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

FIGHTING THE SEA

OR

Winter at the Life–Saving Station.

BY

EDWARD A. RAND

AUTHOR OF

“HER CHRISTMAS AND HER EASTER”; “UP THE LADDER SERIES,”—“THE
KNIGHTS OF THE WHITE SHIELD,” “THE SCHOOL IN THE LIGHTHOUSE,”
“YARDSTICK AND SCISSORS,” “THE CAMP AT SURF BLUFF,” “OUT
OF THE BREAKERS”, “SCHOOL AND CAMP SERIES,”—“PUSHING
AHEAD,” “ROY’S DORY AT THE SEASHORE,” “LITTLE
BROWN–TOP,” “NELLIE’S NEW YEAR,” ETC., ETC.

New York
THOMAS WHITTAKER
2 and 3 Bible House 1887

Copyright, 1887,
By Thomas Whittaker.

Dedicated

TO THE

BRAVE SURFMEN

OF THE

U.S. LIFE SAVING SERVICE

AND

Their efficient Superintendent,

Hon. S. I. KIMBALL.

PREFACE.

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

CONTENTS.

FIGHTING THE SEA.

CHAPTER I.

THE MAN ON THE STEEPLE.

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

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

“No, he—hasn’t;—he dropped—it!”

“Ladder dropped from the steeple?”

“Yes—gone—all—all—to smash!”

“You don’t say, Cyrus!”

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

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

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

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

“The station beyond us?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Got your hammer?” asked Zebulon.

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

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

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

He thought a moment.

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

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

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

“That’s Nancy!” he said to himself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hold on, Zebulon! Hark, boys!”

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

“Sho—o—o—t! Send—a—string—g!”

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

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

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

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

“What?” asked Zebulon.

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

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

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

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

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

“Much obleeged to you!” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

We shall find out.

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

CHAPTER II.

THE WINTER RIDE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you expect a rain, father?”

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

“Good–bye, mother.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t the trees look handsome?”

“Yes, I never saw them prettier.”

The late fall of snow had draped forest and field.

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

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

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

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

“Look, father! See those men!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Down to the life saving station.”

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

“Thank you, sir.”

“Father, I want to ask—”

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

“I will hold on if you will only ask two questions.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The sea, father!”

“Ah, so it is!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER III.

THE LIFE SAVING STATION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What are those?” asked Walter.

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

“Could I see them?”

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

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

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

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

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

“The boat–room. Come downstairs.”

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

“That the boat!” exclaimed Walter.

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

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

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

“Cap’n!” called out Bush–beard.

“What say?”

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

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

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

“Glad to see you,” said Mr. Plympton.

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

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

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

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

“I—I wish—” Walter stopped.

“What is it?” asked Mr. Plympton.

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

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

“Sartin!” cried Tom eagerly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who?” inquired Walter’s father.

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

“You don’t like him?”

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

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

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

CHAPTER IV.

THE PATROL.

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

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

“That’s what I am here for.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Here it is,” replied the keeper.

“What’s that?” asked Walter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You don’t stay here all the time?”

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

“How do you like your work?”

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

“How long have you been on?”

“Nine years.”

“What is your worst kind of weather?”

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

“Does your lantern go out?”

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

“You must have seen some tough times.”

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

“How do you divide your watches?”

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

“How is it your watches run?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lantern flashed its light down upon a footprint.

“Whose is that?” asked Walter.

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

Slowly, Tom and Walter returned to the station.

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

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

In the morning, he was at the station again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, nothin’ turned up.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER V.

TURNING THE CORNER.

The journey home was not a difficult one for Katy, as the roads were broke out thoroughly by this time. The journey, the subsequent day however, was a hard one for Mr. and Mrs. Plympton, as they went with Walter to the cars to see him safely started for his ride to Franklin Academy.

“Oh!” said Walter, who was not so absorbed in school–plans but that he could see two pairs of misty eyes when he chanced to turn suddenly toward them, “don’t feel bad, father and mother. You know I shall be back by the first of August, and you know, father, what you said about time going like a sled, the iron on whose runner is rubbed smooth.”

“Yes,” said his father soberly.

“Be a good boy, Walter,” was his mother’s last reminder. About fifty had preceded it, but she kept this as the last. The next minute, there were two solemn faces on the platform of a country station, gazing intently at a car window that moved off rapidly and framed but for a moment a young, eager, ambitious, hopeful face.

Walter’s stay at Franklin Academy was not an eventful one outwardly. There was the usual course of instruction for a boy of sixteen, and Walter acquitted himself creditably. There was the usual proportion of “bad boys and small scrapes,” but Walter had no affinity for them and was known as a warm–hearted, enthusiastic youth, but not at all as a wild one. He gained some note as a fine gymnast. Day after day the academy bell tinkled out its mild warnings that study or recitation hours had arrived, and day after day, the same flock of boys and girls passed along the shaded walks traversing the academy yard. Outwardly, as already asserted, Walter’s academy course was without special incident. In the boy’s personal private history though, a very important corner was turned. That which led to the turn was singular also.

It was “composition day” in the academy, and various young essayists had read their opinions upon “School days,” “A Summer landscape,” and “George Washington.” Then came May Elliott’s piece of pen–work. May was not very generally known by the students. Her home was not in town, and the people with whom she boarded lived two miles away, so that the students did not see very much of her apart from her class hours. Although not pretty, yet her face interested you. Her blue eyes had a certain bright, positive look, as if she had something to say to you, and they arrested your attention. The subject of her composition was this, “What are we living for?” Her course of thought was to specify the aims of different people in life, their worthiness and unworthiness; and then she closed in this fashion: “The life that does not take into account the need of those about us, that does not take into account another life, that does not take God into account, is making,—”

Here May looked up in her bright, positive way. It was a chance look that she gave in the direction of the north–east rather than the north–west corner of the schoolroom. “Making—a serious mistake,” said May. In the north–east corner sat two students on opposite sides of the same aisle, Walter Plympton and Chauncy Aldrich. Each student said, “Does she mean me?” May Elliott did not mean either individual. It was a chance movement of her eyes, but like many of our movements that without intent are very significant in their results, the look set two young men to thinking. After school, they discussed the merits of May’s theme and treatment. Chauncy was the first speaker. He was a very forcible looking young man, one who seemed to come at you and collide with you, although he might be a hundred feet off. He brushed up his hair in a mighty roll above his forehead, and that gave his head the look of a battering–ram. He was nicknamed “Solomon,” as he talked and acted as if he carried more native and more acquired wisdom in his head than all the students, all the teachers, and all the trustees of Franklin Academy bunched together. And yet he was rather liked in school, as he had a bright, pleasant face, was generally smiling, and combined with a really selfish nature, an apparent readiness to help everybody that came along.

“Walter,” said Chauncy, as they went away from the academy together, “What do you think of May Elliott’s composition?”

“I thought it was quite good. Anyway she looked over in my corner as if she meant me.”

“That’s what I thought. I didn’t know but she was looking at me, as much as to say, ‘Chauncy, this is meant for you.’ However, Miss Elliott, you may keep looking all day, and I shall only take what I please of it, and you may dispose of the rest in what market you please.” Here Chauncy pushed back his hat; and his front knob of hair came into prominence, and looked very belligerent, as if warning Miss Elliott to be careful how she threw her ink–arrows in that direction.

“Oh, I didn’t suppose she really meant anything personal, Chauncy.”

“Perhaps not; but my motto is to be on the lookout, and not take people as meaning to give you a higher per cent than human nature is inclined to allow you.”

Chauncy was professedly preparing himself for a “business life,” and terms like “per cent,” “market,” “stock,” were favorite words in his vocabulary. The wise man now resumed his conversation.

“The fact is, with regard to what she said about other folks’ need, and another life, and so on, those things of course are so; but as for my needy neighbor, why, look at my needy self—ha—ha!”

Here Chauncy gave one of his quick, ready laughs, that had something of the sound of a new half dollar when you throw it on a counter; ringing, yet hard and metallic. “There is my Uncle Bezaleel. His motto is, ‘Don’t forget number one,’ and how he has pulled the money in! Nobody stands higher in the market.”

“Bezaleel?” asked Walter, catching at the word.

“Yes, Bezaleel Baggs.”

“Beelzebub your uncle?” Walter was about to say, remembering Aunt Lydia’s habit of speech; but he checked this imprudent phraseology and remarked, “Bez—Bezaleel Baggs your uncle?”

“Yes, and a smart one. He is a great land–owner, buying up whole forests, and he runs mills and so on. He expects to give me a lift, perhaps take me in business with him. That’s my uncle.”

“Indeed!” thought Walter.

“Oh,” resumed Chauncy, “we were speaking of May Elliott’s composition. Well, I was going to say about her pious remarks at the close, that they are well enough in their place, of course; but if she meant me when she looked our way, I only want to say that there will be time for that by and by. You can think them over, if you want to.”

Walter made no reply and the two separated.

It was a casual remark, “You can think them over,” and at another time, Walter might quickly have forgotten the words. Somehow that day, the words stayed with Walter. They seemed to have roots, and they took hold of Walter’s thoughts, and went deep down into his soul, and there they clung.

“I don’t know what the matter is why I keep thinking of that composition,” he said, later in the day.

“You look sober, Walt,” observed Chauncy.

“Thinking,” replied Walter laughing.

“About that composition—eh? Well, here is one who is not,” and the wise man gave two or three satisfied little chuckles.

“Why should he fancy I was thinking about that composition?” Walter asked himself. “I am, though, and can’t seem to get rid of it.”

He went to his boarding–place, passed directly to his room, and sat down in a chair by the western window. There was an outlook across a stretch of green fields waving with grain, up to a round–topped hill, bushy with vigorous oaks. Over a shoulder of this hill peeped another, but so distant, that a veil of blue haze covered it all day. The stillness of the hour, for it was at twilight, the sun going down behind hangings of crimson along the blue hill, made a quiet in Walter’s breast, and suggested thoughts that in the hurry and noise of the day are not likely to be fostered.

“Oh, that composition, ‘What are we living for?’” thought Walter. “Well, what am I living for?”

Was he living for others? He did trust he was a help to those at home, and yet he had no conscious, definite purpose to give himself for their welfare; and as for those outside, he certainly hoped he had done them no harm, and he ventured to think he might have granted a few favors, but he had not thought in a very special way about anybody except Walter Plympton. He had gone on in a boy’s careless fashion, meaning in a general way to mind his parents and consult their welfare; and to do “about the fair thing by outsiders,” was also his thought. As for that other life which we must all meet, the whole subject to his mind was in a hazy condition like the distant blue hill he was looking at. Once a week, while sitting in St. Mary’s at home, the old rector saying some solemn thing in the pulpit or the choir singing a plaintive tune, he was quite likely to think of another life. The other six days, he was thinking of school, and farmwork, and his duties at home, or play, outside. And as for thoughts about God, they would chase through his mind like the shadows of clouds across a green summer field. They might visit him at family prayers, or on Sunday, in church, or when praying by himself at home; but like the hasty cloud–shadows, such thoughts were soon gone. His general attitude toward all these subjects was that of a thoughtless indifference; and any particular attention he paid now and then was the result of a mere habit of going to church, or the saying of hurried prayers, rather than a direct preference and purpose of his heart.

“I don’t think I am where I ought to be in such matters,” was Walter’s conclusion, and if he had a comfortable satisfaction in himself when he began to think, it had now melted away like a snow–bank in a spring rain.

“The sun has been down, some time,” he said at last, “and the bright colors have all faded out of the sky. It looks pretty sober over there now.”

Walter felt, as the sky looked, “sober.” The distant blue hill had quickly turned to a dark, undefined mass of shadow. The hill near by went behind a veil. Soon, the fields shrank out of sight, like green scrolls rolled up and taken away. Walter rose and left the room. He did not leave his thoughts behind. Those went with him. For several days, he was thinking upon that subject: “What am I living for?” The longer he thought, the more deficient seemed his life. There came another night when he bowed his head in prayer as never before. Feeling his unworthiness, how poor and mean his life had been, he asked God to forgive him. Feeling that his life had been without a strong, definite, acceptable purpose, he asked God to take him, and help him live for the highest ends. And there rose up before him Jesus Christ, as the expression of God’s readiness to forgive a past, deficient life, sincerely regretted; Jesus Christ, as the perfect, divine Guide by which to direct all our lives in the future; Jesus Christ, his Saviour from sin. A letter arrived for the Plymptons one day, and it read thus:

“Dear Father and Mother: I suppose you will be surprised to get this, but I wanted to tell you of something that has interested me and I know will interest you. I have made up my mind, God helping me, to be a different person. I hope I haven’t been what people call a bad boy, but still, I might have been better, and thought more of your interests, and tried hard to do my duty toward God. You will forgive me for all my thoughtlessness, won’t you? And you will pray for me, please, won’t you? Your affectionate son,

“Walter.”

“The dear boy!” exclaimed Mrs. Plympton. “Yes, father and I will pray for you, won’t we?”

Mr. Plympton could only nod assent, for the tears filled his eyes. Indeed there were two people in that house who often looked at one another with red eyes that day, but it was the redness that goes with happy hearts, with the bright hopes of a morning sky, and not the glare of a sad fire that destroys our dearest interests.

It may have been two weeks after the arrival of the above letter, that another came.

“Here is a letter from your brother Boardman,” said Mr. Plympton, entering the kitchen, where his wife was cooking her weekly batch of pies. “Open it, please, and see what he says.”

Mrs. Plympton wiped carefully her floury hands, adjusted her spectacles, and sitting down by a window where the light streamed in across the hollyhocks and sunflowers in the yard, began to read:

“Dear Ezra and Louisa:—We are all well, and hope you are the same. I suppose you are expecting Walter home before long, this summer, and I got the impression from you that he was not going back again. I think I can give him a job this fall and winter if you agree to it, and I’ll see that he has good wages. I have always, with Lydia’s help, as you know, managed my store and post–office myself, but I expect I shall need the help of a clerk. I have sold a lot of land, timber land, to Mr. Bezaleel Baggs; and I am putting up a steam mill, and I am interested in it, and it is going to take me away from the store a good deal. Then I have engaged to supply the crew at the life saving station with provisions, and also to take their mail to them. So you see somebody has got to go and look after their orders, and fetch their goods, and it is more than I can conveniently look after. What do you say to letting Walter come here the first of September? Please let me know soon.

“Your affectionate brother,

“Boardman Blake.”

“Well, Ezra, what do you say?”

“I—I—don’t know. I sort of hate to have him away, Louisa.”

“So do I.”

“I suppose though, he must start some time to be doing for himself.”

“Oh, here is a postscript! Tucked away up in one corner. I almost lost sight of it.”

“What does it say?”

“‘P. S.—He can come home every week.’ That makes it different, Ezra.”

“And it’s only ten miles away. I suppose he’ll be just crazy to see that life saving station.”

“So he will. When he came back last winter, he said it was just aggravating to think he could not stay longer.”

“Let us write to Walter and see what he says.”

The result of all this was that the first day of September, when the life saving station was opened for the season, there appeared at the door Uncle Boardman’s new clerk, to receive the daily order for the crew’s provisions.

“I am beginning a new life,” thought Walter.

It was a new life in many ways. About six months ago, the careless, laughing, kindly–natured youth at home, had left it to assume new responsibilities elsewhere, at the academy. He had come back still happy and laughing, but a new and earnest purpose had entered his soul, and was controlling him. He had since been confirmed, in the little village church, openly acknowledging his Saviour. He had entered his uncle’s neighborhood to meet and assume fresh responsibilities. He would come in contact with the men at the life saving station. He would meet others in his daily business duties. Would he keep and increase the religion he had brought with him? Would it lessen?

“I shall try hard to do my duty,” said Walter, in his thoughts.

We shall see what he did.

CHAPTER VI.

THE STORE.

The morning after his arrival at his uncle’s, Walter began his new duties as clerk, and opened the store. It was in the south–western corner of the house, and was also in a corner made by two roads. One was the lane that came up from the life saving station, widening into a road which went to the outside world. The second, starting at the store, continued its travels in an easterly direction, and ended them in a little fishing village overlooking the sea. Opening from the store into these two roads, as if to solicit and take up all passing custom, were two doors, and each was bordered by two windows. Above one of these doors, that on the road to the outside world, was a small sign, and it said, “B. Blake”; but said it very faintly. The sign once was black, and the name had been painted in gilt letters; but the rains had been scouring the sign for years, and the sun bleaching it; and between the scouring and the bleaching, there had resulted a surface of shabby, blackish gray, streaked with dim, yellow lines. The store, as well as the sign, looked old. The entire house looked old. So did its owner, Boardman Blake; and the great, dark forest of pines beyond the house seemed to murmur day and night, “Growing old, growing old!” As one entered the store, in a very hospitable location between the two doors, he saw a rusty box stove flanked by two benches. The benches in winter rarely were without an occupant. In the spring, summer, and fall, these occupants in part were out on the sea, pulling into their uneasy boats, cod, hake, or haddock; while some were following the plow, hoeing corn or pitching the fragrant hay into bulky carts. Behind the benches, on the wall, were posters, announcing to a generally neglectful and ungrateful world, that “Vandyke’s Life–Bitters” would cure dyspepsia; that “Peaslee’s Liniment” never failed to take the stiffness out of a horse’s joints; while “Payson’s Hair Elixir” was sure to vitalize a bald head into the manufacturing of rich, luxuriant locks. The counters bordered two sides of the store, and sustained the weight of a desk in one corner where Boardman attended to his scanty book–keeping. Then there were two faded old show–cases whose store of peppermints, lozenges in gaudy wrappings, and gumdrops of every known rainbow–tint, excited the admiration of every schoolboy. There were also several pairs of scales, and a cheesebox. Behind the counters, ranged on shelves that began in some mysterious space below the counters’ level, and reached to the dusty, fly–specked ceiling, was an assortment of goods that only a country store can produce. There was not very much of any one article, but so many articles were gathered there that variety made up fully for quantity. There were dry goods, and goods that were not dry, such as bottles of medicine and essences; there were outfits for the farmer, and outfits for the fisherman. Hardware was there, like hammers and planes; and software, like sugar and meal. Goods were there, like boots and shoes; and goods like caps and clothing. As the storekeeper generally had only one suit of clothes on hand at a time, there was but little range of choice for the customer, and if compelled to take what he could find, a giant might have gone away wretched in the suit of a dwarf, or the dwarf departed only to be lost in the apparel of a giant.

The store excited Walter’s interest, and as he opened it that first morning, his eyes made a rapid inventory of its miscellaneous contents.

“And what is that?” he asked, noticing a shelf on which were clustered a few books. They were not for sale, but their titles and well–thumbed condition showed that they were for reference. One was a state gazetteer, another a volume of state laws, a third a small English dictionary, and a fourth was a Bible. The latter was bound in old leather covers, and its type was antique. It seemed to be a kind of safe, as well as aid to devotion, for various documents were there, like deeds and bills.

“What is this?” exclaimed Walter, as a piece of paper fluttered out of the old Bible when he chanced to lift and open the book. “Uncle has a lot of papers in it, and I must look out. I must put this back.”

He could not but see the figures, five hundred, in the left hand corner of the document, and carelessly had read, “For value received, I promise to pay Bezaleel Baggs, or order, five hundred dollars.” Walter stopped.

“I must not read that, and did not intend to,” thought the clerk. He could but notice a blot in one corner of the bill. It was a singular blot.

“It looks like an animal. There is its body, and those four streaks below would make good legs for a small animal. Pig, I guess. Now, I will put that away and attend to my work,” thought Walter. “Hullo! Who’s calling? Who’s here at six o’clock?”

Walter noticed that the time by a clock secured to a post, was very near six o’clock.

Somebody without was apparently shouting for the storekeeper. Stepping quickly to the door, Walter noticed first a gaily painted wagon. Its wheels were scarlet, and its shining black body was striped with scarlet. He was about saying to himself, “It’s a young fellow aboard,” when this same young fellow lifted a round–topped felt hat, disclosed a wall of hair, and shouted, “You here? You don’t say!”

“I didn’t say anything about it, but I am glad to see you, Aldrich. What are you up to?”

“This morning, I am up to bringing my uncle down here. He is out in the yard, the barnyard. I am clerking it with him, and shall be a neighbor of yours this winter; that is, a mile off, up at the office of my uncle. It is near the mill you know, that your uncle has put up for the sawing of the timber round here. A feller gets a good apprenticeship with Bezaleel Baggs, I tell you. Oh, he is bright on a trade! I have learned a good deal by being with him, already. Say, what kind of a store have you in there? Most everything, I suppose.”

Walter, who was out on the doorstep, here turned to the store. The upper part of the door was of glass, and one who occupied Walter’s position, could easily see within.

“Is that a man in the store?” thought Walter. “Is it a man behind the counter?”

He could not make out anything very distinctly. Besides, Chauncy was calling out to him, “Look out here, not in there? Do you expect the Hon. Boardman Blake is in there trading with himself? That would be handy, for he could be as sharp as he pleased, or as easy as he pleased. Really, he is out in the barn, for I saw him there a moment ago.”

“I thought I noticed somebody in the store, but I guess it was only a shadow.”

“Come, tell me about your plans,” said Chauncy, who seemed anxious to catch and hold Walters attention. “Tell me what you are up to?”

“Why, I am clerking, am I not?”

“Oh, yes. Of course you are. Well, do you like?”

Walter did not answer at once. He could not rid his mind of the impression that something was not right in the store. He finally said, “This is my first morning in the store,” and was about to add, “I think I shall like here,” when he chanced to look again into the store. A golden ray of sunlight, as if an auger, had bored its way through the shadows behind the counter, and it fell upon the shelves that held the Bible and other volumes. In that light, Walter saw a form, that of a man, though of no one that he had ever seen before,—a short, heavy man, with broad shoulders, hatless; and was his hair light, or did the sunray brighten it as it fell upon it? He noticed that the man’s side whiskers projected into the sunlight, and also that he leaned over. Walter was about to lay his hand on the latch of the door when a terrific yell from Chauncy delayed him.

“Ah–hoo! Ah–hoo!”

Was Chauncy calling to him, or shouting to somebody in the store that he had already discovered, and perhaps might wish to notify? If such a thought came into Walter’s mind, it did not come clear as a ray of sunshine, but it was so confused and dim a suspicion that it made little impression upon him, and he turned one moment as if in obedience to Chauncy’s call, who was now shouting, “Ah–hoo–hoo! Plymp–ton!” Then he laughed heartily: “Ha–ha! You did not recognize my Indian yell that I have for folks. See here! I only wanted to say, if you were going into the store, and you have any—any—any—”

It took Chauncy some time to tell what he did want, but fumbling in his pocket, he produced a ten–cent piece, and said, “Oh, anything! Bring me some candy!”

“There is a customer in here, and I’ll bring it to you quick as I can.”

“Customer, boy! You are demented! I don’t believe anybody is there, unless it is the Hon. Boardman, as I said before.”

Chauncy was right. When Walter entered the store, no one was there! He went behind the counter, and then he looked under the counter. The usual row of dumb, unintelligent soap–boxes, and spice–boxes, and candy–boxes, could be seen there. He went to the shelves on which were the books. The sunshine, as well as the visitor, had mysteriously vanished. A fly crawling over the books suddenly buzzed in Walter’s face, as if to ask, in the fly–tongue, “What does this fellow want here?”

“If this is not strange!” thought Walter.

“Where did that man go? Am I getting ‘demented,’ as Chauncy said? Could anybody have gone to the sitting–room from the store?”

From the store, one could directly enter the sitting–room. Walter hastily looked into the sitting–room. The sunray might have retreated there, and in the rich overflow of light entering two eastern windows, it certainly would not have been noticed as a separate ray. But had the rich, strong flood of light swallowed up the man, as well as the ray of sunshine? If he had gone into the sitting–room, where was he?

“Nonsense!” thought Walter, for he heard the cracked voice of Aunt Lydia piping an old love–song of her girlhood, as she ironed the week’s wash in the kitchen opening out of the sitting–room. “Nonsense! If anybody had come here, of course she would have seen them. She don’t act as if she had seen anybody.” No. Aunt Lydia was singing in sharp, slender strains that old love–ditty, as free from any agitation as if it had been her uninterrupted avocation that morning.

“Plympton! Plympton! Where’s that candy? Have you gone to get your folks to make that candy?” Chauncy was now calling from the store door, which he had opened. Walter returned, went to one of the show–cases, took out the quantity of candy ordered, and handed it to Chauncy.

“The queerest thing!” exclaimed Walter. “I am sure I saw a man in here; but where he has gone, I don’t know.”

“Saw a man!” replied Chauncy, with an incredulous air. “Nobody has been round here except you and me. Here’s your uncle up the road.”

And there indeed Boardman Blake was, slowly moving along toward the store in his careless, abstracted way.

“There’s my uncle, and you can see him down at the fish–house,” continued Chauncy. “He would like to find your uncle. That’s what I brought him down here for. Don’t you see my uncle?”

The fish–house was a black little building, that the rough, strong sea–winds for the last twenty–five years had been trying to push over, and had partially succeeded. It had been found necessary to prop it on one side. Here, the storekeeper accumulated every year a stock of dried salt fish, purchased of the fishermen and then sold out to customers from the surrounding country. Chauncy’s uncle was walking about the fish–house as if trying to find somebody.

“Is that the man I saw in the store?” Walter asked.

“Haw–haw!” laughed Chauncy noisily. “He’s been down at the fish–house trying to hunt up your uncle, all the time I have been here. Come out and see him, and let’s ask him.”

Walter stepped back to say to Aunt Lydia that he wanted to go to the fish–house, and would be back very soon, and then crossed the road with Chauncy to the fish–house.

“The man I saw in the store was sort of built that way, heavy, and short, and broad at the shoulders, and was leaning over. I wish this man would lean over, and let me see how he looks,” thought Walter. The suspected party now turned his face to the young men, as if aware of Walter’s desire to inspect it. It was a face round and full, flanked with thin, gray whiskers. One of the eyes had a cast in it, which gave “Uncle Bezaleel’s” face a certain crookedness of look; but that does not necessarily mean crookedness of character. The eyes of some very honest people have an unfortunate squint. If though, any one looking at the upper part of B. Bagg’s face should say, “B. Baggs is a crooked fellow. Look out!” then the voice below entirely contradicted that impression. It was a mild, agreeable voice, kindly, and rather musical. It had a persuasive tone, and if the crooked eye was a misfortune, the voice of which B. Baggs was owner, had proved to be an excellent piece of property. It had coaxed many poor fellows on to their ruin. Its softness, its sympathy, its willingness to be your friend at any sacrifice, and its great grief if you possibly could think it was your enemy, had brought its possessor much money. It was this voice that had made its way to the softest place in the soft heart of Boardman Blake, quicker than the sharpest auger in the world.

“Uncle, have you been in Mr. Blake’s store this morning?” inquired Chauncy.

“Why, no, child!” said Uncle Bezaleel in the most affectionate and bland of tones, at the same time winking maliciously with his crooked eye. “What made you think so?”

“Oh, I didn’t think so. I knew you had been out here all the time, trying to hunt up Mr. Blake; but my friend Plympton here, uncle, thought you had been in.”

“Ah, how d’ye do, Mr. Plympton,” said Uncle Bezaleel cordially, addressing Walter by that title of manhood which goes so straight to a boy’s heart. Here, with his fat fingers, he softly squeezed Walter’s hand. “I have been out here and round somewhat, admiring the tidy way you and your uncle keep things in. Now that barnyard looks trim as a dining–room. Thrifty as can be, I’m sure.”

The barnyard certainly was very neat for such a place, but that tired, shabby, leaning old fish–house, and the aspect of the place in general, did not sustain B. Baggs’ wonderful opinion of thrift. Walter, though, did not like to mistrust people, and this ready denial, the soft–toned compliment also, were irresistible, and Walter concluded it must have been somebody else that he saw in the store.

“Oh, I see, sir,” he cried promptly. “It must have been another man. Excuse me.”

“All—all right. I must have my little joke, and I guess you—you—ran into your uncle’s cider barrels, this morning, and couldn’t see straight.”

“Haw—haw!” shouted Chauncy.

“Oh, no,” laughed Walter. “I don’t imbibe.”

“That’s right, young man. Don’t touch it! Don’t.”

The crooked eye now gave a funny, wicked look at Walter, while Chauncy, behind Walter’s back, executed with his features a look extraordinary enough to have fitted out a clown for his performances. Uncle Boardman here arrived, and the upright, moral B. Baggs, proceeded at once to confer with him. But who was it that Walter saw in the store? He intended to speak at once to his uncle and aunt about it, but he was sent away to The Harbor, the fishing village in the neighborhood, and when he returned, other duties occupied his mind, and at last, like other matters we neglect, it went for the present out of his thoughts altogether.

Aunt Lydia, the evening of this call by Bezaleel Baggs, had a remark to make to her husband. They were alone in their sitting–room, Aunt Lydia knitting by a little, red, square–topped stand, that supported a kerosene lamp. Uncle Boardman was also sitting near the table, reading the weekly county paper. He had a pleasant face, one to which children, and dogs, and all kinds of dumb animals never made their appeal in vain. It was benevolent as the sunlight after three days of cloudy sky. He may have had brown eyes, but these watchers of the world had their seat so far under his bushy eyebrows, like overhanging eaves, that it was hard to tell their color. When he looked at another, one saw two soft, shining little globes of light directed toward him. As he always shaved, his big, smooth face had a certain boy–look to it. When walking, he had a way of looking down, carrying his folded hands before him. He was likely to come in contact with all sorts of beings and objects; but no romping child that he collided with, no big dog bumping against the abstracted pedestrian, ever heard a testy word of remonstrance from him. He took kindly a knock from a fish–barrel, or a poke from a passing wheel–barrow. While people joked about him, everybody respected and trusted his integrity.

“He’s good salt all the way through,” said Nahum Caswell, an old fisherman at The Harbor. “He trusts other folks too much, and don’t allers know on which side of his bread the butter is; but then he never takes other folks’ butter from ’em. You can trust Boardman with a mint of money, and not a penny will ketch ’tween his fingers. No, sir.”

If Boardman’s eyes, in their great charity, did not at once see into a man’s mean motives, Aunt Lydia’s did, very soon. Her bright, dark eyes looked deep, and did not look in vain. Bezaleel Baggs was uneasy the first time he met her. He felt that a very sharp, clear–seeing pair of eyes had fastened upon him a look that meant inspection, and he avoided her in every possible way.

“Queer!” exclaimed Aunt Lydia this evening of our story. “Queer, that Belzebub Baggs—”

“Bezaleel,” remonstrated Boardman mildly.

“Wall, he is pizen whatever he is; but isn’t it queer he don’t like to talk with me? He’ll buttonhole you by the hour, Boardman, and palaver and make his soft speeches; but nary a word does he say to me if he can help it.”

“Oh, he has business with me.”

“The snake! I wish he had some with me, if I wouldn’t jest scorch him.”

Uncle Boardman let out one of his soft, easy–natured chuckles, and remarked. “He probably sees you are a dangerous character. Ha—ha!”

“Wall, if he don’t keep away from my winders, I’ll put some b’ilin’ water on him.”

“Keep away from what? What’s he been doin’?”

“My advice to him is to keep away from my winders. There I was this mornin’ at six o’clock, ironin’ away, and happened to hear a scratchin’ noise behind me—you see I was in the kitchen at the time, and my back was away from the sittin’–room—and I turned sort of quick, and there was that Baggs at the winder of the sittin’–room—”

“Inside?”

“No, outside; and yet it seemed sort of queer. His head was turned this way, and it seemed as if he was a slidin’ down outside the clapboards. I couldn’t make it out what he was a doin’. For once in his life, he seemed awful glad to see me, and grinned at me, and really teched his hat. I don’t want none of his grins or hat–techin’s. When he had gone, I went to this winder, and I found this clingin’ to the blind. It looks as if it had been torn from a coat. I jest tucked it in there, because I wasn’t goin’ upstairs to my rag–bag then, and knew it would be safe.”

Every housekeeper is apt to have a “saving fever,” but its style may vary extensively in different houses. One housekeeper will carefully cherish the scraps from the table. Another husbands the coal. A third burns no superfluous oil or gas. Another garners all bits of paper or cloth for the rag–man; and a fifth has two eyes out for all possible lessening of the consumption of butter. Aunt Lydia’s ambition, was to treasure up every shred of cloth, all ends of threads, and every slip of paper. She had put the savings of the morning in a little tin box on the mantel, intending to transfer them to the rag–bag the next time she journeyed upstairs.

“A piece of cloth!” said Uncle Boardman, handling the relic. “Did you think it came from Baggs’ coat, though I don’t see how? He wore this morning that blue frock–coat of his, with the big, silver buttons.”

“It looks more like a piece of coat–linin’.”

“Indeed! Oh, I guess it’s all right,” said Uncle Boardman, rising to deposit in the box on the mantel this mysterious fragment. About five minutes later, he was wondering if something were not all wrong. Taking a candle from the mantel and lighting it, he stepped into the store. It was very dark, and very still there, save that the clock was ticking sharply. The storekeeper passed behind the counter to the book–shelf, where Bible and gazetteer, dictionary and statute–book, kept one another company in the dark. He took down the Bible, laid it on the counter, and then proceeded to examine it.

“It’s in here somewhere, I know,” he softly whispered to himself; “for I tucked it away here, day before yesterday. He inquired for it, and I told him this morning I would get it, and send it to–morrow.”

The desired document was that promise to pay Bezaleel Baggs five hundred dollars, which Walter had noticed. It could not now be found.

“Perhaps it’s in the Psalms. I read a good deal there,” thought Uncle Boardman.

Many promises are in the Psalms, but none to pay B. Baggs five hundred dollars could be found there.

“Maybe it’s in Daniel. I was a lookin’ at the prophecies there,” thought the bewildered storekeeper; but the prophet had no such treasures in his keeping. He now proceeded to make a thorough and deliberate hunt through the book. He began at Genesis, and was patiently turning over the leaves in Proverbs, when a sharp voice rang out overhead, and then came in definite tones down through a funnel–hole in the ceiling. “You goin’ to bed some time ’fore the millennium, Boardman?”

It was Aunt Lydia, in her chamber directly above the store; and she was using a very convenient substitute for a speaking–tube; a disused funnel–hole that passed through the ceiling of the store and the floor of Aunt Lydia’s room. Uncle Boardman started back as if the funnel–hole had been the mouth of a cannon, and Aunt Lydia sent from it a very effective shot.

“Massy!” he exclaimed inwardly. “I didn’t know she was up there. Comin’, Lydia!” he shouted. “Comin’ very soon!”

Giving occasional looks at the funnel–hole as if to be in readiness to dodge the shot that might be expected any moment from that quarter, he hastily completed his investigation of the Bible. So good a book, though, was unwilling to promise so untrustworthy a man as B. Baggs anything without a good assurance of repentance, and Uncle Boardman, closing the book, placed it on the book–shelf again.

“That is queer!” he murmured. “Well, if anybody found it, the note won’t do ’em any good, and as for Bezaleel, I can write him another.”

Taking his candle again, he passed into the sitting–room, and then upstairs. It was time that he did so, for a fluttering of angry steps around the funnel–hole showed that Aunt Lydia was getting ready another and far heavier shot.

CHAPTER VII.

STANDING FIRM.

Walter was enjoying a brief furlough at home in October. He was in his mother’s sewing–room that opened out of the kitchen. It was a little nest that had room only for a sewing machine, a table, and two chairs. Walter was now occupying one of these chairs, and his mother sat at her table, busily preparing some work for her nimble little machine. It was a mild, autumn day, and through the opened window came the sound of the cricket’s shrill piping, and the beating of the grain with an old–fashioned flail, by Farmer Grant, in his barn on the opposite side of the road. There was a crimson–stained maple near the house, that suggested to Walter the opening of his conversation with his mother.

“How soon that maple has turned, mother!”

“Oh no. It is time for it.”

“Let me see. It is not so early for it after all. It’s the fifteenth of October. The fifteenth! Why, that is the day Uncle Boardman said his mill would be done, and on my way back, I guess I’ll stop there and see how it looks.”

“That the mill where his trees are to be sawed up?”

“Yes, and I expect a lot more will come there. You see uncle built the mill, and Baggs buys up the timber where he can, and he and uncle run the mill together, and divide the profits somehow. But it has cost something to put that mill up. I know uncle had to borrow money to do it. I don’t like that Baggs at all, mother. He took me in at first, he was so soft–spoken, but I think I know him now.”

“He has been up in this neighborhood trying to buy woodland, and wanted your father to trade with him, but he wouldn’t. We don’t like his looks up this way.”

There was a lull in the conversation. The cricket without still kept up his sharp, piercing song, and Farmer Grant patiently beat out an accompaniment to the cricket’s tune.

“How long is it now, Walter, since you were confirmed?”

“Three months, mother.”

“How are you getting along?”

“Well, mother, I can’t say that I am making much progress, but I am trying to hold on.”

“Any progress we make in a religious life, comes from doing just what you say you are doing, holding on. If we are regular in our prayers and Bible–reading, if we patiently attend to our church duties, and just try from hour to hour to do our duty to those about us, that is all one can do. God will do the rest.”

“I had an idea, mother, when I began this life I should make more progress, get along faster.”

“Don’t mind that. You must just stick to your purpose, and keep on. I remember what Mark Simpson, an old fisherman down at The Harbor said once. Said Mark,—‘Going to heaven is like tryin’ to row round B’ilin’ P’int when the tide is agin you. If you stick to your oars, and pull ahead, you’ll come round all right.’ And I think Mark has shown that, if any one has. He has had all sorts of troubles, and he does what he advised, he sticks to his oars and pulls ahead. There’s a good deal, Walter, in what I call religious habits; in being particular about your prayers, in reading your Bible, in your attendance at church. Get the wheel down into that track and keep going steadily, and you will find everything easier.”

“Yes, I suppose so, mother.”

“And there is one thing which it is well for us all to know, Walter. It’s the most important thing. I mean we must get hold of Christ, understand what He has done for us, what He will do for us, and holding Him before our eyes and in our hearts, try to do for Him, and be like Him. And Walter, there is this thing I want you to be particular about, to do some one specific thing for Him. Of course, you try to live for Him; but I mean a particular duty.”

“What?”

“Well, may I speak of something? It sha’n’t be very hard. Of course, you will go to church yourself; try to get everybody else you can. There, do that.”

“Well, I will.”

The conversation went on. By and by, his mother exclaimed, “If it isn’t eleven o’clock! And there is your lunch, but I will have it ready soon, and what time do you start?”

“Twelve, in the mail–wagon, you know. I go as far as Uncle Boardman’s mill, and I promised to stop there for Chauncy Aldrich, this afternoon, while he is away; and then I walk down to uncle’s at tea–time. It is not more than a mile to walk.”

Walter declared the lunch to be “splendid.” Then there was “a stitch” to be taken in Walters coat, for which he said he was “thankful.”

“That does me good,” thought his mother. “I don’t know as Walter notices it, but since he has begun his new life, he appreciates more what his father and mother do for him. It may seem to be foolish in me, but the religion that doesn’t come out in little things, won’t come out in great ones.”

Oh, patient mothers, hard working fathers, are you “foolish” to be affected by a child’s gratitude for little things? If children only knew it, such gratitude makes this a new world for parents. The mail–wagon soon rolled along to the Plympton farm and halted for Walter. He was passing through the front yard, hurrying along a lilac and rose–bordered path, to the waiting mail–wagon before the house, when his mother called out, “Oh, Walter! Wait a minute.” She ran down the path.

“I’ll say this for your father, who isn’t at home. It was his charge, you know when you were little: ‘Honest, boy.’”

Walter laughed. “I guess I have got all my bundles now, mother. Good–bye.”

“Good–bye, Walter.”

As the wagon rattled away, carrying off Prince Alden, the driver, two mail–bags, and two passengers, Walter thought of these words, “Honest, boy.” It was an expression his father had used when Walter was a little fellow. The motto had an influence over Walter, not only because his father uttered it, but practiced it. Mr. Plympton’s daily life was the very crystal of honesty itself; honesty not only shining through his words but radiant in all his actions. After a ride of nine miles, came a group of buildings to which had been recently given the name “Blake’s Mills.” It was a part of the business transaction between Bezaleel Baggs and Walter’s uncle, that the latter should erect a “tide mill” at the head of “Muskrat Creek,” a mile from The Harbor. At the head of this creek, was a large tract of useless land belonging to Boardman Blake, easily flooded at high tides. Swinging backward and forward with the tides, were gates, placed in a dam that had been thrown across the head of the creek. Through these opened gates, swept a strong, clean, cold current from the ocean, at flood tide, and then the water was distributed over the low lands, to be held in check until needed to push the great wheel carrying the machinery of the mill.

“If you’ll build a mill,” said B. Baggs to Uncle Boardman, “and run it with me, I’ll agree to furnish you with logs.”

At one time, for the sake of his “dear friend Blake,” he talked as if he would build everything, take all risks and give all profits to that dear friend.

He did guarantee however, a stated, handsome income to Boardman. “Then,” he added, “you can run the mill for corn and flour, if you wish. However I’ll warrant you on logs a long, steady job; and it will pay you and me enough to make a handsome thing out of it. I’ll furnish logs for five years at least.”

At the same time, he made a great display of ready money, suggesting untold resources somewhere. He bought up the trees on extensive tracts of woodland far and near. Wherever he went, an immense business movement seemed to go with him. Uncle Boardman was bewildered. This great being, like a big oceancraft, bore down on him with such an imposing spread of financial sail, that he and his,—all but Aunt Lydia—were easy captures. Boardman built the mill, although he was forced to borrow five hundred dollars of Baggs that he might accomplish this. It was a note for this amount which Walter had stumbled upon and which his uncle had subsequently missed, but to cover the debt, he had written and tendered another. It is true that logs had not come to the mill so freely as Baggs had prophesied, for even logs need a little pushing to accomplish a journey; and Uncle Boardman’s receipts were not so large that the disposition of them had perplexed him. It was a fact also that some people had begun to label the mill “Boardman’s Folly;” but Bezaleel Baggs could furnish any amount of palaver, even if he could not make trees cut themselves down, and roll in large numbers to the mill; and his softly padded tongue kept Uncle Boardman quiet. Chauncy Aldrich represented his uncle’s interests at the mill, as that relative was often absent on mysterious journeys, from which he returned with an air of vast importance; as if he had bought up half the world to–day, and it would be delivered at ‘Blake’s Mills’ to–morrow. In connection with Baggs’ “office,” a small, ragged, unpainted shanty, there was a “store” to supply the hands at the mill. Uncle Boardman had stocked this emporium, and Baggs sold the goods on commission. Uncle Boardman sometimes thought that his profits were exceedingly small; though he knew that his “branch store,” as Baggs had pretentiously named it, could have very few customers. Some people had rashly asserted that liquor was sold at this store, but as a town–law forbade it, and as Boardman Blake’s principles forbade it also, the sale of liquor did not seem probable. For all that, something “mysterious” was sold there. It was at this “branch store” that Walter expected to serve, the afternoon of his return from his parents, as Chauncy wished to be away. The mail–wagon deposited Walter at the mill, and then clattered away. The mill was not running, as it was flood tide; and the water was rushing in from the sea, storing up the power that made all mill–running possible. No one seemed to be in the great barn–like mill, and few logs were accumulated there to feed the hungry saws when their sharp teeth might be set in motion.

“It looks quiet,” thought Walter.

It certainly was quiet in the big, deserted mill; in the narrow little road without; in the adjoining fields, so level and green; in the sky above, through which the sunshine was silently poured down. Nothing seemed to be stirring save the tide, racing up “Muskrat Creek,” and that went with an almost intelligent sound. As it rushed, and eddied, and gurgled, it seemed to say, “On hand, Boardman! We’ll start that lazy mill, shortly.” Ah, there was one other object stirring, at the office, store, shanty door, and this was Chauncy. He looked out into the road, then up to the sky, and then over toward the mill, as if he expected an arrival from some quarter.

“Ha, Plympton!” he shouted.

“Here I am,” replied Walter. “Am I late, Aldrich?”

“Oh no, but this is one of the days when the market seems to be paralyzed. Haven’t had a customer, and not a log has been hauled to the mill. However, Uncle Baggs is off stirring ’em up somewhere, and trade will begin to move this way. He is a master hand to stir people up and there will be a movement soon.”

Here he shoved back his cap, and showed that bristling wall of hair behind which he seemed to be entrenched, and from that impregnable position was defying all the world. His air was that of a challenge to Walter to “come on” if he dared, and show that Bezaleel Baggs would not “stir people up”; yes, “stir ’em up,” and bring on an immense movement in “the market.”

“Well,” said Walter, dropping his traveling bag, “if there is little to be done, I can get a chance to read a book I have in my bag. How long do you want to be away? Suit yourself, you know. I am here to accommodate you, and sha’n’t be needed at my uncle’s before six.”

“Oh, I will be back by five. Besides, my uncle may come, and he will relieve you. He is a great hand to drop on folks sort of unexpected.”

“Well, when he drops, I don’t want to be exactly under him, for he looks like solid weight.”

“Ha—ha! When Uncle Bezaleel does come down on a man, he can drop heavy. Well, good–bye and good luck to you.”

Off swaggered Chauncy, his cap at one side of his head; his whole air that of some bragging money king, who had sallied forth to upset “the market” in behalf of himself; or to accomplish some other great feat of financial tumbling. Walter was left alone in the office. For awhile, he read a recent report of the life saving service; for the world that centered in the little building whose outlook and flags–taff he could see from Uncle Boardman’s storedoor, interested him exceedingly. Nobody appeared to interrupt him save a fly, that buzzed up to him vigorously, in Chauncy’s style, but buzzed back immediately at a wave of the hand, which was not Chauncy’s style.

“Ah,” said Walter, after an hour’s fascinating reading, “I hear a footstep. Somebody’s coming. A customer, probably.”

He let his book drop on the counter, and awaited this arrival. A young man entered, whom Walter thought he had seen before; but where, he could not readily say.

“He is not over twenty–one,” thought Walter. “He has a nice form.”

The young man had a frame of much symmetry, and the dress–coat that he wore, instead of the loose blouse common among the fishermen and farmers, brought out into distinct outline his well–shaped figure. Although his look was that of a rather strong excitement, which flushed his face, and gave it an unnatural eagerness, yet Walter was attracted toward him at once. A little girl, who bore some resemblance to the young man, closely followed him, clinging to the skirt of his coat. The young man appeared to be looking for something on one of the shelves, and with a twinkle of his blue eyes, and in musical, ringing tones, he called out, “In some stores, they say on a card, ‘If you don’t see a thing, ask for it.’”

“Well,” replied Walter, “Ask away. I would like to sell something to somebody.”

The young man did not lower his eyes to notice Walter, but continued to search with them the objects on the three shelves behind the counter.

“He can’t want soap, or matches, or that pile of mittens for fishermen,” thought Walter.

The young man, himself, here expressed his wants.

“See here!” he said in a half–whisper, leaning forward. “Where’s that big bottle Baggs keeps on the upper shelf, generally behind a bundle of yarn?”

As he leaned forward, Walter noticed by his breath that he had been drinking an intoxicant of some kind. He noticed also that the little girl in the rear was now tugging at his coat, as if to pull him back from an exposed position. Did the child say, “Don’t!”

“Go way, Amy! Don’t pull so!” exclaimed the young man rather testily. Still he did not look round at this interferer, and he did not even glance at Walter. His eager eyes were fastened on those generally uninteresting objects, soap, yarn, and matches. Surely, there could be no snake’s eye up there to bewilder one.

“Ah, I see the top of it! Just above that big lot of yarn on the third shelf. That’s how I made my mistake—I was looking at the second shelf, you see, and—and it’s the third—don’t Amy! Keep quiet, Amy! There, if you’ll just get that down! A—my, stop!”

Was it a big sob, Walter heard behind this customer? The young man’s look was no more eager now than Walter’s. The desire to know, was as strong in the latter, as appetite was in the former, and Walter had now mounted a rickety, flag–bottomed chair, and was pulling aside the packages on the shelves. Reaching a big bundle of yarn on the uppermost shelf, he saw the object of the young man’s intense desire; an immense black bottle with an immense black stopper.

“There—there she is! Just hand her down; and if you have any water handy, I’ll mix it myself, you know. Amy, you stop pulling, or I’ll send you outdoors.”

The young man’s voice, though earnest, was not cross. Indeed, he had endured a constant twitching from his small companion.

“Just hand her down, please.”

“Well, no, I think not, if it is liquor,” was Walter’s reply.

This, to the young man, was an unexpected turn of affairs. For the first time, he now looked directly at Walter. Still, he stayed good–natured, and that attracted Walter the more strongly.

“Why—why—of course it is liquor. You don’t suppose Baggs would hide kerosene, say, behind his mothy old yarn, would he?” and the young man laughed.

“Well, no, I should say not,” and Walter laughed also.

“You are here to sell, are you not?” asked the young man.

“Yes, I suppose I am, for the afternoon; but I didn’t agree to sell everything Baggs might put into this old hole. I don’t know what your business is, though your face looks natural; but if the man that employed you, say to catch fish, should say some day, ‘There goes somebody’s sheep in the road. I am going to shear it, and keep the wool, and I want you to hold it, for I hired you to work for me,’ I guess you would let your fingers burn first, before you would touch the thing that was another man’s.” There was silence now in the little shanty. The young man began to drum on the counter with his fingers.

“Then, it is against the law to sell liquor in this town,” observed Walter.

“Oh, Baggs is cute to fix that,” replied the would–be customer in a whisper. “You need not take any money now. Baggs gives us a glass of liquor to–day, and in a week from to–day, when we meet him, we say, ‘A present, Mr. Baggs,’ and we give him money enough to cover the worth of the liquor.”

The young man was no longer looking at Walter, but at the bottle on the shelf, as if addressing that.

“I should think,” said Walter, indignantly, “the devil himself would be ashamed of that mean, underhanded way. I believe in being aboveboard and honest. No, I am not going to have anything to do with this business,” and as he spoke, he very resolutely thrust back the yarn, hiding the bottle from the observation of all save those to whose sight their appetite gave unusual keenness. While he was doing this, he heard a noise at the door. It was only a slight stir at first, as of a lively brush from the wind pushing its way past the door. It was just such a “lively” effort of the wind, as at sea, may grow into a hurricane. Turning toward the door, Walter saw Baggs. It was Baggs indeed, and nobody else, but oh, what a change!

“Well, sir!” he roared.

How unlike that smooth–speaking, mild–tempered man, who usually went by the name of Baggs! His face was ruffled and darkened with rage. His skin seemed to be blown out; and as certain unnoticed pimples had grown also, it had a mottled, puffy look, like that of a frog. In the midst of this turgidity and discoloration, his twisted eye flashed and wriggled in a frightful manner, while his voice was hoarse and blatant as that of a fog–horn.

“You—you are a pretty—feller—in—in this store! Git—git—out of this!” he shouted, catching his breath.

As his peculiarity of sight made it difficult to always tell whom he might be looking at, both the young men glanced doubtfully at Baggs, and then inquiringly at one another; as if about to say, “Whom does he mean?”

“Git—git—out!” he roared again.

“Who—o—o?” asked the young man outside the counter.

“You—you—you!” said Baggs, with tremendous emphasis, advancing toward the young man inside the counter. “I mean you, Walter Plympton. I—I—have heard your—talk—talk—for the last five minutes. I mean you, sir, whose—whose uncle I have been striving—ving—to exalt to the—the—pin—pin—nack—ul of untold wealth. I mean you, an ungrateful neph—neph—ew. I mean you, who wouldn’t give to a fellow—that’s—that’s faint—a little sip—sip that would do him no harm. Will the—law—law stop that work of—mer—mercy to the sick? You were not—asked—as I understand—it—to sell, but simp—simply to put—as I understand it—the bottle here.”

With new and frightful energy, Baggs here pounded the counter, which he had struck several times before.

“You were not asked—asked—to do anything more. Will you—you not—befriend the—the—”

Although Baggs’ philanthropy did not fail him, and he could have talked an hour as the champion of the faint and weary, yet his breath did desert him; and he stood there, gasping, “the—the—the—the—”

Baggs had a great reputation as orator at town meetings, and he was declared by admirers “always to be equal to the occasion,” and it was mortifying now to be found so unequal to this emergency. There was no help for it, though. He could only gasp, “the—the—the—”

“Oh well,” remarked Walter, “I can go as well now, as any time. When you catch me selling liquor, you will be likely to find at the same time the Atlantic full of your mill–logs. Good–day, sir.”

This reference to Baggs’ logs, which were not numerous enough that day to fill anything, so affected the orator, that he did succeed in making a new forensic effort.

“Go, boy!” he thundered.

The next moment, Walter was rushing out of the door, as indignant on the side of the clerk, as Baggs was on the side of the employer.

“Such impudence!” exclaimed Baggs, his wrath slowly subsiding. “If you don’t feel just right, I’ll ’tend to you,” he said to the customer. “I’ll trouble you to get down that bottle.”

The young man did not stir. He seemed to be in a stupor.

“What’s the matter?” asked Baggs. “Feel wuss?” and a sarcastic humor lighted up his twisted eye.

“I’m going,” said the young man.

“And not take a drink?”

“No, I’ve seen enough of it. That young fellow is right in not selling, and if he can’t sell, I won’t be fool enough to drink.”

“Come, come!” said a little voice behind him.

“Yes, Amy; I’m going,” and out of the store he went. Baggs was amazed. He could not understand it.

“Well, if that ain’t queer!” he muttered. He began to wonder if the recent scene were real, whether it might not have been a dream. There was Walter, though, now almost out of sight; and the young man was moving in the same direction, his coat–skirts still clutched by Amy. These three were substantial witnesses to the reality of the affair; and Baggs, wiping his forehead with a very red, and a very dirty handkerchief, turned toward his desk in what was strictly the “office” part of the shanty.

Walter did not intend to take the road he was now traveling, but when he left Baggs, he was feeling so intensely, that the matter of a road was too trivial to be noticed. The road in which he was walking led him to The Harbor; and from this village, he could reach his uncle’s, though his walk would be a long one.

“I have started,” he reflected, “and I might as well keep on. Besides, if I turn back to take the right road, I shall have to pass Baggs’ office, and I don’t want to go near that rascal. I will walk a mile to avoid him.” He tramped forward with a kind of fierce energy, busily thinking.

“The idea! Wanting to exalt Uncle Boardman to a pinnacle of wealth! And he has been constantly befooling him. He has been pretending to buy up woodland far and near; and I don’t know but that he has bought it, in one way, but I don’t believe he has paid for it. Aunt Lydia saw through him all the time, and she was the sharpest of the lot. Then that liquor business! Wasn’t he cunning, giving away his whiskey! Well, he found one person who would neither sell, nor give for him.”

So intensely was Walter thinking, he did not notice how rapidly he was passing through the little fishing–village. There were not more than forty houses at The Harbor, and these were located anywhere along the crooked line of the one narrow street. The neighborhood was very rocky, and in and out among the ledges, wound this single street. Some of the houses were very old, and their roofs were patched with moss. Planted near the ledges, these ancient relics of domestic architecture seemed more like masses of lichen, that had fastened on the ledges, becoming a part of them; and resolute to maintain their rocky anchorage as long as the rough sea winds, and the driving rains, would let them. The village had a small store, whose proprietor considered himself as a dangerous competitor of Boardman Blake, and a box schoolhouse, capped with a rude little belfry, which never had entertained a bell as its guest. It had also an unpainted “hall,” where one evening a dance might be pounded out by the vigorous feet of the young men and women of the village; the next evening might witness an auction; and if the third evening belonged to Sunday, some kind of a religious service might be held there. These three public buildings, the store, the schoolhouse, the hall, Walter had passed. Chancing to look up, he said, “I am almost through the village. I have been so mad, I have made pretty quick time; and there is the road that goes up to Uncle Boardman’s; and—and—there’s the ‘Crescent’! I have a great mind to go home that way, by the Crescent.”

The Crescent was a peculiarity of rock and sand in the harbor. If it had been simply a shoal of sand, though shaped like a young moon this year, the shifting tides every day, the great storms of spring or autumn, would have worked it over into something very unlike a young moon another year. There were nubs of rocks at either end, and ledges were scattered along the sides of this marine scimeter, so that a measure of the restless sand was retained; and year after year, the Crescent kept substantially its form.

At low tide, the Crescent could be easily reached by any pedestrian. One in passing from The Harbor to Boardman Blake’s, could leave the road, and at low tide cross over to the Crescent, pass along its ledges and sand, and leaving it, at its easterly extremity, regain the land without wetting the feet. This course would carry one not far from the lane that straggled from the life saving station up to Boardman Blake’s; and although a much longer route than by the road, it had its attractions for those who liked to see the surf tumble on the rocks. Walter was of this number, and instead of following any farther the crooked street that wound among the ledges, and then curved toward Boardman Blake’s store, he digressed at a point opposite the Crescent; and he took the longer, but more romantic way home.

“I will cross to those rocks half way down the Crescent, and sit down a while and watch the waves break over the rocks,” he said. “Splendid place there.”

It was a tempting outlook upon the somersets thrown by those acrobats of the ocean, the waves, when they reached the rocky line of the shore, and there made tumble after tumble. Walter sat a long time watching and thinking:

“Then I have run against Baggs,” he said, “and I didn’t anticipate that. Wasn’t he mad! I never thought that smooth–talking man could rave like one of these waves. I am sorry for Uncle Boardman’s sake, for I imagine—poor man—he has enough to worry him, and my fuss with Baggs may make him some trouble. But I don’t see what else I could have done. That fellow—I wonder where I have seen him—had been drinking already, and a glass or two more might have just finished him. I could not do that; no, not even set down the bottle for him. And the law was against it; and I could not in any way help break the law. Baggs could not ask it of me, for I didn’t go there for any such purpose. No, sir! I think I did the right thing, and I’ll stick to it, and stand by it.”

In his earnestness, Walter rose, stamped on the ledges with his feet, as if to give emphasis to his opinion, and looked off on the wide ocean of blue, whose play was as restless as that of his thoughts. And as he looked, somehow it seemed to him as if he had the sympathy of that wide reach of nature he was watching. The sky seemed to bend down to him in an approval which the gently blowing wind whispered, and that great ocean had a voice, sounding in the thousands of waves pressing toward him, and saying in the roar of the surf, “You are right.” This secret sympathy between law in nature and its keeper in the sphere of principle, is one of the rewards of right–doing. And above all, in his heart, Walter had the sense of satisfaction whose source he knew to be God. He did not know what might be the personal consequences of his difficulty with Baggs, but he felt that he was right; and he could plant his feet on that assurance solid as the ledges under him. He remained a long time watching the waves, till he was startled to see what a protracted shadow his form threw on the black ledges.

“Sun is getting low,” he said. “I must be going.”

He turned, and moved away a short distance, when he turned again, and looked back upon the rocks he had left.

“That is strange,” he said.

He noticed that this particular ledge, called the “Center Rock” by the fishermen, had a divided summit. The outline of the eastern half of this summit was curiously like that of a chair; as if placed there in anticipation of an arrival by sea. No one, though, came out of the great, empty waste of water, now rapidly blackening in the twilight.

“Sort of funny,” he exclaimed, and hurried away.

“Ho, what is this?” he asked. Looking toward the land, he noticed that while he had been watching the waves, the tide had turned, and covered the low, sandy flats with a floor of crystal.

“Well, it is not so very deep, and I can wade ashore,” said Walter. He was untying his shoes, when he heard the noise of oars. As he chanced to look up to see who might be coming, the boatman turned, and resting on his oars, faced Walter. A smile as from an old acquaintance overspread his features, and he called out, “Hold on there!”

A few more strokes, and the boat was on the sand at Walter’s feet.

“One good turn deserves another,” cried the boatman. “Jump in!”

“Oh, that you?” cried Walter. “Well, I will.” And into the boat he jumped.

This opportune arrival was the young man he had met in Baggs’ store that afternoon. He was dressed now for work, and wore a blue blouse. It could not hide, though, his broad shoulders, and when he rowed, one could but admire the easy, strong sweep of the arms.

“I was busy watching the waves,” explained Walter, “and I did not notice that the tide had turned.”

“You would have crossed without much difficulty to the shore, though in three hours from this time you might have done some swimming.”

“I am good for that.”

“Dare say. You would have got along, though they do tell some boogerish stories about those rocks. Did you notice the ‘Chair’? It is on the easterly side of what we call the ‘Center Rock.’”

“Oh yes, I saw that.”

“Well, they say a young girl was caught on the Crescent by the tide toward night, and a rain and fog set in. Oh, it was years ago, and we had no station here; and it was when the men folks used to go off fishing down to Banks—the Newfoundland—and of course there were few folks at home. I mean men folks. Some of the women thought they heard screams in the night; but then in a storm, the waves keep up such a pounding, you can hardly hear your own ears. The storm got worse all that night, and in the morning, it was bad enough outside the Crescent. Soon as the storm would let them cross over, some of the people went, they say; but they didn’t find the girl.”

“Well, how did they know she stayed there? Perhaps she went somewhere else.”

“They never heard of her anywhere else; and that reminds me of something I didn’t put in. There was a fishing–sloop running along the shore, and made harbor here. It passed by the Crescent in the afternoon, and the skipper saw a girl sitting in what we call the Chair, on the ocean side of Center Rock. That was the last seen of her, and the weather had not set in rainy then. Oh, I have heard my mother tell the story many times; and what was queer, there was a boy mixed up with the affair,—the girl’s brother. My mother used to say that the boy and girl had had some quarrel, and he asked her to go over to Center Rock and see a curious chair there, knowing of course that the tide would turn and bother her. I think he led her there, and left her there. I don’t know as he intended anything so serious as her drowning, but he was mad, and meant to punish her enough to frighten her. But it set in raining, and the fog you know is bewildering; and then the storm was pretty bad that night, and the waves wash clear over Center Rock in a storm. Then my mother used to say—my mother is not living now—the girl was a stranger here, and didn’t know what the Chair might do for one. She and her brother were visiting here, I believe; and isn’t it singular that their name should have been Baggs? Not singular that I know of, only we had something to do with somebody of the same name this afternoon, and one thing suggests another.”

The young man here rested on his oars, and looking into Walter’s face, said: “You did a good thing for me, this afternoon.”

“I am glad if I did.”

“What I call ‘the craze’ was on me then. I had one glass, and that is always enough to start me, and I thought I must have more. It was strong, you know, and I can’t touch the stuff safely. It’s too powerful for me. Our talk though, gave me a chance to think; and when Baggs came, I surprised him by refusing it,—he offered it to me, you see. Then I went home, and my sister—she is as good as she can be—gave me a hot supper and some coffee, and I am all right now.”

“That’s good. I expect Baggs will want to pitch into me.”

“No, he won’t. He knows that I know something about his style of handling that bottle, and I think that will hold him back. I believe that he will be very glad to keep on the right side of you. If he don’t, he will get on the wrong side of me. Baggs is a coward. He can blow and bluster worse than a nor’easter, but he is a coward at the end of it.”

“He must stop, though, his liquor business. If nothing more, it will get my uncle into trouble. You see he owns the goods in—”

“Does he? I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, he owns what is in that pen.”

“Though not the pig, or the two pigs, I should say; counting in that precious nephew of Baggs’. Ha–ha!”

“That selling, or giving, will give my uncle a bad name.”

“I see, I see, for it will come out and every body know it, sooner or later, of course.”

“As for the liquor business itself, I won’t have anything to do with it.”

“You are right, I know; and I want to do the right thing myself. I mean to do right, and I have just promised my sister I would try again.”

“Ask God to help you,” said Walter in a hearty, boy–fashion.

“Well, yes, I suppose I ought. But here we are ashore, and sooner than I thought for.”

The boat was in a little sand–cove where, affected by the Crescent, the roll of the surf was very gentle.

“You go up to your uncle’s, I s’pose, and I go to the life saving station. I am one of the crew there, and it was my turn to be off to–day.”

“There! I thought I had seen you somewhere before.”

“I have seen you there, and you would have known me quicker, perhaps, if I hadn’t shaved off my beard. That alters me somewhat.”

“But it seems to me as if I had seen you before I came this way.”

“Shouldn’t wonder. People meet, you know, under queer circumstances.”

“Hullo, Woodbury,” called out a man dressed like a fisherman, and waiting on the rocks above the strip of sand. “I’ve been here a–waitin’, some time.”

“Then his name is Woodbury,” thought Walter. “I know that much.”

The fisherman sprang into the boat vacated by Woodbury and Walter, and thrusting his oar into the sand, pushed off at once. Woodbury went to the left toward the station, while Walter took the lane to his uncle’s.

“I am very much surprised to know that Mr. Baggs would do anything of the kind,” said Uncle Boardman in his slow, meditative way, when Walter after supper related the affair of the day. Uncle Boardman, as he spoke, worked his fingers nervously, as if they were pencils, with which he was working out a problem on a slate.

“Sur–prised, Boardman?” inquired Aunt Lydia, thrusting forward her sharp features. “You sur–prised? I am not. I don’t think there is anything that mean critter won’t be up to, or down to, rather. I ventur’ to say there’s been queer carryin’s on, if we only knew.” And Aunt Lydia’s sharp face suggested the beak of a bird that was after its prey; and woe be to that worm, the unhappy Baggs, if once before the beak!

“I thought I ought to speak of the matter,” said Walter apologetically. “I hate anything that looks like telling, but I knew you owned the goods up there in Baggs’ place, and you might be involved in trouble.”

“Walter, don’t you ’polergize one bit. I shan’t take it, if Boardman does. That mean critter don’t deserve nary a ’polergy.”

“Jingle, jingle!” went the warning bell in the store.

“I will go, uncle.”

“Oh, no! Somebody may want me.” When Uncle Boardman returned, he remarked, “I thought as much. It was—”

“Baggs?” said Aunt Lydia eagerly guessing.

“Yes, and I thought there must be some extenuating circumstances. He brought it in while we were talking together, saying he had had occasion to give a little liquor to some of the fishermen when sick and faint, and he allowed that he might have been mistaken, in other cases.”

“Why should he receive presents of money afterwards, and why not take it at the time, if everything was all right, uncle?”

“Now, Boardman, you mean to be charitable,” ejaculated Aunt Lydia, “and it says charity shall hide a multitude of sins, but sich a big sinner, you can’t kiver him up. His sins will stick out.”

“Oh, well, Lydia, I only mean to say what can be said for him, and he allows he hasn’t always done just right, but he promises to stop.”

“But what will the poor, sick, faint fishermen do?” inquired Aunt Lydia solicitously, and in a sarcastic tone.

Uncle Boardman, though, had taken a candlestick from the mantel–piece, had lighted a long specimen of tallow manufacture, by Aunt Lydia, and was passing out of the door that led upstairs to his chamber.

“Well, I guess,” said Uncle Boardman good–naturedly laughing, “we will send ’em round to you. I don’t know of a better hand to take care of tramps and paupers.”

Aunt Lydia had a peculiarity, and that was the indiscriminate relief of everybody who might ask for her charity. In that way, she had nourished some very deserving souls, behind the pitiful looks and shabby garments pleading at her door, and she had also nourished some who were not so deserving, but were frauds of the worst kind.

The tallow candle carried by Uncle Boardman had now withdrawn its diminutive rays, and his footsteps had ceased sounding on the uncarpeted stairway leading to the second story.

“There,” declared Aunt Lydia, “if that man wasn’t a saint, I wouldn’t take folks’ heads off like that ere Baggs’. There, they do set right down on him; and it jest riles me.”

“Aunt,” inquired Walter, “did you ever hear about an accident at the Chair, on the Crescent, when it was said a girl went there, and the tide cut her off from the land?”

“A storm comin’ up that night?”

“That’s the time.”

“Oh, yes, only it happened thirty years ago. But, Walter—” and Aunt Lydia looked at him with her sharp, black eyes—“though it was so long since, I can see that ere gal now.”

“Did you see her?”

“Of course. She went by our winders right down that ’ere road. Poor thing! She never came back.”

“What was it her brother did?”

“Why, they was a–visitin’ here, and they had some quarrel, and he urged her to go there, they said, and he met her beyond the house and went with her. Then, they said, he left her there on purpose—told her suthin’ to keep her there, I s’pose—and she didn’t know ’bout the tides, and was caught. I b’lieve he ’lowed to somebody arterwards that he hadn’t done jest right.”

“Was his name Baggs?”

“Bagster.”

“Oh!”

CHAPTER VIII.

AT THE STATION.

Walter was at the life saving station looking up a stairway leading from the crew’s room to an open scuttle in the roof. If Walter had put his head out of the scuttle, he would have seen a railing, hemming in a small platform; and from its center, rose a modest flag–staff. There was no chance though for explorations, as the way was entirely blocked. On the stairway, Walter saw an immense pair of boots, and above them a stout pair of legs; and then a man’s bulky body, roofed by a huge “sou’wester.”

“No room for me to pass there,” thought Walter.

The man held in his hand the object that at a life saving station comes under the head, “marine glasses.”

“Do you see anything?” asked Walter recognizing the man to be Tom Walker.

“Only a fishin’ smack, and a mean one at that. It’s my watch, you know.”

The boots, the legs, the big body, and the sou’wester all came down.

“Step up if you want to, Walter.”

Climbing the stairway, Walter swept the sea with his bright eyes, and then looked landward across the black rocks and the fading fields. Then he turned toward the sea again. Off in the east was the fishing smack, slowly sailing in the sun. Then he looked up at the flag–staff, which carried some specimen of marine architecture on its top.

“I see two craft,” said Walter.

“Two?” inquired Tom, solicitously.

“The fishing smack and this on top of the staff.”

“Ho—ho!” roared Tom.

“Only I can’t make out this second one in the air.”

“It was a brig, but the last gale we had tore away its rigging, and made some improvements; and I don’t know what on airth or water to call that thing. I guess she is ’phibious, and will go on either.”

Walter’s eager eyes caught a glimpse of a box, on a landing half way up the stairway to the lookout, and from this box projected bundles of cloth, here and there showing bits of color.

“That is the signal box?” remarked Walter.

“Yes. Sometime I will explain them to you.”

“Will you?” inquired Walter, his hazel eyes snapping at the prospect of this new continent of knowledge,—the signal department of the life saving service.

“Sartin. Give you a hint now. For instance, we have a pennant, a triangular flag, blue, with a white ball in it; and if I h’ist it, it would mean ‘no’ to some question asked by a vessel off shore signaling to me. Or, s’posin’ I h’isted a white pennant with a red ball. That would mean ‘yes.’”

Walter desired to overhaul that unpretending box at once, but he knew he must return to the store; and he only remarked, “I would like to see all those signals out sometime.”

“I guess you can without any doubt. You take a good deal of interest in our station, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. It is something entirely new to me.”

“You would make a pretty good surfman,” said Tom, glancing approvingly at Walter’s compact frame. “Woodbury Elliott says you row a pretty good stroke.”

“Oh! That his name? I came in his boat from the Crescent the other night.”

“Yes,” said Tom deliberately, looking at Walter’s frame as if he were a recruiting officer examining the physical points of a candidate for the ranks of Uncle Sam’s army. “I think, I think—you would do.”

Walter laughed. “I guess I must be a storekeeper. However, I am pleased if you think I have strength enough for a surfman.”

Tom now turned away, and with his glass swept the misty horizon again.

“There is the fishin’ smack,” he said. “And hullo! What’s that? I missed her afore, sartin.”

“What is it?”

“She’s a fore–and–aft, sure as you are born; and—and—it is a coaster, and she’s headin’ this way. Queer I missed her.”

“I didn’t see her. Uncle Boardman is expecting a coaster to come after a load of potatoes. I wonder if that’s the one!”

“I shouldn’t wonder one bit. It’s hazy where she is, and that’s the reason we didn’t see her.”

“I think I had better report that to uncle.”

“Of course,” remarked the surfman, pointing his glass again at the schooner. “She may go somewhere else, but she acts to me as if she wanted to run in at The Harbor.”

“I think I will tell Uncle Boardman.”

“What does she bring here, if it’s bound here for your uncle’s potatoes?”

“I believe she brings a variety of things; some groceries for the store, some salt for the fishermen, and so on. Her cargo is what they call miscellaneous.”

It was not long before a coasting schooner was beating off the mouth of the harbor, saying plainly by her actions that she wished to make port as soon as possible.

“It must be the Olive Ann,” declared Boardman Blake; “and, Walter, I think you had better go down to Spring’s wharf, and see if everything is ready for the coaster there.”

Walter went to the wharf. Jabez Wherren, a fisherman, stood leaning against an oaken pier, watching the fluttering efforts of the coaster to reach a sheltered resting–place.

“I expect that is a schooner uncle is expecting, and she will come here, Mr. Wherren. Will you look after her, please? I must go back to the store.”

Receiving from the gray–headed old man a promise that he would give the Olive Ann a reception befitting a dame of her commercial position, Walter hurried away. He returned to the store, and then left again in an hour for the wharf, above which now shot up two tapering masts, signaling the arrival of the coaster. He was passing the schoolhouse at The Harbor, when a little girl playing on the rough step of stone before the door, looked up and said, “I know you.”

It was Woodbury Elliott’s young companion, the day he had visited Baggs’ shanty, and found Walter there.

“Oh, that you?” said Walter stopping. “Do you go to school here?”

“Yes.”

“Who is your teacher?”

“Sister.”

“Don’t you have any school to–day?”

“School is just out, but my sister hasn’t gone.”

“I wonder if she is the one that Woodbury said gave him his supper and hot coffee,” thought Walter. “She knew how to cure a man in trouble.”

“Good afternoon,” said a pleasant voice in the entry. Walter looked up, and there before him, advancing also toward him with a hand outstretched in welcome, was May Elliott. The old schoolhouse in the fishing village seemed to disappear at once, as by the touch of a magician’s wand. In its place, was the academy. Again, it was “composition day,” and in May Elliott’s hand was a schoolgirl’s composition, from which she was reading these words: “The life that does not take into account the need of those about us, that does not take into account another life, that does not take God into account, is making a serious mistake.”

All this came to Walter, and he stood in a daze.

“Don’t you know me, Plympton? May Elliott?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, quickly recovering from his surprise. “But I was not looking for you, and—”

“It gave you a surprise? Won’t you come in?”

“I am glad to see you, Miss Elliott. Why, I didn’t know you were here!”

He followed her into the low–storied schoolroom, and sat down in a chair that she placed for him near the door.

“Yes, I am here. My home is here at The Harbor, and you can see the house through this window; that white house beyond the fishflakes in the field. There are some apple–trees back of it, which you can see.”

“I didn’t know you were here,” said Walter again, looking off from the house, and rapidly taking the picture of the young teacher. She was hardly of medium height, and was simply clad, in a black alpaca dress, wearing at her throat a crimson ribbon pinned with a small cross of gold. Her brown hair was very soft and fine, and of a luxuriant growth. Her features were a little irregular, but her complexion was fair, and then a certain brightness and directness of look gave her blue eyes a magnetic power.

“Yes,” she laughingly said, “I suppose you would call me the village ‘schoolmarm,’ at least, this fall. When I was a little girl, I remember—sitting on one of those benches in front,—I had an ambition to be some day the teacher of the school. But, Plympton, I have been wanting to see you, and thank you for your kindness to my brother, Woodbury. He has—has—a weakness, as you know; and what you did that afternoon, checked him when he was sorely tempted.”

“I am very glad if I did any good. And—and—I have thought I would like to thank you, sometime.”

“For what?”

“Do you remember your composition?”

“Oh, I believe I wrote a number of them. Which one was it?”

“That one called, ‘What are we living for?’ That influenced me a good deal,” said Walter, rising as if to go.

“Did it? I never knew that it helped anybody, except, perhaps, it set me to thinking more fully afterwards on the subject. Are you going?”

“I think I must. But I want to thank you for what you said; and if I can help Woodbury, I will.”

In response, there was a bright look of sincere pleasure shining out of May Elliott’s face. Through the day, a pair of blue eyes followed Walter in his thoughts, as if intent to overtake him and ask him some question.

“Miss Elliott keeps your school,” he said to Jabez Wherren on the wharf at a little later hour.

“May, you mean? Wall, yes, and she’s a smart leetle critter, not more’n sixteen or seventeen; but she makes them young ones toe the mark, I tell ye. We all think a good deal of May; brought up here amongst us, you know. There’s Woodbury, her brother; a smart feller as ever lived, if he would never tech liquor. He might be a captain of his own craft, jest as easy, jest as easy—as—as—mud.” After this expressive and telling simile, Jabez recovered the breath he had lost in that effort, and continued: “It’s a bright family, the Elliotts is. That little Amy, she’ll beat the whole school a–spellin’—that is, all of her age. Woodbury’s father and mother are well–to–do, forehanded folks. He’s a skipper, and is on this very schooner. What’s that?”

Jabez was now directing his attention to the gangway of the Olive Ann, which had been securely moored to the little wharf. A colored boy in a shabby brown suit was disembarking, carrying a very small bundle in his hand. Springing out upon the wharf, he looked in various directions, as if a stranger, and he was calculating which way he had better go. A choice between two routes offered itself, and he chanced to take that which would lead him to Boardman Blake’s store.

“Who’s that passenger?” asked Jabez of Captain Elliott, a muscular, heavy man of fifty.

“I can’t say. He shipped at New York, and worked for his passage. He wanted to be off soon as I could spare him, and I said he might go now, or stay longer. He’d rather be off now. I’m afeared he won’t pick up any work very soon, but he will probably push on till he finds some sort of a chance.”

Walter went home thinking of this unknown youth, a stranger, homeless, tramping off anywhere. Aunt Lydia met him in the kitchen. A very broad grin was on her face, as if the old lady had found a prize that made her very happy.

“Come into the addition,” said she, beckoning mysteriously. “Step softly, you know. I’ve got suthin’ to show you.”

The “addition” was built on to the rear of the house, and contained two rooms, the lower being a kind of store–room.

“There!” said Aunt Lydia, pointing at the corner.

Curled up under an old quilt, a smile brightening a face happy in a trip to some beautiful dream–land, was the “passenger,” as Jabez had entitled him, who had just arrived per coaster Olive Ann.

“Ho, Aunt Lyddy! You got Young Africa there?” whispered Walter.

“Yes, and I didn’t have the heart to turn him away. You see he came to the door, and sort of mournful, looked up and asked for a leetle suthin’ to eat, and said he would work first, and I didn’t have the heart to refuse him. Then I sez, ‘Where you goin’?’ ‘Dunno,’ he sez; and I thought it wasn’t jest Christian to let him go a–wanderin’ off into the world when the night was a–comin’, and I sez, pointin’ to your Uncle Boardman in the barnyard, ‘you might ax that man, and if he’s a–willin’, and can give you suthin’ to do, you can stay here till mornin’.’ And it would have done your soul good to have seen how grateful that child was when Boardman sez—and I knew he would—‘I’ll leave it to Lyddy.’”

“What’s his name?” asked Walter, when they were in the kitchen once more, leaving that “child” to his happy rest under Aunt Lyddy’s homemade bedquilt; which, like its owner, was a little rough on the outside, but exceedingly warm within.

“Pedro White, he told me. And jest think, I told it to your Uncle Boardman, and he laffed and said ‘Pedro’ was Spanish, and he ought to be called ‘Don Pedro.’ You know your uncle has read a ’mazin’ sight.”

Aunt Lydia had a very large respect for her husband’s “book–larnin’,” as she called it. It must be acknowledged though, that before the pressure of each day’s necessities, Uncle Boardman, with his “book–larnin’,” would often retreat; while Aunt Lydia, gifted only with her sharp, practical sense, would advance triumphantly. This fact does not prove that book knowledge is of little worth. It is extremely valuable. It should go hand in hand with excellent judgment to make it of the greatest value to its possessor. “That child” slept profoundly under Aunt Lydia’s bedquilt, which rivaled the rain–bow in its many colors and the sunshine in its warmth.

CHAPTER IX.

THE HALL SERVICE.

Did I not say there was only one store at The Harbor? I beg Miss P. Green’s pardon. She did not claim in so many words to “keep store,” and yet if anybody had actually denied her right to the use of that grand word, “store,” there would have been a tempest at The Harbor. She merely said that she “kept a few little articles”; and yet the black king of the Bigboos in the depths of Africa, would not think more of a red handkerchief and a hand looking–glass, than Miss P. Green did of her three shelves of “goods,” and one small show–case of pins, needles, gooseberries, lemon drops, and stationary, in her front room. Gooseberries and lemon drops, I say, for Miss P. Green kept only these, believing that you could sell more if you kept one article, and “got your name up” on the merits of that one article. In this case there were two articles; but never were there such gooseberries before, nor have there been such lemon drops since. The gooseberries would have been excellent to pitch with—just big, and hard, and round enough—at a game of baseball; and as for the lemon drops, into what rapture those sugared acids, or that acidulated sugar rather, would throw any schoolboy or girl, at “recess–time.” Then Miss P. Green kept the post–office! There is no adjective I can now recall, of sufficient magnitude and magnificence to represent the importance which Miss P. Green attached to this position. Her ideas were not unduly exalted until she had seen the Boston post–office, and enjoyed an interview with the Boston post–master. She then felt that her position was unusual. She never looked upon her humble wooden walls as she came down the street, but that they changed to a granite façade, with lofty doors and pillars; and when she entered her abode she walked at once upon a marble pavement. What importance she felt when she handled the stamp, whose magic impress she must first make, before any letter could start on its travels from The Harbor. The Great Charlemagne pounding with his golden seal, did not feel half as grand. And those clumsy leathern pouches that were called mai–lbags, and which only Miss P. Green could open—how she venerated them! True Billings, the driver of the mail–wagon, handled them roughly, and pitched them upon the doorstep without ceremony, bawling out, “Here you have ’em!” By the post–mistress, they were approached with a certain respect and awe, whose weight would crush the official opening the great treasury–vaults of the nation, did he regard these with corresponding feelings of importance. It was stoutly secured to the door frame outside with good shingle nails, that sign indicating Miss P. Green’s official place in The Harbor world: “Post–office.” On the door leading from the entry into the front room was the name “P. Green.” This indicated her place in the great world of trade. If it had been attached to the outer door, it would have saved me an ugly omission, for I should at once have given her honorable mention in the business list of The Harbor. The sign occupied an outer position once, but boys do not always have that respect for authority which is becoming, and had changed the name one night to “Pea Green.” It was indignantly withdrawn the next day. It was just as well removed, I dare say, for if she had continued to daily see those two signs, “Post–office,” and “P. Green,” as she approached the building, the sense of her official and commercial importance would finally have been too much for her. As it was, she passed from the contemplation of one sign to the other, and there was a gradual letting down from that sense of exaltation which she had on seeing the front door.

But all of Miss P. Green’s merits have not been mentioned. She was a very little body, and that may seem a detraction from her excellencies, and yet it was only another praiseworthy feature; for never in such small compass was packed so much knowledge. No “Saratoga” trunk ever went to “Springs,” so loaded, crowded, jammed. She was the village register; could tell the births and deaths and marriages for the year, giving each date. Not so surprising a fact, considering that the village was small; but when you add to this a complete knowledge of every household, how many were in each family, their names, occupations, what they had for breakfast, dinner and supper, what time they went to bed, and what time they left their beds, the register kept by P. Green, grew into a village directory and a village history. But this tree of knowledge did not stop its growth here. It had other branches. She knew all of the mysteries of dressmaking and millinery; had a large acquaintance with housekeeping and nursing; kept posted in politics, and considered it her duty to defend the “administration,” though unfairly denied the right of suffrage.

One of the latest achievements of this encyclopedia, was to obtain complete and reliable information about the life saving station. This she had done by carefully cultivating the acquaintance of Keeper Barney. She was now at work on these two subjects, the Baggs family and all its branches; also the Plympton family; and this had the second place, as Walter’s arrival was the more recent. Such a wonder! So very much in so very little! It was a terrible satire on her size, that misnomer Pea Green, for in one sense it was exceedingly unjust. Not even the mammoth peas that grow in the land of the giants, could furnish so much comfort and delight to a dining circle of twelve, as this feminine wonder by the sea. And to all hungry gossipers, she did what no restaurant will do; she fed without cost all who came.

It was the most natural thing in the world, then, that Aunt Lydia should say one day to Walter, “I know how I can find out. I can ask Miss Green.”

She accordingly went to the post–office and asked Miss Green as follows: “My nephew, Walter Plympton, wants to know about the Hall. Who has the say about it; that is, who lets people use it?”

Miss Green was delighted. She would not only find out what this use of the Hall might mean, but oh, what an opportunity to learn about the Plympton family! Sitting on a tall stool, which was an innocent contrivance to eke out her scanty height, she persuasively bent her gray curls over the show–case. Her once bright eyes had softened down to a faded blue; and time had laid on her forehead and cheeks its stamp whose mark was as certain as that of the begrimed die with which she fiercely struck the daily mail. She had a pleasant voice, an affable manner, a temperament sunny and hopeful; and people liked to talk with the post–mistress. The initiated also knew that in a certain back sitting–room there was a brown teapot always kept on the stove, adding to the charms of that snug retreat to which any tea–toper might be favored with an invitation.

“The Hall! Indeed! Going to be a singing–school?—a—a?” inquired the post–mistress.

“Oh, no! Now it’s strange Walter should have such a notion, you may think, but he’s one of that kind whose head is allers full of suthin’. He came to me yesterday, and sez to me, ‘Aunt Lyddy!’ Sez I, ‘What?’ He didn’t say any more, for suthin’ called him to the door, and I was a–ironin’ and went on where I was. It was warm, you know. Don’t you think it was? I did feel it over the ironin’.”

Aunt Lydia had a tantalizing way sometimes of telling a story. She would enter very fully into details, amplifying little items and leaving the main subject untouched.

“But the point—the point—Lyddy,” gently observed the post–mistress.

“Oh, yes. By and by he came back agin; and what do you s’pose he said he was a thinkin’ about?”

“I don’t know.”

“I was then in the kitchen. No, I was standin’ afore the clock—yes—”

“But that’s no matter. What did he say, Lyddy? The point, dear?”

“Well, he axed who had the say about the Hall. I told him I didn’t know; and how could I be ’spected to know, Phebe?”

“Of course not. Then you want to know who can let him or anybody else have the Hall? It’s Cap’n Elliott, you know. He’s the trustee, as I call it. Why, the Hall was given by old Nathan Grant for the good of The Harbor, he said, and he made Cap’n Elliott trustee. So Walter must ask him.”

“I see, I see.”

“Now, Lyddy! Is Walter’s father’s name Adoniram?”

Aunt Lydia perceived at once that the post–mistress now wished to take her turn in obtaining information, and she knew it would be a long turn. She moved towards the door, remarking, “Oh, no, it’s Ezra. Thank you, Miss Green; I guess I must be a–goin’.”

“But do take a cup of tea before you go,” pleaded Miss Green, fastening on Aunt Lydia a beseeching look. At the same time, the post–mistress sidled down from her tall, four–legged throne, and began to move towards the little brown teapot. Aunt Lydia said something to the effect that yesterday it was warm, but it was a “chilly east wind to–day”; and she followed the post–mistress in the direction of the warmer atmosphere of the teapot. Having obtained all the knowledge she wished in the Plympton line, Miss P. Green poured out another cup of tea, and remarked suddenly, “And isn’t Baggs queer?”

“Queer! That don’t begin to describe him, Phebe.”

“He was here the other day. Came, you know, on special business about his mail, and said he had been a–trying to get down here I don’t know how long. He wanted an arrangement so that letters could come to him, in a box. Now that’s very nice, you know, when you have a class of customers wanting it. They have boxes in the Boston post–office you know, and I thought I might take it into consideration. He said he was going to send out circulars about something, and answers would come for ‘Rambler, Box one,’ if I would put one in for him. Well, if you believe it, before I had a chance to give him an answer, he went to that window in the office that looks toward the harbor—the offing, I mean.” Miss Green was, or aimed to be, very correct, having once taught school. “What a start he gave! and he turned round, pale as—as—that paint on the office–door.” It was not very white. “I didn’t seem to notice it, but only said in an off–hand way, ‘Do you see anything, Mr. Baggs?’ I thought it might be a vessel sailing in. But he didn’t take any notice. Then I said again—mild, sort of—‘The sea quiet, Mr. Baggs? Anything out of the way? Can you see the Chair? You know if we can’t see the Chair on account of fog, it is a bad sign any way; and every day, people look off there.’ You ought to have seen that man start again and almost give a real jump. ‘Chair?’ he said. ‘What have I got to do with that Chair? Chair?’ And if he didn’t rush out of the store! I couldn’t see anything that was the matter with the Chair. And there that man who had been so anxious to see me, went off and left everything unsettled. Now wasn’t it queer, Lyddy?”

“Yes, but that Baggs is a very, very unprofitable subject of talk for me, and I have made up my mind to shet my mouth on him—for the present.”

Aunt Lydia’s mouth here shut with all the decision of a portcullis.

Miss Green, though, was not prepared to close her portals of speech, and question after question did she ask about the Plymptons, back to the first that came from England.

If she had only known there was a Don Pedro in the world! She had a way of pursing up her mouth after a question, and then of fastening on one a very direct look, and all this was as irresistible as a corkscrew in the presence of a stopper. Aunt Lydia left the post–mistress and returned home.

But what was Walter’s object that led to this interview? What did he want the Hall for? St. John’s, the parish church, was a mile and a half away. On days when the wind was right, its bell could be heard faintly, musically calling all souls to prayer. Not often though did these sweet notes travel as far as The Harbor, and the consequence was, that very few souls traveled up to church. In fair weather, Miss Green and Mrs. Jabez Wherren might walk there, or they would report at Uncle Boardman’s in season to take passage in his big covered wagon that, rain or shine, was sure to be heard rattling along to St. John’s every Sunday. The remainder of the population virtually ignored St. John’s, and St. John’s ignored them. Its clergyman came down to say a few words of Christian farewell over the bodies that might rest behind the stunted firs in the little cemetery swept by the sea–winds, or to join for a life–long clasp, the two hands willing thus to fall into one another. Otherwise St. John’s had very little to do with The Harbor, and The Harbor responded in the same fashion.

“Why,” thought Walter, walking down through The Harbor one Sunday, “it doesn’t look much like Sunday down here. Uncle Boardman doesn’t live in one of these houses.”

The Harbor village had anything but that Sunday look which marked Uncle Boardman’s premises. Some of the fishermen were out in their yards overhauling and mending their trawls. One or two were doing a little autumn work in their rough gardens. In an open lot behind the gray, lichen–patched ledges, several young fishermen, in red shirts, were playing ball. There was a row of fishing–smacks at an ancient wharf, and their owners were improving Sunday’s convenient leisure for the accomplishment of odd little jobs. Sunday at The Harbor was respected by the inhabitants after their peculiar fashion. Every fishing–boat came back to its quiet moorings before Sunday, as promptly as if a police force had ordered it there. Then came a day at home, not of entire abstinence from work, but of less work. To do less, not to quit work altogether, was the Sunday fashion of The Harbor. A man would have lost caste, and been ranked as a heathen, if he had taken his boat out to sea, every Sunday. He might stay at home, and be busy all day with little “jobs,” and not hurt his reputation for religion. One fisherman abstained entirely from work, Jabez Wherren. He did not go to church, declaring that “somebody must stay at home and look arter it; at which place all religion began.” He did not work though. He would lounge about all day, dressed in his very best suit, and decked out with some very bright necktie, and flourishing a flaming red or yellow silk handkerchief, so that he looked like a man–of–war decorated with flags. Because he did not go to church, Jabez knew that his wife ranked him as a very deficient being; but on the other hand, because he did not work, he was well aware that in the eyes of his fellow–fishermen, he was regarded as a person of superior virtues. In his walk that Sunday, Walter at last was opposite the Hall, an antiquated, one–storied building that needed the services of both painter and carpenter. It was prefaced, though, by a porch, with two very imposing Doric pillars. This porch compensated for all deficiencies; and the villagers walking between those pillars felt grand as a Roman army, marching under the triumphal arch of Titus, in the “Eternal City.” Walter halted before the Hall and there held this soliloquy. “I have got an idea. Mother wanted me to do some special religious work; and, I’m afraid—I know I haven’t. She wanted me to get people to go to church if they didn’t go, and now here is a chance. There’s the new rector at St. John’s. He is young, and full of life, and I wonder if he couldn’t come down here and hold services, once every now and then at any rate. It would be just the thing, I declare.” Walter’s hazel eyes snapped with interest, and a smile swept over his round, full face.

“What’s Boardman Blake’s nephew up to, a lookin’ at the Hall?” wondered Jabez Wherren. Walter did not relieve him of his wonder, but soon turned about and went home.

“The first thing,” he said, “is to find out who has the letting of the Hall.”

Aunt Lydia ascertained this fact for him, and informed him that the trustee was May Elliott’s grandfather.

“Then I must go and see the schoolmarm,” remarked Walter, “and get her to help me.”

“Then you’re going to really try?” said Aunt Lydia.

“Yes,” answered Walter positively.

“Seems to me they might go up to St. John’s.”

“But they won’t, and St. John’s must come to them.”

“Now, Walter, I don’t want to throw a speck of cold water on it, but do you expect to succeed?”

“Well, Aunt, it won’t do any harm to try, and I am going to expect to succeed, too. I was reading about Admiral Farragut, what he said, that any man who is prepared for defeat would be half defeated before he commenced. He said he hoped for success and would try to have it, and trust God for the rest.”

“It looks to me jest like castin’ pearls afore swine.”

Walter laughed, and said he would go to the schoolhouse and find its mistress. May said she would see her grandfather, and ask for the Hall.

“But whom shall we get to play? Somebody said there was a melodeon in the Hall, and somebody else said—you—you played on it.”

“And you want me to play? Well, I will do what I can. I am interested, and where I can help, I will. I will see if I can’t get two or three singers.”

That day, May went to her grandfather’s. He sat by the window of his little house that looked out upon the river racing, at the base of the rough, rocky banks, toward the wide, restless sea. He was not a happy old man. True he had been a successful seaman. He had a sufficient amount of property to make him comfortable. He had no vices to regret. He had, though, known sorrow, losing wife and children. He and his housekeeper were the only ones in his home. He had been disappointed in his grandson, Woodbury, whom he desired to share his home with; and people said that old Capt. Elliott wished to give Woodbury the largest fraction of the money and other valuables he was supposed to keep in a certain bulky safe in his sitting–room. Woodbury, though, in the short interval he had tried to live at his grandfather’s, had been twice intoxicated, and the last time angry words had flamed between them like hot coals that they were throwing. He left the house in wrath, and in wrath Capt. Elliott shut the door after him. The captain was not a religious man. He was very honest, and having once been cheated by a professor of religion who was a very scanty possessor of it, wholly lacking it indeed, Capt. Elliott ever afterwards declared himself superior to the character that the church required. He shut out God from his soul, because a hypocrite shut him out from his dues. He made his honesty his all, and was a prayerless, peevish, fault–finding, selfish old man. When May called, he was still looking out of the window. The sea–wind lifted and let fall his thin, white hair, but could not lift from his stern, sharp–cut features, the shadow of a cheerless, selfish life. He heard his granddaughter’s voice, and turned to meet her. When she had made her request, he said, “For how long do you want the Hall?”

“Oh, I don’t know. We are going to begin at any rate. We want to see what interest there will be.”

“Well, yes, I s’pose you can have it. That’s what the Hall is for, to hold all kind of reason’ble meetin’s.”

Here May made a bold movement, and her blue eyes were full of courage as she asked, “And, grandfather, won’t you come too?”

“Oh, nonsense, child! I have more religion now than you could pack into St. John’s. Why, I’d be ashamed to do what some of them folks do.”

May was a strategist. She knew it was useless to argue with him. She also knew that he liked to hear her play her melodeon in the sacred parlor at home, kept in state there all the week with the dried grasses on the mantel, and the family register on the wall, and the big family Bible on the mahogany table.

“Won’t you come to hear me play?”

“May, I’ll make this agreement. I’ll come down and stay as long as you play and sing, but I’m not a–goin’ to stay and have any min’ster advise me in a long sermon, for I know as much as he about it, and more too.”

“Well, grandfather, stay while the singing lasts.”

There was another invitation extended. This was given by Walter to Chauncy Aldrich.

“Ah, ah,” said Chauncy in his self–important way, lifting his hat, and with great dignity running his hand through his wall of hair, “you want me to honor the place with the presence of C. Aldrich? Yes, I’ll come. But look here, none of your long, prosy sermons, but something warm, and something short. Ha, ha!”

One by one, all preparations were made for the service. Miss Green promised to lend her cracked voice to the “choir,” and two or three young fishermen offered to roar in the bass. Don Pedro, whom Uncle Boardman had kept at his house to assist in some of the autumn work on the farm, made himself very helpful in sweeping out the Hall and arranging its seats.

“What time do you expect the clergyman will hold the service?” inquired Miss Green, as Walter was about leaving the post–office one day.

“Oh, I think he will come in the evening, if we want him,” replied Walter.

“There!” reflected this young master of ceremonies as he left the house. “If that isn’t just like me! I declare if I didn’t forget to ask the clergyman! But of course he will come, and I will take Uncle Boardman’s team and go up at once, to ask him.”

Alas, the rector couldn’t come!

Walter drove back in despair.

“I’ll stop at the schoolhouse and see the schoolmarm,” he said, “and ask what is to be done, though I know she will laugh at me.”

The school had just been dismissed; and May only lingered to set away her few books in her desk.

“Ah, Miss Elliott,” said Walter confusedly. “I—I—I’m afraid it doesn’t look hopeful—about—about our Hall service?”

“Why not?”

He laughed, and blushed, and said frankly, “I went ahead and got everything ready but the minister!”

“You hadn’t spoken to him!”

“No, and it was just like me, mother would say. I got my cart and had it nicely packed, or you did rather,” a compliment which made the young teacher look quite rosy,—“I got my cart, but I hadn’t thought about my horse! When I spoke just now to Dr. Ellton, he said his hands were full, and he couldn’t possibly come. Just like me! I needed it perhaps, for I was saying, ‘What a grand thing I am helping along!’ And here is my cart all packed and ready to start, and where is my horse?”

The young teacher was amused and pleased with Walter’s frankness.

“Oh, well, Plympton, we won’t give up. I have done things that way myself. Somebody can take the service, I know. Isn’t there any one else at St. John’s?”

“There is a young fellow who, I believe, comes on Sundays to help the doctor; Raynham, I think, is his name.”

“You ask him.”

Mr. Raynham was asked. Would he come? His black eyes lighted up as he gave his answer: “I should be delighted. I only help at the morning service, and I can come down as well as not in the evening. The doctor would like to have me, I know.”

“It does me good,” thought Walter, “just the way he accepts my invitation. Wonder if ministers—and other folks—know how much good it does when they promise a thing that fashion!”

Mr. Raynham engaged to take tea at Aunt Lydia’s, Sunday afternoon, and for this young prophet, she heaped her table with biscuit, and cake, and doughnuts, till it looked liked a fort with its outworks.

“Now,” she said to Mr. Raynham, when he was leaving for the Hall, “you mustn’t go a–flyin’ over our heads to–night when you speak.”

He gave his shoulders a nervous twitch, smiled, and said, “It’s only a talk, I have, when we have finished evening prayer.”

“If you let it come from the heart,” said Aunt Lydia encouragingly, “your arrer will be sent out from a strong bow. You see ’twon’t do allers to have jest what will do for big–folks. You jest talk out of your heart, and think of us as leetle folks, and your arrers will hit the mark, sure.”

“I hope so,” thought the young assistant, “and may God give me my message.”

He felt his need all the more, for May Elliott came to him and said, “If you see an old man going out when we have finished the singing, don’t you think anything of it. I could only get him here on the condition that he might be excused after the music.”

“Indeed!” reflected Mr. Raynham. “I will see that the music lasts some time.”

What a service that was! The choir sang with remarkable heartiness, even if it did not execute with remarkable skill. True, Miss Green’s voice was a little unsteady on the high notes, and fluttered about like a man on a high ladder, who growing dizzy, and threatening to fall, catches distractedly at the rounds.

The young fishermen, too, thundered away on the “Ah–men” as if to atone for previous deficiencies, and roared for half a minute in a bass monotone that suggested the ocean. Then there was Don Pedro. When he was clearing up the hall, May Elliott was rehearsing on the melodeon, and she heard his voice several times accompanying the tunes. She impressed him into the musical service at once, and never did any royal tenor or bass from Italy, feel his importance more sensibly. As Don Pedro was very lacking in the department of “best clothes,” Aunt Lydia promised to “rig” him out in some of Uncle Boardman’s superfluous garments. Don Pedro was somewhat tall and slender, and Uncle Boardman was short and thick, and the “rigging” was not a close fit. The clothes hung about Don Pedro like the sails of a ship about the slender poles of a fishing–smack. Genius, though, is superior to all inconveniences, and above Uncle Boardman’s immense coat, Don Pedro’s head struggled manfully. He did not have a sharp sense of the ludicrous, and only remarked, “I guess as how dese clo’es was made for anudder man, shuah.”

And the audience—it filled all the rough seats in the hall. Did Mr. Raynham see that face of an old man, sad and hopeless, near the door? No, he only knew some indefinite, nameless “old man” was there, itching to go out when the musical part of the service had been completed.

“We will vary the usual order of such services as these, to–night, and after I have spoken five minutes, we will have more music; a hymn,” said Mr. Raynham.

“Ah,” thought Capt. Elliott, squirming in his seat and ready to retreat, “I guess I shall have to hold on, for I promised my grand–darter.”

How Mr. Raynham did talk “out of his heart,” to some imaginary old sinner trying to avoid his duty, and get away from God’s house!

What would that soul do when God met him in judgment, and he could not escape, possibly? Capt. Elliott wriggled very uneasily; but there was his promise to May!

“We will now have some music,” said Mr. Raynham. Again rose the choir, Don Pedro struggling above his mammoth outfit; Miss Green springing up with voice ready to mount to the ladder’s top, and there tumble; the young fishermen on hand for an oceanic roar—at the close.

“I’ll go now,” thought the captain, but the young prophet called out, “I will say a few words, and then we will have more music, another hymn.”

Capt. Elliott felt that he was a pinioned bird. Stay he must, and all the while the young man on the platform shot his arrows.

“He’s a talkin’ out of his heart to some poor prodigal,” thought Aunt Lydia. “God help him!”

Then that beautiful appeal in the hymnal was sung, that Advent appeal;

“O Jesus, thou art standing
Outside the fast–closed door,

In lowly patience waiting
To pass the threshold o’er:

We bear the name of Christians,
His name and sign we bear:

O shame, thrice shame upon us,
To keep him standing there.”

“O dear!” groaned the captain. “That’s me! I can’t stand this. Guess I’ll go now.”

The young fishermen were now roaring “Ah–men!” and if they had been allowed to imitate the ocean long as they pleased, Capt. Elliott might have escaped. Mr. Raynham saw an old man rising, and guessing the object of the movement, waved his hand imperatively to the male singers. The ocean did not finish its roar very gracefully, but above the confused tumbling of the surf, Mr. Raynham’s voice rose triumphantly. “We will have music again, in a moment. A few words more.” Capt. Elliott remembered his promise to May, and reluctantly sat down.

“Oh, dear! Catch me makin’ sich a promise next time!” inwardly moaned the captain.

In those “few words more,” Mr. Raynham made a pathetic appeal to his audience, and especially to those who were old, and yet trying to live without the love of their Father in heaven.

“That would go to the heart of a stone krockerdile,” declared Aunt Lydia.

No, it went to the heart of a human being; and stony though it may have seemed to an outsider, it was tender yet, for homeward went that night an old man, creeping slowly and alone, sore and wounded in his soul, conscience–sick.

And Chauncy Aldrich, how did he feel?

“That was a good sermon, Aldrich,” said Walter after the service.

Chauncy gave a laugh, ringing, and hard, and brassy: “Ah—ah! That young feller did get warmed up, warmed up, Plympton; but you can’t expect a business man like me, always watching the market and pushing trade, to be thinking about these things. By and by, Plympton!” Ah, that by–and–by flag! Many noble ships have sailed fatally under.

The people were interested in the service.

“Come again,” said Aunt Lydia to Mr. Raynham; “come again. We all want you. Come, if you haven’t anything big for wise folks, and only suthin’ simple for fools; for you will have lots of ’em here.”

Mr. Raynham said he would come another Sunday; perhaps the very next.

The Sunday that the Hall had been occupied, chanced to be Michaelmas beautiful festival, ripe like the landscape with color and fruitage. All nature—its maples, its oaks, its fields, its orchards—was shining with the glow of St. Michael’s triumph over the dragon. And in the rough little fishing village by the sea, it seemed as if the brave, mighty archangel had given the old dragon another thrust, and Right had sorely wounded the Wrong.

CHAPTER X.

THE BOAT–RACE.

No less a wonder than a boat–race was announced on an October day, and no less a person than Chauncy Aldrich planned the wonder.

“We need to wake ’em up, wake ’em up,” he said to Walter, and he ran his hand through his bristling rampart of hair. “Trade is dull, and needs stimulating. People that want to do business must make business. I have passed a subscription paper round, and the business men of the community have handed out quite liberally. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, did not seem to have a commendable local pride, I should say, and refused to help us. However, we propose to have the race, and give a purse of twenty–five dollars to the successful boat in a six–oared race. Entries can be made by any parties living inside of ten miles from here. Yes, we are going to wake up some trade, and so we have thought it best to have a boat–race.” A purse of twenty–five dollars! That sounded large as—the Atlantic Ocean. It consisted, however, of Baggs’ very liberal “promise” of twenty dollars, or double even (and it is very easy to multiply a “promise” any number of times), an actual subscription of four dollars from Timothy Pullins—Uncle Boardman’s business–rival at The Harbor—and then Miss Green was so tickled to be accounted one of the business community, and to receive an invitation to subscribe, that she had actually handed over the magnificent sum of one silver dollar.

The neighborhood was very much excited over the event. Walter had been selected as one of the crew in Chauncy’s boat, and with his usual enthusiasm, he practiced rowing at all leisure moments. Aunt Lydia found him “going through the motions,” as he declared it, behind the counter of the store, even.

“What ye doin’, Walter?”

“Ha, ha, Aunt! Only going through the motions, practicing the stroke Chauncy gave us. He says it is the best in the country. There, you shove forward so—”

“Nonsense! I want somebody to shove the saw for me in the shed. My fire is dreadful low. I’ll tend the store while you are gone.”

Walter transferred this trial stroke to the saw–horse at once.

He planned the next morning, to rise half an hour earlier than usual, and row awhile on the river. “Am I late?” he said, opening his eyes early, and from his bed looking out of a window toward the sea. The sun was just coming up, and had suffused with a rich crimson the placid waters.

“I’m all right,” Walter said, and hurriedly dressed himself. He was about leaving the room, when he said, “There’s my Bible! I almost forgot that. The fact is you have to be particular about reading, or you will miss a morning pretty readily.”

It is very easy to make gaps in our devotions, and a gap made to–day may mean a gap to–morrow, and when two or three days go by and no Bible has been read, it is very easy to widen the break into an interval of a week. There is nothing so weakening as an intermission now and then. On the other hand, there is nothing that so pays us a handsome profit, as a little care to keep up a good habit. The human will is a curious piece of machinery, and the simple fact that we are in the habit of doing certain things, of going to church, of reading our Bible, saying our prayers, this year, is one of the strongest reasons why we shall be likely to do this next year, and will have vast influence in giving a set and direction to our character. Walter had begun to realize this, and he said to himself, “If I am going to read my Bible, I must be particular to read it every morning.” He sat down in a yellow chair by the window fronting the sea, and opened his Bible. This was one of the verses he read that morning; “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy word. With my whole heart, have I sought Thee: O let me not wander from Thy commandments.”

Somehow, those words were pressed into his memory; printed vividly there like those shining colors off in the sea. When he had finished his reading, he stepped softly downstairs, passed out into the yard, and then made his way to his boat on the shore of the river. The morning though bright and clear, was chilly, and the rowing of the new stroke imparted by Chauncy was “good as the stove in Aunt Lyddy’s kitchen to make one feel warm,” Walter thought. He finished his practice, and was about stepping from the boat upon the smooth little pebbles strewn along the “landin’,” as the fishermen called it, when a sharp voice startled him. “Hul–lo!”

Turning, Walter saw Chauncy Aldrich.

“That you, Aldrich?”

“Nobody else, Plympton. Out trying my new stroke?”

“Yes, it’s first rate to warm a fellow up.”

“And you’ll find it good to make a boat go. It’s as good a stroke as you will find in the market.”

Here Chauncy lifted his hat, and thrusting his hand through his hair and piling it up anew, gave a defiant look, as if saying to all the world, “I’ll dare you to bring on another stroke as good as this.” Then he resumed his conversation.

“See here, Plympton. I just wanted to see you, and I came out here on purpose, thinking I might find you, after what you said one day that you thought you should take an early hour for practice. A business man, you know, must be on hand early to catch custom, and I wanted to see you about something special. Just you and me, and no more!”

Chauncy said this with an air of secrecy, of patronage also; as if he had reserved for Walter and Walter only, some unknown, distinguished honor. He drew close to Walter, and dropping his voice said, “I expect that our opponents next Tuesday, the day for the race, will be the Scarlet Grays from Campton.”

“Scarlet Grays?”

“Yes, they wear scarlet caps and gray pants, and then scarlet slippers again, and look quite nobby. But that’s according to fancy. You and I mean business, and that’s what we are after, and can get along in our every day wear. That’s what I think.”

Here he gave a wise little chuckle, and shook his head very decidedly and knowingly, so that he reminded Walter of those days when the academy students called him, “Solomon.”

“But here’s to the point. A–hem!”

Chauncy dropped his voice still lower, and tapping the palm of his left hand with the forefinger of his right, sharply eyed a rock in the river as if he would be willing to take this rock into the secret, but for no consideration could he admit a second rock.

“You see, Plympton—ahem!”

Then he shrugged his shoulders. It was evident he wished to say something, and yet had a misgiving with regard to the fitness of the message, or Walter’s fitness to hear it.

“Well, out with it, Aldrich!” said Walter, his open, honest face contrasting strongly with the sly look of reserve on his companion’s features. “Out with it! That’s business, as you say.”

“Ha, ha, Plympton! You’ve got me there, sure. Well, as I was going to say, Lang Tripp, the captain of the Scarlet Grays, came to me the other day and said he, ‘Look here, Aldrich! This is between you and me.’ ‘Of course,’ said I. ‘Are you anxious to win in that boat–race?’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘we mean business, of course; but if we are whipped, we must submit. When a man goes into the market to buy, he must do the best he can, and let it go at that. That’s the way of it, of course,’ said I. ‘When a man goes into the market,’ he said—you said—no—he said”—

The business man tumbled over half a dozen “saids” and began again. “I mean that he referred to what I said about going into the market, and then went on, ‘That helps me to come to the point, which is—is—a little understanding—trade, some folks might call it, though I don’t.’ Then he went on, and this is what it amounted to. They have gone—I mean the Scarlet Grays—to a good deal of expense in getting up their uniform—they’re rich, you know! Rich isn’t the word. O they could buy out a gold mine and not feel it. Well, after all, they haven’t won a race. They are going to play with us, you know—row, I mean, and then they row with a set of mill–hands at Campton. Well, their folks feel badly because they don’t whip anybody, and Tripp says his mother is all worked up about it. Then Tripp asked, ‘Who is that rather heavy, strong, well–built fellow in your crew, who wears a stiff, round–top felt, and pulls a neat, strong stroke too, for I saw him at it the other day?’ Well, I knew my goods of course, and I knew it was—you.”

Here Walter straightened up. The compliment was very acceptable, and Chauncy’s quick eyes saw it. This apt disciple of Baggs appreciated the customer he was dealing with, and repeated the opinion of the renowned leader of the “Scarlet Grays.” Then he continued: “After that, Tripp said, ‘I really feel that we are at your mercy, especially with that fellow against us—’” here Chauncy looked slyly at Walter, who now stood erect as a king at a coronation—“‘and I know it’s going to make our fellers feel bad, and our folks feel bad, and we shall surely lose that next race with those mill fellers—and of course,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean that you shall lose by it—’ ‘Lose what?’ said I, for a business man must have his teeth cut. ‘Oh,’ said Tripp, ‘I am coming to it. We don’t, or I don’t, care a snap for the money. How much is it?’ Well, I told him; and then yesterday, I got ten fishermen to give each fifty cents, making between thirty and forty dollars in all as—as subscribed. Of course, Uncle Baggs is the heaviest name on the list, and he didn’t hand it to me; but then he’s good for twenty times twenty.”

Chauncy did not say whether he was good for the money, or simply for a “subscription”; a difference which all handlers of “subscription papers” appreciate. All this time, Walter was wondering what Chauncy was driving at.

“Of course I said I didn’t care about the money, and Tripp said he didn’t; and Tripp said that it should be all right. It should all be paid over to us; or rather, the equivalent of it. His folks would feel so badly if they lost another race, and he knew his crew wouldn’t have the heart to row that next race. ‘There,’ said he, ‘it shall be between us. If you and that Plympton—that’s what you call him—will just let up now and then on your rowing, and pull easy, I think we can handle the rest of you, and—and—’”

“What do you mean?” said Walter abruptly. “Sell out?”

He was now more erect than ever, straightening up because stiffened by a sense of indignation.

“Hold on, Plympton, you don’t understand,” said Chauncy soothingly. He saw that he had made a mistake. He “had put too many goods on the market at once,” to use his own phrase. Continuing his soothing tone of voice, he said: “I can’t but pity the Scarlet Grays, if they are feeling so badly and their folks are stirred up, and ‘the town is down on ’em.’ Lang says, why, his mother is just awful, he says, and is real nervous. To oblige them, I’d give it all away—I mean the prize.”

Such self–sacrifice! He was willing to throw himself away—as far as this boat–race was concerned—all for the sake of the Scarlet Grays’ feelings! In reality, he had already received a present of “five dollars” from Tripp, and expected another “five,” if successful with Walter. Walter’s instincts were always in the right place. A wrong thing coming to him, he would condemn as wrong, and a right thing, he would commend as right. But he was sympathetic, while conscientious. He felt for the individual sinner, while he disapproved of his sin; and his sympathy might cloud the decision of his judgment. When he thought of the Scarlet Grays, the occasion of so much parental disappointment, and the object of so much town talk and town sport, he did pity “the poor chaps,” as Chauncy whiningly labeled them in his continued talk. Chauncy saw that he was making an impression; that he was “putting the right goods on the market, and the right quantity;” and he continued to deliver them in a sympathetic, pitying, self–sacrificing tone. Suddenly Walter said to himself, “What am I doing, allowing this fellow to talk so? Where’s mother’s advice, ‘Honest, boy’? And then that psalm I was reading from, this morning. What did that say? Why, I can almost seem to see it written in the sky!”

And looking away to the east all afire with a shining crimson above the placid sea, he seemed to see those words traced in the clouds:

“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy word. With my whole heart, have I sought Thee; O let me not wander from Thy commandments.”

He turned quickly to Chauncy, and said in a very positive way, “Aldrich, this thing is not right; and I won’t have anything to do with it.”

“A–em!” said a voice.

Somebody was passing. The two young men turned, and there was Capt. Barney, the keeper of the life saving station. He passed so near that they heard his step distinctly, and yet he did not seem to be noticing them, and rapidly moved away. Another moment, he had turned the corner of an old mossy ledge, tufted with a few bushes, and planted near the water’s edge, now sparkling in the sunshine. Chauncy was much confused for “a cool, clear–headed business man,” as he judged himself to be. Walter’s decided opinion, again abruptly presented, had taken this soft talking, pitying young trader by surprise. His face flushed, he stammered, and he looked angry, as Walter now spoke on his side:—

“Aldrich, this thing is wrong. I don’t care about the money; but as I understand it, quite a number of people, including those ten fishermen, have given toward the race. They will all take an interest in the race, and want The Harbor crew to do its best, its honest best. The people that take the trouble to come and look at us will all expect us to do our best. Why, I couldn’t do that thing,—let up on the rowing, and then walk up the street and hold up my head. As for those ninnies from Campton, if they didn’t want to get licked, what did they enter for? They were not obliged to do it!”

Chauncy’s feelings were of a very mixed character. He knew the proposition from the other crew was not fair, and was really ashamed of himself; and then he was mad because Walter had shown himself to be more honest than he. Walter now startled and confused him with another proposition:—

“See here, Aldrich! If we get the prize–money, I don’t want it any more than you. Let’s give it away, say to start a library down here at The Harbor, or somewhere in town; a Town Library, I mean; of course, if the other fellers in the crew are willing, and if—if—we get it.”

This was another unexpected blow. Chauncy already had begun to reckon what his share of money from the race would probably be, and had paid it over in his own mind toward a pair of new trousers which he very much needed. The failure of his wealthy uncle to pay Chauncy for some reason all the money he owed his clerk, interfered with the young man’s desire to dress well on Sunday, at least. With a face reddened by shame and anger, he had begun to stammer out a reply to Walter, when his name was suddenly called. Turning, he saw the keeper of the life saving station. At Capt. Barney’s side was a stranger, who was introduced as the superintendent of the life saving station district, Mr. Eames.

“I want to get a little lumber at your mill,” said the keeper, “if you could go with us.”

“Yes, sir!” replied Chauncy with an air of patronage, to his patron. “I’m ready for a trade.”

Off he strode, glad of any excuse for ending a conversation in which he felt that he was making little progress. In a jaunty way, he sported his hat on one side of his head, and moved as proudly as if going off to a bargain of millions.

The boat–race had been announced to come off the afternoon of the second day after this interview between Walter and Chauncy, at the hour of two, and it came off as promptly as that hour itself. There was great interest felt on the occasion. It seemed as if the sun had given his golden disk an extra polish, so bright was it; while the maples that dotted the banks of the river flew their gay banners from morning till night. All the able bodied inhabitants that The Harbor could muster, turned out with curious eyes and sympathetic hearts. People from the outside world came in vehicles of various kinds. Certain anxious looking women tucked away in a coach, Walter fancied to be the mothers of some of the Scarlet Grays. But where were the latter?

“There they are!” shouted some one at last, and round a rocky point in the river, came the brilliant Scarlet Grays. Wearing their scarlet caps, they looked like poppy stalks all a–blossom, and conspicuous on their caps were the dark letters S. G. Chauncy’s crew, consisting of Chauncy, Walter, Don Pedro and others, seemed very humble and tame beside these brilliant floral oarsmen.

“Fact is we made a blunder,” observed Chauncy, “in not having a uniform. But never mind; merit wins. The trade does not always go to the man in the best clothes.”

Remembering their late morning talk, Walter could but think that a trade, and a bad one, had almost gone in favor of these gaily decorated seamen.

“Fellers, who are those coming?” asked Chauncy, now slowly rising in his boat and pointing out another that was now shooting out of a little creek that emptied into the river. “There are six rowing in it? Does that mean a new entry? I suppose they have a right to come, as we gave out that boats could enter any time before the race.”

As the strange craft approached nearer, the comments of Chauncy’s crew were more curious and eager.

“Seaweed Townies!” exclaimed somebody. All wonder was at an end, and disgust now began. “Seaweed Town” was a nook of the sea where half a dozen poor houses were clustered on a rocky shore, and their inhabitants were shabby people nicknamed “Seaweed Townies.” The occupants of this boat were boys of about sixteen, lean and scraggy, with long, tangled black hair. Although not equal in size to the members of Chauncy’s crew, they had a certain wiry, tough look, and their dark eyes flashed with an eager ambition to win. The Scarlet Grays—and how brilliantly they outshone these rivals who did not indeed shine at all—hailed the advent of this new “entry” with derision.

“Arabs!” they said with a sneer; but the Seaweed Townies did not reply to them, only looking more eager, and occasionally giving their oars a nervous twitch.

Off darted the three boats at the appointed signal; while the spectators applauded, and the very maples seemed to be waving red handkerchiefs.

“Don’t they look handsome!” screamed little Miss P. Green. “Those Scarlet Grays are be—be—witching.”

“Nonsense!” said Aunt Lydia with commendable local pride. “Those little turkey gobblers hain’t got no last to ’em! Jest see our boys!”

“Our boys” certainly pulled with vigor. Chauncy was now sincerely anxious to win the laurels of the day, the arrival of the Seaweed Townies having “toned up the market.” Walter handled his oar with vigor, and Don Pedro pulled with a grim resoluteness. Who would praise the Seaweed Townies? Now and then some sympathizing fellow, or “Arab!” yelled from a boat in the river, a note of cheer; but among The Harbor populace, Jabez Wherren alone ventured a word of commendation.

“Wall, now,” said Jabez, “them little chaps from Seaweed Town do pull well. They don’t seem to have any friends, but I shouldn’t wonder—shouldn’t—wonder—”

“Wall, what?” asked his spouse, impatiently and meaningly.

“Don’t—don’t dare say,” replied Jabez, in a tone of mock humility, squinting afresh at the struggling crews.

“Wall, I dare to say,” affirmed that warm partisan, Aunt Lydia. “You ought ter be ashamed of yourself!”

On sped the boats; stoutly pulled the oarsmen; the spectators huzzahed; while the maples, in silence, showed their warm admiration. The Scarlet Grays took the lead at the opening of the race, a fact that created much excitement among the Campton carriages, and, all a–flutter with fragrant white handkerchiefs was the coach filled with ladies. The “S. G’s” though, could not maintain their position. They frantically struggled, and one boy in his violent contortions even lost his scarlet cap overboard, and pulled bare–headed the rest of the way. When the stake–boat was reached, and the contending craft rounded this limit of their course, it was seen that Chauncy’s crew was in the front place. This excited The Harbor people to furious applause, as soon as this fact was appreciated by them.

“It looks now,” said Aunt Lydia, “as if our boys would win, and we’ll have a Libr’y down here. Walter said, the boys all agreed, if they got the money to give it toward a Public Libr’y.”

“Hoo–ray for our boys!” screamed Miss P. Greene, who had transferred her admiration from the Scarlet Grays to the proper crew, and wished to show her appreciation of all “educational movements” as she termed them. “Hoo—”

She was about to give another cheer, but a tall butter firkin on which she had been standing because it put her sharp nose and sharp eyes just above the shoulders of other people, here refused to serve as a lookout any longer. It was something altogether apart from the usual vocation of butter tubs; and naturally asserting the right of revolution, or in this case, of devolution, the tub canted over, and began to roll; and down somewhere went Miss Green! But while she went down, her voice went up, the tongue asserting its accustomed supremacy in this trying moment, even, and the cheer for Chauncy’s crew ended in a scream. It made a little stir among the spectators, but Jabez Wherren was promptly on hand, and gallantly fished the post–mistress up. He set the rebellious butter firkin in its proper subordinate place, and then set Miss Green on top of it, where like a queen on her throne she received the commiseration and congratulations of her friends, who shuddered at her fall, and rejoiced over her rise once more. I am afraid this fall was ominous though, and my readers will soon see for themselves. As the crews pulled away in the river, Jabez Wherren, with a lack of patriotism, declared that those “little Seaweed fellers are givin’ it to our boat. Jest about up with ’em and crowdin’ ’em hard!”

“There, Jabez!” said his spouse, who like the butter firkin could only stand a certain amount of strain, “ef you can’t talk any more sensible, you’d better go hum.”

“No—no,” quietly remarked the grinning Jabez, “I’m goin’—to see the upshot of this.”

Unlucky prophet! What did he want to use that word “upshot” for? He had no sooner spoken it, than there was an unhappy commotion noticed in Chauncy’s boat. The crew had been complaining of the new stroke which Chauncy had introduced, but he had insisted upon its use, saying it was very “scientific”; that “just now it was the top thing in the market, and would fetch a premium any day.” When it was noticed in the race that the Seaweed Townies were gaining on them, Chauncy, who acted as captain of The Harbor crew, energetically stimulated them by such remarks as: “Muscle pays—now, boys!” “Don’t let them have a cheap bargain. Hum—now!” “Crowd the market! Give it to ’em!”

Finally he called out: “The stroke, boys! Give them our stroke good! Science, boys!” Every boy now watched his oar intently, and pulled with all the “science” he could muster. Chauncy aimed to set the example, and as he strove to handle his oar with precision, he gave it an unlucky violent jostle in the thole–pins. One of these like the butter firkin on shore, could not patiently submit to everything, and—broke! There is such a thing in an oarsman’s experience as “catching a crab.” The oarsman concludes for some reason, generally an irresistible one, to go over backwards, and there catch his crab. As he tumbles into the bottom of the boat, his feet naturally go up and his arms also, while his head and shoulders go down; and his whole figure may possibly suggest a crab, with its crooked, wriggling members. Chauncy now ignominiously “caught a crab.” The great Solomon went down in disgrace and disaster! The effect on The Harbor spectators was as if the sun had gone into mourning, while the maples all shivered in sympathy. Chauncy quickly was up again, a new thole–pin was inserted, and the crew gallantly pulled away. But there were the Seaweed Townies, ahead now by two boat lengths! This advanced position, with grins and giggles, those “dark–eyed monkeys,” as Aunt Lydia promptly labeled them, stubbornly maintained. Chauncy with frenzied efforts tried to “work up the market,” but the “Arabs” were victors. Lean and wiry as ever, they triumphantly pulled their boat ashore.

“Well, boys, we whipped the Scarlet Grays,” said Chauncy, wiping his face. “Fact was I had from the very outset a strong desire to whip them, and we succeeded.”

Chauncy’s assertion about his “strong desire” would not bear investigation.

It was a fact, however, that Chauncy’s crew had whipped the Scarlet Grays. Like poppies that have been picked and then left out in a frost, the “S. G.’s” pulled listlessly to the landing–place.

The crowd slowly dribbled away, the people making their comments as they retired.

“There’s a chance for a Public Library gone,” moaned Miss P. Green.

“Yes, yes,” sympathetically wailed Aunt Lydia and Mrs. Wherren.

“There, Jabez,” said his wife, “I hope another time you won’t cheer fur the en’my so.”

“I didn’t cheer ’em, Huldy,” replied Jabez in surprise.

“You made sympathizin’ remarks, though.”

“Yes, yes,” said Aunt Lydia, and Miss P. Green.

And poor Jabez went home, feeling that the weight of responsibility for some great national disaster rested on his shoulders. His wife, “Huldy,” had remarkable success in making Jabez feel that he was guilty, even when innocent.

CHAPTER XI.

THE SURF–BOY.

The bright colors of October had faded out of the landscape, and the soft shades of November followed. With November, came the festival of “All Saints’,” reminding us of another life, and of those who are with Christ. Not only are those eminent in the Church suggested to us,—“apostles,” “martyrs,” “confessors,” the constellations in the sky, recognized by all,—but how many separate stars better known to us personally, look down through the shadows of death’s night, and cheer us in our pilgrim journey! These are our own beloved dead, whose bright faces smile upon us, and assure us that we are not forgotten. May we not forget them, and may we prove our memory in our better lives. “All Saints’” passed, and the sharper days of November arrived at The Harbor.

Walter’s duties at his Uncle Boardman’s had been steadily continued, varied by occasional gaps of leisure; and these he had filled up with home visits. Sunday also was a big, blessed gap of leisure, and each Sunday night had brought its service at the Hall. The attendance had been good. Mr. Raynham was earnest, while reverent in his conduct of the service; and the “choir”—how that had distinguished itself! The “Cantate Domino,” “Benedic, anima mea,” and other chants, they took up enthusiastically, and lifted them very high on their soaring wings of song.

“They make nothin’ of singin’ ’em,” affirmed Aunt Lydia; which translated meant that they made something of them; for promptness and heartiness are never without a result, though the melody may not be the sweetest.

Sunday over, Walter went again to his usual duties in the store.

One Monday morning, there was an unusual call at Uncle Boardman’s.

“Jotham Barney, I do declare!” said Aunt Lydia, looking out of a kitchen window into the yard. “Here he comes up to the back door. I wonder what he wants here.”

A lifting of the outside door latch was now heard, and a heavy step was planted on the floor of the little entry. Then the inside door swung open, and the keeper of the life saving station entered Aunt Lydia’s sanctum.

“Good mornin’, Mis’ Blake.”

“That you, Jotham? Set down, do.”

“Much obleeged, but I’m in a bit of a hurry. Where’s your husband?”

“He’s down in the mash field clearin’ up.”

“I s’pose I could see him, and I’ll go down.”

“He will be glad to see you, Jotham; but I guess you’ll have to go down, for Boardman’s that kind, he wouldn’t leave his work, for the king.”

“That is all right, and that’s why he is so forehanded.”

“Forehanded!” remarked Aunt Lydia, shaking her head ominously when the keeper had left the house. “I don’t know, I don’t know! I expect that Belzebub’s a–swallerin’ up Boardman’s property fast as he can gulp it down.” This reference to Baggs did not have a soothing effect on her feelings, and she wisely changed her thoughts by going to the window that faced the orchard. She watched the keeper, as he took a path that followed an old stone wall. Soon leaping this, he hurried across a narrow field that was dotted with the yellow stubs of cornstalks. Beyond this, was the lot which Aunt Lydia had designated as the “mash field.” It bordered the broad, flat marsh, beyond which flashed the blue, bright river. It was a variety field in its crops, yielding a little corn, more potatoes, and beans mostly. “Clearin’ up” was no small task, as it meant the removal of bean–poles, and an indefinite quantity of vines. The latter went no farther than a bonfire in one corner of the field: and up to it Boardman Blake was now venturing at intervals, thrusting into its smoke and flames immense armfuls of dead vines. At the time that the keeper of the station made his appearance, Boardman was stoutly tugging at a row of very obstinate bean–poles, and every moment he grew redder in the face, while his scanty breath issued in warm little puffs.

“Glad—to see ye,—Jothum. How—dy’e—do?” ejaculated Boardman, still tugging away.

“Well as usual, thank ye. Got some tough customers there?”

“We—e—ll,—yes!” said Boardman.

“Think—”

The world lost that last precious thought. Here a provoking bean–pole that he had grasped, suddenly broke, and in a great, fat heap, over went Boardman, cutting Chauncy Aldrich’s figure when in the boat–race he “caught a crab.”

“Hurt—ye?” cried the keeper, rushing forward and offering his assistance.

“Oh—no!” said Boardman laughing, and rolling over as easily as Miss P. Green’s butter firkin, on the day of the fatal boat–race. “The pesky pole got the better of me.”

“Let me help you,” said the keeper, his vigorous muscle quickly hoisting into an upright attitude this “fallen merchant,” as Chauncy would have called him.

“There!” puffed Boardman, resolutely resuming work, and tugging at the stub of the broken pole. “Now I’m ready for business, if I can help you.”

“I wanted to see you about Walter.”

“Walter, my nephew?”

“Yes.”

“Hope he has done nothing out of the way. His folks would feel dreadful bad.”

“Oh, no—no! jest the opposite. Fact is, I want him at the station.”

Boardman looked up, and wiped his broad, benevolent face.

“You don’t say! I thought Walter couldn’t have been up to anything out of the way, for he is as well meanin’ a boy as you often see. And you want him at the station? Indeed!”

“You see, Squire”—a title the people gave Boardman when they wished to be specially attentive, and it was always acceptable to Boardman—“you see, Silas Fay, one of my men, is not very well; but I want to hold on to him as he is a powerful feller, and a good boatman. I thought if Silas took a rest, a month say, he would be able to come back and pull through the winter. I thought for that month, I might get your Walter.”

“Is he strong enough?”

“He has a good deal of strength for one of his years, and every day he will be a–gainin’. Jest look at him! I have watched him a good deal. He is a good oarsman too. They say he pulled fustrate at the race. Then I thought he might like the money, and also that you might spare him, as work at the saw–mill is slack, and I knew you didn’t have to be there so much, and could be more at the store. Then that colored boy is with you, isn’t he?”

“Yes, yes, and I think I could get along. We are not doing—well, you might say, we—we—are doing—not a thing at mill. Baggs has gone out West to look after some business.”

Boardman looked very despondent.

“Squire, look here.”

The keeper here dropped his voice, though there was no occasion for it, as the only being that heard him was a musk–rat stealing along in the shadow of the wall of a ditch near by. In low, confidential tones, the keeper remarked,—

“I think that—I don’t want to hurt your feelin’s, but I must say it—I think Baggs will bear a good deal of watchin’. Did you know the men at the station had been lettin’ him have their money?”

“Why, no.”

“But they have. He said he could give ’em more per cent than the bank would, and so a number of ’em, when paid off, took their cash to Baggs. He’s a sly old crittur. One time, he purtended he wasn’t particular ’bout havin’ any more, and one of ’em as good as begged him to take his money, and Baggs made a good deal of the fact that he calc’lated he was the ‘poor man’s friend,’ and on the whole, though he didn’t want it, yet he would ‘’commodate’ him; and that’s the last the feller has seen of it.”

“Doesn’t Baggs pay interest?”

“Oh, it was in the agreement that the int’rest should stay and ‘’cumulate,’ he called it. He’s a knowin’ one, that Baggs! Squire, I wouldn’t resk too much.”

Boardman did not enjoy such advice, but he was accustomed to it, as Aunt Lydia administered frequent doses. There was always a dose the first thing in the morning, like the sulphur and molasses some unfortunate children are obliged to take; and other administrations during the day, might be expected.

“Wall, let that go for what it is worth. To go back, Squire, as I was a–sayin’ about Walter, I thought you might spare him, this month, say.”

“Oh—yes—yes. I think I can.”

“Then, I’ll speak to him. You see one reason why I’d rather have him in Silas’ place a month—of course, I don’t s’pose he could be spared mebbe, any longer time than that—one reason, as I said, is that I think I can depend on him. I heard him, one mornin’ before the boat–race, say to Baggs’ nephew a thing—something or other—wasn’t right, and he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. I liked that in him. I told the sup’rintendent of our station deestrick who was on, all ’bout Walter, and that I thought he would do as a substitute, and I mentioned that leetle circumstance. The sup’rintendent said it had the right ring. So, Squire, if you are ’greeable, I’ll speak to Walter.”

“I’m willing, Jotham, and I’m obliged to you for your good opinion of my nephew.”

Not only was Boardman “‘greeable,” but so was every one who was involved in the matter. Aunt Lydia assented, though she declared she should “miss him.” Don Pedro gave a solemn smile, and said he would do all he could. Walter’s parents were willing; and as for Walter—he just sprang for the chance. He met the proposition with all the enthusiasm of his nature. That yellow building near the beach fascinated him. The sea beyond was a mystery that awed, and yet ever attracted him. He had been reading about the life saving service, and he wished with his own eyes to look inside—not inside of a book, simply, but the service itself. He went home to pass “Thanksgiving,” that delightful family festival; and after his return, one brilliant but chilly November morning, he climbed up into his Uncle Boardman’s high red wagon, and took his seat by Don Pedro, who had been commissioned to take Walter, and an old blue chest, down to the station. Walter had found this chest up in the garret, packed away under the dusky eaves.

“It looks more sailor like than my trunk,” reasoned Walter, “and I will ask the folks if I can’t take it. Good! It has rope handles, sailor–fashion. Just the thing!”

The “folks” were willing, and without obtaining the leave of the chest itself, this was dragged out into the light, upset, dusted, pounded on every side, and dusted again; and after this rough, unceremonious treatment, lugged down into Walters chamber. There, it was neatly packed, and then removed to the red wagon. Before it reaches the station, there will be time enough to say something about the late work of that department of Government employ, into which Walter Plympton for awhile has gone.

By the report of the life saving service for 1885, there were 203 stations planted on the edge of that great kingdom of water whose violence must so often be fought. Of these stations, 38 were on the Lakes, 7 on the Pacific, 157 on the Atlantic, and 1 at the Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky.

These stations are grouped into districts: those in Maine and New Hampshire, constituting the first district; in Massachusetts, the second; on the coast of Rhode Island and Long Island, the third; and the New Jersey coast makes the fourth. There is a large number of stations in the last two districts, for they offer a dangerous coast on which to trip up the great commerce hurrying into and out of New York. As we go farther south, the coast from Cape Henlopen to Cape Charles lies in the fifth district; and that from Cape Henry to Cape Fear River in the sixth. The eastern coast of Florida, with the coast of Georgia and South Carolina, is in the seventh, the Gulf coast in the eighth. Lakes Erie and Ontario make the ninth district; Lakes Huron and Superior the tenth; Lake Michigan the eleventh; and the Pacific coast constitutes the twelfth. Each district is in the care of a superintendent, and over all is the General Superintendent, Hon. Sumner I. Kimball, whose headquarters are at Washington. The service also has its Inspector, Capt. J. H. Merryman, and there are twelve Assistant Inspectors, for the twelve districts. Let us now get up high enough in imagination to look down on our rough coast, and watch the vessels struggling with storm and surf while the surfmen gallantly push out to their relief. 371 disasters were recorded at these stations, and in the periled vessels, were 2,439 persons; and only eleven were lost. Now let us look at the property involved in these disasters. The vessels and their cargoes were estimated to be worth $4,634,380, and of this amount, there was a saving of $3,379,583. There were 56 vessels totally lost. This is the last published report. The work at a life saving station is of varied nature. There are not only wrecks to be visited, but vessels coming too near shore in the night time must be warned off by the faithful patrolman’s signal light. A vessel may be stranded, and need to be “worked off.” If a fisherman’s dory, or a millionaire’s yacht, should meet with any kind of a disaster, if some unlucky traveler by the sea may tumble into the water from his little craft, if any party of mariners, disabled for any reason, may need shelter and refreshment, it is the life saving station that is expected to furnish help for all the above cases.

Let us now pack into a nutshell the results of the work of these men, since this system was inaugurated in 1871. There have been 2,918 disasters that involved property worth $51,763,694, and there was a saving of $36,277,929. Out of a total of 25,693 persons involved in these disasters, 25,236 were saved; and the department claims that it was not responsible for the loss of 197. In the latter cases, the stations were not open, or service was hindered by distance. 4,829 persons were aided at stations, and the days of relief afforded these were 13,313. I would add that, the seventh district is peculiar. It takes in the eastern coast of Florida. Stations here are “provisioned houses of refuge” in the care of keepers, but without any crew. The coast is singular, and if a vessel be stranded, the escape of the crew is as a rule, comparatively easy. In the case of such a disaster as the above, to a crew, their special peril is from hunger and thirst, when they have reached a shore very scantily inhabited. Guide posts are set up for the benefit of such castaways, directing them to the station or lighthouse that may be nearest.

“Whose noble mission it is to fight the sea” (p. [191]).

The vast field of work occupied by the life saving service, let us try to grasp with our thoughts. Recall once more the stations established; the figures, too, that represent the life and property already saved; and think also of the vast interests still at stake in the ships that are sailing, and the crews that are climbing their rigging. The boy who sits in the red wagon by the side of Don Pedro, is coming to help with his young, strong muscles, and nimble wits, that force of about fifteen hundred, to–day, whose noble mission it is to fight the sea, and rescue the life and property it would destroy. The red wagon bumps and jolts over the rough little lane winding down to the station, and finally halts, as Don Pedro shouts to the horses, “Whoa, dah!” The blue chest with its clumsy rope handles is lowered to the ground, and then obediently accompanies Walter and Don Pedro into the station.

CHAPTER XII.

ON HIS BEAT.

Keeper Barney and his family of surfmen were at breakfast as Walter entered. They were seated about a table on which were two huge steaming dishes,—one of biscuit, and the other of fried potatoes. By each surfman’s plate, was a cup of hot coffee. A ready chorus of welcome went up from these modern knights of the sea. “How are ye, Walter?” sang out the keeper. “Hullo!” “Good mornin’!” “Come in! come in!” were the various styles of greeting; while Charlie Lawson, the cook, shouted, “You look thin as a shadder! Set down, and have something to fill you out!”

“I’m much obliged,” replied Walter. “I have been to breakfast, though.”