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The Woman-Haters

by Joseph Crosby Lincoln · English · Gutenberg #2372 · 378,520 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Woman-Haters

Author: Joseph Crosby Lincoln


        
Release date: May 17, 2006 [eBook #2372]
                Most recently updated: March 5, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2372

Credits: Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger


*** START OF THE 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.”

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