to me that you
+might be. Of course, I had seen nothing of your wife, but it was
+barely possible that she was away on a visit, or somewhere. There is no
+regulation forbidding lightkeepers marrying--at least, I never heard of
+any--and so I asked; that's all."
+
+Seth nodded. "I see," he said, slowly; "yes, yes, I see. So you didn't
+have no special reason."
+
+"I did not. Of course, if I had realized that you were subject
+to--er--fits, I should have been more careful."
+
+"Hum! . . . Well, I--I beg your pardon again. I--I am kind of touchy on
+some p'ints. Didn't I tell you no women came here? Married! A wife! Do I
+look like a dum fool?"
+
+"Not now."
+
+"Well, then! And I've apologized for bein' one a few minutes ago, ain't
+I."
+
+"Yes, you have. No grudge on my part, I assure you. Let's forget it and
+talk of something else."
+
+They did, but the dialogue was rather jerky. Brown was thinking, and
+Atkins seemed moody and disinclined to talk. After a time he announced
+that it was getting late and he cal'lated he would go up to the light
+room. "You'd better turn in," he added, rising.
+
+"Just a minute," said the young man. "Wait just a minute. Atkins,
+suppose I asked you another question--would you become violent at once?
+or merely by degrees?"
+
+Seth frowned. The suspicious look returned to his face.
+
+"Humph!" he grunted. "Depended on what you asked me, maybe."
+
+"Yes. Well, this one is harmless--at least, I hope it is. I thought the
+other was, also, but I . . . There! there! be calm. Sit down again and
+listen. This question is nothing like that. It's about that assistant of
+yours, the chap who left a day or two before I drifted in. What were his
+duties? What did he have to do when he was here?"
+
+"Wa-al," drawled Seth with sarcasm, resuming his seat on the bench; "he
+was SUPPOSED to do consider'ble many things. Stand watch and watch
+with me, and scrub brass and clean up around, and sweep and wash dishes
+and--and--well, make himself gen'rally useful. Them was the duties he
+was supposed to have. What he done was diff'rent. Pesky loafer! Why?"
+
+"That's what I'm going to tell you. Have they appointed his successor
+yet? Have you got any one to take his place?"
+
+"No. Fact is, I'd ought to have telegraphed right off to the Board, but
+I ain't. I was so glad to see the last of him that I kept puttin' it
+off. I'll do it tomorrer."
+
+"Perhaps you won't need to."
+
+"Course I'll need to! Why not? Got to have somebody to help. That's
+rules and regulations; and, besides, I can't keep awake day and night,
+too. What makes you think I won't need to?"
+
+The young man knocked the ashes from his pipe. Rising, he laid a hand on
+his companion's shoulder.
+
+"Because you've got an assistant right here on the premises," he said.
+"Delivered by the Atlantic express right at your door. Far be it from
+me to toot my horn, Mr. Atkins, or to proclaim my merits from the
+housetops. But, speaking as one discerning person to another, when it
+comes to an A1, first chop lightkeeper's assistant, I ask: 'What's the
+matter with yours truly, John Brown?'"
+
+Seth's reply was not in words. The hand holding his pipe fell limp upon
+his lap, and he stared at the speaker. The latter, entirely unabashed,
+waved an airy gesture, and continued.
+
+"I repeat," he said, "'What's the matter with John Brown?' And echo
+answers, 'He's all right!' I am a candidate for the position of
+assistant keeper at Eastboro Twin-Lights."
+
+"YOU?"
+
+"Me."
+
+"But--but--aw, go on! You're foolin'."
+
+"Not a fool. I mean it. I am here. I'm green, but in the sunshine of
+your experience I agree to ripen rapidly. I can wash dishes--you've seen
+me. I believe I could scrub brass and sweep."
+
+"You wantin' to be assistant at a place like this! YOU! an edicated,
+able young chap, that's been used to valets and servants and--"
+
+"Why do you say that? How do you know I've been used to those things?"
+
+"'Cause, as I hinted to you a spell ago, I ain't altogether a dum fool.
+I can put two and two together and make four, without having the example
+done for me on a blackboard. You're a rich man's son; you've been used
+to sassiety and city ways and good clothes. YOU wantin' to put in your
+days and nights in a forsaken hole like this! Nonsense! Get out!"
+
+But Mr. Brown refused to get out.
+
+"No nonsense about it," he declared. "It is the hand of Fate. With the
+whole broadside of Cape Cod to land upon, why was I washed ashore just
+at this particular spot? Answer:--Because at this spot, at this time,
+Eastboro Twin-Lights needed an assistant keeper. I like the spot. It
+is beautiful. 'Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife.' With your
+permission, I'll stay here. The leopard may or may not change his
+spots, but I sha'n't. I like this one and here I stay. Yes, I mean it. I
+stay--as your assistant. Come, what do you say? Is it a go?"
+
+The lightkeeper rose once more. "I'm goin' on watch," he said with
+decision. "You turn in. You'll feel better in the mornin'."
+
+He started towards the tower. But John Brown sprang from the bench and
+followed him.
+
+"Not until you've answered my question," he declared. "AM I to be your
+assistant?"
+
+"No, course you ain't. It's dum foolishness. Besides, I ain't got the
+say; the government hires its own keepers."
+
+"But you can square the government. That will be easy. Why," with a
+modest gesture, "look what the government is getting. It will jump at
+the chance. Atkins, you must say yes."
+
+"I sha'n't, neither. Let go of my arm. It's blame foolishness, I tell
+you. Why," impatiently, "course it's foolishness! I don't know the first
+thing about you."
+
+"What of it? I don't know anything about you, either."
+
+Again the lightkeeper seemed unaccountably agitated. He stopped in his
+stride and whirled to face his companion.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" he demanded fiercely. Before the young man
+could reply, he turned again, strode to the door of the light, flung
+it open, and disappeared within. The door closed behind him with a
+thunderous bang.
+
+John Brown gazed after him in bewilderment. Then he shrugged his
+shoulders and returned to the bench.
+
+The surf at the foot of the bluff grumbled and chuckled wickedly, as if
+it knew all of poor humanity's secrets and found a cynic's enjoyment in
+the knowledge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE COMING OF JOB
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE GOING OF JOSHUA
+
+
+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'."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE PICNIC
+
+
+Seth was true to his promise concerning Job. The next afternoon that
+remarkable canine was decoyed, by the usual bone, into the box in which
+he had arrived. Being in, the cover was securely renailed above him.
+Brown and the light-keeper lifted the box into the back part of the
+"open wagon," and Atkins drove triumphantly away, the pup's agonized
+protests against the journey serving as spurs to urge Joshua faster
+along the road to the village. When, about six o'clock, Seth reentered
+the yard, he was grinning broadly.
+
+"Well," inquired Brown, "did he take him back willingly?"
+
+"Who? Henry G.? I don't know about the willin' part, but he'll take him
+back. I attended to that."
+
+"What did he say? Did he think you ungrateful for refusing to accept his
+present?"
+
+Atkins laughed aloud. "He didn't say nothin'," he declared. "He didn't
+know it when I left Eastboro. I wa'n't such a fool as to cart that
+critter to the store, where all the gang 'round the store could holler
+and make fun. Not much! I drove way round the other way, up the back
+road, and unloaded him at Henry's house. I cal'lated to leave him with
+Aunt Olive--that's Henry's sister, keepin' house for him--but she'd gone
+out to sewin' circle, and there wa'n't nobody to home. The side door was
+unlocked, so I lugged that box into the settin' room and left it there.
+Pretty nigh broke my back; and that everlastin' Job hollered so I
+thought the whole town would hear him and come runnin' to stop the
+murderin' that they'd cal'late was bein' done. But there ain't no nigh
+neighbors, and those that are nighest ain't on speakin' terms with
+Henry; ruther have him murdered than not, I shouldn't wonder. So I left
+Job in his box in the settin' room and cleared out."
+
+The substitute assistant smiled delightedly.
+
+"Good enough!" he exclaimed. "What a pleasant surprise for friend Henry
+or his housekeeper."
+
+"Ho, ho! ain't it! I rather guess 'twill be Henry himself that's
+surprised fust. Aunt Olive never leaves sewin' circle till the last bit
+of supper's eat up--she's got some of her brother's stinginess in her
+make-up--so I cal'late Henry'll get home afore she does. I shouldn't
+wonder," with an exuberant chuckle, "if that settin' room' was some
+stirred up when he sees it. The pup had loosened the box cover afore I
+left. Ho, ho!"
+
+"But won't he send the dog back here again?"
+
+"No, he won't. I left a note for him on the table. There was
+consider'ble ginger in every line of it. No, Job won't be sent here,
+no matter what becomes of him. And if anything SHOULD be broke in that
+settin' room--well, there was SOME damage done to our kitchen. No, I
+guess Henry G. and me are square. He won't make any fuss; he wants to
+keep our trade, you see."
+
+It was a true prophecy. The storekeeper made no trouble, and Job
+remained at Eastboro until a foray on a neighbor's chickens resulted
+in his removal from this vale of tears. Neither the lightkeeper nor
+his helper ever saw him again, and when Seth next visited the store
+and solicitously inquired concerning the pup's health, Henry G. merely
+looked foolish and changed the subject.
+
+But the dog's short sojourn at the Twin-Lights had served to solve one
+mystery, that of Atkins's daily excursions to Pounddug Slough. He
+went there to work on the old schooner, the Daisy M. Seth made no more
+disclosures concerning his past life--that remained a secret--but he did
+suggest his helper's going to inspect the schooner. "Just walk across
+and look her over," he said. "I'd like to know what you think of her.
+See if I ain't makin' a pretty good job out of nothin'. FOR nothin', of
+course," he added, gloomily; "but it keeps me from thinkin' too much. Go
+and see her, that's a good feller."
+
+So the young man did go. He climbed aboard the stranded craft--a forlorn
+picture she made, lying on her side in the mud--and was surprised to
+find how much had been manufactured "out of nothing." Her seams, those
+which the sun had opened, were caulked neatly; her deck was clean and
+white; she was partially rigged, with new and old canvas and ropes; and
+to his landsman's eyes she looked almost fit for sea. But when he said
+as much to Seth, the latter laughed scornfully.
+
+"Fit for nothin'," scoffed the lightkeeper. "I could make her fit,
+maybe, if I wanted to spend money enough, but I don't. I can't get at
+her starboard side, that's down in the mud, and I cal'late she'd leak
+like a skimmer. She's only got a fores'l and a jib, and the jib's only
+a little one that used to belong to a thirty-foot sloop. Her anchor's
+gone, and I wouldn't trust her main topmast to carry anything bigger'n a
+handkerchief, nor that in a breeze no more powerful than a canary bird's
+breath. And, as I told you, it would take a tide like a flood to float
+her. No, she's no good, and never will be; but," with a sigh, "I get a
+little fun fussin' over her."
+
+"Er--by the way," he added, a little later, "of course you won't mention
+to nobody what I told you about--about my bein' a fishin' skipper
+once. Not that anybody ever comes here for you to mention it to, but I
+wouldn't want . . . You see, nobody in Eastboro or anywheres on the Cape
+knows where I come from, and so . . . Oh, all right, all right. I know
+you ain't the kind to talk. Mind our own business, that's the motto you
+and me cruise under, hey?"
+
+Yet, although the conversation in the substitute assistant's room was
+not again referred to by either, it had the effect of making the oddly
+assorted pair a bit closer in their companionship. The mutual trust
+was strengthened by the lightkeeper's half confidence and Brown's
+sympathetic reception of it. Each was lonely, each had moments when
+he felt he must express his hidden feelings to some one, and, though
+neither recognized the fact, it was certain that the time was coming
+when all mysteries would be mysteries no longer. And one day occurred a
+series of ridiculous happenings which, bidding fair at first to end in
+a quarrel the relationship between the two, instead revealed in both a
+kindred trait that removed the last barrier.
+
+At a little before ten on this particular morning, Brown, busy in
+the kitchen, heard vigorous language outside. It was Atkins who was
+speaking, and the assistant wondered who on earth he could be talking
+to. A glance around the doorpost showed that he was, apparently, talking
+to himself--at least, there was no other human being to be seen. He held
+in his hand a battered pair of marine glasses and occasionally he peered
+through them. Each time he did so his soliloquy became more animated and
+profane.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded Brown, emerging from the house.
+
+"Matter?" repeated Seth. "Matter enough! Here! take a squint through
+them glasses and tell me who's in that buggy comin' yonder?"
+
+The buggy, a black dot far down the sandy road leading from the village,
+was rocking and dipping over the dunes. The assistant took the glasses,
+adjusted them, and looked as directed.
+
+"Why!" he said slowly, "there are three people in that buggy. A
+man--and--"
+
+"And two women; that's what I thought. Dum idiots comin' over to picnic
+and spend the day, sure's taxes. And they'll want to be showed round the
+lights and everywheres, and they'll ask more'n forty million questions.
+Consarn the luck!"
+
+Brown looked troubled. He had no desire to meet strangers.
+
+"How do you know they're coming here?" he asked. The answer was
+conclusive.
+
+"Because," snarled Seth, "as I should think you'd know by this time,
+there ain't no other place round here they COULD come to."
+
+A moment later, he added, "Well, you'll have to show 'em round."
+
+"I will?"
+
+"Sartin. That's part of the assistant keeper's job."
+
+He chuckled as he said it. That chuckle grated on the young man's
+nerves.
+
+"I'm not the assistant," he declared cheerfully.
+
+"You ain't? What are you then?"
+
+"Oh, just a helper. I don't get any wages. You've told me yourself, over
+and over, that I have no regular standing here. And, according to
+the government rules, those you've got posted in the kitchen, the
+lightkeeper is obliged to show visitors about. I wouldn't break the
+rules for the world. Good morning. Think I'll go down to the beach."
+
+He stalked away whistling. Atkins, his face flaming, roared after him a
+profane opinion concerning his actions. Then he went into the kitchen,
+slamming the door with a bang.
+
+Some twenty minutes later the helper heard his name shouted from the top
+of the bluff.
+
+"Mr. Brown! I say! Ahoy there, Mr. Brown! Come up here a minute, won't
+ye?"
+
+Brown clambered up the path. A little man, with grey throat whiskers,
+and wearing an antiquated straw hat, the edge of the brim trimmed with
+black braid, was standing waiting for him.
+
+"Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Brown," stammered the little man, "but you be
+Mr. Brown, ain't you?"
+
+"I am. Yes."
+
+"Well, I cal'lated you was. My name's Stover, Abijah Stover. I live over
+to Trumet. Me and my wife drove over for a sort of picnic like. We've
+got her cousin, Mrs. Sophia Hains, along. Sophi's a widow from Boston,
+and she ain't never seen a lighthouse afore. I know Seth Atkins
+slightly, and I was cal'latin' he'd show us around, but bein' as he's so
+sick--"
+
+"Sick? Is Mr. Atkins sick?"
+
+"Why, yes. Didn't you know it? He's in the bedroom there groanin'
+somethin' terrible. He told me not to say nothin' to the women folks,
+but to hail you, and you'd look out for us. Didn't you know he was laid
+up? Why, he--"
+
+Brown did not wait to hear more. He strode to the house, with Mr. Stover
+at his heels. On his way he caught a glimpse of the buggy, the horse
+dozing between the shafts. On the seat of the buggy were two women, one
+plump and round-faced, the other thin and gaunt.
+
+Mr. Stover panted behind him.
+
+"Say, Mr. Brown," he whispered, as they entered the kitchen; "don't tell
+my wife nor Sophi about Seth's bein' sick. Better not say a word to them
+about it."
+
+The tone in which this was spoken made the substitute assistant curious.
+
+"Why not?" he asked.
+
+"'Cause--well, 'cause Hannah's hobby is sick folks, as you might say. If
+there's a cat in the neighborhood that's ailin' she's always dosin' of
+it up and fixin' medicine for it, and the like of that. And Sophi's one
+of them 'New Thoughters' and don't believe anybody's got any right to be
+sick. The two of 'em ain't done nothin' but argue and row over diseases
+and imagination and medicines ever since Sophi got here. If they knew
+Seth was laid up, I honestly believe they'd drop picnic and everythin'
+and start fightin' over whether he was really sick or just thought he
+was. And I sort of figgered on havin' a quiet day off."
+
+Brown found the lightkeeper stretched on the bed in his room. He was
+dressed, with the exception of coat and boots, and when the young man
+entered he groaned feebly.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded the alarmed helper.
+
+"Oh, my!" groaned Seth. "Oh, my!"
+
+"Are you in pain? What is it? Shall I 'phone for the doctor?"
+
+"No, no. No use gettin' the doctor. I'll be all right by and by. It's
+one of my attacks. I have 'em every once in a while. Just let me alone,
+and let me lay here without bein' disturbed; then I'll get better, I
+guess."
+
+"But it's so sudden!"
+
+"I know. They always come on that way. Now run along, like a good
+feller, and leave me to my suff'rin's. O-oh, dear!"
+
+Much troubled, Brown turned to the door. As he was going out he happened
+to look back. The dresser stood against the wall beyond the bed, and
+in its mirror he caught a glimpse of the face of the sick man. On that
+face, which should have been distorted with agony, was a broad grin.
+
+Brown found the little Stover man waiting for him in the kitchen.
+
+"Be you ready?" he asked.
+
+"Ready?" repeated Brown, absently. "Ready for what?"
+
+"Why, to show us round the lights. Sophi, she ain't never seen one
+afore. Atkins said that, bein' as he wasn't able to leave his bed, you'd
+show us around."
+
+"He did, hey?"
+
+"Yes. He said you'd be glad to."
+
+"Hum!" Mr. Brown's tone was that of one upon whom, out of darkness, a
+light has suddenly burst. "I see," he mused, thoughtfully. "Yes, yes. I
+see."
+
+For a minute he stood still, evidently pondering. Then, with a twinkle
+in his eye, he strode out of the house and walked briskly across to the
+buggy.
+
+"Good morning, ladies," he said, removing the new cap which Seth had
+recently purchased for him in Eastboro. "Mr. Stover tells me you wish to
+be shown the lights."
+
+The plump woman answered. "Yes," she said, briskly, "we do. Are you a
+new keeper? Where's Mr. Atkins?"
+
+"Mr. Atkins, I regret to say," began Brown, "is ill. He--"
+
+Stover, standing at his elbow, interrupted nervously.
+
+"Mr. Brown here'll show us around," he said quickly. "Seth said he
+would."
+
+"I shall be happy," concurred that young gentleman. "You must excuse me
+if I seem rather worried. Mr. Atkins, my chief--I believe you know him,
+Mrs. Stover--has been taken suddenly ill, and is, apparently, suffering
+much pain. The attack was very sudden, and I--"
+
+"Sick?" The plump woman seemed actually to prick up her ears, like a
+sleepy cat at the sound of the dinner bell. "Is Seth sick? And you all
+alone with him here? Can't I do anything to help?"
+
+"All he wants is to be left alone," put in her husband anxiously. "He
+said so himself."
+
+"Do you know what's the matter? Have you got any medicine for him?" Mrs.
+Stover was already climbing out of the buggy.
+
+"No," replied Brown. "I haven't. That is, I haven't given him any yet."
+
+The slim woman, Mrs. Hains of Boston, now broke into the conversation.
+
+"Good thing!" she snapped. "Most medicine's nothing but opium and
+alcohol. Fill the poor creature full of drugs and--"
+
+"I s'pose you'd set and preach New Thought at him!" snapped Mrs. Stover.
+"As if a body could be cured by hot air! I believe I'll go right in and
+see him. Don't you s'pose I could help, Mr. Brown?"
+
+Mr. Brown seemed pleased, but reluctant. "It's awfully good of you," he
+said. "I couldn't think of troubling you when you've come so far on a
+pleasure excursion. But I am at my wit s end."
+
+"Don't say another word!" Mrs. Stover's bulky figure was already on the
+way to the door of the house. "I'm only too glad to do what I can. And,
+if I do say it, that shouldn't, I'm always real handy in a sick room.
+'Bijah, be quiet; I don't care if we ARE on a picnic; no human bein'
+shall suffer while I set around and do nothin'."
+
+Mrs. Hains was at her cousin's heels.
+
+"You'll worry him to death," she declared. "You'll tell him how sick
+he is, and that he's goin' to die, and such stuff. What he needs is
+cheerful conversation and mental uplift. It's too bad! Well, you sha'n't
+have your own way with him, anyhow. Mr. Brown, where is he?"
+
+"You two goin' to march right into his BEDROOM?" screamed the irate
+Abijah. The women answered not. They were already in the kitchen. Brown
+hastened after them.
+
+"It's all right, ladies," he said. "Right this way, please."
+
+He led the way to the chamber of the sick man. Mr. Atkins turned on his
+bed of pain, caught a glimpse of the visitors, and sat up.
+
+"What in time?" he roared.
+
+"Seth," said Brown, benignly, "this is Mrs. Stover of Eastboro. I think
+you know her. And Mrs. Hains of Boston. These ladies have heard of your
+sickness, and, having had experience in such cases, have kindly offered
+to stay with you and help in any way they can. Mrs. Stover, I will leave
+him in your hands. Please call me if I can be of any assistance."
+
+Without waiting for further comment from the patient, whose face was a
+picture, he hastened to the kitchen, choking as he went. Mr. Stover met
+him at the outer door.
+
+"Now you've done it!" wailed the little man. "NOW you've done it! Didn't
+I tell you? Oh, this'll be a hell of a picnic!"
+
+He stalked away, righteous indignation overcoming him. Brown sat down in
+a rocking chair and shook with emotion. From the direction of the sick
+room came the sounds of three voices, each trying to outscream the
+other. The substitute assistant listened to this for a while, and, as he
+did so, a new thought struck him. He remembered a story he had read in a
+magazine years before. He crossed to the pantry, found an empty bottle,
+rinsed it at the sink, stepped again to the pantry, and, entering it,
+closed the door behind him. There he busied himself with the molasses
+jug, the soft-soap bucket, the oil can, the pepper shaker, and a few
+other utensils and their contents. Footsteps in the kitchen caused him
+to hurriedly reenter that apartment. Mrs. Stover was standing by the
+range, her face red.
+
+"Oh, there you are, Mr. Brown!" she exclaimed. "I wondered where you'd
+gone to."
+
+"How is he?" inquired Brown, the keenest anxiety in his utterance.
+
+"H'm! he'd do well enough if he had the right treatment. I cal'late he's
+better now, even as 'tis; but, when a person has to lay and hear over
+and over again that what ails 'em is nothin' but imagination, it ain't
+to be wondered at that they get mad. What he needs is some sort of
+soothin' medicine, and I only wish 'twan't so fur over to home. I've got
+just what he needs there."
+
+"I was thinking--" began Brown.
+
+"What was you thinkin'?"
+
+"I was wondering if some of my 'Stomach Balm' wouldn't help him. It's
+an old family receipt, handed down from the Indians, I believe. I always
+have a bottle with me and . . . Still, I wouldn't prescribe, not knowing
+the disease."
+
+Mrs. Stover's eyes sparkled. Patent medicines were her hobby.
+
+"Hum!" she said. "'Stomach Balm' sounds good. And he says his trouble is
+principally stomach. Some of them Indian medicines are mighty powerful.
+Have you--did you say you had a bottle with you, Mr. Brown?"
+
+The young man went again to the pantry and returned with the bottle he
+had so recently found there. Now, however, it was two thirds full of
+a black sticky mixture. Mrs. Stover removed the cork and took an
+investigating sniff.
+
+"It smells powerful," she said, hopefully.
+
+"It is. Would you like to taste it?" handing her a tablespoon. He
+watched as she swallowed a spoonful.
+
+"Ugh! oh!" she gasped; even her long suffering palate rebelled at THAT
+taste. "It--I should think that OUGHT to help him."
+
+"I should think so. It may be the very thing he needs. At any rate, it
+can't hurt him. It's quite harmless."
+
+Mrs. Stover's face was still twisted, under the influence of the "Balm";
+but her mind was made up.
+
+"I'm goin' to try it," she declared. "I don't care if every New
+Thoughter in creation says no. He needs medicine and needs it right
+away."
+
+"The dose," said Mr. Brown, gravely, "is two tablespoonfuls every
+fifteen minutes. I do hope it will help him. Give him my sympathy--my
+deepest sympathy, Mrs. Stover, please."
+
+The plump lady disappeared in the direction of the sick room. The
+substitute assistant lingered and listened. He heard a shrill pow-wow
+of feminine voices. Evidently "New Thought" and the practice of medicine
+had once more clashed. The argument waxed and waned. Followed the click
+of a spoon against glass. And then came a gasp, a gurgle, a choking
+yell; and high upon the salty air enveloping Eastboro Twin-Lights rose
+the voice of Mr. Seth Atkins, expressing his opinion of the "Stomach
+Balm" and those who administered it.
+
+John Brown darted out of the kitchen, dodged around the corner of
+the house, tiptoed past the bench by the bluff, where Mr. Stover sat
+gloomily meditating, and ran lightly down the path to the creek and
+the wharf. The boathouse at the end of the wharf offered a convenient
+refuge. Into the building he darted, closed the door behind him, and
+collapsed upon a heap of fish nets.
+
+At three-thirty that afternoon, Mr. Atkins, apparently quite recovered,
+was sitting in the kitchen rocker, reading a last week's newspaper, one
+of a number procured on his most recent trip to the village. The Stovers
+and their guest had departed. Their buggy was out of sight beyond the
+dunes. A slight noise startled the lightkeeper, and he looked up. His
+helper was standing in the doorway, upon his face an expression of
+intense and delighted surprise.
+
+"What?" exclaimed Mr. Brown. "What? Is it really you?"
+
+Seth put down the paper and nodded.
+
+"Um-hm," he observed drily, "it's really me."
+
+"Up? and WELL?" queried Brown.
+
+"Um-hm. Pretty well, considerin', thank you. Been for a stroll up
+Washin'ton Street, have you? Or a little walk on the Common, maybe?"
+
+The elaborate sarcasm of these questions was intended to be withering.
+Mr. Brown, however, did not wither. Neither did he blush.
+
+"I have been," he said, "down at the boathouse. I knew you were in safe
+hands and well looked after, so I went away. I couldn't remain here and
+hear you suffer."
+
+"Hum! HEAR me suffer, hey? Much obliged, I'm sure. What have you been
+doin' there all this time? I hoped you was--that is, I begun to be
+afraid you was dead. Thought your sympathy for me had been too much for
+you, maybe."
+
+Brown mournfully shook his head. "It was--almost," he said, solemnly. "I
+think I dropped asleep. I was quite overcome."
+
+"Hum! Better take a dose of that 'Stomach Balm,' hadn't you? That'll
+liven you up, I'll guarantee."
+
+"No, thank you. The sight of you, well and strong again, is all the
+medicine I need. We must keep the 'Balm' in case you have another
+attack. By the way, I notice the dinner dishes haven't been washed. I'll
+do them at once. I know you must be tired, after your illness--and the
+exertion of showing your guests about the lights."
+
+Atkins did not answer, although he seemed to want to very much. However,
+he made no objection when his helper, rolling up his sleeves, turned to
+the sink and the dish washing.
+
+Seth was silent all the rest of the afternoon and during supper. But
+that evening, as Brown sat on the bench outside, Atkins joined him.
+
+"Hello!" said Seth, as cheerfully as if nothing had happened.
+
+"Hello!" replied the assistant, shortly. He had been thinking once more,
+and his thoughts were not pleasant.
+
+"I s'pose you cal'late," began Atkins, "that maybe I've got a grudge
+against you on account of this mornin' and that 'Balm' and such. I
+ain't."
+
+"That's good. I'm glad to hear it."
+
+"Yes. After the fust dose of that stuff--for thunder sakes WHAT did you
+put in it?--I was about ready to murder you, but I've got over that. I
+don't blame you for gettin' even. We are even, you know."
+
+"I'm satisfied, if you are."
+
+"I be. But what I don't understand is why you didn't want to show them
+folks around."
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I had my reasons, such as they were. Why didn't you
+want to do it yourself?"
+
+Seth crossed his legs and was silent for a moment or two. Then he spoke
+firmly and as if his mind was made up.
+
+"Young feller," he said, "I don't know whether you realize it or not,
+and perhaps I shouldn't be the one to mention it--but you're under some
+obligations to me."
+
+His companion nodded. "I realize that," he said.
+
+"Yes, but maybe you don't realize the amount of the obligations. I'm
+riskin' my job keepin' you here. If it wa'n't for the superintendent
+bein' such a friend of mine, there'd have been a reg'lar assistant
+keeper app'inted long ago. The gov'ment don't pick up its lightkeepers
+same as you would farm hands. There's civil service to be gone through,
+and the like of that. But you wanted to stay, and I've kept you, riskin'
+my own job, as I said. And now I cal'late we'd better have a plain
+understandin'. You've got to know just what your job is. I'm goin' to
+tell you."
+
+He stopped, as if to let this sink in. Brown nodded again. "All right,"
+he observed, carelessly; "go on and tell me; I'm listening."
+
+"Your job around the lights you know already, part of it. But there's
+somethin' else. Whenever men folks come here, I'll do my share
+of showin' the place off. But when women come--women, you
+understand--you've got to be guide. I'll forgive you to-day's doin's. I
+tried to play a joke on you, and you evened it up with a better one on
+me. That's all right. But, after this, showin' the lights to females is
+your job, and you've got to do it--or get out. No hard feelin's at all,
+and I'd really hate to lose you, but THAT'S got to be as I say."
+
+He rose, evidently considering the affair settled. Brown caught his coat
+and pulled him back to the bench.
+
+"Wait, Atkins," he said. "I'm grateful to you for your kindness, I like
+you and I'd like to please you; but if what you say is final, then--as
+they used to say in some play or other--'I guess you'll have to hire
+another boy.'"
+
+"What? You mean you'll quit?"
+
+"Rather than do that--yes."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"For reasons, as I told you. By the way, you haven't told me why you
+object to acting as guide to--females."
+
+"Because they are females. They're women, darn 'em!"
+
+Before his helper could comment on this declaration, it was repeated.
+The lightkeeper shook both his big fists in the air.
+
+"Darn 'em! Darn all the women!" shouted Seth Atkins.
+
+"Amen," said John Brown, devoutly.
+
+Seth's fists dropped into his lap. "What?" he cried; "what did you say?"
+
+"I said Amen."
+
+"But--but . . . why . . . you didn't mean it!"
+
+"Didn't I?" bitterly. "Humph!"
+
+Seth breathed heavily, started to speak once more, closed his lips on
+the words, rose, walked away a few paces, returned, and sat down.
+
+"John Brown," he said, solemnly, "if you're jokin', the powers forgive
+you, for I won't. If you ain't, I--I . . . See here, do you remember
+what you asked me that night when you struck me for the assistant
+keeper's job? You asked me if I was married?"
+
+Brown assented wonderingly. "Why, yes," he said, "I believe I did."
+
+"You did. And I ain't been so shook up for many a day. Young feller,
+I'm goin' to tell you what no other man in Ostable County knows. I AM
+married. I've got a wife livin'."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+OUT OF THE BAG
+
+
+"I'm married, and I've got a wife livin'," continued Seth; adding
+hurriedly and fiercely, "don't you say nothin' to me! Don't you put me
+out. I'm goin' to tell you! I'm goin' to tell you all of it--all, by
+time! I am, if I die for it."
+
+He was speaking so rapidly that the words were jumbled together. He
+knocked his hat from his forehead with a blow of his fist and actually
+panted for breath. Brown had never before seen him in this condition.
+
+"Hold on! Wait," he cried. "Atkins, you needn't do this; you mustn't. I
+am asking no questions. We agreed to--"
+
+"Hush up!" Seth waved both hands in the air. "DON'T you talk! Let me get
+this off my chest. Good heavens alive, I've been smotherin' myself
+with it for years, and, now I've got started, I'll blow off steam or my
+b'iler'll bust. I'm GOIN' to tell you. You listen--
+
+"Yes, sir, I'm a married man," he went on. "I wa'n't always married, you
+understand. I used to be single once. Once I was single; see?"
+
+"I see," said Brown, repressing a smile.
+
+Seth was not aware that there was anything humorous in his statement.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I was single and--and happy, by jiminy! I was skipper
+of a mack'rel schooner down Cape Ann way, never mind where, and Seth
+Atkins is only part of my name; never mind that, neither. I sailed that
+schooner and I run that schooner--I RUN her; and when I said 'boo' all
+hands aboard jumped, I tell you. When I've got salt water underneath me,
+I'm a man. But I told you that afore.
+
+"However, this is what I didn't tell you nor nobody else in this part of
+the state: I stayed single till I got to be past forty. Everybody set me
+down as an old bach. Then I met a woman; yes, sir, I met a woman."
+
+He made this assertion as if it was something remarkable. His companion
+on the bench made no comment.
+
+"She was a widow woman," went on Seth, "and she had a little property
+left her by her first husband. Owned a house and land, she did, and had
+some money in the bank. Some folks cal'lated I married her for that, but
+they cal'lated wrong. I wanted her for herself. And I got her. Her name
+was Emeline. I always thought Emeline was a sort of pretty name."
+
+He sighed. Brown observed that Emeline was a very pretty name, indeed.
+
+"Um-hm. That's what I thought, and Emeline was a real pretty woman, for
+her age and heft--she was fleshy. She had some consider'ble prejudice
+against my goin' to sea, so I agreed to stay on shore a spell and farm
+it, as you might say. We lived in the house she owned and was real happy
+together. She bossed me around a good deal, but I didn't mind bein'
+bossed by her. 'Twas a change, you see, for I'd always been used to
+bossin' other folks. So I humored her. And, bein' on land made me lose
+my--my grip or somethin'; 'cause I seemed to forget how to boss. But we
+was happy, and then--then Bennie D. come. Consarn him!"
+
+His teeth shut with a snap, and he struck his knee with his fist.
+"Consarn him!" he repeated, and was silent.
+
+The substitute assistant ventured to jog his memory.
+
+"Who was Bennie D.?" he asked.
+
+"What? Hey? Bennie D.? Oh, he was her brother-in-law, her husband's
+brother from up Boston way. He was a genius--at least, he said he
+was--and an inventor. The only invention I ever could l'arn he'd
+invented to a finish was how to live without workin', but he'd got that
+brought to a science. However, he was forever fussin' over some kind of
+machine that was sartin sure to give power to the universe, when 'twas
+done, and Emeline's husband--his name was Abner--thought the world and
+all of him. 'Fore he died he made Emeline promise to always be kind to
+Bennie D., and she said she would. Abner left him a little money, and he
+spent it travelin' 'for his health.' I don't know where he traveled
+to, but, wherever 'twas, the health must have been there. He was the
+healthiest critter ever I see--and the laziest.
+
+"Well, his travels bein' over, down he comes to make his sister-in-law
+a little visit. And he stays on and stays on. He never took no shine
+to me--I judge he figgered I hadn't no business sharin' Abner's
+property--and I never took to him, much.
+
+"Emeline noticed Bennie D. and me wa'n't fallin' on each other's necks
+any to speak of, and it troubled her. She blamed me for it. Said Bennie
+was a genius, and geniuses had sensitive natures and had to be treated
+with consideration and different from other folks. And that promise to
+Abner weighed on her conscience, I cal'late. Anyhow, she petted that
+blame inventor, and it made me mad. And yet I didn't say much--not so
+much as I'd ought to, I guess. And Bennie D. was always heavin' out
+little side remarks about Emeline's bein' fitted for better things than
+she was gettin', and how, when his invention was 'perfected,' HE'D see
+that she didn't slave herself to death, and so on and so on. And he had
+consider'ble to say about folks tryin' to farm when they didn't know
+a cucumber from a watermelon, and how 'farmin'' was a good excuse for
+doin' nothin', and such. And I didn't have any good answer to that,
+'cause I do know more about seaweed than I do cucumbers, and the farm
+wasn't payin' and I knew it.
+
+"If he'd said these things right out plain, I guess likely I'd have give
+him what he deserved. But he didn't; he just hinted and smiled and acted
+superior and pityin'. And if I got mad and hove out a little sailor talk
+by accident, he'd look as sorry and shocked as the Come-Outer parson
+does when there's a baby born to a Universalist family. He'd get up
+and shut the door, as if he was scart the neighbors' morals would
+suffer--though the only neighbor within hearin' was an old critter that
+used to run a billiard saloon in Gloucester, and HIS morals had been
+put out of their misery forty years afore--and he'd suggest that Emeline
+better leave the room, maybe. And then I'd feel ashamed and wouldn't
+know what to do, and 'twould end, more'n likely, by my leavin' it
+myself.
+
+"You can see how matters was driftin'. I could see plain enough, and I
+cal'late Emeline could, too--I'll give her credit for that. She didn't
+begin to look as happy as she had, and that made me feel worse than
+ever. One time, I found her cryin' in the wash room, and I went up and
+put my arm round her.
+
+"'Emeline,' I says, 'don't; please don't. Don't cry. I know I ain't the
+husband I'd ought to be to you, but I'm doin' my best. I'm tryin' to do
+it. I ain't a genius,' I says.
+
+"She interrupted me quick, sort of half laughin' and half cryin'. 'No,
+Seth,' says she, 'you ain't, that's a fact.'
+
+"That made me sort of mad. 'No, I ain't,' I says again; 'and if you ask
+me, I'd say one in the house was enough, and to spare.'
+
+"'I know you don't like Bennie,' she says.
+
+"''Taint that,' says I, which was a lie. 'It ain't that,' I says; 'but
+somehow I don't seem to fit around here. Bennie and me, we don't seem to
+belong together.'
+
+"'He is Abner's brother,' she says, 'and I promised Abner. I can't tell
+him to go. I can't tell him to leave this house, his brother's house.'
+
+"Now, consarn it, there was another thing. It WAS Abner's house, or
+had been afore he died, and now 'twas hers. If I ever forgot that fact,
+which wa'n't by no means likely to happen, Bennie D. took occasions
+enough to remind me of it. So I was set back again with my canvas
+flappin', as you might say.
+
+"'No,' says I, 'course you can't. He's your brother-in-law.'
+
+"'But you are my husband,' she says, lookin' at me kind of queer.
+Anyhow, it seems kind of queer to me now. I've thought about that look
+a good deal since, and sometimes I've wondered if--if . . . However,
+that's all past and by.
+
+"'Yes,' I says, pretty average bitter, 'but second husbands don't count
+for much.'
+
+"'Some of 'em don't seem to, that's a fact,' she says.
+
+"'By jiminy,' I says, 'I don't count for much in this house.'
+
+"'Yes?' says she. 'And whose fault is that?'
+
+"Well, I WAS mad. 'I tell you what I CAN do,' I sings out. 'I can quit
+this landlubber's job where I'm nothin' but a swab, and go to sea again,
+where I'm some account. That's what I can do.'
+
+"She turned and looked at me.
+
+"'You promised me never to go to sea again, she says.
+
+"'Humph!' says I; 'some promises are hard to keep.'
+
+"'I keep mine, hard or not,' says she. 'Would you go away and leave me?'
+
+"'You've got Brother Bennie,' says I. 'He's a genius; I ain't nothin'
+but a man.'
+
+"She laughed, pretty scornful. 'Are you sartin you're that?' she wanted
+to know.
+
+"'Not since I been livin' here, I ain't,' I says. And that ended that
+try of makin' up.
+
+"And from then on it got worse and worse. There wan't much comfort at
+home where the inventor was, so I took to stayin' out nights. Went down
+to the store and hung around, listenin' to fools' gabble, and wishin'
+I was dead. And the more I stayed out, the more Bennie D. laughed and
+sneered and hinted. And then come that ridic'lous business about Sarah
+Ann Christy. That ended it for good and all."
+
+Seth paused in his long story and looked out across the starlit sea.
+
+"Who was Sarah Ann?" asked Brown. The lightkeeper seemed much
+embarrassed.
+
+"She was a born fool," he declared, with emphasis; "born that way and
+been developin' extry foolishness ever since. She was a widow, too; been
+good lookin' once and couldn't forget it, and she lived down nigh the
+store. When I'd be goin' down or comin' back, just as likely as not she
+was settin' on the piazza, and she'd hail me. I didn't want to stop and
+talk to her, of course."
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"Well, I DIDN'T. And I didn't HAVE to talk. Couldn't if I wanted to;
+she done it all. Her tongue was hung on ball-bearin' hinges and was
+a self-winder guaranteed to run an hour steady every time she set it
+goin'. Talk! my jiminy crimps, how that woman could talk! I couldn't
+get away; I tried to, but, my soul, she wouldn't let me. And, if 'twas a
+warm night, she'd more'n likely have a pitcher of lemonade or some sort
+of cold wash alongside, and I must stop and taste it. By time, I can
+taste it yet!
+
+"Well, there wa'n't no harm in her at all; she was just a fool that had
+to talk to somebody, males preferred. But my stayin' out nights wasn't
+helpin' the joyfulness of things to home, and one evenin'--one evenin'
+. . . Oh, there! I started to tell you this and I might's well get it
+over.
+
+"This evenin' when I came home from the store I see somethin' was extry
+wrong soon's I struck the settin' room. Emeline was there, and Bennie
+D., and I give you my word, I felt like turnin' up my coat collar, 'twas
+so frosty. 'Twas hotter'n a steamer's stoke-hole outside, but that room
+was forty below zero.
+
+"Nobody SAID nothin', you know--that was the worst of it; but I'd have
+been glad if they had. Finally, I said it myself. 'Well, Emeline,' says
+I, 'here I be.'
+
+"No answer, so I tried again. 'Well, Emeline,' says I, 'I've fetched
+port finally.'
+
+"She didn't answer me then, but Bennie D. laughed. He had a way of
+laughin' that made other folks want to cry--or kill him. For choice I'd
+have done the killin' first.
+
+"'More nautical conversation, sister,' says he. 'He knows how fond you
+are of that sort of thing.'
+
+"You see, Emeline never did like to hear me talk sailor talk; it
+reminded her too much that I used to be a sailor, I s'pose. And that
+inventor knew she didn't like it, and so he rubbed it in every time I
+made a slip. 'Twas just one of his little ways; he had a million of 'em.
+
+"But I tried once more. 'Emeline,' I says, 'I'm home. Can't you speak to
+me?'
+
+"Then she looked at me. 'Yes, Seth,' says she, 'I see you are home.'
+
+"'At last,' put in brother-in-law, '"There is no place like home"--when
+the other places are shut up.' And he laughed again.
+
+"'Stop, Bennie,' says Emeline, and he stopped. That was another of his
+little ways--to do anything she asked him. Then she turned to me.
+
+"'Seth,' she asks, 'where have you been?'
+
+"'Oh, down street,' says I, casual. 'It's turrible warm out.'
+
+"She never paid no attention to the weather signals. 'Where 'bouts down
+street?' she wanted to know.
+
+"'Oh, down to the store,' I says.
+
+"'You go to the store a good deal, don't you,' says she. Bennie D.
+chuckled, and then begged her pardon. That chuckle stirred my mad up.
+
+"'I go where folks seem to be glad to see me,' I says. 'Where they treat
+me as if I was somebody.'
+
+"'So you was at the store the whole evenin'?' she asks.
+
+"'Course I was,' says I. 'Where else would I be?'
+
+"She looked at me hard, and her face sort of set. She didn't answer,
+but took up the sewin' in her lap and went to work on it. I remember she
+dropped it once, and Bennie D. jumped to pick it up for her, quick as a
+wink. I set down in the rockin' chair and took the Gloucester paper. But
+I didn't really read. The clock ticked and ticked, and 'twas so still
+you could hear every stroke of the pendulum. Finally, I couldn't stand
+it no longer.
+
+"'What on earth is the matter?' I sings out. 'What have I done this
+time? Don't you WANT me to go to the store? Is that it?'
+
+"She put down her sewin'. 'Seth,' says she, quiet but awful cold, 'I
+want you to go anywheres that you want to go. I never'll stand in your
+way. But I want you tell the truth about it afterwards.'
+
+"'The truth?' says I. 'Don't I always tell you the truth?'
+
+"'No,' says she. 'You've lied to me tonight. You've been callin' on the
+Christy woman, and you know it.'
+
+"Well, you could have knocked me down with a baby's rattle. I'd forgot
+all about that fool Sarah Ann. I cal'late I turned nineteen different
+shades of red, and for a minute I couldn't think of a word to say. And
+Bennie D. smiled, wicked as the Old Harry himself.
+
+"'How--how did you--how do you know I see Sarah Ann Christy?' I hollered
+out, soon's I could get my breath.
+
+"'Because you were seen there,' says she.
+
+"'Who see me?'
+
+"'I did,' says she. 'I went down street myself, on an errand, and, bein'
+as you weren't here to go with me, Bennie was good enough to go. It
+ain't pleasant for a woman to go out alone after dark, and--and I have
+never been used to it,' she says.
+
+"That kind of hurt me and pricked my conscience, as you may say.
+
+"'You know I'd been tickled to death to go with you, Emeline,' I says.
+'Any time, you know it. But you never asked me to go with you.'
+
+"'How long has it been since you asked to go with me?' she says.
+
+"'Do you really want me to go anywheres, Emeline?' says I, eager. 'Do
+you? I s'posed you didn't. If you'd asked--'
+
+"'Why should I always do the askin'? Must a wife always ask her husband?
+Doesn't the husband ever do anything on his own responsibility? Seth,
+I married you because I thought you was a strong, self-reliant man, who
+would advise me and protect me and--'
+
+"That cussed inventor bust into the talk right here. I cal'late he
+thought twas time.
+
+"'Excuse me, sister,' he says; 'don't humiliate yourself afore him.
+Remember you and me saw him tonight, saw him with our own eyes, settin'
+on a dark piazza with another woman. Drinkin' with her and--'
+
+"'Drinkin'!' I yells.
+
+"'Yes, drinkin',' says he, solemn. 'I don't wonder you are ashamed of
+it.'
+
+"'Ashamed! I ain't ashamed.'
+
+"'You hear that, sister? NOW I hope you're convinced.'
+
+"''Twa'n't nothin' but lemonade I was drinkin',' I hollers, pretty nigh
+crazy. 'She asked me to stop and have a glass 'cause 'twas so hot. And
+as for callin' on her, I wa'n't. I was just passin' by, and she sings
+out what a dreadful night 'twas, and I said 'twas, too, and she says
+won't I have somethin' cold to drink. That's all there was to it.'
+
+"Afore Emeline could answer, Bennie comes back at me again.
+
+"'Perhaps you'll tell us this was the first time you have visited her,'
+he purrs.
+
+"Well, that was a sockdolager, 'cause twa'n't the first time. I don't
+know how many times 'twas. I never kept no account of 'em. Too glad to
+get away from her everlastin' tongue-clackin'. But when 'twas put right
+up to me this way, I--I declare I was all fussed up. I felt sick and I
+guess I looked so. Emeline was lookin' at me and seemin'ly waitin' for
+me to say somethin'; yet I couldn't say it. And Bennie D. laughed, quiet
+but wicked.
+
+"That laugh fixed me. I swung round and lit into him.
+
+"'You mind your own business,' I roars. 'Ain't you ashamed, makin'
+trouble with a man's wife in his own house?'
+
+"'I was under the impression the house belonged to my sister-in-law,' he
+says. And again I was knocked off my pins.
+
+"'You great big loafer!' I yelled at him; 'settin' here doin' nothin'
+but raisin' the divil generally! I--I--'
+
+"He jumped as if I'd stuck a brad-awl into him. The shocked expression
+came across his face again, and he runs to Emeline and takes her arm.
+
+"'Sister, sister,' he says, quick, but gentle, 'this is no place for
+you. Language like that is . . . there! there! don't you think you'd
+better leave the room?'
+
+"She didn't go. As I remember it now, it keeps comin' back to me that
+she didn't go. She just stood still and looked at me. And then she says:
+'Seth, why did you lie to me?'"
+
+"'I didn't lie,' I shouts. 'I forgot, I tell you. I never thought that
+windmill of a Christy woman was enough importance to remember. I didn't
+lie to you--I never did. Oh, Emeline, you know I didn't. What's the
+matter with you and me, anyway? We used to be all right and now we're
+all wrong.'
+
+"'One of us is,' says Bennie D. That was the final straw that choked the
+camel.
+
+"'Yes,' I says to him, 'that's right, one of us is, and I don't know
+which. But I know this: you and I can't stay together in this house any
+longer.'
+
+"I can see that room now, as 'twas when I said that. Us three lookin' at
+each other, and the clock a-tickin', and everything else still as still.
+I choked, but I kept on.
+
+"'I mean it,' I says. 'Either you clear out of this house or I do.'
+
+"And, while the words was on my lips, again it came to me strong that it
+wa'n't really my house at all. I turned to my wife.
+
+"'Emeline,' says I, 'it's got to be. You must tell him to go, or else--'
+
+"She'd been lookin' at me again with that kind of queer look in her
+eyes, almost a hopeful look, seem's if 'twas, and yet it couldn't have
+been, of course. Now she drawed a long breath.
+
+"'I can't tell him to go, Seth,' says she. 'I promised to give him a
+home as long as I had one.'
+
+"I set my jaws together. 'All right,' I says; 'then I'M goin'. Good by.'
+
+"And I went. Yes, sir, I went. Just as I was, without any hat or dunnage
+of any kind. When I slammed the back door it seemed as if I heard her
+sing out my name. I waited, but I guess I was mistaken, for she didn't
+call it again. And--and I never set eyes on her since. No, sir, not
+once."
+
+The lightkeeper stopped. John Brown said nothing, but he laid a
+hand sympathetically on the older man's shoulder. Seth shuddered,
+straightened, and went on.
+
+"I cleared out of that town that very night," he said. "Walked clear
+into Gloucester, put up at a tavern there till mornin', and then took
+the cars to Boston. I cal'lated fust that I'd ship as mate or somethin'
+on a foreign voyage, but I couldn't; somehow I couldn't bring myself to
+do it. You see, I'd promised her I wouldn't ever go to sea again, and
+so--well, I was a dum idiot, I s'pose, but I wouldn't break the promise.
+I knew the superintendent of lighthouses in this district, and I'd been
+an assistant keeper when I was younger. I told him my yarn, and he told
+me about this job. I changed my name, passed the examination and come
+directly here. And here I've stayed ever since."
+
+He paused again. Brown ventured to ask another question.
+
+"And your--and the lady?" he asked. "Where is she?"
+
+"I don't know. Livin' in her house back there on Cape Ann, I s'pose. She
+was, last I knew. I never ask no questions. I want to forget--to forget,
+by time! . . . Hi hum! . . . Well, now you know what nobody this side of
+Boston knows. And you can understand why I'm willin' to be buried alive
+down here. 'Cause a woman wrecked my life; I'm done with women; and to
+this forsaken hole no women scarcely ever come. But, when they DO come,
+you must understand that I expect you to show 'em round. After hearin'
+what I've been through, I guess you'll be willin' to do that much for
+me."
+
+He rose, evidently considering the affair settled. Brown stroked his
+chin.
+
+"I'm sorry, Atkins," he observed, slowly; "and I certainly do sympathize
+with you. But--but, as I said, 'I guess you'll have to hire another
+boy!'"
+
+"What? What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that you're not the only woman-hater on the beach."
+
+"Hey? Has a woman given YOU the go by?"
+
+"No. The other way around, if anything. Look here, Atkins! I'm not
+in the habit of discussing my private affairs with acquaintances,
+but you've been frank with me--and well, hang it! I've got to talk to
+somebody. At least, I feel that way just now. Let's suppose a case.
+Suppose you were a young fellow not long out of college--a young fellow
+whose mother was dead and whose dad was rich, and head over heels in
+money-making, and with the idea that his will was no more to be disputed
+than a law of the Almighty. Just suppose that, will you?"
+
+"Huh! Well, 'twill be hard supposin', but I'll try. Heave ahead."
+
+"Suppose that you'd never been used to working or supporting yourself.
+Had a position, a nominal one, in your dad's office but absolutely no
+responsibility, all the money you wanted, and so on. Suppose because
+your father wanted you to--and HER people felt the same--you had become
+engaged to a girl, a nice enough girl, too, in her way. But, then
+suppose that little by little you came to realize that her way wasn't
+yours. You and she liked each other well enough, but the whole thing
+was a family arrangement, a money arrangement, a perfectly respectable,
+buy-and-sell affair. That and nothing else. And the more you thought
+about it, the surer you felt that it was so. But when you told your
+governor he got on his ear and sailed into you, and you sailed back,
+until finally he swore that you should either marry that girl or he'd
+throw you out of his house and office to root for yourself. What would
+you do?"
+
+"Hey? Land sakes! I don't know. I always HAD to root, so I ain't a
+competent judge. Go on, you've got me interested."
+
+"Well, I said I'd root, that's all. But I didn't have the nerve to go
+and tell the girl. The engagement had been announced, and all that, and
+I knew what a mess it would make for her. I sat in my room, among
+the things I was packing in my grip to take with me, and thought and
+thought. If I went to her there would be a scene. If I said I had been
+disinherited she would want to know why--naturally. I had quarreled
+with the governor--yes, but why? Then I should have to tell her the
+real reason: I didn't want to marry her or anybody else on such a
+bargain-counter basis. That seemed such a rotten thing to say, and she
+might ask why it had taken me such a long time to find it out. No, I
+just COULDN'T tell her that. So, after my think was over, I wrote her
+a note saying that my father and I had had a disagreement and he
+had chucked me out, or words to that effect. Naturally, under the
+circumstances, marriage was out of the question, and I released her from
+the engagement. Good by and good luck--or something similar. I mailed
+the letter and left the town the next morning."
+
+He paused. The lightkeeper made no comment. After a moment the young man
+continued.
+
+"I landed in Boston," he said, "full of conceit and high-minded ideas of
+working my own way up the ladder. But in order to work up, you've got to
+get at least a hand-hold on the bottom rung. I couldn't get it. Nobody
+wanted a genteel loafer, which was me. My money gave out. I bought a
+steamboat passage to another city, but I didn't have enough left to buy
+a square meal. Then, by bull luck, I fell overboard and landed here. And
+here I found the solution. I'm dead. If the governor gets soft-hearted
+and gets private detectives on my trail, they'll find I disappeared
+from that steamer, that's all. Drowned, of course. SHE'LL think so, too.
+'Good riddance to bad rubbish' is the general verdict. I can stay here
+a year or so, and then, being dead and forgotten, can go back to
+civilization and hustle for myself. BUT a woman is at the bottom of my
+trouble, and I never want to see another. So, if my staying here depends
+upon my seeing them, I guess, as I've said twice already, 'you'll have
+to hire another boy.'"
+
+He, too, rose. Seth laid a big hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Son," said the lightkeeper, "I'm sorry for you; I cal'late I know how
+you feel. I like you fust-rate, and if it's a possible thing, I'll fix
+it so's you can stay right here long's you want to. As for women folks
+that do come--why, we'll dodge 'em if we can, and share responsibility
+if we must. But there's one thing you've GOT to understand. You're
+young, and maybe your woman hate'll wear off. If it does, out you go. I
+can't have any sparkin' or lovemakin' around these premises."
+
+The assistant snorted contemptuously.
+
+"If ever you catch me being even coldly familiar with a female of any
+age," he declared, "I hereby request that you hit me, politely, but
+firmly, with that axe," pointing to the kindling hatchet leaning against
+the door post.
+
+Seth chuckled. "Good stuff!" he exclaimed. "And, for my part, if ever
+you catch me gettin' confectionery with a woman, I . . . well, don't
+stop to pray over me; just drown me, that's all I ask. It's a bargain.
+Shake!"
+
+So they shook, with great solemnity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+NEIGHBORS AND WASPS
+
+
+And now affairs at the lights settled down into a daily routine in
+which the lightkeeper and his helper each played his appointed part.
+All mysteries now being solved, and the trust between them mutual and
+without reserve, they no longer were on their guard in each other's
+presence, but talked freely on all sorts of topics, and expressed their
+mutual dislike of woman with frequency and point. No regular assistant
+was appointed or seemed likely to be, for the summer, at least. Seth and
+his friend, the superintendent, held another lengthy conversation over
+the wire, and, while Brown's uncertain status remained the same, there
+was a tacit understanding that, by the first of September, if the young
+man was sufficiently "broken in," the position vacated by Ezra Payne
+should be his--if he still wanted it.
+
+"You may change your mind by that time," observed Seth. "This ain't no
+place for a chap with your trainin', and I know it. It does well enough
+for an old derelict like me, with nobody to care a hang whether he lives
+or dies, but you're different. And even for me the lonesomeness of it
+drives me 'most crazy sometimes. I've noticed you've been havin' blue
+streaks more often than when you first came. I cal'late that by fall
+you'll be headin' somewheres else, Mr. 'John Brown,'" with significant
+emphasis upon the name.
+
+Brown stoutly denied being "bluer" than usual, and his superior did not
+press the point. Seth busied himself in his spare time with the work on
+the Daisy M. and with his occasional trips behind Joshua to the village.
+Brown might have made some of these trips, but he did not care to.
+Solitude and seclusion he still desired, and there were more of these
+than anything else at the Twin-Lights.
+
+The lightkeeper experimented with no more dogs, but he had evidently not
+forgotten the lifesaving man's warning concerning possible thieves, for
+he purchased a big spring-lock in Eastboro and attached it to the door
+of the boathouse on the little wharf. The lock was, at first, a good
+deal more of a nuisance than an advantage, for the key was always being
+forgotten or mislaid, and, on one occasion, the door blew shut with
+Atkins inside the building, and he pounded and shrieked for ten minutes
+before his helper heard him and descended to the rescue.
+
+June crawled by, and July came. Crawled is the proper word, for John
+Brown had never known days so long or weeks so unending as those of that
+early summer. The monotony was almost never broken, and he began to find
+it deadly. He invented new duties about the lights and added swimming
+and walks up and down the beach to his limited list of recreations.
+
+The swimming he especially enjoyed. The cove made a fine bathing place,
+and the boathouse was his dressing room, though the fragrance of the
+ancient fish nets stored within it was not that of attar of roses. A
+cheap bathing suit was one of the luxuries Atkins had bought for him, by
+request, in Eastboro. Seth bought the suit under protest, for he scoffed
+openly at his helper's daily bath.
+
+"I should think," the lightkeeper declared over and over again, "that
+you'd had salt water soak enough to last you for one spell; a feller
+that come as nigh drownin' as you done!"
+
+Seth did not care for swimming; the washtub every Saturday night
+furnished him with baths sufficient.
+
+He was particular to warn his helper against the tide in the inlet: "The
+cove's all right," he said, "but you want to look out and not try to
+swim in the crick where it's narrow, or in that deep hole by the end of
+the wharf, where the lobster car's moored. When the tide's comin' in or
+it's dead high water, the current's strong there. On the ebb it'll snake
+you out into the breakers sure as I'm settin' here tellin' you. The
+cove's all right and good and safe; but keep away from the narrer part
+of the crick."
+
+Swimming was good fun, and walking, on pleasant days, was an aid in
+shaking off depression; but, in spite of his denials and his attempts at
+appearing contented, the substitute assistant realized that he was far
+from that happy condition. He did not want to meet people, least of all
+people of his own station in life--his former station. Atkins was a
+fine chap, in his way; but . . . Brown was lonely . . . and when one
+is lonely, one thinks of what might have been, and, perhaps, regrets.
+Regrets, unavailing regrets, are the poorest companions possible.
+
+The lightkeeper, too, seemed lonely, which, considering his years
+of experience in his present situation, was odd. He explained his
+loneliness one evening by observing that he cal'lated he missed the
+painting chaps.
+
+"What painting chaps?" asked Brown.
+
+"Oh, them two young fellers that always used to come to the
+cottage--what you call the bungalow--across the cove there, the ones I
+told you about. They was real friendly, sociable young chaps, and I kind
+of liked to have 'em runnin' in and out. Seems queer to have it July,
+and they not here to hail me and come over to borrow stuff. And they was
+forever settin' around under white sunshades, sloppin' paint onto paper.
+I most wish they hadn't gone to Europe. I cal'late you'd have liked 'em,
+too."
+
+"Perhaps," said the helper, doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, you would; no perhaps about it. It don't seem right to see the
+bungalow all shuttered up and deserted this time of year. You'd have
+liked to meet them young painters; they was your kind."
+
+"Yes, I know. Perhaps that's why I shouldn't like to meet them."
+
+"Hey? . . . Oh, yes, yes; I see. I never thought of that. But 'tain't
+likely they'd know you; they hailed from Boston, not New York."
+
+"How did you know I came from New York? I didn't tell you that."
+
+"No, you didn't, that's a fact. But, you said you left the city where
+you lived and came to Boston, so I sort of guessed New York. But that's
+all right; I don't know and I don't care. Names and places you and me
+might just as well not tell, even to each other. If we don't tell them,
+we can answer 'don't know' to questions and tell the truth; hey?"
+
+One morning about a week later, Brown, his dish washing and sweeping
+done, was busy in the light-room at the top of the right hand tower,
+polishing the brass of the lantern. The curtains were drawn on the
+landward side, and those toward the sea open. Seth, having finished his
+night watching and breakfast, was audibly asleep in the house. Brown
+rubbed and polished leisurely, his thoughts far away, and a frown on his
+face. For the thousandth time that week he decided that he was a loafer
+and a vagabond, and that it would have been much better for himself,
+and creation generally, if he had never risen after the plunge over the
+steamer's rail.
+
+He pulled the cloth cover over the glittering lantern and descended the
+iron stair to the ground floor. When he emerged into the open air, he
+heard a sound which made him start and listen. The sound was the distant
+rattle of wheels from the direction of the village. Was another "picnic"
+coming? He walked briskly to the corner of the house and peered down the
+winding road. A carriage was in sight certainly, but it was going, not
+coming. He watched it move further away each moment. Someone--not the
+grocer or a tradesman--was driving to the village. But where had he
+been, and who was he? Not Seth, for Seth was asleep--he could hear him.
+
+The driver of the carriage, whoever he was, had not visited the lights.
+And, as Atkins had said, there was nowhere else to go on that road.
+Brown, puzzled, looked about him, at the sea, the lights, the house,
+the creek, the cove, the bluff on the other side of the cove, the
+bungalow--ah! the bungalow!
+
+For the door of the bungalow was open, and one or two of the shutters
+were down. The carriage had brought some person or persons to the
+bungalow and left them there. Instantly, of course, Brown thought of the
+artists from Boston. Probably they had changed their minds and decided
+to summer at Eastboro after all. His frown deepened.
+
+Then, from across the cove, from the bungalow, came a shrill scream,
+a feminine scream. The assistant started, scarcely believing his ears.
+Before he could gather his wits, a stout woman, with a checked apron in
+her hand, rushed out of the bungalow door, looked about, saw him, and
+waved the apron like a flag.
+
+"Hi!" she screamed. "Hi, you! Mr. Lighthouseman! come quick! do please
+come here quick and help us!"
+
+There was but one thing to do, and Brown did it instinctively. He raced
+through the beach grass, down the hill, in obedience to the call. As he
+ran, he wondered who on earth the stout woman could be. Seth had said
+that the artists did their own housekeeping.
+
+"Hurry up!" shrieked the stout woman, dancing an elephantine fandango in
+front of the bungalow. "Come ON!"
+
+To run around the shore line of the cove would have taken a good deal of
+time. However, had the tide been at flood there would have been no other
+way--excepting by boat--to reach the cottage. But the tide was out, and
+the narrowest portion of the creek, the stream connecting the cove with
+the ocean, was but knee deep. Through the water splashed the substitute
+assistant and clambered up the bank beyond.
+
+"Quick!" screamed the woman. "They'll eat us alive!"
+
+"Who? What?" panted Brown.
+
+"Wasps! They're in there! The room's full of 'em. If there's one thing
+on earth I'm scart of, it's . . . Don't stop to talk! Go IN!"
+
+She indicated the door of a room adjoining the living room of the little
+cottage. From behind the door came sounds of upsetting furniture and
+sharp slaps. Evidently the artists were having a lively time. But they
+must be curious chaps to be afraid of wasps. Brown opened the door and
+entered, partly of his own volition, partly because he was pushed by the
+stout woman. Then he gasped in astonishment.
+
+The wasps were there, dozens of them, and they had built a nest in the
+upper corner of the room. But they were not the astonishing part of the
+picture. A young woman was there, also; a young woman with dark hair and
+eyes, the sleeves of a white shirtwaist rolled above her elbows, and a
+wet towel in her right hand. She was skipping lightly about the room,
+slapping frantically at the humming insects.
+
+"Mrs. Bascom," she panted, "don't stand there screaming. Get another
+towel and--"
+
+Then she turned and saw Brown. For an instant she, too, seemed
+astonished. But only for an instant.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad you came!" she exclaimed. "Here! take this! you must
+hit quick and HARD."
+
+"This" was the towel. The assistant took it mechanically. The young lady
+did not wait to give further orders. She rushed out of the room and shut
+the door. Brown was alone with the wasps, and they were lively company.
+When, at last, the battle was over, the last wasp was dead, the nest was
+a crumpled gray heap over in the corner, and the assistant's brow was
+ornamented with four red and smarting punctures, which promised to
+shortly become picturesque and painful lumps. Rubbing these absently
+with one hand, and bearing the towel in the other, he opened the door
+and stepped out into the adjoining room.
+
+The two women were awaiting him. He found them standing directly in
+front of him as he emerged.
+
+"Have you--have you killed them?" begged the younger of the pair.
+
+"Be they all dead?" demanded the other.
+
+Brown nodded solemnly. "I guess so," he said. "They seem to be."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried the dark haired girl. "I'm--we--are so much
+obliged to you."
+
+"If there's any critters on earth," declared the stout woman, "that I
+can't stand, it's wasps and hornets and such. Mice, I don't mind--"
+
+"I do," interrupted her companion with emphasis.
+
+"But when I walked into that room and seen that nest in the corner I was
+pretty nigh knocked over--and," she added, "it takes consider'ble to do
+that to ME."
+
+The assistant looked at her. "Yes," he said, absently, "I should think
+it might. That is, I mean--I--I beg your pardon."
+
+He paused and wiped his forehead with the towel. The young lady burst
+into a peal of laughter, in which the stout woman joined. The laugh was
+so infectious that even Brown was obliged to smile.
+
+"I apologize," he stammered. "I didn't mean that exactly as it sounded.
+I'm not responsible mentally--yet--I guess."
+
+"I don't wonder." It was the stout woman who answered. The girl had
+turned away and was looking out the window; her shoulders shook. "I
+shouldn't think you would be. Hauled in bodily, as you might say, and
+shut up in a room to fight wasps! And by folks you never saw afore and
+don't know from Adam! You needn't apologize. I'd forgive you if you
+said somethin' a good deal worse'n that. I'm long past the age where I'm
+sensitive about my weight, thank goodness."
+
+"And we ARE so much obliged to you." The girl was facing him once more,
+and she was serious, though the corners of her mouth still twitched.
+"The whole affair is perfectly ridiculous," she said, "but Mrs. Bascom
+was frightened and so was I--when I had time to realize it. Thank you
+again."
+
+"You're quite welcome, I'm sure. No trouble at all."
+
+The assistant turned to go. His brain was beginning to regain a little
+of its normal poise, and he was dimly conscious that he had been absent
+from duty quite long enough.
+
+"Maybe you'd like to know who 'tis you've helped," observed the stout
+woman. "And, considerin' that we're likely to be next-door neighbors
+for a spell, I cal'late introductions are the proper thing. My name's
+Bascom. I'm housekeeper for Miss Ruth Graham. This is Miss Graham."
+
+The young lady offered a hand. Brown took it.
+
+"Graham?" he repeated. "Where?" Then, remembering a portion of what Seth
+had told him, he added, "I see! the--the artist?"
+
+"My brother is an artist. He and his friend, Mr. Hamilton, own this
+bungalow. They are abroad this summer, and I am going to camp here for a
+few weeks--Mrs. Bascom and I. I paint a little, too, but only for fun."
+
+Brown murmured a conventionality concerning his delight at meeting the
+pair, and once more headed for the door. But Mrs. Bascom's curiosity
+would not permit him to escape so easily.
+
+"I thought," she said, "when I see you standin' over there by the
+lights, that you must be one of the keepers. Not the head keeper--I
+knew you wa'n't him--but an assistant, maybe. But I guess you're only a
+visitor, Mister--Mister--?"
+
+"Brown."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Brown. I guess you ain't no keeper, are you?"
+
+"I am the assistant keeper at present. Yes."
+
+"You don't say!" Mrs. Bascom looked surprised. So, too, did Miss Graham.
+"You don't look like a lighthouse keeper," continued the former. "Oh, I
+don't mean your clothes!" noticing the young man's embarrassed glance at
+his wet and far from immaculate garments. "I mean the way you talk and
+act. You ain't been here long, have you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Just come this summer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I thought so. You ain't a Cape Codder?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I was sure you wa'n't. Where DO you come from?"
+
+Brown hesitated. Miss Graham, noticing his hesitation, hastened to end
+the inquisition.
+
+"Mr. Brown can't stop to answer questions, Mrs. Bascom," she said. "I'm
+sure he wants to get back to his work. Good morning, Mr. Brown. No doubt
+we shall see each other often, being the only neighbors in sight. Call
+again--do. I solemnly promise that you shall have to fight no more
+wasps."
+
+"Say!" The stout woman took a step forward. "Speakin' of wasps . . .
+stand still a minute, Mr. Brown, won't you. What's them lumps on your
+forehead? Why, I do believe you've been bit. You have, sure and sartin!"
+
+Miss Graham was very much concerned. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed; "I hope
+not. Let me see."
+
+"No, indeed!" The assistant was on the step by this time and moving
+rapidly. "Nothing at all. No consequence. Good morning."
+
+He almost ran down the hill and crossed the creek at the wading place.
+As he splashed through, the voice of the housekeeper reached his ears.
+
+"Cold mud's the best thing," she screamed. "Put it on thick. It takes
+out the smart. Good and thick, mind!"
+
+For the next hour or two the lightkeeper's helper moved about his
+household tasks in a curious frame of mind. He was thoroughly angry--or
+thought he was--and very much disturbed. Neighbors of any kind were
+likely to be a confounded nuisance, but two women! Heavens! And the
+stout woman was sure to be running in for calls and to borrow things. As
+for the other, she seemed a nice girl enough, but he never wanted to see
+another girl, nice or otherwise. Her eyes were pretty, so was her hair,
+but what of it? Oh, hang the luck! Just here he banged his swollen
+forehead on the sharp edge of the door, and found relief in profanity.
+
+Seth Atkins was profane, also, when he heard the news. Brown said
+nothing until his superior discovered with his own eyes that the
+bungalow was open. Then, in answer to the lightkeeper's questions, came
+the disclosure of the truth.
+
+"Women!" roared Seth. "You say there's two WOMEN goin' to live there? By
+Judas! I don't believe it!"
+
+"Go and see for yourself, then," was the brusque answer.
+
+"I sha'n't, neither. Who told you?"
+
+"They did."
+
+"They DID? Was you there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What for? I thought you swore never to go nigh a woman again."
+
+"I did, but--well, it wasn't my fault. I--"
+
+"Yes? Go on."
+
+"I went because I couldn't help myself. Went to help some one else, in
+fact. I expected to find Graham and that other artist. But--"
+
+"Well, go ON."
+
+"I was stung," said Mr. Brown, gloomily, and rubbed his forehead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE BUNGALOW GIRL
+
+
+During the following day the occupants of the lightkeeper's dwelling saw
+little or nothing of the newcomers at the bungalow. Brown, his forehead
+resembling a section of a relief map of the Rocky Mountains, remained
+indoors as much as possible, working when there was anything to do, and
+reading back-number magazines when there was not. Seth went, as usual,
+to his room soon after noon. His slumbers must, however, have been
+fitful ones, for several times the substitute assistant, turning
+quickly, saw the bedroom door swing silently shut. The third time that
+this happened he ran to the door and threw it open in season to catch
+Mr. Atkins in an undignified dive for the bed. A tremendous snore
+followed the dive. The young man regarded him in silence for a few
+moments, during which the snores continued. Then he shook his head.
+
+"Humph!" he soliloquized; "I must 'phone for the doctor at once. Either
+the doctor or the superintendent. If he has developed that habit, he
+isn't fit for this job."
+
+He turned away. The slumberer stirred uneasily, rolled over, opened one
+eye, and sat up.
+
+"Hi!" he called. "Come back here! Where you goin'?"
+
+Brown returned, looking surprised and anxious.
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed, "are you awake?"
+
+"Course I'm awake! What a fool question that is. Think I'm settin' up
+here and talkin' in my sleep?"
+
+"Well, I didn't know."
+
+"Why didn't you know? And, see here! what did you mean by sayin' you was
+goin' to 'phone the doctor or the superintendent, one or t'other? Yes,
+you said it. I heard you."
+
+"Oh, no! you didn't."
+
+"Tell you I did. Heard you with my own ears."
+
+"But how could you? You weren't awake."
+
+"Course I was awake! Couldn't have heard you unless I was, could I? What
+ails you? Them stings go clear through to your brains, did they?"
+
+Again Brown shook his head.
+
+"This is dreadful!" he murmured. "He walks in his sleep, and snores when
+he's awake. I MUST call the doctor."
+
+"What--what--" The lightkeeper's wrath was interfering with his
+utterance. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sputtered
+incoherently.
+
+"Be calm, Atkins," coaxed the assistant. "Don't complicate your diseases
+by adding heart trouble. Three times today I've caught you peeping at me
+through the crack of that door. Within fifteen seconds of the last peep
+I find you snoring. Therefore, I say--"
+
+"Aw, belay! I was only--only just lookin' out to see what time it was."
+
+"But you must have done it in your sleep, because--"
+
+"I never. I was wide awake as you be."
+
+"But why did you snore? You couldn't have fallen asleep between the door
+and the bed. And you hadn't quite reached the bed when I got here."
+
+"I--I--I--Aw, shut up!"
+
+Brown smiled blandly. "I will," he said, "provided you promise to keep
+this door shut and don't do any more spying."
+
+"Spyin'? What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Just what I said. You and I had a discussion concerning that same
+practice when I fell over the bank at the Slough a while ago. I was not
+spying then, but you thought I was, and you didn't like it. Now I think
+you are, and I don't like it."
+
+"Wh--what--what would I be spyin' on you for? Wh--what reason would I
+have for doin' it?"
+
+"No good reason; because I have no intention of visiting our new
+neighbors--none whatever. That being understood, perhaps you'll shut the
+door and keep it shut."
+
+Seth looked sheepish and guilty.
+
+"Well," he said, after a moment's reflection, "I beg your pardon. But
+I couldn't help feelin' kind of uneasy. I--I ought to know better, I
+s'pose; but, with a young, good-lookin' girl landed unexpected right
+next to us, I--I--"
+
+"How did you know she was good-looking? I didn't mention her looks."
+
+"No, you didn't, but--but . . . John Brown, I've been young myself, and
+I know that at your age most ANY girl's good-lookin'. There!"
+
+He delivered this bit of wisdom with emphasis and a savage nod of the
+head. Brown had no answer ready, that is, no relevant answer.
+
+"You go to bed and shut the door," he repeated, turning to go.
+
+"All right, I will. But don't you forget our agreement."
+
+"I have no intention of forgetting it."
+
+"What ARE you goin' to do?"
+
+"Do? What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean what are you goin' to do now that things down here's changed,
+and you and me ain't alone, same as we was?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm not sure that I sha'n't leave--clear out."
+
+"What? Clear out? Run away and leave me alone to--to . . . By time! I
+didn't think you was a deserter."
+
+The substitute assistant laughed bitterly. "You needn't worry," he said.
+"I couldn't go far, even if I wanted to. I haven't any money."
+
+"That's so." Seth was evidently relieved. "All right," he observed;
+"don't you worry. 'Twon't be but a couple of months anyway, and we'll
+fight it through together. But ain't it a shame! Ain't it an everlastin'
+shame that this had to happen just as we'd come to understand each other
+and was so contented and friendly! Well, there's only one thing to do;
+that's to make the best of it for us and the worst for them. We'll keep
+to ourselves and pay no attention to em no more'n if they wa'n't
+there. We'll forget 'em altogether; hey? . . . I say we'll forget 'em
+altogether, won't we?"
+
+Brown's answer was short and sharp.
+
+"Yes," he said, and slammed the door behind him. Seth slowly shook his
+head before he laid it on the pillow. He was not entirely easy in his
+mind, even yet.
+
+However, there was no more spying, and the lightkeeper did not mention
+the bungalow tenants when he appeared at supper time. After the meal
+he bolted to the lights, and was on watch in the tower when his helper
+retired.
+
+Early the next afternoon Brown descended the path to the boathouse. He
+had omitted his swim the day before. Now, however, he intended to have
+it. Simply because those female nuisances had seen fit to intrude where
+they had no business was no reason why he should resign all pleasure. He
+gave a quick glance upward at the opposite bank as he reached the wharf.
+There was no sign of life about the bungalow.
+
+He entered the boathouse, undressed, and donned his bathing suit. In a
+few minutes he was ready, and, emerging upon the wharf, walked briskly
+back along the shore of the creek to where it widened into the cove.
+There he plunged in, and was soon luxuriating in the cool, clear water.
+
+He swam with long, confident strokes, those of a practiced swimmer. This
+was worth while. It was the one place where he could forget that he
+was no longer the only son of a wealthy father, heir to a respected
+name--which was NOT Brown--a young man with all sorts of brilliant
+prospects; could forget that he was now a disinherited vagabond, a
+loafer who had been unable to secure a respectable position, an outcast.
+He swam and dove and splashed, rejoicing in his strength and youth and
+the freedom of all outdoors.
+
+Then, as he lay lazily paddling in deep water, he heard the rattle of
+gravel on the steep bank of the other side of the cove. Looking up,
+he saw, to his huge disgust, a female figure in a trim bathing suit
+descending the bluff from the bungalow. It was the girl who had left
+him to fight the wasps. Her dark hair was covered with a jauntily tied
+colored handkerchief, and, against the yellow sand of the bluff, she
+made a very pretty picture. Not that Brown was interested, but she did,
+nevertheless.
+
+She saw him and waved a hand. "Good morning," she called. "Beautiful day
+for a swim, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," growled the young man, brusquely. He turned and began to swim in
+the opposite direction, up the cove. The girl looked after him, raised a
+puzzled eyebrow, and then, with a shrug, waded into the water. The next
+time the assistant looked at her, she was swimming with long, sweeping
+strokes down the narrow creek to the bend and the deep hole at the end
+of the wharf. Round that bend and through that hole the tide whirled,
+like a rapid, out into the miniature bay behind Black Man's Point. It
+was against that tide that Seth Atkins had warned him.
+
+And the girl was swimming directly toward the dangerous narrows. Brown
+growled an exclamation of disgust. He had no mind to continue the
+acquaintance, and yet he couldn't permit her to do that.
+
+"Miss Graham!" he called. "Oh, Miss Graham!"
+
+She heard him, but did not stop.
+
+"Yes?" she called in answer, continuing to swim. "What is it?"
+
+"You mustn't--" shouted Brown. Then he remembered that he must not
+shout. Shouting might awaken the lightkeeper, and the latter would
+misunderstand the situation, of course. So he cut his warning to one
+word.
+
+"Wait!" he called, and began swimming toward her. She did not come to
+meet him, but merely ceased swimming and turned on her back to float.
+And, floating, the tide would carry her on almost as rapidly as if she
+assisted it. That tide did not need any assistance. Brown swung on his
+side and settled into the racing stroke, the stroke which had won him
+cups at the athletic club.
+
+He reached her in a time so short that she was surprised into an
+admiring comment.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, "you CAN swim!"
+
+He did not thank her for the compliment. There was no time for that,
+even if he had felt like it.
+
+"You shouldn't be here," he said sharply.
+
+She looked at him.
+
+"Why, what do you mean?" she demanded.
+
+"It isn't safe. A little farther, and the tide would carry you out to
+sea. Come back, back up to the cove at once."
+
+He expected her to ask more questions, but she did not. Instead she
+turned and struck out in silence. Against the tide, even there, the pull
+was tremendous.
+
+"Shall I help you?" he asked.
+
+"No, I can make it."
+
+And she did. It was his turn to be surprised into admiration.
+
+"By Jove!" he panted, as they swung into the quiet water of the cove and
+stood erect in the shallows, "that was great! You are a good swimmer."
+
+"Thank you," she answered, breathlessly. "It WAS a tug, wasn't it? Thank
+you for warning me. Now tell me about the dangerous places, please."
+
+He told her, repeating Seth's tales of the tide's strength.
+
+"But it is safe enough here?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, yes! perfectly safe anywhere this side of the narrow part--the
+creek."
+
+"I'm so glad. This water is glorious, and I began to be afraid I should
+have to give it up."
+
+"The creek, and even the bay itself are safe enough at flood," he went
+on. "I often go there then. When the tide is coming in it is all right
+even for--"
+
+He paused. She finished the sentence for him. "Even for a girl, you were
+going to say." She waded forward to where the shoal ended and the deeper
+part began. There she turned to look at him over her shoulder.
+
+"I'm going to that beach over there," she said, pointing across the
+cove. "Do you want to race?"
+
+Without waiting to see whether he did or not, she struck out for the
+beach. And, without stopping to consider why he did it, the young man
+followed her.
+
+The race was not so one-sided. Brown won it by some yards, but he had to
+work hard. His competitor did not give up when she found herself falling
+behind, but was game to the end.
+
+"Well," she gasped, "you beat me, didn't you? I never could get that
+side stroke, and it's ever so much faster."
+
+"It's simple enough. Just a knack. I'll teach you if you like."
+
+"Will you? That's splendid."
+
+"You are the strongest swimmer, Miss Graham, for a girl, that I ever
+saw. You must have practiced a great deal."
+
+"Yes, Horace--my brother--taught me. He is a splendid swimmer, one of
+the very best."
+
+"Horace Graham? Why, you don't mean Horace Graham of the Harvard
+Athletic?"
+
+"Yes, I do. He is my brother. But how . . . Do you know him?"
+
+The surprise in her tone was evident. Brown bit his lip. He remembered
+that Cape Cod lightkeepers' helpers were not, as a usual thing, supposed
+to be widely acquainted in college athletic circles.
+
+"I have met him," he stammered.
+
+"But where--" she began; and then, "why, of course! you met him here. I
+forgot that he has been your neighbor for three summers."
+
+The assistant had forgotten it, too, but he was thankful for the
+reminder.
+
+"Yes. Yes, certainly," he said. She regarded him with a puzzled look.
+
+"It's odd he didn't mention you," she observed. "He has told me a great
+deal about the bungalow, and the sea views, and the loneliness and the
+quaintness of it all. That was what made me wish to spend a month
+down here and experience it myself. And he has often spoken," with an
+irrepressible smile, "of your--of the lightkeeper, Mr. Atkins. That is
+his name, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I want to meet him. Horace said he was--well, rather odd, but, when you
+knew him, a fine fellow and full of dry humor. I'm sure I should like
+him."
+
+Brown smiled, also--and broadly. He mentally pictured Seth's reception
+of the news that he was "liked" by the young lady across the cove. And
+then it occurred to him, with startling suddenness, that he had been
+conversing very familiarly with that young lady, notwithstanding the
+solemn interchange of vows between the lightkeeper and himself.
+
+"I must be going," he said hastily; "good morning, Miss Graham."
+
+He waded to the shore and strode rapidly back toward the boathouse. His
+companion called after him.
+
+"I shall expect you to-morrow afternoon," she said. "You've promised to
+teach me that side stroke, remember."
+
+Brown dressed in a great hurry and climbed the path to the lights at the
+double quick. All was safe and serene in the house, and he breathed more
+freely. Atkins was sound asleep, really asleep, in the bedroom, and when
+he emerged he was evidently quite unaware of his helper's unpremeditated
+treason. Brown's conscience pricked him, however, and he went to
+bed that night vowing over and over that he would be more careful
+thereafter. He would take care not to meet the Graham girl again. Having
+reached this decision, there remained nothing but to put her out of his
+mind entirely; which he succeeded in doing at a quarter after eleven,
+when he fell asleep. Even then she was not entirely absent, for he
+dreamed a ridiculous dream about her.
+
+Next day he did not go for a swim, but remained in the house. Seth, at
+supper, demanded to know what ailed him.
+
+"You're as mum as the oldest inhabitant of a deaf and dumb asylum," was
+the lightkeeper's comment. "And ugly as a bull in fly time. What ails
+you?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Humph! better take somethin' for it, seems to me. Little 'Stomach
+Balm,' hey? No? Well, GO to bed! Your room's enough sight better'n your
+company just now."
+
+The helper's ill nature was in evidence again at breakfast time. Seth
+endeavored to joke him out of it, but, not succeeding, and finding
+his best jokes received with groans instead of laughter, gave it up in
+disgust and retired. The young man cleared the table, piled the dishes
+in the sink, heated a kettleful of water and began the day's drudgery,
+drudgery which he once thought was fun.
+
+Why had he had the ill luck to fall overboard from that steamer. Or
+why didn't he drown when he did fall overboard? Then he would have been
+comfortably dead, at all events. Why hadn't he stayed in New York or
+Boston or somewhere and kept on trying for a position, for work--any
+kind of work? He might have starved while trying, but people who were
+starving were self-respecting, and when they met other people--for
+instance, sisters of fellows they used to know--had nothing to be
+ashamed of and needn't lie--unless they wanted to. He was a common
+loafer, under a false name, down on a sandheap washing dishes. At this
+point he dropped one of the dishes--a plate--and broke it.
+
+"D--n!" observed John Brown, under his breath, but with enthusiasm.
+
+He stooped to pick up the fragments of the plate, and, rising once more
+to an erect position, found himself facing Miss Ruth Graham. She was
+standing in the doorway.
+
+"Don't mind me, please," she said. "No doubt I should feel the same way
+if it were my plate."
+
+The young man's first move, after recovery, was to make sure that the
+door between the kitchen and the hall leading to the lightkeeper's
+bedroom was shut. It was, fortunately. The young lady watched him in
+silence, though her eyes were shining.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Brown," she observed, gravely.
+
+The assistant murmured a good morning, from force of habit.
+
+"There's another piece you haven't picked up," continued the visitor,
+pointing.
+
+Brown picked up the piece.
+
+"Is Mr. Atkins in?" inquired the girl.
+
+"Yes, he's--he's in."
+
+"May I see him, please?"
+
+"I--I--"
+
+"If he's busy, I can wait." She seated herself in a chair. "Don't let me
+interrupt you," she continued. "You were busy, too, weren't you?"
+
+"I was washing dishes," declared Brown, savagely.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Yes. Washing and sweeping and doing scrubwoman's work are my regular
+employments."
+
+"Indeed! Then I'm just in time to help. Is this the dish towel?"
+regarding it dubiously.
+
+"It is, but I don't need any help, thank you."
+
+"Of course you do. Everyone is glad to be helped at doing dishes. I may
+as well make myself useful while I'm waiting for Mr. Atkins."
+
+She picked up a platter and proceeded to wipe it, quite as a matter of
+course. Brown, swearing inwardly, turned fiercely to the suds.
+
+"Did you wish to see Atkins on particular business?" he asked, a moment
+later.
+
+"Oh, no; I wanted to make his acquaintance, that's all. Horace told me
+so many interesting things about him. By the way, was it last summer, or
+the summer before, that you met my brother here?"
+
+No answer. Miss Graham repeated her question. "Was it last summer or the
+summer before?" she asked.
+
+"Oh--er--I don't remember. Last summer, I think."
+
+"Why, you must remember. How could any one forget anything that happened
+down here? So few things do happen, I should say. So you met him last
+summer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Hum! that's odd."
+
+"Shall I call Atkins? He's in his room."
+
+"I say it is odd, because, when Mrs. Bascom and I first met you, you
+told us this was your first summer here."
+
+There wasn't any answer to this; at least the assistant could think of
+none at the moment.
+
+"Do you wish me to call Atkins?" he asked, sharply. "He's asleep, but I
+can wake him."
+
+"Oh! he's asleep. Now I understand why you whisper even when you
+sw--that is, when you break a plate. You were afraid of waking him. How
+considerate you are."
+
+Brown put down the dishcloth. "It isn't altogether consideration for
+him--or for myself," he said grimly. "I didn't care to wake him unless
+you took the responsibility."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because, Miss Graham, Seth Atkins took the position of lightkeeper here
+almost for the sole reason that no women ever came here. Mr. Atkins is a
+woman-hater of the most rabid type. I'll wake him up if you wish, but I
+won't be responsible for the consequences."
+
+The young lady stared at him in surprise, delighted surprise apparently,
+judging by the expression of her face.
+
+"A woman-hater?" she repeated. "Is he really?"
+
+"He is." Mr. Brown neglected to add that he also had declared himself a
+member of the same fraternity. Perhaps he thought it was not necessary.
+
+"A woman-hater!" Miss Graham fairly bubbled with mischievous joy. "Oh,
+jolly! now I'm CRAZY to meet him!"
+
+The assistant moved toward the hall door. "Very good!" he observed with
+grim determination. "I think he'll cure your lunacy."
+
+His hand was outstretched toward the latch, when the young lady spoke
+again.
+
+"Wait a minute," she said. "Perhaps I had better not wake him now."
+
+"Just as you say. The pleasure is--or will be--entirely mine, I assure
+you."
+
+"No--o. On the whole, I think I'll wait until later. I may call again.
+Good morning."
+
+She moved across the threshold. Then, standing on the mica slab which
+was the step to the kitchen door, she turned to say:
+
+"You didn't swim yesterday."
+
+"No--o. I--I was busy."
+
+"I see."
+
+She paused, as if expecting him to say something further on the subject.
+He was silent. Her manner changed.
+
+"Good morning," she said, coldly, and walked off. The assistant watched
+her as she descended the path to the cove, but she did not once look
+back. Brown threw himself into a chair. He had never hated anyone as
+thoroughly as he hated himself at the moment.
+
+"What a cheerful liar she must think I am," he reflected. "She caught me
+in that fool yarn about meeting her brother here last summer; and now,
+after deliberately promising to teach her that stroke, I don't go near
+her. What a miserable liar she must think I am! And I guess I am. By
+George, I can't be such a cad. I've got to make good somehow. I must
+give her ONE lesson. I must."
+
+The tide served for bathing about three that afternoon. At ten minutes
+before that hour the substitute assistant keeper of Eastboro Twin-Lights
+tiptoed silently to the bedroom of his superior and peeped in. Seth was
+snoring peacefully. Brown stealthily withdrew. At three, precisely, he
+emerged from the boathouse on the wharf, clad in his bathing suit.
+
+Fifteen minutes after three, Seth Atkins, in his stocking feet and with
+suspicion in his eye, crept along the path to the edge of the bluff.
+Crouching behind a convenient sand dune he raised his head and peered
+over it.
+
+Below him was the cove, its pleasant waters a smooth, deep blue,
+streaked and bordered with pale green. But the water itself did not
+interest Seth. In that water was his helper, John Brown, of nowhere in
+particular, John Brown, the hater of females, busily engaged in teaching
+a young woman to swim.
+
+Atkins watched this animated picture for some minutes. Then, carefully
+crawling back up to the path until he was well out of possible sight
+from the cove, he rose to his feet, raised both hands, and shook their
+clenched fists above his head.
+
+"The liar!" grated Mr. Atkins, between his teeth. "The traitor! The
+young blackguard! After tellin' me that he . . . And after my doin'
+everything for him that . . . Oh, by Judas, wait! only wait till he
+comes back! I'LL l'arn him! I'LL show him! Oh, by jiminy crimps!"
+
+He strode toward the doorway of the kitchen. There he stopped short.
+A woman was seated in the kitchen rocker; a stout woman, with her back
+toward him. The room, in contrast to the bright sunshine without, was
+shadowy, and Seth, for an instant, could see her but indistinctly.
+However, he knew who she must be--the housekeeper at the
+bungalow--"Basket" or "Biscuit" his helper had said was her name, as
+near as he could remember it. The lightkeeper ground his teeth. Another
+female! Well, he would teach this one a few things!
+
+He stepped across the threshold.
+
+"Ma'am," he began, sharply, "perhaps you'll tell me what you--"
+
+He stopped. The stout woman had, at the sound of his step, risen from
+the chair, and turned to face him. And now she was staring at him, her
+face almost as white as the stone-china cups and saucers on the table.
+
+"Why . . . why . . . SETH!" she gasped.
+
+The lightkeeper staggered back until his shoulders struck the doorpost.
+
+"Good Lord!" he cried; "good . . . LORD! Why--why--EMELINE!"
+
+For over a minute the pair stared at each other, white and speechless.
+Then Mrs. Bascom hurried to the door, darted out, and fled along the
+path around the cove to the bungalow. Atkins did not follow her; he did
+not even look in the direction she had taken. Instead, he collapsed in
+the rocking-chair and put both hands to his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE BUNGALOW WOMAN
+
+
+When, an hour later, the swimming teacher, his guilty conscience
+pricking him, and the knowledge of having been false to his superior
+strong within him, came sneaking into the kitchen, he was startled and
+horrified to find the lightkeeper awake and dressed. Mentally he braced
+himself for the battery of embarrassing questions which, he felt sure,
+he should have to answer. It might be that he must face something more
+serious than questions. Quite possible Seth, finding him absent, had
+investigated--and seen. Well, if he had, then he had, that was all. The
+murder would be out, and Eastboro Twin-Lights would shortly be shy a
+substitute assistant keeper.
+
+But there were no embarrassing questions. Atkins scarcely noticed
+him. Seated in the rocker, he looked up as the young man entered, and
+immediately looked down again. He seemed to be in a sort of waking dream
+and only dimly conscious of happenings about him.
+
+"Hello!" hailed the assistant, with an assumption of casual
+cheerfulness.
+
+"Hey? Oh! how be you?" was Mr. Atkins's reply.
+
+"I've been for my dip," explained Brown. "The water was fine to-day."
+
+"Want to know!"
+
+"You're up early, aren't you?"
+
+"Hey? Yes, I guess likely I be."
+
+"What's wrong? Not sick, are you?"
+
+"No. Course I ain't sick. Say!" Seth seemed to take a sudden interest in
+the conversation, "you come straight up from the cove, have you?"
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"You ain't been hangin' around outside here, have you?"
+
+"Hanging around outside? What do you mean?"
+
+"Nothin'. Why do you stand there starin' at me as if I was some sort of
+dime show curiosity? Anything queer about me?"
+
+"No. I didn't know I was staring." The young man was bewildered by
+this strange behavior. He was prepared for suspicion concerning his own
+actions; but Seth seemed rather to be defending himself from suspicion
+on the part of his helper.
+
+"Humph!" The lightkeeper looked keenly at him for a moment. Then he
+said:
+
+"Well, ain't there nothin' to do but stand around? Gettin' pretty nigh
+to supper time, ain't it? Put the kettle on and set the table."
+
+It was not supper time, but Brown obeyed orders. Seth went to cooking.
+He spoke perhaps three words during the culinary operations, and a half
+dozen more during the meal, of which he ate scarcely a mouthful. After
+it was over, he put on his cap and went out, not to his usual lounging
+spot, the bench, but to walk a full half mile along the edge of the
+bluff and there sit in the seclusion of a clump of bayberry bushes
+and gaze stonily at nothing in particular. Here he remained until the
+deepening dusk reminded him that it was time the lights were burning.
+Returning, he lit the lanterns and sat down in the room at the top of
+the left-hand tower to think, and think, and think.
+
+The shadows deepened; the last flush of twilight faded from the western
+sky; the stars came out; night and the black silence of night shrouded
+Eastboro Twin-Lights. The clock in the tower room ticked on to nine and
+then to ten. Still Seth sat, a huddled, dazed figure in the camp chair,
+by the great lantern. At last he rose and went out on the iron balcony.
+He looked down at the buildings below him; they were black shapes
+without a glimmer. Brown had evidently gone to bed. In the little stable
+Joshua thumped the side of his stall once or twice--dreaming, perhaps,
+that he was again pursued by the fly-papered Job--and subsided. Atkins
+turned his gaze across the inlet. In the rear window of the bungalow a
+dim light still burned. As he watched, it was extinguished. He groaned
+aloud, and, with his arms on the railing, thought and thought.
+
+Suddenly he heard sounds, faint, but perceptible, above the low grumble
+of the surf. They were repeated, the sounds of breaking sticks, as if
+some one was moving through the briers and bushes beyond the stable.
+Some one was moving there, coming along the path from the upper end of
+the cove. Around the corner of the stable a bulky figure appeared. It
+came on until it stood beneath the balcony.
+
+"Seth," called a low voice; "Seth, are you there?"
+
+For a moment the agitated lightkeeper could not trust his voice to
+answer.
+
+"Seth," repeated the voice; "Seth."
+
+The figure was moving off in the direction of the other tower. Then Seth
+answered.
+
+"Here--here I be," he stammered, in a hoarse whisper. "Who is it?"
+
+He knew who it was, perfectly well; the question was quite superfluous.
+
+"It's me," said the voice. "Let me in, I've got to talk to you."
+
+Slowly, scarcely certain that this was not a part of some dreadful
+nightmare, Seth descended the iron ladder to the foot of the tower,
+dragged his faltering feet to the door, and slowly swung it open. The
+bulky figure entered instantly.
+
+"Shut the door," said Mrs. Bascom.
+
+"Hey? What?" stammered Seth.
+
+"I say, shut that door. Hurry up! Land sakes, HURRY! Do you suppose I
+want anybody to know I'm here?"
+
+The lightkeeper closed the door. The clang reverberated through the
+tower like distant thunder. The visitor started nervously.
+
+"Mercy!" she exclaimed; "what a racket! What made you slam it?"
+
+"Didn't," grumbled Seth. "Any kind of a noise sounds up in here."
+
+"I should think as much. It's enough to wake the dead."
+
+"Ain't nobody BUT the dead to wake in this place."
+
+"Yes, there is; there's that young man of yours, that Brown one. He
+ain't dead, is he?"
+
+"Humph! he's asleep, and that's next door to dead--with him."
+
+"Well, I'm glad of it. My nerves are pretty steady as a general thing,
+but I declare I'm all of a twitter to-night--and no wonder. It's darker
+than a pocket in here. Can't we have a light?"
+
+Atkins stumbled across the stone floor and took the lantern from
+the hook by the stairs. He struck a match, and it went out; he tried
+another, with the same result. Mrs. Bascom fidgeted.
+
+"Mercy on us!" she cried; "what DOES ail the thing?"
+
+Seth's trembling fingers could scarcely hold the third match. He raked
+it across the whitewashed wall and broke the head short off.
+
+"Thunder to mighty!" he snarled, under his breath.
+
+"But what DOES--"
+
+"What does? What do you s'pose? You ain't the only one that's got
+nerves, are you?"
+
+The next trial was successful, and the lantern was lighted. With it in
+his hand, he turned and faced his caller. They looked at each other.
+Mrs. Bascom drew a long breath.
+
+"It is you," she said. "I couldn't scarcely believe it. It is really
+you."
+
+Seth's answer was almost a groan. "It's you," he said. "You--down here."
+
+This ended the conversation for another minute. Then the lady seemed to
+awake to the realities of the situation.
+
+"Yes," she said, "it's me--and it's you. We're here, both of us. Though
+why on earth YOU should be, I don't know."
+
+"Me? Me? Why, I belong here. But you--what in time sent you here?
+Unless," with returning suspicion, "you came because I--"
+
+He paused, warned by the expression on his caller's face.
+
+"What was that?" she demanded.
+
+"Nothin'."
+
+"Nothin', I guess. If you was flatterin' yourself with the idea that I
+came here to chase after you, you never was more mistaken in your life,
+or ever will be. You set down. You and I have got to talk. Set right
+down."
+
+The lightkeeper hesitated. Then he obeyed orders by seating himself on
+an oil barrel lying on its side near the wall. The lantern he placed on
+the floor at his feet. Mrs. Bascom perched on one of the lower steps of
+the iron stairs.
+
+"Now," she said, "we've got to talk. Seth Bascom--"
+
+Seth started violently.
+
+"What is it?" asked the lady. "Why did you jump like that? Nobody
+comin', is there?"
+
+"No. No . . . But I couldn't help jumpin' when you called me that name."
+
+"That name? It's your name, isn't it? Oh," she smiled slightly; "I
+remember now. You've taken the name of Atkins since we saw each other
+last."
+
+"I didn't take it; it belonged to me. You know my middle name. I just
+dropped the Bascom, that's all."
+
+"I see. Just as you dropped--some other responsibilities. Why didn't
+you drop the whole christenin' and start fresh? Why did you hang on to
+'Seth'?"
+
+The lightkeeper looked guilty. Mrs. Bascom's smile broadened. "I know,"
+she went on. "You didn't really like to drop it all. It was too much of
+a thing to do on your hook, and there wasn't anybody to tell you to do
+it, and so you couldn't quite be spunky enough to--"
+
+He interrupted her. "That wa'n't the reason," he said shortly.
+
+"What was the reason?"
+
+"You want to know, do you?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Well, the 'Bascom' part wa'n't mine no more--not all mine. I'd given it
+to you."
+
+"O--oh! oh, I see. And you ran away from your name as you ran away from
+your wife. I see. And . . . why, of course! you came down here to run
+away from all the women. Miss Ruth said this mornin' she was told--I
+don't know who by--that the lightkeeper was a woman-hater. Are you the
+woman-hater, Seth?"
+
+Mr. Atkins looked at the floor. "Yes, I be," he answered, sullenly. "Do
+you wonder?"
+
+"I don't wonder at your runnin' away; that I should have expected. But
+there," more briskly, "this ain't gettin' us anywhere. You're here--and
+I'm here. Now what's your idea of the best thing to be done, under the
+circumstances?"
+
+Seth shifted his feet. "One of us better go somewheres else, if you ask
+me," he declared.
+
+"Run away again, you mean? Well, I sha'n't run away. I'm Miss Ruth's
+housekeeper for the summer. I answered her advertisement in the Boston
+paper and we agreed as to wages and so on. I like her and she likes me.
+Course if I'd known my husband was in the neighborhood, I shouldn't have
+come here; but I didn't know it. Now I'm here and I'll stay my time out.
+What are you goin' to do?"
+
+"I'm goin' to send in my resignation as keeper of these lights. That's
+what I'm goin' to do, and I'll do it to-morrow."
+
+"Run away again?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why? WHY? Emeline Bascom, do you ask me that?"
+
+"I do, yes. See here, Seth, we ain't children, nor sentimental young
+folks. We're sensible, or we'd ought to be. Land knows we're old enough.
+I shall stay here and you ought to. Nobody knows I was your wife or that
+you was my husband, and nobody needs to know it. We ain't even got
+the same names. We're strangers, far's folks know, and we can stay
+strangers."
+
+"But--but to see each other every day and--"
+
+"Why not? We've seen each other often enough so that the sight won't be
+so wonderful. And we'll keep our bein' married a secret. I sha'n't boast
+of it, for one."
+
+"But--but to SEE each other--"
+
+"Well, we needn't see each other much. Why, we needn't see each other
+any, unless I have to run over to borrer somethin', same as neighbors
+have to every once in a while. I can guess what's troublin' you; it's
+young Brown. You've told him you're a woman-hater, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, I have."
+
+"Humph! Is he one, too?"
+
+The lightkeeper's mouth was twisted with a violent emotion. He
+remembered his view of that afternoon's swimming lesson.
+
+"He said he was," he snarled. "He pretends he is."
+
+Mrs. Bascom smiled. "I want to know," she said. "Umph! I thought . . .
+However, it's no matter. Perhaps he is. Anyhow he can pretend to be and
+you can pretend to believe him. That'll be the easiest way, I guess. Of
+course," she added, "I ain't tellin' you what to do with any idea that
+you'll do it because I say so. The time for that is all past and gone.
+But it seems to me that, for once in my life, I'd be man enough to stick
+it out. I wouldn't run away again."
+
+Seth did not answer. He scowled and stared at the circle of lantern
+light on the stone floor. Mrs. Bascom rose from her seat on the stairs.
+
+"Well," she observed, "I must be gettin' back to the house if I want to
+get any sleep to-night. I doubt if I get much, for a body don't get over
+a shock, such as I've had, in a minute. But I'm goin' to get over it
+and I'm goin' to stay right here and do my work; I'm goin' to go through
+with what seems to be my duty, no matter how hard it is. I've done it
+afore, and I'll do it again. I've promised, and I keep my promises. Good
+night."
+
+She started toward the door. Her husband sprang from the oil barrel.
+
+"Hold on," he cried; "you wait a minute. I've got somethin' to say."
+
+She shook her head. "I can't wait," she said; "I've got to go."
+
+"No, you ain't, neither. You can stay a spell longer, if you want to."
+
+"Perhaps, but I don't want to."
+
+"Why not? What are you afraid of?"
+
+"Afraid! I don't know as I'm afraid of anything--that is," with a
+contemptuous sniff, "nothin' I see around here."
+
+"Then what are YOU runnin' away for?"
+
+This was putting the matter in a new light. Mrs. Bascom regarded her
+husband with wrathful amazement, which slowly changed to an amused
+smile.
+
+"Oh," she said, "if you think I'm runnin' away, why--"
+
+"I don't see what else 'tis. If I ain't scart to have you here, I don't
+see why you should be scart to stay. Set down on them stairs again; I
+want to talk to you."
+
+The lady hesitated an instant and then returned to her former seat. Seth
+went back to his barrel.
+
+"Emeline," he said. "I'll stay here on my job."
+
+She looked surprised, but she nodded.
+
+"I'm glad to hear it," she said. "I'm glad you've got that much spunk."
+
+"Yup; well, I have. I came down here to get clear of everybody, women
+most of all. Now the one woman that--that--"
+
+"That you 'specially wanted to get clear of--"
+
+"No! No! that ain't the truth, and you know it. She set out to get clear
+of me--and I let her have her way, same as I done in everything else."
+
+"She didn't set out to get clear of you."
+
+"She did."
+
+"No, she didn't."
+
+"I say she did."
+
+Mrs. Bascom rose once more. "Seth Bascom," she declared, "if all you
+wanted me to stay here for is to be one of a pair of katydids, hollerin'
+at each other, I'm goin'. I'm no bug; I'm a woman."
+
+"Emeline, you set down. You've hove out a whole lot of hints about my
+not bein' a man because I run away from your house. Do you think I'd
+have been more of a man if I'd stayed in it? Stayed there and been
+a yaller dog to be kicked out of one corner and into another by you
+and--and that brother-in-law of yours. That's all I was--a dog."
+
+"Humph! if a dog's the right breed--and big enough--it's his own fault
+if he's kicked twice."
+
+"Not if he cares more for his master than he does for himself--'taint."
+
+"Why, yes, it is. He can make his master respect him by provin' he ain't
+the kind of dog to kick. And maybe one of his masters--his real master,
+for he hadn't ought to have but one--might be needin' the right kind of
+watchdog around the house. Might be in trouble her--himself, I mean; and
+be hopin' and prayin' for the dog to protect her--him, I should say. And
+then the--"
+
+"Emeline, what are you talkin' about?"
+
+"Oh, nothin', nothin'. Seth, what's the use of us two settin' here at
+twelve o'clock at night and quarrelin' over what's past and settled? I
+sha'n't do it, for one. I don't want to quarrel with you."
+
+Seth sighed. "And I don't want to quarrel with you, Emeline," he agreed.
+"As you say, there's no sense in it. Dear! dear! this, when you come
+to think of it, is the queerest thing altogether that ever was in the
+world, I guess. Us two had all creation to roam 'round in, and we landed
+at Eastboro Twin-Lights. It seems almost as if Providence done it, for
+some purpose or other."
+
+"Yes; or the other critter, for HIS purposes. How did you ever come to
+be keeper of a light, Seth?"
+
+"Why--why--I don't know. I used to be in the service, 'fore I went to
+sea much. You remember I told you I did. And I sort of drifted down
+here. I didn't care much what became of me, and I wanted a lonesome
+hole to hide in, and this filled the bill. I've been here ever since I
+left--left--where I used to be. But, Emeline, how did YOU come here? You
+answered an advertisement, you told me; but why?"
+
+"'Cause I wanted to do somethin' to earn my livin'. I was alone, and I
+rented my house and boarded. But boardin' ain't much comfort, 'specially
+when you board where everybody knows you, and knows your story. So I--"
+
+"Wait a minute. You was alone, you say? Where was--was HE?"
+
+"He?"
+
+"Yes. You know who I mean."
+
+He would not speak the hated name. His wife spoke it for him.
+
+"Bennie?" she asked. "Oh, he ain't been with me for 'most two year now.
+He--he went away. He's in New York now. And I was alone and I saw Miss
+Graham's advertisement for a housekeeper and answered it. I needed the
+money and--"
+
+"Hold on! You needed the money? Why, you had money."
+
+"Abner left me a little, but it didn't last forever. And--"
+
+"You had more'n a little. I wrote to bank folks there and turned over
+my account to you. And I sent 'em a power of attorney turnin' over some
+stocks--you know what they was--to you, too. I done that soon's I got to
+Boston. Didn't they tell you?"
+
+"Yes, they told me."
+
+"Well, then, that ought to have helped along."
+
+"You don't s'pose I took it, do you?"
+
+"Why--why not?"
+
+"Why not! Do you s'pose I'd use the money that belonged to the husband
+that run off and left me? I ain't that kind of a woman. The money and
+stocks are at the bank yet, I s'pose; anyhow they're there for all of
+me."
+
+The lightkeeper's mouth opened and stayed open for seconds before he
+could use it as a talking machine. He could scarcely believe what he had
+heard.
+
+"But--but I wanted you to have it," he gasped. "I left it for you."
+
+"Well, I didn't take it; 'tain't likely!" with fiery indignation. "Did
+you think I could be bought off like a--a mean--oh, I don't know what?"
+
+"But--but I left it at the bank--for you. What--what'll I do with it?"
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure. You might give it to Sarah Ann Christy; I
+wouldn't wonder if she was less particular than I be."
+
+Seth's guns were spiked, for the moment. He felt the blood rush to face,
+and his fists, as he brandished them in the air, trembled.
+
+"I--I--you--you--" he stammered. "I--I--you think I--"
+
+He knew that his companion would regard his agitation as an evidence of
+conscious guilt, and this knowledge did not help to calm him. He strode
+up and down the floor.
+
+"Look out," said Mrs. Bascom, coldly, "you'll kick over the lantern."
+
+Her husband stopped in his stride. "Darn the lantern!" he shouted.
+
+"S-sh-sh! you'll wake up the Brown man."
+
+This warning was more effective. But Seth was still furious.
+
+"Emeline Bascom," he snarled, shaking his forefinger in her face,
+"you've said over and over that I wa'n't a man. You have, haven't you?"
+
+She was looking at his shirt cuff, then but a few inches from her nose.
+
+"Who sewed on that button?" she asked.
+
+This was so unexpected that his wrath was, for the instant, displaced by
+astonishment.
+
+"What?" he asked. "What button?"
+
+"That one on your shirt sleeve. Who sewed it on?"
+
+"Why, I did, of course. What a crazy question that is!"
+
+She smiled. "I guessed you did," she said. "Nobody but a man would sew
+a white button on a white shirt--or one that was white once--with black
+thread."
+
+He looked at the button and then at her. His anger returned.
+
+"You said I wa'n't a man, didn't you?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, I did. But I'll have to take part of it back. You're half a man
+anyhow; that sewin' proves it."
+
+"Huh! I want to know. Well, maybe I ain't a man; maybe I'm only half a
+one. But I ain't a fool! I ain't a fool!"
+
+She sighed wearily. "Well, all right," she admitted. "I sha'n't argue
+it."
+
+"You needn't. I ain't--or anyhow I ain't an EVERLASTIN' fool. And nobody
+but the everlastin'est of all fools would chase Sarah Ann Christy. I
+didn't. That whole business was just one of your--your Bennie D.'s lies.
+You know that, too."
+
+"I know some one lied; I heard 'em. They denied seein' Sarah Ann, and I
+saw 'em with her--with my own eyes I saw 'em. . . . But there, there,"
+she added; "this is enough of such talk. I'm goin' now."
+
+"I didn't lie; I forgot."
+
+"All right, then, you forgot. I ain't jealous, Seth. I wa'n't even
+jealous then. Even then I give you a chance, and you didn't take it--you
+'forgot' instead. I'm goin' back to the bungalow, but afore I go let's
+understand this: you're to stay here at the lights, and I stay where I
+am as housekeeper. We don't see each other any oftener than we have to,
+and then only when nobody else is around. We won't let my Miss Graham
+nor your Brown nor anybody know we've ever met afore--or are meetin'
+now. Is that it?"
+
+Seth hesitated. "Yes," he said, slowly, "I guess that's it. But," he
+added, anxiously, "I--I wish you'd be 'specially careful not to let
+that young feller who's workin' for me know. Him and me had a--a sort of
+agreement and--and I--I--"
+
+"He sha'n't know. Good-by."
+
+She fumbled with the latch of the heavy door. He stepped forward and
+opened it for her. The night was very dark; a heavy fog, almost a rain,
+had drifted in while they were together. She didn't seem to notice or
+mind the fog or blackness, but went out and disappeared beyond the faint
+radiance which the lantern cast through the open door. She blundered on
+and turned the corner of the house; then she heard steps behind her.
+
+"Who is it?" she whispered, in some alarm.
+
+"Me," whispered the lightkeeper, gruffly. "I'll go with you a ways."
+
+"No, of course you won't. I'm goin' alone."
+
+"It's too dark for you to go alone. You'll lose the way."
+
+"I'm goin' alone, I tell you! Go back. I don't want you."
+
+"I know you don't; but I'm goin'. You'll fetch up in the cove or
+somewheres if you try to navigate this path on your own hook."
+
+"I sha'n't. I'm used to findin' my own way, and I'm goin' alone--as I've
+had to do for a good while. Go back."
+
+She stopped short. Seth stopped, also.
+
+"Go back," she insisted, adding scornfully: "I don't care for your help
+at all. I'm partic'lar about my company."
+
+"I ain't," sullenly. "Anyhow, I'm goin' to pilot you around the end of
+that cove. You sha'n't say I let you get into trouble when I might have
+kept you out of it."
+
+"Say? Who would I say it to? Think I'm so proud of this night's cruise
+that I'll brag of it? WILL you go back?"
+
+"No."
+
+They descended the hill, Mrs. Bascom in advance. She could not see the
+path, but plunged angrily on through the dripping grass and bushes.
+
+"Emeline--Emeline," whispered Seth. She paid no attention to him. They
+reached the foot of the slope and suddenly the lady realized that her
+shoes, already wet, were now ankle deep in water. And there seemed to be
+water amid the long grass all about her.
+
+"Why? What in the world?" she exclaimed involuntarily. "What is it?"
+
+"The salt marsh at the end of the cove," answered the lightkeeper. "I
+told you you'd fetch up in it if you tried to go alone. Been tryin' to
+tell you you was off the track, but you wouldn't listen to me."
+
+And she would not listen to him now. Turning, she splashed past him.
+
+"Hold on," he whispered, seizing her arm. "That ain't the way."
+
+She shook herself from his grasp.
+
+"WILL you let me be, and mind your own business?" she hissed.
+
+"No, I won't. I've set out to get you home, and I'll do it if I have to
+carry you."
+
+"Carry me? You? You DARE!"
+
+His answer was to pick her up in his arms. She was no light weight, and
+she fought and wriggled fiercely, but Seth was big and strong and he
+held her tight. She did not scream; she was too anxious not to wake
+either the substitute assistant or Miss Graham, but she made her bearer
+all the trouble she could. They splashed on for some distance; then Seth
+set her on her feet, and beneath them was dry ground.
+
+"There!" he grumbled, breathlessly. "Now I cal'late you can't miss the
+rest of it. There's the bungalow right in front of you."
+
+"You--you--" she gasped, chokingly.
+
+"Ugh!" grunted her husband, and stalked off into the dark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BEHIND THE SAND DUNE
+
+
+"A fog last night, wasn't there?" inquired Brown. Breakfast was over,
+and Seth was preparing for his day's sleep.
+
+"Yes, some consider'ble," was the gruff answer; then, more sharply,
+"How'd you know? 'Twas all gone this mornin'."
+
+"Oh, I guessed, that's all."
+
+"Humph! Guessed, hey? You wa'n't up in the night, was you?"
+
+"No. Slept like a top all through."
+
+"Humph! . . . Well, that's good; sleep's a good thing. Cal'late I'll
+turn in and get a little myself."
+
+He moved toward the living room. At the door he paused and asked another
+question.
+
+"How'd you--er--guess there was fog last night?" he inquired.
+
+"Oh, that was easy; everything--grass and bushes--were so wet this
+morning. Those boots of yours, for example," pointing to the pair the
+lightkeeper had just taken off, "they look as if you had worn them
+wading."
+
+His back was toward his superior as he spoke, therefore he did not see
+the start which the latter gave at this innocent observation, nor the
+horrified glare at the soaked boots. But he could not help noticing the
+change in Seth's voice.
+
+"Wa--wadin'?" repeated Atkins faintly. "What's that you say?"
+
+"I said the boots were as wet as if you had been wading. Why?"
+
+"Wha--what made you say a fool thing like that? How could I go wadin' on
+top of a lighthouse?"
+
+"I don't know. . . . There, there!" impatiently, "don't ask any more
+questions. I didn't say you had been wading, and I didn't suppose you
+really had. I was only joking. What IS the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothin' . . . nothin'. So you was just jokin', hey? Ha, ha! Yes, yes,
+wadin' up in a lighthouse would be a pretty good joke. I--I didn't see
+it at first, you know. Ha, ha! I thought you must be off your head.
+Thought you'd been swimmin' too much or somethin'. So long, I'm goin' to
+bed."
+
+But now it was the helper's turn to start and stammer.
+
+"Wait!" he cried. "What--what did you say about my--er--swimming, was
+it?"
+
+"Oh, nothin', nothin'. I was just jokin', same as you was about the
+wadin'. Ha, ha!"
+
+"Ha, ha!"
+
+Both laughed with great heartiness. The door shut between them, and each
+stared doubtfully at his side of it for several moments before turning
+away.
+
+That forenoon was a dismal one for John Brown. His troublesome
+conscience, stirred by Seth's reference to swimming, was again in full
+working order. He tried to stifle its reproaches, tried to give his
+entire attention to his labors about the lights and in the kitchen, but
+the consciousness of guilt was too strong. He felt mean and traitorous,
+a Benedict Arnold on a small scale. He had certainly treated Atkins
+shabbily; Atkins, the man who trusted him and believed in him, whom he
+had loftily reproved for "spying" and then betrayed. Yet, in a way his
+treason, so far, had been unavoidable. He had promised--had even OFFERED
+to teach the Graham girl the "side stroke." He had not meant to make
+such an offer or promise, but Fate had tricked him into it, and he could
+not, as a gentleman, back out altogether. He had been compelled to give
+her one lesson. But he need not give her another. He need not meet her
+again. He would not. He would keep the agreement with Seth and forget
+the tenants of the bungalow altogether. Good old Atkins! Good old Seth,
+the woman-hater! How true he was to his creed, the creed which he,
+Brown, had so lately professed. It was a good creed, too. Women were at
+the bottom of all the world's troubles. They deserved to be hated. He
+would never, never--
+
+"Well, by George!" he exclaimed aloud.
+
+He was looking once more at the lightkeeper's big leather boots. One of
+them was lying on its side, and the upturned sole and heel were thickly
+coated with blue clay. He crossed the room, picked up the boots and
+examined them. Each was smeared with the clay. He put them down again,
+shook his head, wandered over to the rocking-chair and sat down.
+
+Seth had cleaned and greased those boots before he went to bed the day
+before; Brown had seen him doing it. He had put them on after supper,
+just before going on watch; the substitute assistant had seen him do
+that, also. Therefore, the clay must have been acquired sometime during
+the evening or night just past. And certainly there was no clay at the
+"top of the lighthouse," or anywhere in the neighborhood except at
+one spot--the salt marsh at the inner end of the cove. Seth must have
+visited that marsh in the nighttime. But why? And, if he had done so,
+why did he not mention the fact? And, now that the helper thought of it,
+why had he been so agitated at the casual remark concerning wading? What
+was he up to? Now that the Daisy M. and story of the wife were no longer
+secrets, what had Seth Atkins to conceal?
+
+Brown thought and guessed and surmised, but guesses and surmises were
+fruitless. He finished his dishwashing and began another of the loathed
+housekeeping tasks, that of rummaging the pantry and seeing what
+eatables were available for his luncheon and the evening meal.
+
+He spread the various odds and ends on the kitchen table, preparatory to
+taking account of stock. A part of a slab of bacon, a salt codfish, some
+cold clam fritters, a few molasses cookies, and half a loaf of bread. He
+had gotten thus far in the inventory when a shadow darkened the doorway.
+He turned and saw Mrs. Bascom, the bungalow housekeeper.
+
+"Good mornin'," said Mrs. Bascom.
+
+Brown answered coldly. Why on earth was it always his luck to be present
+when these female nuisances made their appearance? And why couldn't
+they let him alone, just as he had determined to let them alone--in the
+future? Of course he was glad that the caller was not Miss Graham, but
+this one was bad enough.
+
+"Morning," he grunted, and took another dish, this one containing a
+section of dry and ancient cake, Seth's manufacture, from the pantry.
+
+"What you doin'? Gettin' breakfast this time of day?" asked the
+housekeeper, entering the kitchen. She had a small bowl in her hand.
+
+"No," replied Brown.
+
+"Dinner, then? Pretty early for that, ain't it?"
+
+"I am not getting either breakfast or dinner--or supper, madam," replied
+the helper, with emphasis. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Well, I don't know but there is. I come over hopin' you might. How's
+the stings?"
+
+"The what?"
+
+"The wasp bites."
+
+"They're all, right, thank you."
+
+"You're welcome, I'm sure. Did you put the cold mud on 'em, same as I
+told you to?"
+
+"No. . . . What was it you wanted?"
+
+Mrs. Bascom looked about for a seat. The rocker was at the opposite side
+of the room, and the other chair contained a garment belonging to Mr.
+Atkins, one which that gentleman, with characteristic disregard of the
+conventionalities, had discarded before leaving the kitchen and had
+forgotten to take with him. The lady picked up the garment, looked at
+it, and sat down in the chair.
+
+"Your boss is to bed, I s'pose likely?" she asked.
+
+"You mean Mr. Atkins? I suppose likely he is."
+
+"Um. I judged he was by"--with a glance at the garment which she still
+held--"the looks of things. What in the world ARE you doin'--cleanin'
+house?"
+
+The young man sighed wearily. "Yes," he said with forced resignation,
+"something of that sort."
+
+"Seein' what there was to eat, I guess."
+
+"You guess right. You said you had an errand, I think."
+
+"Did I? Well, I come to see if I couldn't . . . What's that stuff?
+Cake?"
+
+She rose, picked up a slice of the dry cake, broke it between her
+fingers, smelled of it, and replaced it on the plate.
+
+"'Tis cake, ain't it?" she observed; "or it was, sometime or other. Who
+made it? You?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, your boss, Mr.--er--Atkins, hey?"
+
+"Yes. Considering that there are only two of us here, and I didn't make
+it, it would seem pretty certain that he must have."
+
+"Yes, I guess that's right; unless 'twas some that washed ashore from
+Noah's Ark, and it's too dry for that. What on earth are these?" picking
+up one of the molasses cookies; "stove lids?"
+
+Brown grinned, in spite of his annoyance.
+
+"Those are supposed to be cookies," he admitted.
+
+"Are they? Yes, yes. Mr. Atkins responsible for them?"
+
+"No--o. I'm afraid those are one of my experiments, under Mr. Atkins's
+directions and orders. I'm rather proud of those cookies, myself."
+
+"You'd ought to be. There, there!" with a smile, "I guess you think I'm
+pretty free with my criticism and remarks, don't you? You must excuse
+me. Housekeepin'--'specially the cookin' part--is my hobby, as you might
+say, and I was interested to see how a couple of men got along with the
+job. I mustn't set around and keep you from your work. You might want to
+make some more cookies, or somethin'."
+
+The substitute assistant laughed aloud. "I wasn't thinking of it," he
+said; "but I shall be glad to make the attempt if it would afford you
+amusement."
+
+Mrs. Bascom laughed, too. "I guess you're better natured than I thought
+you was," she observed. "It might amuse me some, I will admit, but I
+ain't got the time. I came to borrow some butter, if you've got any to
+spare. Down here we're as far from supplies as the feller that run the
+Ark I was mentionin', old Noah himself."
+
+Brown took the bowl from her hands and went to the pantry to get the
+butter. When he turned again she was standing by the door, one hand
+hidden beneath her apron. She took the bowl with the other.
+
+"Much obliged," she said. "I'll fetch this back soon's the grocery cart
+comes. Miss Graham made arrangements to have him drive across every
+Saturday. Or, rather, I arranged for it myself. Her head's too full of
+paintin' and scenery to think of much else. I tell her you can't eat an
+ile paintin'--unless you're born a goat. Good-by."
+
+She went away. Brown chuckled and went on with his account of stock.
+
+Seth "turned out" rather early that day. At half past one he appeared in
+the kitchen, partially dressed.
+
+"Where in time is my shirt?" he demanded impatiently.
+
+"Your what?"
+
+"My shirt. I thought I took it off out here. Could have sworn I did.
+Guess likely I didn't, though. Must be gettin' absent-minded."
+
+He was on his way back to the bedroom when his helper called.
+
+"You did take it off out here," he cried. "It was on that chair there. I
+remember seeing it. Probably it has fallen on the floor somewhere."
+
+Atkins returned, grumbling that the kitchen floor was a "healthy place
+to heave a shirt."
+
+"Where is it?" he asked after a hurried search. "I can't find it
+nowheres. Didn't put it in the fire, did ye?"
+
+"Of course I didn't. I saw it. . . . Why, I remember that woman's
+picking it up when she sat down."
+
+"Woman? What woman?"
+
+"That Baskin--Buskin--whatever her name is. The housekeeper at the
+bungalow."
+
+"Was she--HERE?" Seth's question was almost a shout. His helper stared
+at him.
+
+"Yes," he answered; "she was. She came to borrow some butter."
+
+"To--to borrow--butter?"
+
+"Why, yes. You didn't think I invited her in for a morning call, did
+you? Don't act as if you had been struck by lightning. It's not so very
+serious. We've got to expect some trouble of that kind. I got rid of her
+as soon as I could."
+
+"You--you did?"
+
+"Yes, I did. You should thank me. I am on duty during the day, and I
+suppose most of that sort of thing will fall on me. You're lucky. Our
+neighbors aren't likely to make many calls after dark. . . . What's the
+matter now? Why are you looking at me like that?"
+
+Seth walked to the door and leaned against the post. Brown repeated his
+question. "What IS the matter?" he asked. "You act just as you did when
+I first happened into this forsak--this place. If you've got any more
+hideous secrets up your sleeve I'm going to quit."
+
+"Secrets!" Atkins laughed, or tried to. "I ain't got any secrets," he
+declared, "any more than you have."
+
+The latter half of this speech shut off further questioning. Brown
+turned hastily away, and the lightkeeper went into his bedroom and
+finished dressing.
+
+"Find your shirt?" asked the young man an hour or so later.
+
+"Hey? Yes, yes; I found it."
+
+"In your room? That's odd. I could have sworn I saw it out here. Is that
+it you're wearing?"
+
+"Hey? No. That was--was sort of s'iled, so I put on my other one. I--I
+cal'late I'll go over and work on the Daisy M. a spell, unless you need
+me."
+
+"I don't need you. Go ahead."
+
+The time dragged for John Brown after his superior's departure. There
+was work enough to be done, but he did not feel like doing it. He
+wandered around the house and lights, gloomy, restless and despondent.
+Occasionally he glanced at the clock.
+
+It was a beautiful afternoon, just the afternoon for a swim, and he was
+debarred from swimming, not only that day, but for all the summer days
+to come. No matter what Seth's new secret might be, it was surely not
+connected with the female sex, and Brown would be true to the solemn
+compact between them. He could not bathe in the cove because Miss Graham
+would be there.
+
+At four o'clock he stood in the shadow of the light tower looking across
+the cove. As he looked he saw Miss Graham, in bathing attire, emerge
+from the bungalow and descend the bluff. She did not see him and, to
+make sure that she might not, he dodged back out of sight. Then he saw
+something else.
+
+Out on the dunes back of the barn he caught a glimpse of a figure
+darting to cover behind a clump of bushes. The figure was a familiar
+one, but what was it doing there? He watched the bushes, but they did
+not move. Then he entered the house, went upstairs, and cautiously
+peered from the back attic window.
+
+The bushes remained motionless for some minutes. Then they stirred
+ever so slightly, and above them appeared the head of Seth Atkins. Seth
+seemed to be watching the cove and the lights. For another minute he
+peered over the bushes, first at the bathing waters below and then at
+his own dwelling. Brown ground his teeth. The light-keeper was "spying"
+again, was watching to see if he violated his contract.
+
+But no, that could not be, for now Seth, apparently sure that the coast
+was clear, emerged from his hiding place and ran in a stooping posture
+until he reached another clump further off and nearer the end of the
+cove. He remained there an instant and then ran, still crouching, until
+he disappeared behind a high dune at the rear of the bungalow. And there
+he stayed; at least Brown did not see him come out.
+
+What he did see, however, was just as astonishing. The landward door of
+the bungalow opened, and Mrs. Bascom, the housekeeper, stepped out into
+the yard. She seemed to be listening and looking. Apparently she must
+have heard something, for she moved away for some little distance and
+stood still. Then, above the edge of the dune, showed Seth's head and
+arm. He beckoned to her. She walked briskly across the intervening
+space, turned the ragged, grass-grown corner of the knoll and
+disappeared, also. Brown, scarcely believing his eyes, waited and
+watched, but he saw no more. Neither Seth nor the housekeeper came out
+from behind that dune.
+
+But the substitute assistant had seen enough--quite enough. Seth Atkins,
+Seth, the woman-hater, the man who had threatened him with all sorts of
+penalties if he ever so much as looked at a female, was meeting one of
+the sex himself, meeting her on the sly. What it meant Brown could not
+imagine. Probably it explained the clay smears on the boots and Seth's
+discomfiture of the morning; but that was immaterial. The fact, the one
+essential fact, was this: the compact was broken. Seth had broken it.
+Brown was relieved of all responsibility. If he wished to swim in that
+cove, no matter who might be there, he was perfectly free to do it. And
+he would do it, by George! He had been betrayed, scandalously, meanly
+betrayed, and it would serve the betrayer right if he paid him in his
+own coin. He darted down the attic stairs, ran down the path to the
+boathouse, hurriedly changed his clothes for his bathing suit, ran along
+the shore of the creek and plunged in.
+
+Miss Graham waved a hand to him as he shook the water from his eyes.
+
+Over behind the sand dune a more or less interesting interview was
+taking place. Seth, having made sure that his whistles were heard and
+his signals seen, sank down in the shadow and awaited developments. They
+were not long in coming. A firm footstep crunched the sand, and Mrs.
+Bascom appeared.
+
+"Well," she inquired coldly, "what's the matter now?"
+
+Mr. Atkins waved an agitated hand.
+
+"Set down," he begged. "Scooch down out of sight, Emeline, for the land
+sakes. Don't stand up there where everybody can see you."
+
+The lady refused to "scooch."
+
+"If I ain't ashamed of bein' seen," she observed, "I don't know why you
+should be. What are you doin' over here anyhow; skippin' 'round in the
+sand like a hoptoad?"
+
+The lightkeeper repeated his plea.
+
+"Do set down, Emeline, please," he urged. "I thought you and me'd agreed
+that nobody'd ought to see us together."
+
+Mrs. Bascom gathered her skirts about her and with great deliberation
+seated herself upon a hummock.
+
+"We did have some such bargain," she replied. "That's why I can't
+understand your hidin' at my back door and whistlin' and wavin' like a
+young one. What did you come here for, anyway?"
+
+Seth answered with righteous indignation.
+
+"I come for my shirt," he declared.
+
+"Your shirt?"
+
+"Yes, my other shirt. I left it in the kitchen this mornin', and
+that--that helper of mine says you was in the chair along with it."
+
+"Humph! Did he have the impudence to say I took it?"
+
+"No--o. No, course he didn't. But it's gone and--and--"
+
+"What would I want of your shirt? Didn't think I was cal'latin' to wear
+it, did you?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"I should hope not. I ain't a Doctor Mary Walker, or whatever her name
+is."
+
+"But you did take it, just the same. I'm sartin you did. You must have."
+
+The lady's mouth relaxed, and there was a twinkle in her eye.
+
+"All right, Seth," she said. "Suppose I did; what then?"
+
+"I want it back, that's all."
+
+"You can have it. Now what do you s'pose I took it for?"
+
+"I--I--I don't know."
+
+"You don't know? Humph! Did you think I wanted to keep it as a souveneer
+of last night's doin's?"
+
+Her companion looked rather foolish. He picked up a handful of sand and
+sifted it through his fingers.
+
+"No--o," he stammered. "I--I know how partic'lar you are--you used to
+be about such things, and I thought maybe you didn't like the way that
+button was sewed on."
+
+He glanced up at her with an embarrassed smile, which broadened as he
+noticed her expression.
+
+"Well," she admitted, "you guessed right. There's some things I can't
+bear to have in my neighborhood, and your kind of sewin' is one of 'em.
+Besides, I owed you that much for keepin' me out of the wet last night."
+
+"Oh! I judged by the way you lit into me for luggin' you acrost that
+marsh that all you owed me was a grudge. I DID lug you, though, in spite
+of your kickin', didn't I?"
+
+He nodded with grim triumph. She smiled.
+
+"You did, that's a fact," she said. "I was pretty mad at the time, but
+when I come to think it over I felt diff'rent. Anyhow I've sewed on
+those buttons the way they'd ought to be."
+
+"Much obliged. I guess they'll stay now for a spell. You always could
+sew on buttons better'n anybody ever I see."
+
+"Humph!" . . . Then, after an interval of silence: "What are you
+grinnin' to yourself about?"
+
+"Hey? . . . Oh, I was just thinkin' how you mended up that Rogers
+young one's duds when he fell out of our Bartlett pear tree. He was the
+raggedest mess ever I come acrost when I picked him up. Yellin' like a
+wild thing he was, and his clothes half tore off."
+
+"No wonder he yelled. Caught stealin' pears--he expected to be thrashed
+for that--and he KNEW Melindy Rogers would whip him, for tearin' his
+Sunday suit. Poor little thing! Least I could do was to make his clothes
+whole. I always pity a child with a stepmother, special when she's
+Melindy's kind."
+
+"What's become of them Rogerses? Still livin' in the Perry house, are
+they?"
+
+"No. Old Abel Perry turned 'em out of that when the rent got behind.
+He's the meanest skinflint that ever strained skim milk. He got married
+again a year ago."
+
+"NO! Who was the victim? Somebody from the Feeble-Minded Home?"
+
+She gave the name of Mr. Perry's bride, and before they knew it the
+pair were deep in village gossip. For many minutes they discussed the
+happenings in the Cape Ann hamlet, and then Seth was recalled to the
+present by a casual glance at his watch.
+
+"Land!" he exclaimed. "Look at the time! This talk with you has seemed
+so--so natural and old-timey, that . . . Well, I've got to go."
+
+He was scrambling to his feet. She also attempted to rise, but found it
+difficult.
+
+"Here," he cried, "give me your hand. I'll help you up."
+
+"I don't want any help. Let me alone. Let me ALONE, I tell you."
+
+His answer was to seize her about the waist and swing her bodily to
+her feet. She was flushed and embarrassed. Then she laughed shortly and
+shook her head.
+
+"What are you laughin' at?" he demanded, peering over the knoll to make
+sure that neither John Brown nor Miss Graham was in sight.
+
+"Oh, not much," she answered. "You kind of surprise me, Seth."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"'Cause you've changed so."
+
+"Changed? How?"
+
+"Oh, changed, that's all. You seem to have more spunk than you used to
+have."
+
+"Humph! Think so, do you?"
+
+"Yes, I do. I think bein' a lightkeeper must be good for some
+folks--some kind of folks."
+
+"I want to know!"
+
+"Yes, you better be careful, or you'll be a real man some day."
+
+His answer was an angry stare and a snort. Then he turned on his heel
+and was striding off.
+
+"Wait!" she called. "Hold on! Don't you want your shirt? Stay here, and
+I'll go into the house and fetch it."
+
+He waited, sullen and reluctant, until she returned with the article of
+apparel in one hand and the other concealed beneath her apron.
+
+"Here it is," she said, presenting the shirt to him.
+
+"Thank you," he grumbled, taking it. "Much obliged for sewin' on the
+button."
+
+"You're welcome. It squares us for your pilotin' me over the marsh,
+that's all. 'Twa'n't any favor; I owed it to you."
+
+He was turning the shirt over in his hands.
+
+"Well," he began, then stopped and looked fixedly at the garment.
+
+"I see you've mended that hole in the sleeve," he said. "You didn't owe
+me that, did you?"
+
+She changed color slightly.
+
+"Oh," she said, with a toss of her head, "that's nothin'. Just for good
+measure. I never could abide rags on anybody that--that I had to look at
+whether I wanted to or not."
+
+"'Twas real good of you to mend it, Emeline. Say," he stirred the sand
+with his boot, "you mentioned that you cal'lated I'd changed some, was
+more of a man than I used to be. Do you know why?"
+
+"No. Unless," with sarcasm, "it was because I wa'n't around."
+
+"It ain't that. It's because, Emeline, it's because down here I'm nigher
+bein' where I belong than anywheres else but one place. That place is at
+sea. When I'm on salt water I'm a man--you don't believe it, but I am.
+On land I--I don't seem to fit in right. Keepin' a light like this is
+next door to bein' at sea."
+
+"Seth, I want to ask you a question. Why didn't you go to sea when you
+ran--when you left me? I s'posed of course you had. Why didn't you?"
+
+He looked at her in surprise.
+
+"Go to sea?" he repeated. "Go to SEA? How could I? Didn't I promise you
+I'd never go to sea again?"
+
+"Was that the reason?"
+
+"Sartin. What else?"
+
+She did not answer. There was an odd expression on her face. He turned
+to go.
+
+"Well, good-by," he said.
+
+"Good-by. Er--Seth."
+
+"Yes; what is it?"
+
+"I--I want to tell you," she stammered, "that I appreciated your leavin'
+that money and stocks at the bank in my name. I couldn't take 'em, of
+course, but 'twas good of you. I appreciated it."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"Wait. Here! Maybe you'd like these." She took the hand from beneath
+her apron and extended it toward him. It held a pan heaped with objects
+flat, brown, and deliciously fragrant. He looked at the pan and its
+contents uncomprehendingly.
+
+"What's them?" he demanded.
+
+"They're molasses cookies. I've been bakin', and these are some extry
+ones I had left over. You can have 'em if you want 'em."
+
+"Why--why, Emeline! this is mighty kind of you."
+
+"Not a mite," sharply. "I baked a good many more'n Miss Ruth and I can
+dispose of, and that poor helper man of yours ought to be glad to get
+'em after the cast-iron pound-weights that you and he have been tryin'
+to live on. Mercy on us! the thoughts of the cookies he showed me this
+mornin' have stayed in my head ever since. Made me feel as if I was
+partly responsible for murder."
+
+"But it's kind of you, just the same."
+
+"Rubbish! I'd do as much for a pig any day. There! you've got your
+shirt; now you'd better go home."
+
+She forced the pan of cookies into his hand and moved off. The
+lightkeeper hesitated.
+
+"I--I'll fetch the pan back to-morrer," he called after her in a loud
+whisper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE LETTER AND THE 'PHONE
+
+
+The cookies appeared on the table that evening. Brown noticed them at
+once.
+
+"When did you bake these?" he asked.
+
+Atkins made no reply, so the question was repeated with a variation.
+
+"Did you bake these this afternoon?" inquired the substitute assistant.
+
+"Humph? Hey? Oh, yes, I guess so. Why? Anything the matter with 'em?"
+
+"Matter with them? No. They're the finest things I've tasted since I
+came here. New receipt, isn't it?"
+
+"Cal'late so."
+
+"I thought it must be. I'll take another."
+
+He took another, and many others thereafter. He and his superior cleared
+the plate between them.
+
+Brown was prepared for questions concerning his occupation of the
+afternoon and was ready with some defiant queries of his own. But no
+occasion arose for either defiance or cross-examination. Seth never
+hinted at a suspicion nor mentioned the young lady at the bungalow.
+Brown therefore remained silent concerning what he had seen from the
+attic window. He would hold that in reserve, and if Atkins ever did
+accuse him of bad faith or breach of contract he could retort in kind.
+His conscience was clear now--he was no more of a traitor than Seth
+himself--and, this being so, he felt delightfully independent. If
+trouble came he was ready for it, and in the meantime he should do as he
+pleased.
+
+But no trouble came. That day, and for many days thereafter, the
+lightkeeper was sweetness itself. He and his helper had never been more
+anxious to please each other, and the house at Twin-Lights was--to all
+appearances--an abode of perfect trust and peace. Every day, when Seth
+was asleep or out of the way, "working on the Daisy M.," the assistant
+swam to the cove, and every day he met Miss Graham there! During the
+first week he returned from his dips expecting to be confronted by his
+superior, and ready with counter accusations of his own. After this
+he ceased to care. Seth did not ask a question and was so trustful and
+unsuspecting that Brown decided his secret was undiscovered. In fact,
+the lightkeeper was so innocent that the young man felt almost wicked,
+as if he were deceiving a child. He very nearly forgot the meeting
+behind the sand dune, having other and much more important things to
+think of.
+
+July passed, and the first three weeks of August followed suit. The
+weather, which had been glorious, suddenly gave that part of the coast
+a surprise party in the form of a three days' storm. It was an offshore
+gale, but fierce, and the lighthouse buildings rocked in its grasp.
+Bathing was out of the question, and one of Seth's dories broke its
+anchor rope and went to pieces in the breakers. Atkins and Brown slept
+but little during the storm, both being on duty the greater part of the
+time.
+
+The fourth day broke clear, but the wind had changed to the east and
+the barometer threatened more bad weather to come. When Seth came in to
+breakfast he found his helper sound asleep in a kitchen chair, his head
+on the table. The young man was pretty well worn out. Atkins insisted
+upon his going to bed for the forenoon.
+
+"Of course I sha'n't," protested Brown. "It's my watch, and you need
+sleep yourself."
+
+"No, I don't, neither," was the decided answer. "I slept between times
+up in the tower, off and on. You go and turn in. I've got to drive over
+to Eastboro by and by, and I want you to be wide awake while I'm away.
+We ain't done with this spell of weather yet. We'll have rain and an
+easterly blow by night, see if we don't. You go right straight to bed."
+
+"I shall do nothing of the sort."
+
+"Yes, you will. I'm your boss and I order you to do it. No back talk,
+now. Go!"
+
+So Brown went, unwilling but very tired. He was sound asleep in ten
+minutes.
+
+Seth busied himself about the house, occasionally stepping to the window
+to look out at the weather. An observer would have noticed that before
+leaving the window on each of these occasions, his gaze invariably
+turned toward the bungalow. His thoughts were more constant than his
+gaze; they never left his little cottage across the cove. In fact, they
+had scarcely left it for the past month. He washed the breakfast dishes,
+set the room in order, and was turning once more toward the window, when
+he heard a footstep approaching the open door. He knew the step; it was
+one with which he had been familiar during other and happier days, and
+now, once more--after all the years and his savage determination to
+forget and to hate--it had the power to awaken strange emotions in his
+breast. Yet his first move was to run into the living room and close his
+helper's chamber door. When he came back to the kitchen, shutting the
+living-room door carefully behind him, Mrs. Bascom was standing on the
+sill. She started when she saw him.
+
+"Land sakes!" she exclaimed. "You? I cal'lated, of course, you was abed
+and asleep."
+
+The lightkeeper waved his hands.
+
+"S-sh-h!" he whispered.
+
+"What shall I s-sh-h about? Your young man's gone somewhere, I s'pose,
+else you wouldn't be here."
+
+"No, he ain't. He's turned in, tired out."
+
+"Oh, then I guess I'd better go back home. 'Twas him I expected to see,
+else, of course, I shouldn't have come."
+
+"Oh, I know that," with a sigh. "Where's your boss, Miss Graham?"
+
+"She's gone for a walk along shore. I came over to--to bring back them
+eggs I borrowed."
+
+"Did you? Where are they?"
+
+The housekeeper seemed embarrassed, and her plump cheeks reddened.
+
+"I--I declare I forgot to bring 'em after all," she stammered.
+
+"I want to know. That's funny. You don't often--that is, you didn't use
+to forget things hardly ever, Emeline."
+
+"Hum! you remember a lot, don't you."
+
+"I remember more'n you think I do, Emeline."
+
+"That's enough of that, Seth. Remember what I told you last time we saw
+each other."
+
+"Oh, all right, all right. I ain't rakin' up bygones. I s'pose I deserve
+all I'm gettin'."
+
+"I s'pose you do. Well, long's I forgot the eggs I guess I might as well
+be trottin' back. . . . You--you've been all right--you and Mr. Brown, I
+mean--for the last few days, while the storm was goin' on?"
+
+"Um-h'm," gloomily. "How about you two over to the bungalow? You've kept
+dry and snug, I judge."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I didn't know but you might be kind of nervous and scart when 'twas
+blowin'. All alone so."
+
+"Humph! I've got used to bein' alone. As for Miss Ruth, I don't think
+she's scart of anythin'."
+
+"Well, I was sort of nervous about you, if you wa'n't about yourself.
+'Twas consider'ble of a gale of wind. I thought one spell I'd blow out
+of the top of the tower."
+
+"So did I. I could see your shadow movin' 'round up there once in a
+while. What made you come out on the gallery in the worst of it night
+afore last?"
+
+"Oh, the birds was smashin' themselves to pieces against the glass same
+as they always do in a storm, and I . . . But say! 'twas after twelve
+when I came out. How'd you come to see me? What was your doin' up that
+time of night?"
+
+Mrs. Bascom's color deepened. She seemed put out by the question.
+
+"So much racket a body couldn't sleep," she explained sharply. "I
+thought the shingles would lift right off the roof."
+
+"But you wa'n't lookin' at the shingles. You was lookin' at the
+lighthouses; you jest said so. Emeline, was you lookin' for me? Was you
+worried about me?"
+
+He bent forward eagerly.
+
+"Hush!" she said, "you'll wake up the other woman-hater."
+
+"I don't care. I don't care if I wake up all creation. Emeline, I
+believe you was worried about me, same as I was about you. More'n that,"
+he added, conviction and exultation in his tone, "I don't believe 'twas
+eggs that fetched you here this mornin' at all. I believe you came to
+find out if we--if I was all right. Didn't you?"
+
+"I didn't come to SEE you, be sure of that," with emphatic scorn.
+
+"I know. But you was goin' to see Brown and find out from him. Answer
+me. Answer me now, didn't--"
+
+She stepped toward the door. He extended an arm and held her back.
+
+"You answer me," he commanded.
+
+She tried to pass him, but his arm was like an iron bar. She hesitated a
+moment and then laughed nervously.
+
+"You certainly have took to orderin' folks round since the old days,"
+she said. "Why, yes, then; I did come to find out if you hadn't got
+cold, or somethin'. You're such a child and I'm such a soft-headed fool
+I couldn't help it, I cal'late?"
+
+"Emeline, s'pose I had got cold. S'pose you found I was sick--what
+then?"
+
+"Why--why, then I guess likely I'd have seen the doctor on my way
+through Eastboro. I shall be goin' that way to-morrer when I leave
+here."
+
+"When you leave here? What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Just what I say. Miss Graham's goin' to Boston to-morrer, and I'm goin'
+with her--as far as the city."
+
+"But--but you're comin' back!"
+
+"What should I come back here for? My summer job's over. If you want
+to know, my principal reason for comin' here this mornin' was to say
+good-by--to Mr. Brown, of course."
+
+Seth's arm dropped. He leaned heavily against the doorpost.
+
+"You're goin' away!" he exclaimed. "You're goin' away! Where?"
+
+"I don't know. Back home, I s'pose. Though what I'll do when I get there
+I don't know. I've sold the house, so I don't exactly know where I'll
+put up. But I guess I'll find a place."
+
+"You've sold your house? The house we used to live in?"
+
+"Yes. The man that's been hirin' it has bought it. I'm glad, for I need
+the money. So good-by, Seth. 'Tain't likely we'll meet again in this
+life."
+
+She started toward the door once more, and this time he was too greatly
+disturbed and shaken by what she had told him to detain her. At the
+threshhold she turned and looked at him.
+
+"Good-by, Seth," she said again. "I hope you'll be happy. And," with
+a half smile, "if I was you I'd stay keepin' lights; it, or somethin'
+else, has improved you a whole lot. Good-by."
+
+Then he sprang forward. "Emeline," he cried, "Emeline, wait. You mustn't
+go. I can't let you go this way. I . . . What's that?"
+
+"That" was the sound of horse's feet and the rattle of wheels. The
+lightkeeper ran to the window.
+
+"It's Henry G.'s grocery cart," he said. "I cal'late he's fetchin' some
+truck I ordered last week. Do you want him to see you here?"
+
+"I don't care. He don't know but what you and me are the best of
+friends. Yet, I don't know. Maybe it's just as well he don't see me;
+then there'll be no excuse for talk. I'll step inside and wait."
+
+She returned to the kitchen, and Seth went out to meet the wagon. Its
+driver was the boy who had brought the flypaper and "Job."
+
+"Hello," hailed the youngster, pulling in his steed; "how be you, Mr.
+Atkins? I've got some of them things you ordered. The rest ain't come
+from Boston yet. Soon's they do, Henry G.'ll send 'em down. How you
+feelin' these days? Ain't bought no more dogs, have you?"
+
+Seth curtly replied that he "wa'n't speculatin' in dogs to no great
+extent any more," and took the packages which the boy handed him. With
+them was a bundle of newspapers and an accumulation of mail matter.
+
+"I fetched the mail for the bungalow, too," said the boy. "There's two
+or three letters for that Graham girl and one for Mrs. Bascom. She's
+housekeeper there, you know."
+
+"Yes. Here, you might's well leave their mail along with mine. I'll see
+it's delivered, all right."
+
+"Will you? Much obliged. Goin' to take it over yourself? Better look
+out, hadn't you? That Graham girl's a peach; all the fellers at the
+store's talkin' about her. Seems a pity she's wastin' her sassiety on a
+woman-hater like you; that's what they say. You ain't gettin' over your
+female hate, are you? Haw, haw!"
+
+Mr. Atkins regarded his questioner with stern disapproval.
+
+"There's some things--such as chronic sassiness--some folks never get
+over," he observed caustically. "Though when green hides are too fresh
+they can be tanned; don't forget that, young feller. Any more chatty
+remarks you've got to heave over? No? Well, all right; then I'd be
+trottin' back home if I was you. Henry G.'ll have to shut up shop if you
+deprive him of your valuable services too long. Good day to you."
+
+The driver, somewhat abashed, gathered up the reins. "I didn't mean to
+make you mad," he observed. "Anything in our line you want to order?"
+
+"No. I'm cal'latin' to go to the village myself this afternoon, and if I
+want any more groceries I'll order 'em then. As for makin' me mad--well,
+don't you flatter yourself. A moskeeter can pester me, but he don't make
+me mad but once--and his funeral's held right afterwards. Now trot along
+and keep in the shade much as you can. You're so fresh the sun might
+spile you."
+
+The boy, looking rather foolish, laughed and drove out of the yard.
+Seth, his arms full, went back to the kitchen. He dumped the packages
+and newspapers on the table and began sorting the letters.
+
+"Here you are, Emeline," he said. "Here's Miss Graham's mail and
+somethin' for you."
+
+"For me?" The housekeeper was surprised. "A letter for me! What is it, I
+wonder? Somethin' about sellin' the house maybe."
+
+She took the letter from him and turned to the light before opening it.
+Seth sat down in the rocker and began inspecting his own assortment
+of circulars and papers. Suddenly he heard a sound from his companion.
+Glancing up he saw that she was leaning against the doorpost, the open
+letter in her hand, and on her face an expression which caused him to
+spring from his chair.
+
+"What is it, Emeline?" he demanded. "Any bad news?"
+
+She scarcely noticed him until he spoke again. Then she shook her head.
+
+"No," she said slowly. "Nothin' but--but what I might have expected."
+
+"But what is it? It is bad news. Can't I help you? Please let me, if I
+can. I--I'd like to."
+
+She looked at him strangely, and then turned away. "I guess nobody can
+help me," she answered. "Least of all, you."
+
+"Why not? I'd like to; honest, I would. If it's about that house
+business maybe I--"
+
+"It ain't"
+
+"Then what is it? Please, Emeline. I know you don't think much of me.
+Maybe you've got good reasons; I'm past the place where I'd deny that.
+I--I've been feelin' meaner'n meaner every day lately. I--I don't know's
+I done right in runnin' off and leavin' you the way I did. Don't you
+s'pose you could give me another chance? Emeline, I--"
+
+"Seth Bascom, what do you mean?"
+
+"Just what I say. Emeline, you and me was mighty happy together once.
+Let's try it again. I will, if you will."
+
+She was staring at him in good earnest now.
+
+"Why, Seth!" she exclaimed. "What are you talkin' about? You--the
+chronic woman-hater!"
+
+"That be blessed! I wa'n't really a woman-hater. I only thought I was.
+And--and I never hated you. Right through the worst of it I never did.
+Let's try it again, Emeline. You're in trouble. You need somebody to
+help you. Give me the chance."
+
+There was a wistful look in her eyes; she seemed, or so he thought, to
+be wavering. But she shook her head. "I was in trouble before, Seth,"
+she said, "and you didn't help me then. You run off and left me."
+
+"You just as much as told me to go. You know you did."
+
+"No, I didn't."
+
+"Well, you didn't tell me to stay."
+
+"It never seemed to me that a husband--if he was a man--would need to be
+coaxed to stay by his wife."
+
+"But don't you care about me at all? You used to; I know it. And I
+always cared for you. What is it? Honest, Emeline, you never took any
+stock in that Sarah Ann Christy doin's, you know you didn't; now, did
+you?"
+
+She was close to tears, but she smiled in spite of them.
+
+"Well, no, Seth," she answered. "I will confess that Sarah Ann never
+worried me much."
+
+"Then DON'T you care for me, Emeline?"
+
+"I care for you much as I ever did. I never stopped carin' for you, fool
+that I am. But as for livin' with you again and runnin' the risk of--"
+
+"You won't run any risk. You say I've improved, yourself. Your principal
+fault with me was, as I understand it, that I was too--too--somethin'
+or other. That I wa'n't man enough. By jiminy crimps, I'll show you that
+I'm a man! Give me the chance, and nothin' nor nobody can make me leave
+you again. Besides, there's nobody to come between us now. We was all
+right until that--that Bennie D. came along. He was the one that took
+the starch out of me. Now he's out of the way. HE won't bother us any
+more and . . . Why, what is it, Emeline?"
+
+For she was looking at him with an expression even more strange. And
+again she shook her head.
+
+"I guess," she began, and was interrupted by the jingle of the telephone
+bell.
+
+The instrument was fastened to the kitchen wall, and the lightkeeper
+hastened to answer the ring.
+
+"Testin' the wire after the storm, most likely," he explained, taking
+the receiver from the hook. "Hello! . . . Hello! . . . Yep, this is
+Eastboro Lights. . . . I'm the lightkeeper, yes. . . . Hey? . . . Miss
+Graham? . . . Right next door. . . . Yes. . . . WHO?" Then, turning to
+his companion, he said in an astonished voice: "It's somebody wants to
+talk with you, Emeline."
+
+"With ME?" Mrs. Bascom could hardly believe it. "Are you sure?"
+
+"So they say. Asked me if I could get you to the 'phone without any
+trouble. She's right here now," he added, speaking into the transmitter.
+"I'll call her."
+
+The housekeeper wonderingly took the receiver from his hand.
+
+"Hello!" she began. "Yes, this is Mrs. Bascom. . . . Who? . . .
+What? . . . OH!"
+
+The last exclamation was almost a gasp, but Seth did not hear it. As she
+stepped forward to the 'phone she had dropped her letter. Atkins went
+over and picked it up. It lay face downward on the floor, and the last
+page, with the final sentence and signature, was uppermost. He could
+not help seeing it. "So we shall soon be together as of old. Your loving
+brother, Benjamin."
+
+When Mrs. Bascom turned away from the 'phone after a rather protracted
+conversation she looked more troubled than ever. But Seth was not
+looking at her. He sat in the rocking-chair and did not move nor raise
+his head. She waited for him to speak, but he did not.
+
+"Well," she said with a sigh, "I guess I must go. Good-by, Seth."
+
+The lightkeeper slowly rose to his feet. "Emeline," he stammered, "you
+ain't goin' without--"
+
+He stopped without finishing the sentence. She waited a moment and then
+finished it for him.
+
+"I'll answer your question, if that's what you mean," she said. "And the
+answer is no. All things considered, I guess that's best."
+
+"But Emeline, I--I--"
+
+"Good-by, Seth."
+
+"Sha'n't I," desperately, "sha'n't I see you again?"
+
+"I expect to be around here for another day or so. But I can't see
+anythin' to be gained by our meetin'. Good-by."
+
+Taking her letter and those addressed to Miss Graham from the table
+she went out of the kitchen. Seth followed her as far as the door, then
+turned and collapsed in the rocking-chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+"JOHN BROWN" CHANGES HIS NAME
+
+
+"So we shall soon be together again as of old. Your loving brother,
+Benjamin."
+
+The sentence which had met his eyes as he picked up the note which
+his caller had dropped was still before them, burned into his memory.
+Benjamin! "Bennie D."! the loathed and feared and hated Bennie D., cause
+of all the Bascom matrimonial heartbreaks, had written to say that he
+and his sister-in-law were soon to be together as they used to be. That
+meant that there had been no quarrel, but merely a temporary
+separation. That she and he were still friendly. That they had been in
+correspondence and that the "inventor" was coming back to take his
+old place as autocrat in the household with all his old influence
+over Emeline. Seth's new-found courage and manhood had vanished at the
+thought. Bennie D.'s name had scarcely been mentioned during the various
+interviews between the lightkeeper and his wife. She had said her first
+husband's brother had been in New York for two years, and her manner of
+saying it led Seth to imagine a permanent separation following some sort
+of disagreement. And now! and now! He remembered Bennie D.'s superior
+airs, his polite sneers, his way of turning every trick to his advantage
+and of perverting and misrepresenting his, Seth's, most innocent speech
+and action into crimes of the first magnitude. He remembered the meaning
+of those last few months in the Cape Ann homestead. All his
+fiery determination to be what he had once been--Seth Bascom, the
+self-respecting man and husband--collapsed and vanished. He groaned in
+abject surrender. He could not go through it again; he was afraid. Of
+any other person on earth he would not have been, but the unexpected
+resurrection of Bennie D. made him a hesitating coward. Therefore he was
+silent when his wife left him, and he realized that his opportunity was
+gone, gone forever.
+
+In utter misery and self-hatred he sat, with his head in his hands,
+beside the kitchen table until eleven o'clock. Then he rose, got dinner,
+and called Brown to eat it. He ate nothing himself, saying that he'd
+lost his appetite somehow or other. After the meal he harnessed Joshua
+to the little wagon and started on his drive to Eastboro. "I'll be back
+early, I cal'late," were his last words as he drove out of the yard.
+
+After he had gone, and Brown had finished clearing away and the
+other housekeeping tasks which were now such a burden, the substitute
+assistant went out to sit on the bench and smoke. The threatened
+easterly wind had begun to blow, and the sky was dark with tumbling
+clouds. The young man paid little attention to the weather, however. All
+skies were gloomy so far as he was concerned, and the darkest day was no
+blacker than his thoughts. Occasionally he glanced at the bungalow,
+and on one such occasion was surprised to see a carriage, one of the
+turnouts supplied by the Eastboro livery stable, roll up to its door
+and Mrs. Bascom, the housekeeper, emerge, climb to the seat beside the
+driver, and be driven away in the direction of the village. He idly
+wondered where she was going, but was not particularly interested. When,
+a half hour later, Ruth Graham left the bungalow and strolled off along
+the path at the top of the bluff, he was very much interested indeed.
+He realized, as he had been realizing for weeks, that he was more
+interested in that young woman than in anything else on earth. Also,
+that he had no right--miserable outcast that he was--to be interested in
+her; and certainly it would be the wildest insanity to imagine that she
+could be interested in him.
+
+For what the lightkeeper might say or do, in the event of his secret
+being discovered, he did not care in the least. He was long past that
+point. And for the breaking of their solemn compact he did not care
+either. Seth might or might not have played the traitor; that, too, was
+a matter of no importance. Seth himself was of no importance; neither
+was he. There was but one important person in the whole world, and she
+was strolling along the bluff path at that moment. Therefore he left his
+seat on the bench, hurried down the slope to the inner end of the cove,
+noting absently that the tide of the previous night must have been
+unusually high, climbed to the bungalow, turned the corner, and walked
+slowly in the direction of the trim figure in the blue suit, which was
+walking, even more slowly, just ahead of him.
+
+It may be gathered that John Brown's feelings concerning the opposite
+sex had changed. They had, and he had changed in other ways, also. How
+much of a change had taken place he did not himself realize, until this
+very afternoon. He did not realize it even then until, after he and the
+girl in blue had met, and the customary expressions of surprise at their
+casual meeting had been exchanged, the young lady seated herself on a
+dune overlooking the tumbling sea and observed thoughtfully:
+
+"I shall miss all this"--with a wave of her hand toward the waves--"next
+week, when I am back again in the city."
+
+Brown's cap was in his hand as she began to speak. After she had
+finished he stooped to pick up the cap, which had fallen to the ground.
+
+"You are going away--next week?" he said slowly.
+
+"We are going to-morrow. I shall remain in Boston for a few days. Then I
+shall visit a friend in the Berkshires. After that I may join my brother
+in Europe; I'm not sure as to that."
+
+"To-morrow?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+There was another one of those embarrassing intervals of silence which
+of late seemed to occur so often in their conversation. Miss Graham, as
+usual, was the first to speak.
+
+"Mr. Brown," she began. The substitute assistant interrupted her.
+
+"Please don't call me that," he blurted involuntarily. "It--oh, confound
+it, it isn't my name!"
+
+She should have been very much surprised. He expected her to be. Instead
+she answered quite calmly.
+
+"I know it," she said.
+
+"You DO?"
+
+"Yes. You are 'Russ' Brooks, aren't you?"
+
+Russell Brooks, alias John Brown, dropped his cap again, but did not
+pick it up. He swallowed hard.
+
+"How on earth did you know that?" he asked as soon as he could say
+anything.
+
+"Oh, it was simple enough. I didn't really know; I only guessed. You
+weren't a real lightkeeper, that was plain. And you weren't used to
+washing dishes or doing housework--that," with the irrepressible curl of
+the corners of her lips, "was just as plain. When you told me that fib
+about meeting my brother here last summer I was sure you had met him
+somewhere, probably at college. So in my next letter to him I described
+you as well as I could, mentioned that you were as good or a better
+swimmer than he, and asked for particulars. He answered that the
+only fellow he could think of who fitted your description was 'Russ'
+Brooks--Russell, I suppose--of New York; though what Russ Brooks was
+doing as lightkeeper's assistant at Eastboro Twin-Lights he DIDN'T know.
+Neither did I. But then, THAT was not my business."
+
+The substitute assistant did not answer: he could not, on such short
+notice.
+
+"So," continued the girl, "I felt almost as if I had known you for a
+long time. You and Horace were such good friends at college, and he
+had often told me of you. I was very glad to meet you in real life,
+especially here, where I had no one but Mrs. Bascom to talk to; Mr.
+Atkins, by reason of his aversion to my unfortunate sex, being barred."
+
+Mr. Brown's--or Mr. Brooks'--next speech harked back to her previous
+one.
+
+"I'll tell you while I'm here," he began.
+
+"You needn't, unless you wish," she said. "I have no right to
+know"--adding, with characteristic femininity, "though I'm dying to."
+
+"But I want you to know. As I told Atkins when I first came, I haven't
+murdered anyone and I haven't stolen anything. I'm not a crook running
+from justice. I'm just a plain idiot who fell overboard from a steamer
+and"--bitterly--"hadn't the good luck to drown."
+
+She made no comment, and he began his story, telling it much as he had
+told it to the lightkeeper.
+
+"There!" he said in conclusion, "that's the whole fool business. That's
+why I'm here. No need to ask what you think of it, I suppose."
+
+She was silent, gazing at the breakers. He drew his own conclusions from
+her silence.
+
+"I see," he said. "Well, I admit it. I'm a low down chump. Still, if I
+had it to do over again, I should do pretty much the same. A few things
+differently, but in general the very same."
+
+"What would you do differently?" she asked, still without looking at
+him.
+
+"For one thing, I wouldn't run away. I'd stay and face the music. Earn
+my living or starve."
+
+"And now you're going to stay here?"
+
+"No longer than I can help. If I get the appointment as assistant keeper
+I'll begin to save every cent I can. Just as soon as I get enough to
+warrant risking it I'll head for Boston once more and begin the earning
+or starving process. And," with a snap of his jaws, "I don't intend to
+starve."
+
+"You won't go back to your father?"
+
+"If he sees fit to beg my pardon and acknowledge that I was right--not
+otherwise. And he must do it of his own accord. I told him that when I
+walked out of his office. It was my contribution to our fond farewell.
+His was that he would see me damned first. Possibly he may."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"You must have been a charming pair of pepper pots," she observed. "And
+the young lady--what of her?"
+
+"She knows that I am fired, cut off even without the usual shilling.
+That will be quite sufficient for her, I think."
+
+"How do you know it will? How do you know she might not have been
+willing to wait while you earned that living you are so sure is coming?"
+
+"Wait? She wait for me? Ann Davidson wait for a man without a cent while
+he tried to earn a good many dollars? Humph! you amuse me."
+
+"Why not? You didn't give her a chance. You calmly took it for granted
+that she wanted only money and social position and you walked off and
+left her. How do you know she wouldn't have liked you better for telling
+her just how you felt. If a girl really cared for a man it seems to me
+that she would be willing to wait for him, years and years if it were
+necessary, provided that, during that time, he was trying his best for
+her."
+
+"But--but--she isn't that kind of a girl."
+
+"How do you know? You didn't put her to the test. You owed her that. It
+seems to me you owe it to her now."
+
+The answer to this was on his tongue. It was ready behind his closed
+lips, eager to burst forth. That he didn't love the Davidson girl, never
+had loved her. That during the past month he had come to realize there
+was but one woman in the wide world for him. And did that woman mean
+what she said about waiting years--and years--provided she cared? And
+did she care?
+
+He didn't utter one word of this. He wanted to, but it seemed so
+preposterous. Such an idiotic, outrageous thing to ask. Yet it is
+probable that he would have asked it if the young lady had given him
+the chance. But she did not; after a sidelong glance at his face, she
+hurriedly rose from the rock and announced that she must be getting back
+to the house.
+
+"I have some packing to do," she explained; "and, besides, I think it is
+going to rain."
+
+"But, Miss Graham, I--"
+
+A big drop of rain splashing upon his shoe confirmed the weather
+prophecy. She began to walk briskly toward the bungalow, and he walked
+at her side.
+
+"Another storm," she said. "I should think the one we have just passed
+through was sufficient for a while. I hope Mrs. Bascom won't get wet."
+
+"She has gone to the village, hasn't she?"
+
+"Yes. She has received some message or other--I don't know how it
+came--which sent her off in a hurry. A livery carriage came for her. She
+will be back before night."
+
+"Atkins has gone, too. He had some errands, I believe. I can't make out
+what has come over him of late. He has changed greatly. He used to be so
+jolly and good-humored, except when female picnickers came. Now he is as
+solemn as an owl. When he went away he scarcely spoke a word. I thought
+he seemed to be in trouble, but when I asked him, he shut me up so
+promptly that I didn't press the matter."
+
+"Did he? That's odd. Mrs. Bascom seemed to be in trouble, too. I thought
+she had been crying when she came out of her room to go to the carriage.
+She denied it, but her eyes looked red. What can be the matter?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Nor I. Mr.--er--Brooks--Or shall I still call you 'Brown'?"
+
+"No. Brown is dead; drowned. Let him stay so."
+
+"Very well. Mr. Brooks, has it occurred to you that your Mr. Atkins is a
+peculiar character? That he acts peculiarly?"
+
+"He has acted peculiarly ever since I knew him. But to what particular
+peculiarity do you refer?"
+
+"His queer behavior. Several times I have seen him--I am almost sure
+it was he--hiding or crouching behind the sand hills at the rear of our
+bungalow."
+
+"You have? Why, I--"
+
+He hesitated. Before he could go on or she continue, the rain came in a
+deluge. They reached the porch just in time.
+
+"Well, I'm safe and reasonably dry," she panted. "I'm afraid you will be
+drenched before you get to the lights. Don't you want an umbrella?"
+
+"No. No, indeed, thank you."
+
+"Well, you must hurry then. Good-by."
+
+"But, Miss Graham," anxiously, "I shall see you again before you go.
+To-morrow, at bathing time, perhaps?"
+
+"Judging by the outlook just at present, bathing will be out of the
+question to-morrow."
+
+"But I want to see you. I must."
+
+She shook her head doubtfully. "I don't know," she said. "I shall be
+very busy getting ready to leave; but perhaps we may meet again."
+
+"We must. I--Miss Graham, I--"
+
+She had closed the door. He ran homeward through the rain, the storm
+which soaked him to the skin being but a trifle compared to the tornado
+in his breast.
+
+He spent the balance of the day somehow, he could not have told how. The
+rain and wind continued; six o'clock came, and Seth should have returned
+an hour before, but there was no sign of him. He wondered if Mrs. Bascom
+had returned. He had not seen the carriage, but she might have come
+while he was inside the house. The lightkeeper's nonappearance began to
+worry him a trifle.
+
+At seven, as it was dark, he took upon himself the responsibility
+of climbing the winding stairs in each tower and lighting the great
+lanterns. It was the first time he had done it, but he knew how, and the
+duty was successfully accomplished. Then, as Atkins was still absent and
+there was nothing to do but wait, he sat in the chair in the kitchen and
+thought. Occasionally, and it showed the trend of his thoughts, he
+rose and peered from the window across the dark to the bungalow. In
+the living room of the latter structure a light burned. At ten it was
+extinguished.
+
+At half past ten he went to Seth's bedroom, found a meager assortment of
+pens, ink and note paper, returned to the kitchen, sat down by the table
+and began to write.
+
+For an hour he thought, wrote, tore up what he had written, and began
+again. At last the result of his labor read something like this:
+
+
+"DEAR MISS GRAHAM:
+
+"I could not say it this afternoon, although if you had stayed I think I
+should. But I must say it now or it may be too late. I can't let you go
+without saying it. I love you. Will you wait for me? It may be a very
+long wait, although God knows I mean to try harder than I have ever
+tried for anything in my life. If I live I will make something of myself
+yet, with you as my inspiration. You know you said if a girl really
+cared for a man she would willingly wait years for him. Do you care for
+me as much as that? With you, or for you, I believe I can accomplish
+anything. DO you care?
+
+"RUSSELL BROOKS."
+
+
+He put this in an envelope, sealed and addressed it, and without
+stopping to put on either cap or raincoat went out in the night.
+
+The rain was still falling, although not as heavily, but the wind was
+coming in fierce squalls. He descended the path to the cove, floundering
+through the wet bushes. At the foot of the hill he was surprised to find
+the salt marsh a sea of water not a vestige of ground above the surface.
+This was indeed a record-breaking tide, such as he had never known
+before. He did not pause to reflect upon tides or such trivialities,
+but, with a growl at being obliged to make the long detour, he rounded
+the end of the cove and climbed up to the door of the bungalow. Under
+the edge of that door he tucked the note he had written. As soon as
+this was accomplished he became aware that he had expressed himself very
+clumsily. He had not written as he might. A dozen brilliant thoughts
+came to him. He must rewrite that note at all hazards.
+
+So he spent five frantic minutes trying to coax that envelope from under
+the door. But, in his care to push it far enough, it had dropped beyond
+the sill, and he could not reach it. The thing was done for better
+or for worse. Perfectly certain that it was for worse, he splashed
+mournfully back to the lights. In the lantern room of the right-hand
+tower he spent the remainder of the night, occasionally wandering out on
+the gallery to note the weather.
+
+The storm was dying out. The squalls were less and less frequent, and
+the rain had been succeeded by a thick fog. The breakers pounded in the
+dark below him, and from afar the foghorns moaned and wailed. It was a
+bad night, a night during which no lightkeeper should be absent from his
+post. And where was Seth?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"BENNIE D."
+
+
+Seth's drive to Eastboro was a dismal journey. Joshua pounded along over
+the wet sand or through ruts filled with water, and not once during the
+trip was he ordered to "Giddap" or "Show some signs of life." Not
+until the first scattered houses of the village were reached did the
+lightkeeper awaken from his trance sufficiently to notice that the old
+horse was limping slightly with the right forefoot.
+
+"Hello!" exclaimed Seth. "What's the matter with you, Josh?"
+
+Joshua slopped on, but this was a sort of three-legged progress. The
+driver leaned forward and then pulled on the reins.
+
+"Whoa!" he ordered. "Stand still!"
+
+Joshua stood still, almost with enthusiasm. Seth tucked the end of the
+reins between the whip socket and the dashboard, and swung out of
+the wagon to make an examination. Lifting the lame foot, he found the
+trouble at once. The shoe was loose.
+
+"Humph!" he soliloquized. "Cal'late you and me'll have to give Benijah
+a job. Well," climbing back into the vehicle, "I said I'd never give him
+another after the row we had about the last, but I ain't got ambition
+enough to go clear over to the Denboro blacksmith's. I don't care. I
+don't care about nothin' any more. Giddap."
+
+Benijah Ellis's little, tumble-down blacksmith shop was located in the
+main street of Eastboro, if that hit-or-miss town can be said to possess
+a main street. Atkins drove up to its door, before which he found
+Benijah and a group of loungers inspecting an automobile, the body of
+which had been removed in order that the engine and running gear might
+be the easier reached. The blacksmith was bending over the car, his head
+and shoulders down amidst the machinery; a big wrench was in his hand,
+and other wrenches, hammers, and tools of various sizes were scattered
+on the ground beside him.
+
+"Hello, Benije," grunted Seth.
+
+Ellis removed his nose from its close proximity to the gear shaft
+and straightened up. He was a near-sighted, elderly man, and wore
+spectacles. Just now his hands, arms, and apron were covered with grease
+and oil, and, as he wiped his forehead with the hand not holding the
+wrench, he left a wide mourning band across it.
+
+"Well?" he panted. "Who is it? Who wants me?"
+
+One of the loafers, who had been assisting the blacksmith by holding his
+pipe while he dove into the machinery, languidly motioned toward the new
+arrival. Benijah adjusted his spectacles and walked over to the wagon.
+
+"Who is it?" he asked crossly. Then, as he recognized his visitor, he
+grunted: "Ugh! it's you, hey. Well, what do YOU want?"
+
+"Want you to put a new shoe on this horse of mine," replied Seth, not
+too graciously.
+
+"Is that so! Well, I'm busy."
+
+"I don't care if you be. I guess you ain't so busy you can't do a job of
+work. If you are, you're richer'n I ever heard you was."
+
+"I want to know! Maybe I'm particular who I work for, Seth Atkins."
+
+"Maybe you are. I ain't so particular; if I was, I wouldn't come here,
+I tell you that. This horse of mine's got a loose shoe, and I want him
+attended to quick."
+
+"Thought you said you'd never trust me with another job."
+
+"I ain't trustin' you now. I'll be here while it's done. And I ain't
+askin' you to trust me, neither. I'll pay cash--cash, d'ye understand?"
+
+The bystanders grinned. Mr. Ellis's frown deepened. "I'm busy," he
+declared, with importance. "I've got Mr. Delancey Barry's automobile to
+fix, and I can't stop to bother with horses--specially certain kind of
+horses."
+
+This sneer at Joshua roused his owner's ire. He dropped the reins and
+sprang to the ground.
+
+"See here, Benije Ellis," he growled, advancing upon the repairer of
+automobiles, who retreated a step or two with promptness. "I don't care
+what you're fixin', nor whose it is, neither. I guess 'twill be 'fixed'
+all right when you get through with it, but that ain't neither here nor
+there. And it don't make no difference if it does belong to Mr. Barry.
+If 'twas Elijah's chariot of fire 'twould be just the same. That auto
+won't be done this afternoon, and nobody expects it to be. Here's my
+horse sufferin' to be shod; I want him shod and I've got the money to
+pay for it. When it's winter time you're around cryin' that you can't
+earn money to pay your bills. Now, just because it's summer and there's
+city big-bugs in the neighborhood innocent enough to let you tinker with
+their autos--though they'll never do it but once--I don't propose to
+be put off. If you won't shoe this horse of mine I'll know it's because
+you've got so much money you don't need more. And if that's the case,
+there's a whole lot of folks would be mighty glad to know it--Henry G.
+Goodspeed for one. I'm goin' up to his store now. Shall I tell him?"
+
+This was a shot in the bull's-eye. Mr. Ellis owed a number of bills,
+had owed them for a long time, and Mr. Goodspeed's was by no means
+the smallest. The loafers exchanged winks, and the blacksmith's manner
+became more conciliatory.
+
+"I didn't say I wouldn't do it for you, Seth," he pleaded. "I'm always
+willin' to do your work. You're the one that's been complainin'."
+
+"Ugh! Well, I'm likely to complain some more, but the complaint's one
+thing, and the need's another. I'm like Joel Knowles--he said when he
+couldn't get whisky he worried along best he could with bay rum. I
+need a blacksmith, and if I can't get a real one I'll put up with an
+imitation. Will you shoe this horse for me?"
+
+"Course I'll shoe him. But I can't do it this minute. I've got this
+consarned machine," waving a hand toward the automobile, "out of door
+here and all to pieces. And it's goin' to rain. Just let me put enough
+of it together so's I can shove it into the shop out of the wet, and
+then I'll tackle your job. You leave your horse and team here and go do
+your other errands. He'll be ready when you come back."
+
+So on this basis the deal was finally made. Seth was reluctant to trust
+the precious Joshua out of his sight, but, after some parley, he agreed
+to do so. The traces were unfastened, and the animal was led into the
+shop, the carriage was backed under a shed, and the lightkeeper went
+away promising to be back in an hour. As soon as he had gone, Ellis
+dived again into the vitals of the auto.
+
+The argument with the blacksmith had one satisfactory result so far as
+Seth was concerned. In a measure it afforded a temporary vent for his
+feelings. He was moderately agreeable during his brief stay at the
+grocery store, and when his orders were given and he found the hour not
+half over, he strolled out to walk about the village. And then, alone
+once more, all his misery and heartache returned. He strode along, his
+head down, scarcely speaking to acquaintances whom he met, until he
+reached the railway station, where he sat down on the baggage truck to
+mentally review, over and over again, the scene with Emeline and the
+dreadful collapse of his newborn hopes and plans.
+
+As he sat there, the door of the station opened and a man emerged, a man
+evidently not a native of Eastboro. He was dressed in a rather loud, but
+somewhat shabby, suit of summer plaid, his straw hat was set a trifle
+over one ear, and he was smoking the stump of a not too fragrant
+cigar. Altogether he looked like a sporting character under a temporary
+financial cloud, but the cloud did not dim his self-satisfaction nor
+shadow his magnificent complaisance. He regarded the section of Eastboro
+before him with condescending scorn, and then, catching sight of the
+doleful figure on the baggage truck, strolled over and addressed it.
+
+"I say, my friend," he observed briskly, "have you a match concealed
+about your person? If so, I--"
+
+He stopped short, for Mr. Atkins, after one languid glance in his
+direction, had sprung from the truck and was gazing at him as if he was
+some apparition, some figure in a nightmare, instead of his blase self.
+And he, as he looked at the lightkeeper's astounded countenance,
+dropped the cigar stump from his fingers and stepped backward in alarmed
+consternation.
+
+"You--you--YOU?" gasped Seth.
+
+"YOU!" repeated the stranger.
+
+"You!" cried Seth again; not a brilliant nor original observation, but,
+under the circumstances, excusable, for the nonchalant person in
+the plaid suit was Emeline Bascom's brother-in-law, the genius, the
+"inventor," the one person whom he hated--and feared--more than anyone
+else in the world--Bennie D. himself.
+
+There was a considerable interval during which neither of the pair
+spoke. Seth, open-mouthed and horror-stricken, was incapable of speech,
+and the inventor's astonishment seemed to be coupled with a certain
+nervousness, almost as if he feared a physical assault. However, as the
+lightkeeper made no move, and his fists remained open, the nervousness
+disappeared, and Bennie D. characteristically took command of the
+situation.
+
+"Hum!" he observed musingly. "Hum! May I ask what you are doing here?"
+
+"Huh--hey?" was Seth's incoherent reply.
+
+"I ask what you are doing here? Have you followed me?"
+
+"Fol-follered you? No."
+
+"You're sure of that, are you?"
+
+"Yes, I be." Seth did not ask what Bennie D. was doing there. Already
+that question was settled in his mind. The brother-in-law had found
+out that Emeline was living next door to the man she married, that her
+summer engagement was over, and he had come to take her away.
+
+"Well?" queried the inventor sharply, "if you haven't followed me, what
+are you doing here? What do you mean by being here?"
+
+"I belong here," desperately. "I work here."
+
+"You do? And may I ask what particular being is fortunate enough to
+employ you?"
+
+"I'm keeper down to the lighthouses, if you want to know. But I cal'late
+you know it already."
+
+Bennie D.'s coolness was not proof against this. He started.
+
+"The lighthouses?" he repeated. "The--what is it they call them?--the
+Twin-Lights?"
+
+"Yes. You know it; what's the use of askin' fool questions?"
+
+The inventor had not known it--until that moment, and he took time to
+consider before making another remark. His sister-in-law was employed as
+housekeeper at some bungalow or other situated in close proximity to
+the Twin-Lights; that he had discovered since his arrival on the morning
+train. Prior to that he had known only that she was in Eastboro for
+the summer. Before that he had not been particularly interested in her
+location. Since the day, two years past, when, having decided that he
+had used her and her rapidly depleting supply of cash as long as was
+safe or convenient, he had unceremoniously left her and gone to New
+York to live upon money supplied by a credulous city gentleman, whom his
+smooth tongue had interested in his "inventions," he had not taken the
+trouble even to write to Emeline. But within the present month the New
+Yorker's credulity and his "loans" had ceased to be material assets.
+Then Bennie D., face to face with the need of funds, remembered his
+sister and the promise given his dead brother that he should be provided
+with a home as long as she had one.
+
+He journeyed to Cape Ann and found, to his dismay, that she was no
+longer there. After some skillful detective work, he learned of the
+Eastboro engagement and wrote the letter--a piteous, appealing letter,
+full of brotherly love and homesickness--which, held back by the storm,
+reached Mrs. Bascom only that morning. In it he stated that he was
+on his way to her and was counting the minutes until they should be
+together once more. And he had, as soon after his arrival in the village
+as possible, 'phoned to the Lights and spoken with her. Her tone, as
+she answered, was, he thought, alarmingly cold. It had made him
+apprehensive, and he wondered if his influence over her was on the wane.
+But now--now he understood. Her husband--her husband, of all people--had
+been living next door to her all summer. No doubt she knew he was there
+when she took the place. Perhaps they had met by mutual agreement. Why,
+this was appalling! It might mean anything. And yet Seth did not
+look triumphant or even happy. Bennie D. resolved to show no signs of
+perturbation or doubt, but first to find out, if he could, the truth,
+and then to act accordingly.
+
+"Mr. Bascom--" he began. The lightkeeper, greatly alarmed, interrupted
+him.
+
+"Hush!" he whispered. "Don't say that. That ain't my name--down here."
+
+"Indeed? What is your name?"
+
+"Down here they call me Seth Atkins."
+
+Bennie D. looked puzzled. Then his expression changed. He was relieved.
+When he 'phoned to the Lights--using the depot 'phone--the station agent
+had seemed to consider his calling a woman over the lighthouse wire
+great fun. The lightkeeper, so the agent said, was named Atkins, and was
+a savage woman-hater. He would not see a woman, much less speak to one;
+it was a standing joke in the neighborhood, Seth's hatred of females.
+That seemed to prove that Emeline and her husband were not reconciled
+and living together, at least. Possibly their being neighbors was merely
+a coincidence. If so, he might not have come too late. When he next
+addressed his companion it was in a different tone and without the
+"Mister."
+
+"Bascom--or--er--Atkins," he said sharply, "I hoped--I sincerely hoped
+that you and I might not meet during my short stay here; but, as we have
+met, I think it best that we should understand each other. Suppose we
+walk over to that clump of trees on the other side of the track.
+We shall be alone there, and I can say what is necessary. I don't
+wish--even when I remember your behavior toward my sister--to humiliate
+you in the town where you may be trying to lead a better life. Come."
+
+He led the way, and Seth, yielding as of old to this man's almost
+hypnotic command over him and still bewildered by the unexpected
+meeting, followed like a whipped dog. Under the shelter of the trees
+they paused.
+
+"Now then," said Bennie D., "perhaps you'll tell me what you mean by
+decoying my sister down here in my absence, when I was not present to
+protect her. What do you mean by it?"
+
+Seth stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Decoyin' her?" he repeated. "I
+never decoyed her. I've been here ever since I left--left you and her
+that night. I never asked her to come. I didn't know she was comin'. And
+she didn't know I was here until--until a month or so ago. I--"
+
+Bennie D. held up a hand. He was delighted by this piece of news, but he
+did not show it.
+
+"That will do," he said. "I understand all that. But since then--since
+then? What do you mean by trying to influence her as you have? Answer
+me!"
+
+The lightkeeper rubbed his forehead.
+
+"I ain't tried to influence her," he declared. "She and me have scarcely
+seen each other. Nobody knows that we was married, not even Miss Graham
+nor the young feller that's--that's my helper at the lights. You must
+know that. She must have wrote you. What are you talkin' about?"
+
+She had not written; he had received no letters from her during the two
+years, but again the wily "genius" was equal to the occasion. He looked
+wise and nodded.
+
+"Of course," he said importantly. "Of course. Certainly."
+
+He hesitated, not knowing exactly what his next move should be. And
+Seth, having had time to collect, in a measure, his scattered wits,
+began to do some thinking on his own account.
+
+"Say," he said suddenly, "if you knew all this aforehand, what are you
+askin' these questions for?"
+
+"That," Bennie D.'s gesture was one of lofty disdain, "is my business."
+
+"I want to know! Well, then, maybe I've got some business of my own. Who
+made my business your business? Hey?"
+
+"The welfare of my sister--"
+
+"Never you mind your sister. You're talkin' with me now. And you ain't
+got me penned up in a house, neither. By jiminy crimps!" His anger
+boiled over, and, to the inventor's eyes, he began to look alarmingly
+alive. "By jiminy crimps!" repeated Seth, "I've been prayin' all these
+years to meet you somewheres alone, and now I've a good mind to--to--"
+
+His big fist closed. Bennie D. stepped backward out of reach.
+
+"Bascom--" he cried, "don't--"
+
+"Don't you call me that!"
+
+"Bascom--" The inventor was thoroughly frightened, and his voice rose
+almost to a shout.
+
+The lightkeeper's wrath vanished at the sound of the name. If any native
+of Eastboro, if the depot master on the other side of the track, should
+hear him addressed as "Bascom," the fat would be in the fire for good
+and all. The secret he had so jealously guarded would be out, and all
+the miserable story would, sooner or later, be known.
+
+"Don't call me Bascom," he begged. "Er--please don't."
+
+Bennie D.'s courage returned. Yet he realized that if a trump card was
+to be played it must be then. This man was dangerous, and, somehow
+or other, his guns must be spiked. A brilliant idea occurred to him.
+Exactly how much of the truth Seth knew he was not sure, but he took the
+risk.
+
+"Very well then--Atkins," he said contemptuously. "I am not used to
+aliases--not having dealt with persons finding it necessary to employ
+them--and I forget. But before this disagreeable interview is ended I
+wish you to understand thoroughly why I am here. I am here to protect my
+sister and to remove her from your persecution. I am here to assist her
+in procuring a divorce."
+
+"A divorce! A DIVORCE! Good heavens above!"
+
+"Yes, sir," triumphantly, "a divorce from the man she was trapped into
+marrying and who deserted her. You did desert her, you can't deny
+that. So long as she remains your wife, even in name, she is liable
+to persecution from you. She understands this. She and I are to see a
+lawyer at once. That is why I am here."
+
+Seth was completely overwhelmed. A divorce! A case for the papers to
+print, and all of Ostable county to read!
+
+"I--I--I--" he stammered, and then added weakly, "I don't believe it.
+She wouldn't . . . There ain't no lawyer here."
+
+"Then we shall seek the one nearest here. Emeline understands. I 'phoned
+her this morning."
+
+"Was it YOU that 'phoned?"
+
+"It was. Now--er--Atkins, I am disposed to be as considerate of your
+welfare as possible. I know that any publicity in this matter might
+prejudice you in the eyes of your--of the government officials. I shall
+not seek publicity, solely on your account. The divorce will be obtained
+privately, provided--PROVIDED you remain out of sight and do not
+interfere. I warn you, therefore, not to make trouble or to attempt to
+see my sister again. If you do--well, if you do, the consequences will
+be unpleasant for you. Do you understand?"
+
+Seth understood, or thought he did. He groaned and leaned heavily
+against a tree trunk.
+
+"You understand, do you?" repeated Bennie D. "I see that you do. Very
+good then. I have nothing more to say. I advise that you remain--er--in
+seclusion for the next few days. Good-by."
+
+He gave a farewell glance at the crushed figure leaning against the
+tree. Then he turned on his heel and walked off.
+
+Seth remained where he was for perhaps ten minutes, not moving a muscle.
+Then he seemed to awaken, looked anxiously in the direction of the depot
+to make sure that no one was watching, pulled his cap over his eyes,
+jammed his hands into his pockets, and started to walk across the
+fields. He had no fixed destination in mind, had no idea where he was
+going except that he must go somewhere, that he could not keep still.
+
+He stumbled along, through briers and bushes, paying no attention to
+obstacles such as fences or stone walls until he ran into them, when he
+climbed over and went blindly on. A mile from Eastboro, and he was
+alone in a grove of scrub pines. Here he stopped short, struck his hands
+together, and groaned aloud:
+
+"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!"
+
+For he was beginning not to believe it. At first he had not thought
+of doubting Bennie D.'s statement concerning the divorce. Now, as his
+thoughts became clearer, his doubts grew. His wife had not mentioned the
+subject in their morning interview. Possibly she would not have done
+so in any event, but, as the memory of her behavior and speech became
+clearer in his mind, it seemed to him that she could not have kept such
+a secret. She had been kinder, had seemed to him more--yes, almost--why,
+when he asked her to be his again, to give him another chance, she had
+hesitated. She had not said no at once, she hesitated. If she was about
+to divorce him, would she have acted in such a way? It hardly seemed
+possible.
+
+Then came the letter and the telephone message. It was after these that
+she had said no with decision. Perhaps . . . was it possible that she
+had known of her brother-in-law's coming only then? Now that he thought
+of it, she had not gone away at once after the talk over the 'phone. She
+had waited a moment as if for him to speak. He, staggered and paralyzed
+by the sight of his enemy's name in that letter, had not spoken and
+then she . . . He did not believe she was seeking a divorce! It was all
+another of Bennie D.'s lies!
+
+But suppose she was seeking it. Or suppose--for he knew the persuasive
+power of that glib tongue only too well--suppose her brother-in-law
+should persuade her to do it. Should he sit still--in seclusion, as his
+late adviser had counseled--and let this irrevocable and final move
+be made? After a divorce--Seth's idea of divorces were vague and
+Puritanical--there would be no hope. He and Emeline could never come
+together after that. And he must give her up and all his hopes of
+happiness, all that he had dreamed of late, would be but dreams, never
+realities. No! he could not give them up. He would not. Publicity,
+scandal, everything, he could face, but he would not give his wife up
+without a fight. What should he do?
+
+For a long time he paced up and down beneath the pines trying to plan,
+to come to some decision. All that he could think of was to return to
+the Lights, to go openly to the bungalow, see Emeline and make one last
+appeal. Bennie D. might be there, but if he was--well, by jiminy crimps,
+let him look out, that's all!
+
+He had reached this point in his meditations when the wind, which had
+been steadily increasing and tossing the pinetops warningly, suddenly
+became a squall which brought with it a flurry of rain. He started and
+looked up. The sky was dark, it was late in the afternoon, and the storm
+he had prophesied had arrived.
+
+Half an hour later he ran, panting and wet, into the blacksmith's shop.
+The automobile was standing in the middle of the floor, and Mr. Ellis
+was standing beside it, perspiring and troubled.
+
+"Where's Joshua?" demanded Seth.
+
+"Hey?" inquired the blacksmith absently.
+
+"Where's my horse? Is he ready?"
+
+Benijah wiped his forehead.
+
+"Gosh!" he exclaimed. "By . . . gosh!"
+
+"What are you b'goshin' about?"
+
+"Seth--I don't know what you'll say to me--but--but I declare I forgot
+all about your horse."
+
+"You FORGOT about him?"
+
+"Yes. You see that thing?" pointing pathetically at the auto. "Well,
+sir, that pesky thing's breakin' my heart--to say nothin' of my back. I
+got it apart all right, no trouble about that. And by good rights
+I've got it together again, leastways it looks so. Yet, by time," in
+distracted agitation, "there's a half bucket of bolts and nuts and odds
+and ends that ain't in it yet--left over, you might say. And I can't
+find any place to put one of 'em. Do you wonder I forget trifles?"
+
+Trifles! the shoeing of Joshua a trifle! The lightkeeper had been
+suffering for an opportunity to blow off steam, and the opportunity was
+here. Benijah withered under the blast.
+
+"S-sh-sh! sh-sh!" he pleaded. "Land sakes, Seth Atkins, stop it! I don't
+blame you for bein' mad, but you nor nobody else sha'n't talk to me that
+way. I'll fix your horse in five minutes. Yes, sir, in five minutes.
+Shut up now, or I won't do it at all!"
+
+He rushed over to the stall in the rear of the shop, woke Joshua from
+the sweet slumber of old age, and led him to the halter beside the
+forge. The lightkeeper, being out of breath, had nothing further to say
+at the moment.
+
+"What's the matter with all you lighthouse folks?" asked Benijah,
+anxious to change the subject. "What's possessed the whole lot of you to
+come to the village at one time? Whoa, boy, stand still!"
+
+"The whole lot of us?" repeated Seth. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Mean I've seen two of you at least this afternoon. That Bascom woman,
+housekeeper at the Graham bungalow she is, went past here twice. Fust
+time she was in one of Snow's livery buggies, Snow's boy drivin' her.
+Then, about an hour ago, she went by again, but the boy'd gone, and
+there was another feller pilotin' the team--a stranger, nobody I ever
+see afore."
+
+Seth's red face turned pale. "What?" he cried. "Em--Mrs. Bascom ridin'
+with a stranger! What sort of a stranger?"
+
+"Oh, a feller somewheres between twenty and fifty. Smooth-faced critter
+with a checked suit and a straw hat. . . . What on earth's the matter
+with you now?"
+
+For the lightkeeper was shaking from head to foot.
+
+"Did--did--which way was they goin'? Back to the Lights or--or where?"
+
+"No, didn't seem to be goin' to the Lights at all. They went on the
+other road. Seemed to be headin' for Denboro if they kept on as they
+started. . . . Seth Atkins, have you turned loony?"
+
+Seth did not answer. With a leap he landed at Joshua's head, unhooked
+the halter, and ran out of the shop leading the horse. The astonished
+blacksmith followed as far as the door. Seth was backing the animal into
+his wagon, which stood beneath the shed. He fastened the traces with
+trembling fingers.
+
+"What in the world has struck you?" shouted Ellis. "Ain't you goin' to
+have that shoe fixed? He can't travel that way. Seth! Seth Atkins! . . .
+By time, he IS crazy!"
+
+Seth did not deny the charge. Climbing into the wagon, he took up the
+reins.
+
+"Are you sure and sartin' 'twas the Denboro road they took?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Who took? That feller and the Bascom woman? Course I am, but . . .
+Well, I swan!"
+
+For the lightkeeper waited to hear no more. He struck the unsuspecting
+Joshua with the end of the reins and, with a jump, the old horse started
+forward. Another moment, and the lighthouse wagon was splashing and
+rattling through the pouring rain along the road leading to Denboro.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE VOYAGE OF THE DAISY M.
+
+
+Denboro is many long miles from Eastboro, and the road, even in the
+best of weather, is not a good one. It winds and twists and climbs and
+descends through woods and over hills. There are stretches of marshy
+hollows where the yellow clay needs but a little moistening to become a
+paste which sticks to wheels and hoofs and makes traveling, even behind
+a young and spirited horse, a disheartening progress.
+
+Joshua was neither young nor spirited. And the weather could not have
+been much worse. The three days' storm had soaked everything, and the
+clay-bottomed puddles were near kin to quicksands. As the lighthouse
+wagon descended the long slope at the southern end of the village and
+began the circle of the inner extremity of Eastboro Back Harbor, Seth
+realized that his journey was to be a hard one. The rain, driven by the
+northeast wind, came off the water in blinding gusts, and the waves in
+the harbor were tipped with white. Also, although the tide was almost
+at its lowest, streaks of seaweed across the road showed where it had
+reached that forenoon, and prophesied even a greater flood that night.
+He turned his head and gazed up the harbor to where it narrowed and
+became Pounddug Slough. In the Slough, near its ocean extremity, his old
+schooner, the Daisy M., lay stranded. He had not visited her for a week,
+and he wondered if the "spell of weather" had injured her to any extent.
+This speculation, however, was but momentary. The Daisy M. must look out
+for herself. His business was to reach Judge Gould's, in Denboro, before
+Mrs. Bascom and Bennie D. could arrange with that prominent citizen and
+legal light for the threatened divorce.
+
+That they had started for Judge Gould's he did not doubt for a moment.
+"I shall seek the nearest lawyer," Bennie D. had said. And the judge
+was the nearest. They must be going there, or why should they take
+that road? Neither did he doubt now that their object was to secure the
+divorce. How divorces were secured, or how long it took to get one, Seth
+did not know. His sole knowledge on that subject was derived from the
+newspapers and comic weeklies, and he remembered reading of places in
+the West where lawyers with the necessary blanks in their pockets met
+applicants at the arrival of one train and sent them away, rejoicing and
+free, on the next.
+
+     "You jump right off the cars and then
+     Turn round and jump right on again."
+
+This fragment of a song, sung at a "moving-picture" show in the town
+hall, and resung many times thereafter by Ezra Payne, John Brown's
+predecessor as assistant keeper at the lights, recurred to him as he
+urged the weary Joshua onward. So far as Seth knew, the Reno custom
+might be universal. At any rate, he must get to Judge Gould's before
+Emeline and her brother-in-law left there. What he should do when he
+arrived and found them there was immaterial; he must get there, that was
+all.
+
+Eastboro Back Harbor was left behind, and the long stretch of woods
+beyond was entered. Joshua, his hoofs swollen by the sticky clay
+to yellow cannon balls, plodded on, but, in spite of commands and
+pleadings--the lightkeeper possessed no whip and would not have used one
+if he had--he went slower and slower. He was walking now, and limping
+sadly on the foot where the loose shoe hung by its bent and broken
+nails.
+
+Five miles, six, seven, and the limp was worse than ever. Seth, whose
+conscience smote him, got out of the carriage into the rain and mud
+and attempted repairs, using a stone as a hammer. This seemed to help
+matters some, but it was almost dark when the granite block marking the
+township line was passed, and the windows in the houses were alight when
+he pulled up at the judge's door.
+
+The judge himself answered the knock, or series of knocks. He seemed
+much surprised to find the keeper of Eastboro Twin-Lights standing on
+his front step.
+
+"Why, hello, Atkins!" he cried. "What in the world are you doing over
+here? a night like this!"
+
+"Has--has Mrs. Bascom been here? Is she here now?" panted Seth
+anxiously.
+
+"Mrs. Bascom? Who is Mrs. Bascom?"
+
+"She--she's a friend of mine. She and--and a relation of hers was comin'
+over here to see you on business. Ain't they here? Ain't they been
+here?"
+
+"No. No one has been here this afternoon. I've been in since one
+o'clock, and not a soul has called, on business or otherwise."
+
+The lightkeeper could scarcely believe it.
+
+"You're sure?" he demanded.
+
+"Certainly. If they came before one my wife would have told me, I think.
+I'll ask her."
+
+"No, no," hastily. "You needn't. If they ain't been since one they ain't
+been. But I don't understand. . . . There's no other lawyer nigh here,
+is there?"
+
+"No; none nearer than Bayport."
+
+"My land! My LAND! Then--then I'm out of soundin's somehow. They never
+came for it, after all."
+
+"Came for what?"
+
+"Nothin', nothin', I guess," with a sickly smile. "I've made some sort
+of mistake, though I don't know how. Benije must have . . . I'll break
+that feller's neck; I will!"
+
+The lawyer began to share the blacksmith's opinion that his caller had
+gone crazy.
+
+"Come in, Atkins," he urged. "Come in out of the wet. What IS the
+matter? What are you doing here at this time of night so far from the
+Lights? Is it anything serious? Come in and tell me about it."
+
+But Seth, instead of accepting the invitation, stared at him aghast.
+Then, turning about, he leaped down the steps, ran to the wagon and
+climbed in.
+
+"Giddap!" he shouted. Poor, tired Joshua lifted his clay-daubed hoofs.
+
+"You're not going back?" cried Gould. "Hold on, Atkins! Wait!"
+
+But Seth did not wait. Already he had turned his horse's head toward
+Eastboro, and was driving off. The lawyer stood still, amazedly looking
+after him. Then he went into the house and spent the next quarter of an
+hour trying to call the Twin-Lights by telephone. As the northeast wind
+had finished what the northwest one had begun and the wire was down,
+his attempt was unsuccessful. He gave it up after a time and sat down to
+discuss the astonishing affair with his wife. He was worried.
+
+But his worriment was as nothing compared to Seth's. The lawyer's
+reference to the Lights had driven even matrimonial troubles from the
+Atkins mind. The lights! the Twin-Lights! It was long past the time for
+them to be lit, and there was no one to light them but Brown, a green
+hand. Were they lit at all? If not, heaven knew what might happen or had
+happened already.
+
+He had thought of this before, of course, had vaguely realized that
+he was betraying his trust, but then he had not cared. The Lights, his
+position as keeper, everything, were side issues compared with the one
+thing to be done, the getting to Denboro. He had reached Denboro
+and found his journey all a mistake; his wife and Bennie D. had not,
+apparently, visited that village; perhaps had not even started for it.
+Therefore, in a measure relieved, he thought of other things. He was
+many miles from his post of duty, and now his sole idea was to get back
+to it.
+
+At ten o'clock Mrs. Hepsibah Deacon, a widow living in a little house
+in the woods on the top of the hill on the Denboro side of Eastboro Back
+Harbor, with no neighbors for a mile in either direction, was awakened
+by shouts under her bedroom window. Opening that window she thrust forth
+her head.
+
+"Who is it?" she demanded quaveringly. "What's the matter? Is anything
+afire?"
+
+From the blackness of the rain and fog emerged a vague shape.
+
+"It's me, Mrs. Deacon; Seth Atkins, down to the Lights, you know. I've
+left my horse and carriage in your barn. Josh--he's the horse--is
+gone lame and played himself out. He can't walk another step. I've
+unharnessed him and left him in the stall. He'll be all right. I've
+given him some water and hay. Just let him stay there, if it ain't too
+much trouble, and I'll send for him to-morrer and pay for his keep. It's
+all right, ain't it? Much obliged. Good night."
+
+Before the frightened widow could ask a question or utter a word he was
+gone, ploughing down the hill in the direction of the Back Harbor. When
+he reached the foot of that hill where the road should have been, he
+found that it had disappeared. The tide had risen and covered it.
+
+It was pitch-dark, the rain was less heavy, and clouds of fog were
+drifting in before the wind. Seth waded on for a short distance,
+but soon realized that wading would be an impossibility. Then, as in
+despair, he was about ready to give up the attempt, a dark object came
+into view beside him. It was a dory belonging to one of the lobstermen,
+which, at the end of its long anchor rope, had swung inshore until
+it floated almost over the road. Seth seized it in time to prevent
+collision with his knees. The thole pins were in place, and the oars
+laid lengthwise on its thwarts. As his hands touched the gunwale a new
+idea came to him.
+
+He had intended walking the rest of the way to Eastboro, routing out the
+liveryman and hiring a horse and buggy with which to reach the Lights.
+Now he believed chance had offered him an easier and more direct method
+of travel. He could row up the Harbor and Slough, land close to where
+the Daisy M. lay, and walk the rest of the way in a very short time. He
+climbed into the dory, pulled up the anchor, and seated himself at the
+oars.
+
+The bottom of the boat was two inches deep with rain water, and the
+thwart was dripping and cold. Seth, being already about as wet as he
+could be, did not mind this, but pulled with long strokes out into the
+harbor. The vague black shadows of the land disappeared, and in a minute
+he was, so far as his eyes could tell him, afloat on a shoreless sea.
+He had no compass, but this did not trouble him. The wind, he knew, was
+blowing directly from the direction he wished to go, and he kept the
+dory's bow in the teeth of it. He rowed on and on. The waves, out here
+in the deep water, were of good size, and the spray flew as he splashed
+into them. He knew that he was likely to get off the course, but the
+Back Harbor was, except for its upper entrance, landlocked, and he could
+not go far astray, no matter where he might hit the shore.
+
+The fog clouds, driven by the squalls, drifted by and passed. At rare
+intervals the sky was almost clear. After he had rowed for half an hour
+and was beginning to think he must be traveling in circles, one of
+these clear intervals came and, far off to the left and ahead, he saw
+something which caused him to utter an exclamation of joy. Two
+fiery eyes shone through the dark. The fog shut them in again almost
+immediately, but that one glance was sufficient to show that all was
+well at the post he had deserted. The fiery eyes were the lanterns in
+the Twin-Lights towers. John Brown had been equal to the emergency, and
+the lamps were lighted.
+
+Seth's anxiety was relieved, but that one glimpse made him even more
+eager for home. He rowed on for a short time, and then began edging in
+toward the invisible left-hand shore. Judging by the length of time he
+had been rowing, he must be close to the mouth of the Slough, where,
+winding through the salt marshes, it emerged into the Back Harbor.
+
+He crept in nearer and nearer, but no shore came in sight. The fog was
+now so thick that he could see not more than ten feet from the boat,
+but if he was in the mouth of the Slough he should have grounded on the
+marsh bank long before. The reason that he did not, a reason which did
+not occur to him at the time, was that the marshes were four feet under
+water. Owing to the tremendous tide Pounddug Slough was now merely a
+continuation of the Harbor and almost as wide.
+
+The lightkeeper began to think that he must have miscalculated his
+distance. He could not have rowed as far as he thought. Therefore,
+he again turned the dory's nose into the teeth of the wind and pulled
+steadily on. At intervals he stopped and listened. All he heard was
+the moan of distant foghorns and the whistling of the gusts in trees
+somewhere at his left. There were pine groves scattered all along the
+bluffs on the Eastboro side, so this did not help him much except to
+prove that the shore was not far away. He pulled harder on the right
+oar. Then he stopped once more to listen.
+
+Another blast howled through the distant trees and swept down upon him.
+Then, borne on the wind, he heard from somewhere ahead, and alarmingly
+near at hand, other sounds, voices, calls for help.
+
+"Ahoy!" he shouted. "Ahoy there! Who is it? Where are you?"
+
+"Help!" came the calls again--and nearer. "Help!"
+
+"Look out!" roared Seth, peering excitedly over his shoulder into the
+dark. "Where are you? Look out or you'll be afoul of . . . Jumpin'
+Judas!"
+
+For out of the fog loomed a bulky shape driving down upon him. He pulled
+frantically at the oars, but it was too late. A mast rocked against the
+sky, a stubby bowsprit shot over the dory, and the little boat, struck
+broadside on, heeled to the water's edge. Seth, springing frantically
+upward, seized the bowsprit and clung to it. The dory, pushed aside and
+half full of water, disappeared. From the deck behind the bowsprit two
+voices, a man's voice and a woman's, screamed wildly.
+
+Seth did not scream. Clinging to the reeling bowsprit, he swung up on
+it, edged his way to the vessel's bows and stepped upon the deck.
+
+"For thunder sakes!" he roared angrily, "what kind of navigation's this?
+Where's your lights, you lubbers? What d'you mean by--Where are you
+anyhow? And--and what schooner's this?"
+
+For the deck, as much as he could see of it in the dark, looked
+astonishingly familiar. As he stumbled aft it became more familiar
+still. The ropes, a combination of new and old, the new boards in the
+deck planking, the general arrangement of things, as familiar to him as
+the arrangement of furniture in the kitchen of the Lights! It could not
+be . . . but it was! The little schooner was his own, his hobby, his
+afternoon workshop--the Daisy M. herself. The Daisy M., which he had
+last seen stranded and, as he supposed, hard and fast aground! The Daisy
+M. afloat, after all these years!
+
+From the stern by the cabin hatch a man came reeling toward him, holding
+to the rail for support with one hand and brandishing the other.
+
+"Help!" cried the man wildly. "Who is it? Help us! we're drowning! We're
+. . . Can't you put us ashore. Please put us . . . Good Lord!"
+
+Seth made no answer. How could he? The man was Bennie D.
+
+And then another figure followed the first, and a woman's voice spoke
+pleadingly.
+
+"Have you got a boat?" it cried. "We're adrift on this dreadful thing
+and . . . why, SETH!"
+
+The woman was Emeline Bascom.
+
+"Why, SETH!" she said again. Then the sounds of the wind and waves and
+the creaking and cracking of the old schooner alone broke the silence.
+
+But Bennie D., even under the shock of such a surprise as this, did not
+remain silent long. His precious self was in danger.
+
+"You put us ashore!" he shouted. "You put us ashore right off, do you
+hear? Don't stand there like a fool! Do something. Do you want us to
+drown? DO something!"
+
+Seth came to life. His first speech was sharp and businesslike.
+
+"Emeline," he said, "there's a lantern hanging up in the cabin. Go light
+it and fetch it to me. Hurry!"
+
+"It's upset," was the frightened answer. "Bennie found it when we first
+came aboard. When we--when this awful boat started, it upset and went
+out."
+
+"Never mind. Probably there's ile enough left for a spell. Go fetch
+it. There's matches in a box on the wall just underneath where 'twas
+hangin'. Don't stop to talk! Move!"
+
+Mrs. Bascom moved. Seth turned to the "inventor."
+
+"Come for'ard with me," he ordered. "Here! this way! for'ard! FOR'ARD!"
+
+He seized his companion by the arm and pulled him toward the bow. The
+frightened genius held back.
+
+"What in time is the matter with you?" snarled the lightkeeper. "Are
+your feet asleep? Come!"
+
+Bennie D. came, under compulsion. Seth half led, half dragged him to the
+bow, and, bending down, uncoiled a rope and put it in his hands.
+
+"Them's the jib halliards," he explained. "Haul on 'em quick and hard
+as you can. If we can h'ist the jib we can get some steerage way on her,
+maybe. Haul! haul till you can't haul no more. Then hang on till I come
+back and make fast."
+
+He rushed back to the wheel. The tiller ropes were new, and he could
+trust them, fortunately. From the cabin hatchway emerged Mrs. Bascom
+bearing the lighted lantern.
+
+"Good!" snapped Seth. "Now we can see what we're doin' and, if we show
+a glim, maybe we won't run down no more dories. You go for'ard and--No,
+you take this wheel and hold it just as 'tis. JUST as 'tis; understand?
+I'll be back in a jiffy. What in thunder's the matter with that foolhead
+at the jib?"
+
+He seized the lantern and rushed to the bow. Bennie D. had dropped the
+halliard and was leaning over the rail screaming for help.
+
+Seth hoisted the jib himself, made it fast, and then turned his
+attention to the mutinous hand.
+
+"Shut up!" he bellowed, catching him by the arm. "Who do you cal'late's
+goin' to hear you? Shut up! You come with me. I want you to pump. The
+old craft would do well enough if she was tight, but she's more'n likely
+takin' water like a sieve. You come and pump."
+
+But Bennie had no notion of pumping. With a jerk he tore loose from the
+lightkeeper's grasp and ran to the stern, where he continued his howls
+for help.
+
+Seth was at his heels.
+
+"Stop that, I tell you," he commanded angrily. "It don't do no good. If
+you don't want to go to the bottom you'll work that pump. Don't be such
+a clown."
+
+The frantic genius paid no attention. His sister-in-law left the wheel
+and put her hand on his shoulder. "Please, Bennie," she pleaded. "Please
+do as he says. He knows, and--"
+
+Bennie D. pushed her backward with savage force. "Mind your own
+business," he yelled with an oath. "'Twas your foolishness got me into
+this." Then, leaning over the rail, he called shrilly, "He--lp! I'm
+drowning! Help!"
+
+Mrs. Bascom staggered back against the wheel, which Seth had seized the
+instant she deserted it. "Oh!" she said, "you hurt me."
+
+Her husband freed an arm and put it about her. "Are you much hurt,
+Emeline?" he asked sharply.
+
+"No--o. No, Seth. I--I guess I ain't really hurt at all."
+
+"Good! Then you take this wheel and hold her just so. That's it. AND
+DON'T YOU DROP IT AGAIN. I'll attend to this feller."
+
+His wiry fingers locked themselves in Bennie D.'s shirt collar.
+
+"I ordered you to pump," said Seth. "Now then, you come and pump!"
+
+"Let go!" screamed his captive. "Take your hands off me, or--"
+
+The back of his head striking the deck put a period in the middle of
+his sentence. The next moment he was being dragged by the collar to the
+little hand pump amidships.
+
+"Pump!" roared the lightkeeper. "Pump! or I'll break your everlastin'
+neck. Lively now!"
+
+The dazed genius rose to his knees. "What--" he stammered. "Where--"
+
+"Right there in front of you. Lively, you lubber!"
+
+A well-directed kick helped to facilitate liveliness.
+
+"What shall I do?" wailed Bennie D., fumbling the pump brake. "How does
+it go?"
+
+"Up and down--so." Seth jerked his victim's head up and down, by way of
+illustration. "Now, then," he continued, "you pump till I say quit, or
+I'll--I swan to man I'll make a spare tops'l out of your hide!"
+
+He left the inventor working as he had not worked in the memory of man,
+and strode back to the wheel. Mrs. Bascom was clinging to the spokes for
+dear life.
+
+"I--I ain't dropped it, Seth," she declared. "Truly I ain't."
+
+"All right. You can drop it now. I'll take it myself. You set down and
+rest."
+
+He took the wheel and she collapsed, breathless, against the rail. After
+a time she ventured to ask a question.
+
+"Seth!" she said, "how do you know which way to steer?"
+
+"I don't," was the reply. "All I'm tryin' to do is keep her afore it. If
+this no'theast wind would hold, we'd be all right, but it's dyin' fast.
+And the tide must be at flood, if not startin' to go out. With no wind,
+and no anchor, and the kind of ebb tide there'll be pretty soon--well,
+if we don't drift out to sea we'll be lucky. . . . Pump! pump! you son
+of a roustabout. If I hear you stoppin' for a second I'll come for'ard
+and murder you."
+
+Bennie D., who had ventured to rest for a moment, bent his aching back
+to the task. Was this man-slaughtering tyrant his mild-mannered, meek
+brother-in-law, the creature whom he had brow-beaten so often and
+managed so effectively? He could not understand--but he pumped.
+
+Perhaps Seth did not understand, either; perhaps he did not try to.
+Yet the explanation was simple and natural. The sea, the emergency, the
+danger, his own deck beneath his feet--these were like old times,
+here was a situation he knew how to handle. He forgot that he was a
+lightkeeper absent from duty, forgot that one of his passengers was the
+wife he had run away from, and the other his bugbear, the dreaded and
+formidable Bennie D. He forgot all this and was again the able seaman,
+the Tartar skipper who, in former days, made his crews fear, respect,
+and swear by him.
+
+And he reveled in his authority. Once Mrs. Bascom rose to peer over the
+rail.
+
+"Emeline," he snapped, "didn't I tell you to set down and set still?
+Must I give orders twice? SET DOWN!"
+
+Emeline "set."
+
+The wind died to fitful gusts. The schooner barely moved. The fog was
+as thick as ever. Still Seth did not lose courage. When the housekeeper
+ventured to murmur that she was certain they would drown, he reassured
+her.
+
+"Keep your pennant mast-high, Emeline," he said cheerfully. "We ain't
+out at sea, that's sure and sartin. And, until we get in the breakers,
+we're safe enough. The old gal leaks some; she ain't as dry as a
+Good-Templar prayer meetin', but she's afloat. And when I'm afloat I
+ain't afraid, and you needn't be."
+
+Some time after that he asked a question in his turn.
+
+"Emeline," he said, "what in the world are you doin' here, on my
+schooner?"
+
+"Your schooner, Seth? Yours? Is this dreadful--is this boat yours?"
+
+"Yup. She's mine. I bought her just for fun a long spell ago, and I've
+been fussin' with her ever since. But I did it FOR fun; I never s'posed
+she'd take a cruise--like this. And what are you and--him--doin' on
+her?"
+
+Mrs. Bascom hesitated. "It was all an accident, Seth," she explained.
+"This has been an awful night--and day. Bennie and I was out ridin'
+together, and we took the wrong road. We got lost, and the rain was
+awful. We got out of the buggy to stand under some trees where 'twas
+drier. The horse got scared at some limbs fallin' and run off. Then it
+was most dark, and we got down to the shore and saw this boat. There
+wa'n't any water round her then. Bennie, he climbed aboard and said the
+cabin was dry, so we went into it to wait for the storm to let up. But
+it kept gettin' worse. When we came out of the cabin it was all fog like
+this and water everywhere. Bennie was afraid to wade, for we couldn't
+see the shore, so we went back into the cabin again. And then, all at
+once, there was a bump that knocked us both sprawlin'. The lantern
+went out, and when we come on deck we were afloat. It was terrible. And
+then--and then you came, Seth, and saved our lives."
+
+"Humph! Maybe they ain't saved yet. . . . Emeline, where was you drivin'
+to?"
+
+"Why, we was drivin' home, or thought we was."
+
+"Home?"
+
+"Yes, home--back to the bungalow."
+
+"You was?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+A pause. Then: "Emeline, there's no use your tellin' me what ain't so.
+I know more than you think I do, maybe. If you was drivin' home why did
+you take the Denboro road?"
+
+"The Denboro road? Why, we only went on that a ways. Then we turned off
+on what we thought was the road to the Lights. But it wa'n't; it must
+have been the other, the one that goes along by the edge of the
+Back Harbor and the Slough, the one that's hardly ever used. Seth,"
+indignantly, "what do you mean by sayin' that I told you what wa'n't so?
+Do you think I lie?"
+
+"No. No more than you thought I lied about that Christy critter."
+
+"Seth, I was always sorry for that. I knew you didn't lie. At least I
+ought to have known you didn't. I--"
+
+"Wait. What did you take the Denboro road at all for?"
+
+"Why--why--Well, Seth, I'll tell you. Bennie wanted to talk to me.
+He had come on purpose to see me, and he wanted me to do somethin'
+that--that . . . Anyhow, he'd come to see me. I didn't know he was
+comin'. I hadn't heard from him for two years. That letter I got
+this--yesterday mornin' was from him, and it most knocked me over."
+
+"You hadn't HEARD from him? Ain't he been writin' you right along?"
+
+"No. The fact is he left me two years ago without even sayin' good-by,
+and--and I thought he had gone for good. But he hadn't," with a sigh,
+"he hadn't. And he wanted to talk with me. That's why he took the other
+road--so's he'd have more time to talk, I s'pose."
+
+"Humph! Emeline, answer me true: Wa'n't you goin' to Denboro to get--to
+get a divorce from me?"
+
+"A divorce? A divorce from YOU? Seth Bascom, I never heard such--"
+
+She rose from her seat against the rail.
+
+"Set down," ordered her husband sharply. "You set down and keep down."
+
+She stared, gasped, and resumed her seat. Seth gazed straight ahead into
+the blackness. He swallowed once or twice, and his hands tightened on
+the spokes of the wheel.
+
+"That--that feller there," nodding grimly toward the groaning figure at
+the pumps, "told me himself that him and you had agreed to get a divorce
+from me--to get it right off. He give me to understand that you expected
+him, 'twas all settled and that was why he'd come to Eastboro. That's
+what he told me this afternoon on the depot platform."
+
+Mrs. Bascom again sprang up.
+
+"Set down!" commanded Seth.
+
+"I won't."
+
+"Yes, you will. Set down." And she did.
+
+"Seth," she cried, "did he--did Bennie tell you that? Did he? Why, I
+never heard such a--I never! Seth, it ain't true, not a word of it. Did
+you think I'd get a divorce? Me? A self-respectin' woman? And from you?"
+
+"You turned me adrift."
+
+"I didn't. You turned yourself adrift. I was in trouble, bound by a
+promise I give my dyin' husband, to give his brother a home while I had
+one. I didn't want to do it; I didn't want him with us--there, where
+we'd been so happy. But I couldn't say anything. I couldn't turn him
+out. And you wouldn't, you--"
+
+She was interrupted. From beneath the Daisy M.'s keel came a long,
+scraping noise. The little schooner shook, and then lay still. The
+waves, no longer large, slapped her sides.
+
+Mrs. Bascom, startled, uttered a little scream. Bennie D., knocked
+to his knees, roared in fright. Seth alone was calm. Nothing, at that
+moment, could alarm or even surprise him.
+
+"Humph!" he observed, "we're aground somewheres. And in the Harbor.
+We're safe and sound now, I cal'late. Emeline, go below where it's
+dry and stay there. Don't talk--go. As for you," leaving the wheel and
+striding toward the weary inventor, "you can stop pumpin'--unless," with
+a grim smile, "you like it too well to quit--and set down right where
+you be. Right where you be, I said! Don't you move till I say the word.
+WHEN I say it, jump!"
+
+He went forward, lowered the jib, and coiled the halliards. Then,
+lantern in hand, he seated himself in the bows. After a time he filled
+his pipe, lit it by the aid of the lantern, and smoked. There was
+silence aboard the Daisy M.
+
+The wind died away altogether. The fog gradually disappeared. From
+somewhere not far away a church clock struck the hour. Seth heard it and
+smiled. Turning his head he saw in the distance the Twin-Lights burning
+steadily. He smiled again.
+
+Gradually, slowly, the morning came. The last remnant of low-hanging
+mist drifted away. Before the bows of the stranded schooner appeared a
+flat shore with a road, still partially covered by the receding tide,
+along its border. Fish houses and anchored dories became visible. Behind
+them were hills, and over them roofs and trees and steeples.
+
+A step sounded behind the watcher in the bows. Mrs. Bascom was at his
+elbow.
+
+"Why, Seth!" she cried, "why, Seth! it's Eastboro, ain't it? We're close
+to Eastboro."
+
+Seth nodded. "It's Eastboro," he said. "I cal'lated we must be there or
+thereabouts. With that no'theast breeze to help us we couldn't do much
+else but fetch up at the inner end of the Back Harbor."
+
+She laid her hand timidly on his arm.
+
+"Seth," she whispered, "what should we have done without you? You saved
+our lives."
+
+He swung about and faced her. "Emeline," he said, "we've both been
+awful fools. I've been the biggest one, I guess. But I've learned my
+lesson--I've swore off--I told you I'd prove I was a man. Do you think
+I've been one tonight?"
+
+"Seth!"
+
+"Well, do you? Or," with a gesture toward the "genius" who was beginning
+to take an interest in his surroundings, "do you like that kind better?"
+
+"Seth," reproachfully, "I never liked him better. If you had--"
+
+She was interrupted by her brother-in-law, who came swaggering toward
+them. With the sight of land and safety, Bennie D.'s courage returned;
+also, his old assurance.
+
+"Humph!" he observed. "Well, sister, we are safe, I really believe.
+In spite of," with a glare at the lightkeeper, "this person's insane
+recklessness and brutality. Now I will take you ashore and out of his
+presence."
+
+Seth rose to his feet.
+
+"Didn't I tell you," he demanded, "not to move till I said the word?
+Emeline, stay right here."
+
+Bennie D. stared at the speaker; then at his sister-in-law.
+
+"Sister," he cried, in growing alarm, "sister, come! come! we're going
+ashore, I tell you. What are you waiting for?"
+
+Seth put his arm about the lady.
+
+"She is goin' ashore," he said. "But she's goin' with me, and she's
+goin' to stay with me. Ain't you, Emeline?"
+
+The lady looked up into his face and then down again. "If you want me,
+Seth," she said.
+
+Bennie D. sprang forward. "Emeline," he shrieked, "what do you mean? Are
+you going to leave me? Have you forgotten--"
+
+"She ain't forgot nothin'," broke in Seth. "But YOU'RE forgettin' what I
+told you. Will you go aft there and set down, or shall I make you?"
+
+"But--but, Emeline--sister--have you forgotten your promise to your
+dying husband? To my brother? You promised to give me a home as long as
+you owned one."
+
+Then Seth played his trump.
+
+"She don't own any home," he declared triumphantly. "She sold her house,
+and she ain't got any home--except the one I'm goin' to give her. And
+if you ever dare to show your head inside of THAT, I'll--I'll heave you
+over both lights. If you think I'm foolin', just try and see. Now then,
+Emeline."
+
+And, with his wife in his arms, Seth Atkins--Seth Atkins Bascom--CAPTAIN
+Seth Atkins Bascom--swung over the rail and waded to land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE EBB TIDE
+
+
+"John Brown," his long night's vigil over, extinguished the lights in
+the two towers, descended the iron stairs, and walked across the yard
+into the kitchen. His first move, after entering the house, was to
+ring the telephone bell and endeavor to call Eastboro. He was anxious
+concerning Atkins. Seth had not returned, and the substitute assistant
+was certain that some accident must have befallen him. The storm had
+been severe, but it would take more than weather to keep the lightkeeper
+from his post; if he was all right he would have managed to return
+somehow.
+
+Brown rang the bell time and time again, but got no response. The storm
+had wrecked the wires, that was certain, and that means of communication
+was cut off. He kindled the fire in the range and tried to forget his
+anxiety by preparing breakfast. When it was prepared he waited a while
+and then sat down to a lonely meal. But he had no appetite, and, after
+dallying with the food on his plate, gave it up and went outside to look
+about him.
+
+The first thing he looked at was the road from the village. No sign of
+life in that direction as far as he could see. Then he looked at the
+bungalow. Early as it was, a thread of blue smoke was ascending from the
+chimney. Did that mean that the housekeeper had returned? Or had Ruth
+Graham been alone all through the miserable night? Under ordinary
+circumstances he would have gone over and asked if all was well. He
+would have done that, even if Seth were at home--he was past the point
+where the lightkeeper or their compact could have prevented him--but he
+could not muster courage to go now. She must have found the note he
+had tucked under the door, and he was afraid to hear her answer. If it
+should be no, then--well, then he did not care what became of him.
+
+He watched the bungalow for a time, hoping that she might come out--that
+he might at least see her--but the door did not open. Auguring all sorts
+of dismal things from this, he moped gloomily back to the kitchen. He
+was tired and had not slept for thirty hours, but he felt no desire for
+bed. He could not go to bed anyway until Atkins returned--and he did not
+want to.
+
+He sat down in a chair and idly picked up one of a pile of newspapers
+lying in the corner. They were the New York and Boston papers which the
+grocery boy had brought over from Eastboro, with the mail, the previous
+day. Seth had not even looked at them, and Brown, who seldom or never
+read newspapers, found that he could not do so now. He tossed them on
+the table and once more went out of doors. After another glance at the
+bungalow, he walked to the edge of the bluff and looked over.
+
+He was astonished to see how far the tide had risen in the night. The
+line of seaweed and drift marking its highest point was well up the
+bank. Now the ebb was foaming past the end of the wharf. He looked for
+the lobster car, which should have been floating at its moorings, but
+could not see it. Either it was under the wharf or it had been swept
+away and was gone. And one of the dories was gone, too. No, there it
+was, across the cove, high and dry on the beach. If so much damage was
+visible from where he stood, it was probable that a closer examination
+might show even more. He reentered the kitchen, took the boathouse key
+from its nail--the key to Seth's wonderful purchase, the spring lock
+which was to keep out thieves and had so far been of no use except as
+a trouble-maker--and started for the wharf. As he passed the table he
+picked up the bundle of newspapers and took them with him. The boathouse
+was the repository for rubbish, old papers and magazines included,
+and these might as well be added to the heap. Atkins had not read this
+particular lot, but the substitute assistant did not think of this.
+
+The lobster car was not under the wharf. The ropes which had moored
+it were broken, and the car was gone. Splinters and dents in the piles
+showed where it had banged and thumped in the grasp of the tide before
+breaking loose. And, lying flat on the wharf and peering under it, it
+seemed to him that the piles themselves were a trifle aslant; that the
+whole wharf had settled down on the outer side.
+
+He rose and was about to go further out for another examination, when
+his foot struck the pile of papers he had brought with him. He picked
+them up, and, unlocking the boathouse door--it stuck and required
+considerable effort to open it--entered the building, tossed the papers
+on the floor, and turned to go out. Before he could do so the door swung
+shut with a bang and a click.
+
+At first he did not realize what the click meant. Not until he tried to
+open it did he understand. The settling of the wharf had thrown the door
+and its frame out of the perpendicular. That was why it stuck and opened
+with such reluctance. When he opened it, he had, so to speak, pushed it
+uphill. Its own weight had swung it back, and the spring lock--in which
+he had left the key--had worked exactly as the circular of directions
+declared it would do. He was a prisoner in that boathouse.
+
+Even then he did not fully grasp the situation. He uttered an
+exclamation of impatience and tugged at the door; but it was heavy,
+jammed tight in its frame, and the lock was new and strong. He might as
+well have tried to pull up the wharf.
+
+After a minute of fruitless effort he gave up the attempt on the door
+and moved about the little building, seeking other avenues of escape.
+The only window was a narrow affair, high up at the back, hung on hinges
+and fastened with a hook and staple. He climbed up on the fish nets and
+empty boxes, got the window open, and thrust his head and one shoulder
+through the opening. That, however, was as far as he could go. A dwarf
+might have squeezed through that window, but not an ex-varsity athlete
+like Russell Brooks or a husky longshoreman like "John Brown." It was
+at the back, facing the mouth of the creek and the sea, and afforded
+a beautiful marine view, but that was all. He dropped back on the fish
+nets and audibly expressed his opinion of the lock and the man who had
+bought it.
+
+Then he tried the door again, again gave it up, and sat down on the fish
+nets to think. Thinking was unsatisfactory and provoking. He gave that
+up, also, and, seeing a knothole in one of the boards in the landward
+side of his jail, knelt and applied his eye to the aperture. His only
+hope of freedom, apparently, lay in the arrival home of the lightkeeper.
+If Seth had arrived he could shout through that knothole and possibly be
+heard.
+
+The knothole, however, commanded a view, not of the lighthouse
+buildings, but of the cove and the bungalow. The bungalow! Ruth Graham!
+Suddenly, and with a shock, flashed to his mind the thought that his
+imprisonment, if at all prolonged, was likely to be, not a joke, but the
+most serious catastrophe of his life.
+
+For Ruth Graham was going to leave the bungalow and Eastboro that very
+day. He had begged to see her once more, and this day was his last
+chance. He had written her, pleading to see her and receive his answer.
+If he did not see her, if Seth did not return before long and he
+remained where he was, a prisoner and invisible, the last chance was
+gone. Ruth would believe he had repented of his declaration as embodied
+in the fateful note, and had fled from her. She had intimated that he
+was a coward in not seeing his fiancee and telling her the truth. She
+did not like his writing that other girl and running away. Now she
+would believe the cowardice was inherent, because he had written her,
+also--and had run away. Horrible!
+
+Through the knothole he sent a yell for rescue. Another and another.
+They were unheard--at least, no one emerged from the bungalow. He sprang
+to his feet and made another circle of the interior of the boathouse.
+Then he sank down upon the heap of nets and again tried to think. He
+must get out. He must--somehow!
+
+The morning sunshine streamed through the little window and fell
+directly upon the pile of newspapers he had brought from the kitchen and
+thrown on the floor. His glance chanced to rest for an instant upon the
+topmost paper of the pile. It was a New York journal which devotes two
+of its inside pages to happenings in society. When he threw it down
+it had unfolded so that one of these pages lay uppermost. Absently,
+scarcely realizing that he was doing so, the substitute assistant read
+as follows:
+
+
+"Engagement in High Life Announced. Another American Girl to Wed a
+Nobleman. Miss Ann Gardner Davidson to become the Baroness Hardacre."
+
+
+With a shout he fell upon his knees, seized the paper and read on:
+
+
+"Another contemplated matrimonial alliance between one of New York's
+fairest daughters and a scion of the English nobility was made public
+yesterday. Miss Ann Gardner Davidson, of this city, the breaking of
+whose engagement to Russell Agnew Brooks, son of George Agnew Brooks,
+the wealthy cotton broker, was the sensation of the early spring, is to
+marry Herbert Ainsworth-Ainsworth, Baron Hardacre, of Hardacre Towers,
+Surrey on Kent, England. It was said that the young lady broke off her
+former engagement with Young Brooks because of--"
+
+
+The prisoner in the boathouse read no further. Ruth Graham had said to
+him the day before that, in her opinion, he had treated Ann Davidson
+unfairly. He should have gone to her and told her of his quarrel with
+his father. Although he did not care for Ann, she might care for him.
+Might care enough to wait and . . . Wait? Why, she cared so little that,
+within a few months, she was ready to marry another man. And, if he owed
+her any debt of honor, no matter how farfetched and fantastic, it was
+canceled now. He was absolutely free. And he had been right all the
+time. He could prove it. He would show Ruth Graham that paper and . . .
+
+His jaw set tight, and he rose from the heap of fish nets with the
+folded paper clinched like a club in his hand. He was going to get out
+of that boathouse if he had to butt a hole through its boards with his
+head.
+
+Once more he climbed to the window and made an attempt to squeeze
+through. It was futile, of course, but this time it seemed to him that
+the sill and the plank to which it was attached gave a little. He put
+the paper between his teeth, seized the sill with both hands, braced
+his feet against a beam below, and jerked with all his strength.
+Once--twice--three times! It was giving! It was pulling loose! He landed
+on his back upon the nets, sill and a foot of boarding in his hands.
+In exactly five seconds, the folded newspaper jammed in his trousers
+pocket, he swung through the opening and dropped to the narrow space
+between the building and the end of the wharf.
+
+The space was a bare six inches wide. As he struck, his ankle turned
+under him, he staggered, tried wildly to regain his balance, and fell.
+As he fell he caught a glimpse of a blue-clad figure at the top of the
+bluff before the bungalow. Then he went under with a splash, and the
+eager tide had him in its grasp.
+
+When he came to the surface and shook the water from his eyes, he was
+already some distance from the wharf. This, an indication of the force
+of the tide, should have caused him to realize his danger instantly. But
+it did not. His mind was intent upon the accomplishment of one thing,
+namely, the proving to Ruth Graham, by means of the item in the paper,
+that he was no longer under any possible obligation to the Davidson
+girl. Therefore, his sole feeling, as he came sputtering to the top of
+the water, was disgust at his own clumsiness. It was when he tried to
+turn and swim back to the wharf that he grasped the situation as it was.
+He could not swim against that tide.
+
+There was no time to consider what was best to do. The breakers were
+only five hundred yards off, and if he wished to live he must keep
+out of their clutches. He began to swim diagonally across the current,
+putting all his strength into each stroke. But for every foot of
+progress toward the calmer water he was borne a yard toward the
+breakers.
+
+The tide bubbled and gurgled about him. Miniature whirlpools tugged
+at his legs, pulling him under. He fought nobly, setting his teeth and
+swearing inwardly that he would make it, he would not give up, he would
+not drown. But the edge of the tide rip was a long way off, and he was
+growing tired already. Another whirlpool sucked him down, and when he
+rose he shouted for help. It was an instinctive, unreasoning appeal,
+almost sure to be useless, for who could hear him?--but he shouted,
+nevertheless.
+
+And the shout was answered. From somewhere behind him--a long, long
+distance, so it seemed to him--came the clear call in a woman's voice.
+
+"All right! I'm coming. Keep on, just as you are."
+
+He kept on, or tried to. He swam--and swam--and swam. He went under,
+rose, went under again, fought his way up, and kept on swimming. Through
+the gurgle and hiss of the water, sounding dully above the humming in
+his ears and the roar of the blood in his tired brain, came the clear
+voice again:
+
+"Steady now! Just as you are! one more stroke! Now one more! Quick!
+Quick! Now! Can you get aboard?"
+
+The wet, red side of a dory's bow pushed past his laboring shoulder.
+A hand clutched his shirt collar. He reached up and grasped the boat's
+gunwale, hung on with all his weight, threw one leg over the edge, and
+tumbled into the dory's bottom.
+
+"Thanks," he panted, his eyes shut. "That--was--about the closest call
+I--ever had. Hey? Why! RUTH!"
+
+She was panting, also, but she was not looking at him. She was rowing
+with all her might, and gazing fearfully over her shoulder. "Are you
+strong enough to help me row?" she asked breathlessly. "We must head
+her away from here, out of this tide. And I'm afraid that I can't do it
+alone."
+
+He raised his head and looked over the rail. The breakers were
+alarmingly close. He scrambled to the thwart, pushed her aside and
+seized the oars. She resisted.
+
+"Only one," she gasped. "I can manage the other."
+
+So, each with an oar, they fought the tide, and won--but by the
+narrowest of margins. The dory edged into stiller and shoaler water,
+crept out of the eddying channel over the flat where the depth was but
+a scant four feet, turned almost by inches, and, at last, slid up on the
+sandy beach below the bungalow. The girl sat bowed over the handle of
+her oar, her breast heaving. She said nothing. Her companion likewise
+said nothing. Staggering, he stepped over the side, walked a few feet up
+the beach, and then tumbled in an unconscious heap on the sand.
+
+He was not unconscious long, being a healthy and robust young fellow.
+His first thought, upon opening his eyes, was that he must close them
+again as quickly as possible because he wanted the dream to continue.
+To lie with one's head in the lap of an angel, while that angel strokes
+your forehead and cries over you and begs you for her sake not to die,
+is too precious a delusion to lose. But the opening of one's eyes is a
+mistake under such circumstances, and he had made it. The angel's next
+remark was entirely unromantic and practical.
+
+"Are you better?" she asked. "You're all right now, aren't you?"
+
+Her patient's reply was also a question, and irrelevant.
+
+"DO you care?" he asked faintly.
+
+"Are you better?" she asked in return.
+
+"Did you get my note? The note I put under the door?"
+
+"Answer me. Are you all right again?"
+
+"You answer ME. Did you get my note?"
+
+"Yes. . . . Don't try to get up. You're not strong enough yet. You must
+wait here while I go and get you some--"
+
+"Don't go!" He almost shouted it. "If--if you do I'll--I'll--I think I'm
+going to faint again."
+
+"Oh, no, you're not. And I must go and get you some brandy or something.
+Stay just where you are."
+
+"Ruth Graham, if you go away now, I'll go with you, if I have to crawl.
+Maybe I can't walk, but I swear I'll crawl after you on my hands and
+knees unless you answer my question. DO you care enough for me to wait?"
+
+She looked out at the little bay, at the narrow, wicked tide race, at
+the breakers beyond. Then she looked down again at him.
+
+"Yes," she said. . . . "OH, are you going to faint again? Don't! Please
+don't!"
+
+Russell Agnew Brooks, the late "John Brown," opened his eyes. "I am not
+going to faint," he observed. "I was merely trying to realize that I was
+fully conscious."
+
+
+Some time after this--hours and minutes do not count in paradise--he
+remembered the item in the paper.
+
+"By George!" he exclaimed, "I had something to show you. I'm afraid I've
+lost it. Oh, no I here it is."
+
+He extracted from his trousers pocket the water soaked lump that
+had been the New York newspaper. The page containing the sensational
+announcement of the engagement in high life was quite undecipherable.
+Being on the outside of the folded paper, it had rubbed to a pulpy blur.
+However, he told her about it, and she agreed that his judgment of the
+character of the future Baroness Hardacre had been absolutely correct.
+
+"You were very wise," she said sagely.
+
+"Not so wise as I've become since," he asserted with decision. Then he
+added, with a rather rueful smile, "I'm afraid, dear, people won't say
+as much for you, when they know."
+
+"I'm satisfied."
+
+"You may have to wait all those years--and years--you spoke of."
+
+"I will."
+
+But she did not have to. For, at that moment, the miracle of wisdom
+beside her sat up and pointed to the wet newspaper lying on the sand at
+her feet.
+
+"Has my happiness affected my wits?" he demanded. "Or does salt water
+bring on delusions? Aren't those my initials?"
+
+He was pointing to a paragraph in the "Personals" column of the New York
+paper. This, being on one of the inner pages, had remained comparatively
+dry and could be read. The particular "Personal" to which he pointed was
+this:
+
+
+"R. A. B." Wherever you are. This is to certify that I hereby
+acknowledge that you have been absolutely correct in the A. D. matter;
+witness news elsewhere. I was a fool, and I apologize publicly.
+Incidentally I need a head like yours in my business. Come back.
+Partnership awaiting you. Come back; and marry anybody or nobody as you
+see fit.
+
+"FATHER."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WOMAN-HATERS
+
+
+"But what," asked Ruth, as they entered the bungalow together, "has
+happened to Mr. Atkins, do you think? You say he went away yesterday
+noon and you haven't seen him or even heard from him since. I should
+think he would be afraid to leave the lights for so long a time. Has he
+ever done it before?"
+
+"No. And I'm certain he would not have done it this time of his own
+accord. If he could have gotten back last night he would, storm or no
+storm."
+
+"But last night was pretty bad. And," quite seriously, "of course he
+knew that you were here, and so everything would be all right."
+
+"Oh, certainly," with sarcasm, "he would know that, of course. So long
+as I am on deck, why come back at all? I'm afraid Atkins doesn't share
+your faith in my transcendent ability, dear."
+
+"Well," Miss Graham tossed her head, "I imagine he knew he could trust
+you to attend to his old lighthouses."
+
+"Perhaps. If so, his faith has developed wonderfully. He never has
+trusted me even to light the lanterns. No, I'm afraid something has
+happened--some accident. If the telephone was in working order I could
+soon find out. As it is, I can only wait and try not to worry. By the
+way, is your housekeeper--Mrs. What's-her-name--all serene after her wet
+afternoon? When did she return?"
+
+"She hasn't returned. I expected her last evening--she said she would be
+back before dark--but she didn't come. That didn't trouble me; the storm
+was so severe that I suppose she stayed in the village overnight."
+
+"So you were alone all through the gale. I wondered if you were; I was
+tremendously anxious about you. And you weren't afraid? Did you sleep?"
+
+"Not much. You see," she smiled oddly, "I received a letter before I
+retired, and it was such an important--and surprising--communication
+that I couldn't go to sleep at once."
+
+"A letter? A letter last night? Who--What? You don't mean my letter? The
+one I put under your door? You didn't get THAT last night!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I did."
+
+"But how? The bungalow was as dark as a tomb. There wasn't a light
+anywhere. I made sure of that before I came over."
+
+"I know. I put the light out, but I was sitting by the window in the
+dark, looking out at the storm. Then I saw some one coming up the hill,
+and it was you."
+
+"Then you saw me push it under the door?"
+
+"Yes. What made you stay on the step so long after you had pushed it
+under?"
+
+"Me? . . . Oh," hastily, "I wanted to make sure it was--er--under. And
+you found it and read it--then?"
+
+"Of course. I couldn't imagine what it could be, and I was curious,
+naturally."
+
+"Ruth!"
+
+"I was."
+
+"Nonsense! You knew what it must be. Surely you did. Now, truly, didn't
+you? Didn't you, dear?"
+
+"Why should I? . . . Oh, your sleeve is wet. You're soaking wet from
+head to foot."
+
+"Well, I presume that was to be expected. This water out here is
+remarkably damp, you know, and I was in it for some time. I should have
+been in it yet if it hadn't been for you."
+
+"Don't!" with a shudder, "don't speak of it. When I saw you fall into
+that tide I . . . But there! you mustn't stay here another moment. Go
+home and put on dry things. Go at once!"
+
+"Dry things be hanged! I'm going to stay right here--and look at you."
+
+"You're not. Besides, I am wet, too. And I haven't had my breakfast."
+
+"Haven't you? Neither have I." He forgot that he had attempted to have
+one. "But I don't care," he added recklessly. Then, with a flash of
+inspiration, "Why can't we breakfast together? Invite me, please."
+
+"No, I shall not. At least, not until you go back and change your
+clothes."
+
+"To hear is to obey. 'I go, but I return,' as the fellow in the play
+observes. I'll be back in just fifteen minutes."
+
+He was back in twelve, and, as to make the long detour about the
+marshes would, he felt then, be a wicked waste of time and the marshes
+themselves were covered with puddles left by the tide, his "dry things"
+were far from dry when he arrived. But she did not notice, and he was
+too happy to care, so it was all right. They got breakfast together, and
+if the coffee had boiled too long and the eggs not long enough, that was
+all right, also.
+
+They sat at opposite sides of the little table, and he needed frequent
+reminding that eating was supposed to be the business on hand. They
+talked of his father and of Ann Davidson--whom Ruth declared was to be
+pitied--of the wonderful coincidence that that particular paper, the one
+containing the "Personal" and the "Engagement in High Life" item, should
+have been on top of the pile in the boathouse, and--of other things.
+Occasionally the talk lapsed, and the substitute assistant merely
+looked, looked and smiled vacuously. When this happened Miss Graham
+smiled, also, and blushed. Neither of them thought of looking out of the
+window.
+
+If they had not been so preoccupied, if they had looked out of that
+window, they would have seen a horse and buggy approaching over the
+dunes. Seth and Mrs. Bascom were on the buggy seat, and the lightkeeper
+was driving with one hand. The equipage had been hired at the Eastboro
+livery stable. Joshua was undergoing repairs and enjoying a much-needed
+rest at the blacksmith shop in the village.
+
+As they drew near the lights, Seth sighed contentedly.
+
+"Well, Emeline," he observed, "here we be, safe and sound. Home again!
+Yes, sir, by jiminy crimps, HOME! And you ain't goin' to Boston to-day,
+neither."
+
+Mrs. Bascom, the practical, moved toward the edge of the seat.
+
+"Take your arm away, Seth," she cautioned. "They'll see you."
+
+"Who'll see me? What do I care who sees me? Ain't a man got a right to
+put his arm around his own wife, I'd like to know?"
+
+"Humph! Well, all right. I can stand it if you can. Only I cal'late your
+young Brown man is in for somethin' of a shock, that's all. HE don't
+know that I'm your wife."
+
+Seth removed his arm. His expression changed.
+
+"That's so," he admitted. "He will be set back three or four rows, won't
+he?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder. He'll think your woman-hate has had a relapse, I
+guess."
+
+The lightkeeper looked troubled; then he nodded grimly.
+
+"His ain't what you'd call a desp'rate case," he declared. "Judgin' by
+what I've seen in the cove for the last month, he's gettin' better of
+it fast. I ain't no worse than he is, by time! . . . Wonder where he is!
+This place looks deader'n the doleful tombs."
+
+He hitched the horse to the back fence and assisted his wife to alight
+from the buggy. They entered the kitchen. No one was there, and Seth's
+hurried search of the other rooms resulted in finding them untenanted
+likewise.
+
+"Maybe he's out in one of the lights," he said, "wait here, Emeline, and
+I'll go see."
+
+But she would not wait. "I'm goin' right over to the bungalow," she
+said. "I'm worried about Miss Ruth. She was alone all last night, and
+I sha'n't rest easy till I know nothin's happened to her. You can come
+when you find your young man. You and me have got somethin' to tell 'em,
+and we might as well get the tellin' done as soon as possible. Nothin's
+ever gained by putting off a mean job. Unless, of course," she added,
+looking at him out of the corners of her eyes, "you want to back out,
+Seth. It ain't too late even now, you know."
+
+He stared at her. "Back out!" he repeated; "back out! Emeline Bascom,
+what are you talkin' about? You go to that bungalow and go in a hurry.
+Don't stop to talk! go! Who's runnin' this craft? Who's the man in this
+family--you or me?"
+
+She laughed. "You seem to be, Seth," she answered, "just now."
+
+"I am. I've been a consider'ble spell learnin' how to be, but I've
+learned. You trot right along."
+
+Brown was in neither of the light towers, and Seth began to be worried
+about him. He descended to the yard and stood there, wondering what
+on earth could have happened. Then, looking across the cove, he became
+aware that his wife was standing on the edge of the bluff, making
+signals with both hands.
+
+He opened his mouth to shout a question, but she frantically signaled
+for silence. Then she beckoned. He ran down the path at full speed. She
+met him at the other side of the cove.
+
+"Come here!" she whispered. "Don't say a word, but just come--and look."
+
+He followed her, crept close to the bungalow window and peeped in. His
+helper, "John Brown," and Miss Ruth Graham were seated at the table.
+Also the substitute assistant was leaning across that table with the
+young lady's hand in his; the pair were entirely oblivious of anything
+in the world except each other.
+
+A few moments later a thunderous knock shook the bungalow door. The
+knock was not answered immediately; therefore, Seth opened the door
+himself. Miss Graham and the lightkeeper's helper were standing some
+distance apart; they gazed speechlessly at the couple who now entered
+the room.
+
+"Well," observed Seth, with sarcasm, "anybody got anything to say?
+You," turning to the young man, "seems to me you ought to say SOMETHIN'.
+Considerin' a little agreement you and me had, I should imagine I
+was entitled to some triflin' explanation. What are you doin' over
+here--with HER? Brown--"
+
+The young gentleman came to himself with a start. He walked across to
+where Miss Graham was standing, and once more took her hand.
+
+"My name is not Brown," he said firmly. "It is Brooks; and this is the
+young lady I am to marry."
+
+He naturally expected his superior to be surprised. As a matter of
+fact, he was the surprised party. Seth reached out, drew the bungalow
+housekeeper toward him, and put his arm about her waist. Then he
+smiled; and the smile was expressive of pride, triumph, and satisfaction
+absolute.
+
+"ATKINS!" gasped Brooks.
+
+"My name ain't Atkins," was the astonishing reply; "it's Bascom. And
+this," indicating by a tightening of his arm the blushing person at his
+side, "is the lady I married over five year ago."
+
+
+After the stories had been told, after both sides had told theirs and
+explained and been exclaimed over and congratulated, after the very last
+question had been asked and answered, Brown--or Brooks--asked one more.
+
+"But this other fellow," he queried, "this brother-in-law--By George,
+it is perfectly marvelous, this whole business!--where is he? What has
+become of him?"
+
+Seth chuckled. "Bennie D.?" he said. "Well, Bennie D. is leavin'
+Eastboro on the noon train. I paid his fare and give him fifty dollars
+to boot. He's goin' somewhere, but he ain't sartin where. If you asked
+me, I should say that, in the end, he'd most likely have to go
+where he's never been afore, so far's I ever heard--that's to work.
+Now--seein' as the important business has been talked over and
+settled--maybe you'll tell me about the lights, and how you got along
+last night."
+
+But the lighthouse subject was destined to be postponed for a few
+minutes. The person in whose care the Lights had been left during the
+past twenty hours or so looked at the speaker, then at the other persons
+present, and suddenly began to laugh.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" asked Miss Graham. "Why, Russell, what is
+it?"
+
+Russell Agnew Brooks, alias "John Brown," ex-substitute assistant at
+Eastboro Twin-Lights, sank into a chair, shaking from head to heel.
+
+"It is hysterics," cried Ruth, hastening to his side. "No wonder, poor
+dear, considering what he has been through. Hush, Russell! don't, you
+frighten me. What IS it?"
+
+Her fiance waved a reassuring hand. "It--it's all right," he gasped.
+"I was just laughing at . . . Oh," pointing an unsteady finger at the
+lightkeeper, "ask him; he knows."
+
+"Ask him?" repeated the bewildered young lady. "Why, Mr. Atkins--Bascom,
+I mean--what. . . ."
+
+And then Seth began to laugh. Leaning against the doorpost, he at first
+chuckled and then roared.
+
+"Seth!" cried his wife. "Seth, you old idiot! Why, I never see two such
+loons in my life! Seth, answer me! What are you two laughin' at?"
+
+Seth Atkins Bascom wiped the tears from his eyes. "I cal'late," he
+panted, "I rather guess--Ho, ho!--I rather guess we're both laughin' at
+woman-haters."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Woman-Haters, by Joseph C. Lincoln
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