ONE MORE OF WILLIE'S SHIPS REACHES PORT
Three feverish days passed, days of constant hard work and myriad
trivial annoyances. A train of misadventures had attended the
transference of Willie's "idee" to Zenas Henry's boat. Parts had
failed to fit, and much wearisome toil had been demanded before the
device was actually in place. At last, however, all was ready, and
Abbie Brewster, a party to the conspiracy, had on a sunny morning urged
her reluctant spouse and the three captains to make a trip out to the
Bar for clams. They were none too keen about the proposed expedition,
for the weather was warm and their course lay through shallow waters
which after the recent storm were turbid with seaweed. Nevertheless,
ignoring their unwillingness, Abbie declared she must have the clams,
and was not her word law?
Therefore, without enthusiasm, the four fishermen had set forth with
their buckets and their clam forks, and it was now a full three hours
since the motor-boat that carried them had disappeared around the point
of sand jutting into the sparkling waters of the bay.
Bob and Willie, secreted in the workshop, had breathlessly watched the
_Sea Gull_ thread her way through the channel and make the curving
shelter of the dunes, and ever since the old inventor had sat alert on
an overturned nail keg, his binoculars in one hand and his great silver
watch in the other, counting the moments until the little craft should
return from its momentous cruise. The vigil had been long and tedious,
with only the ticking of the mammoth timepiece and the far-off rumble
of the surf to break the stillness.
Presently Celestina came from the kitchen into the shop.
"I'm bringin' you a dish of hot doughnuts," she said, a kindly sympathy
in her face. "Oughtn't them men to be comin' pretty soon now?"
For the hundredth time Willie raised the glasses and scanned the
shimmering golden waters.
"We should sight 'em before long," he nodded.
"You don't see nothin' of 'em?"
"Not yet."
There was an anxious frown on his forehead.
"Why don't you eat somethin'?" suggested she. "It might take your mind
off worryin'."
"I ain't worryin', Tiny," was the confident reply. "The boat's all
right."
"S'pose it should be snagged or somethin' outside the bay?" she
ventured. "I wish to goodness they'd come back. Look, here's Delight
an' Abbie comin' through the grove. Likely they've been gettin'
uneasy, too."
Sure enough, moving among the low pines that shaded the slope between
the Spence and Brewster houses they saw the two women.
Abbie was stouter now than when she had come as a bride to Zenas
Henry's white cottage, but there was a serenity in her mien that
softened her expression into charming womanliness. As she neared the
shed she glanced at Willie with an uneasiness she could not wholly
conceal.
"Don't it seem to you, Willie, that it's gettin' most time for 'em to
be gettin' home?"
"You ain't nervous, Abbie," smiled the little old man.
"N--o, not really. Of course, I know they're all right. Still, they
ain't never stayed clammin' so long before."
"I wouldn't worry, Auntie," Delight put in, taking her hand
reassuringly. "A thousand things may have delayed them. I am sure--"
"They're comin'!" broke in Willie with sudden excitement. "The boat's
comin'. Ain't that her makin' the point, Bob? She's clippin' along
like a race horse, too. Lord! Watch her go."
"That's the _Sea Gull_!" cried Abbie. "I don't need no glasses to make
her out. That's her! How foolish I was to go fussin'. Still, I
always have a kind of dread--"
"I know, I know," interrupted the inventor gently. "But there warn't
no call for worry this time. I felt mortal certain they'd be heavin'
into sight pretty soon."
"I guess likely now we know they're on the way, we'd better slip home
again," Abbie smiled. "I'd feel silly enough to have 'em find us here."
"Nonsense, Abbie!" said Celestina. "They needn't know you was worried.
Ain't it possible you might have come down here on an errand? Wait
'til they pass and walk back with 'em. What difference does it make if
your dinner is late?"
Abbie hesitated. Her dinner never was late; yet, for that matter, she
never was out visiting her neighbors in the middle of the day, either.
Perhaps, as she had followed one demoralizing impulse and transgressed
all her domestic traditions, the breaking of another did not matter.
"I--s'pose I might wait," she answered. "I'd love dearly to hear what
they'll have to say."
"Oh, do wait, Auntie!" Delight begged. "It won't be long now before
they get here."
"Better stay, Abbie," put in Willie. "Bob an' I won't be inventin'
every day."
"Well," was the half unwilling answer.
"Don't you wonder how it worked?" cried Delight, addressing Bob, her
cheeks scarlet with excitement. "See, here they come! Did you ever
hear such a chatter! Zenas Henry is swinging that clam bucket as if
there wasn't a thing in it. He will spill them all out if he isn't
careful."
On strode the four men. With a bound they cleared the bank before the
Spence cottage and crowded in at the narrow gate.
"Whar is he? Whar's Willie?" demanded Zenas Henry. Then, catching
sight of the old inventor half concealed behind his workbench, he
shouted:
"Here, Willie, you rascal, out with you! Don't go hidin' there behind
that table. Man alive, why didn't you tell us what you was up to?"
"Did it work, Zenas Henry?" queried the little fellow eagerly.
"Did it work!" mimicked Zenas Henry with a guffaw. "Say, Phineas, did
it?"
The fishermen gave an exuberant roar of laughter.
"Did it work?" repeated Zenas Henry so out of breath that he could
scarcely articulate the words. "Good Lord, don't it just! Why, we
clipped along through that seaweed as if it warn't there."
"You didn't get snagged then?"
"Snagged? Not much! Ain't we been ridin' in an' out every little eel
grass cove along the shore just for the sheer deviltry of seein' if we
could get snagged?" piped Captain Benjamin. "There'll be no more
rockin' in the channel for us. My eye! Think of that!"
"How ever did you manage it, Willie?" Zenas Henry questioned.
"What makes you so sure it was me?"
"Oh, Lord! Who else would it be?"
"Well, it warn't all me," protested the little inventor modestly.
"Most of it was Bob. I got the idee an' he did the rest--him an' Mr.
Galbraith's friend, Mr. Snellin'."
"Well, I'm clean beat--that's all I can say," observed Zenas Henry,
mopping his brow. "I tell you what, it's made a new thing of that
motor-boat. There's no thankin' you. All is, Willie, if you want
anything of mine it's yours for the askin'. Just speak up an' you can
have it."
A radiant smile spread over the face of the spinner of cobwebs.
"You ain't got nothin' I covet, Zenas Henry," he answered slowly, "but
you've got somethin' Bob Morton wants powerful bad."
He saw a mystified expression steal into Zenas Henry's face.
"Happiness didn't come to you early in life, Zenas Henry," went on
Willie, his voice taking on a note of gentle persuasion, "an' often
I've heard you lament you was cheated out of spendin' your youth with
Abbie. Of course, marryin' late is better than not marryin' at all,
though. Some of the rest of us--" he motioned toward the three
captains and Celestina, "have got passed by altogether. But Delight
an' Bob have found love early, while the bloom is still on it. You
wouldn't wish to keep 'em from their birthright, would you, Zenas
Henry?"
In the hush that followed the plea, Abbie crept up to her husband and
slipped her hand into his.
"The child loves him, dear," she said, looking up into the man's stern
face. "I read it in her eyes long ago. You want her to be happy,
don't you?"
Her voice trembled. Only the mother instinct, supreme in its
selflessness, gave her the strength to continue: "We must not think of
ourselves. Real love is heaven-sent. It is ours neither to give nor
to deny."
How still the room was. Suddenly it had been transformed into a battle
ground on which a soul waged mortal combat. There was no question in
the minds of those who viewed the struggle that the issue presented had
come as a shock, and that to meet it taxed every ounce of forbearance
and control that the man possessed. He looked as one stricken, his
face a turmoil of jealousy, grief, despair, and disappointment. But
gradually a gentler light shone in his eyes,--a light radiant, and
triumphant; love was conqueror and raising his head he murmured:
"Where is the child?"
She sped to his side.
"So you love him, do you, little girl?" he asked, smiling faintly down
at her as he encircled her with his great arm.
"Yes, Zenas Henry," she whispered.
For a moment he held her close as if he could never let her go.
"Well, Tiny," he said, "I don't know as we have anything to say against
it. He's your nephew an' she's my daughter--yes, my daughter," he
added fiercely, "in spite of the Lees and the Galbraiths." With a
swift gesture he turned toward Robert Morton. "Young man, I am payin'
you a heavy fee for that motor-boat. I'm handin' over to you the most
precious thing I have in the world. See you value it as you should or,
by God, your life won't be worth a straw to Willie, the three captains,
or me."
They saw him wheel abruptly and stride alone into the shadow of the low
pines. Silently the others drifted from the room and Delight was left
alone with her lover.
As Bob caught the girl in his arms, a great wave of passion surged
through his body, causing its every fiber to vibrate in tune with the
mad beating of his heart. He kissed her hair, her cheeks, the white
curve of her exquisite throat; he buried his face in her hair and let
his hands wander over its silky ripples.
"I love you," he panted,--"I love you with all my heart. Tell me you
love me, Delight."
"You know I do," was the shy answer.
Again he kissed her soft lips.
"I mustn't stay, Bob," she said at last, trying to draw herself from
his embrace. "Zenas Henry is alone somewhere, almost broken-hearted; I
must find and comfort him."
But the arms that held her did not loosen their hold.
"Please let me go, Bob dear," she coaxed. "We mustn't be selfish."
Her request struck the right note and instantly she was free.
Robert Morton followed her to the door and stood watching as she
hurried along the copper-matted path of the woods sunflecked and
mottled with shadow.
What a sweet miracle it was, he mused! She was his now before all the
world, thanks to Willie's skilful pilotage. Where was the little old
man--that dreamer of dreams, who with Midas-like touch left upon
everything with which he came in contact the golden impress of his
heart? He must seek him out and thank him for his aid.
Perhaps the thought carried with it a potent charm of magic, for no
sooner had Robert Morton framed it than the inventor himself appeared
on the threshold.
"Well, another of my ships has made port!" cried he triumphantly.
His delicate face was illumined with a joy so transcendent that one
might easily have believed that it was to him love's touchstone had
been given.
"I never can thank you, Willie!" burst out the young man.
"Be good to Delight, my boy, an' make her happy; that's all the thanks
I want," was the grave response.
A pause fell between them. Perhaps Willie was thinking of the days
that must inevitably come when the girl he had loved since childhood
would be far away. How dull the gray house would be when she no longer
flitted in and out its doors! Try as he would to banish the selfish
reflection, it returned persistently. Then suddenly something quite
outside himself put the reverie to rout.
It was the querulous voice of Janoah Eldridge.
"I was right about them Galbraiths," he cried exultantly, standing in
the doorway and hurling the words into the room where the two men
lingered. "'Twas exactly as I said. Lyman Bearse's boy went up on the
Boston train one afternoon in front of Snelling an' that other feller
who was here, an' he heard every word they uttered. He said they
talked the whole way about gettin' a patent out on your invention.
Now, Willie Spence, was I right or warn't I? Mebbe you'll believe me
the next time I warn you against folks."