The House of Many Clocks
It hardly deserved the name of wharf, for it was merely two planks
supported on poles sunk in the sand, with a home-made ladder descending
to the water. A rusty chain and padlock hung from one of the poles.
The _Corsair_ stopped its sober chugging and Jack guided it up to the
ladder. The wharf jutted out some six feet from the bank into what was
practically a tiny basin. Beyond it the stream narrowed again and went
twisting off out of sight behind low banks covered with grasses and
rushes. Just at the turn a few cattails showed that the little basin
was probably the limit of tide-water and that beyond the stream was
fresh. The boys made fast the launch and quietly climbed the ladder to
the rickety landing. There was an old anchor up there and a battered
tin can showing the remains of one or two defunct clams. A dozen feet
from the bank stood the cabin, a small affair of drift-wood and old
lumber, with a sagging door half open on its leather hinges, one small
window and a roof variously covered with pieces of tin, sheet iron and
tarred paper, from which a foot or so of stove pipe protruded. A few
feet distant at the left was a still smaller structure, half hen-house
and half shed. A few thin, wiry looking hens and a ridiculously
long-legged rooster scratched about in the dirt outside. The shed open
in front, held a motley collection of broken lobster-pots, spars,
rigging and canvas. There was a chopping block there, with a hatchet
sticking into it, and a pile of wood broken into stove lengths was
stored in a corner. Between wharf and house lay a litter of planks,
a lobster-pot, a rotting fish-net draped over a carpenter’s horse, a
number of cork floats, some empty tin cans, a pot of blue paint and a
paint brush and, supported between the lobster-pot and the carpenter’s
horse, a pair of oars, painted blue and still sticky to the touch.
“There they are!” exclaimed Hal triumphantly. “What did I tell you?
He’s gone and painted them blue!”
“Hm,” said Jack, “It would be pretty hard to identify them, wouldn’t
it?”
“They’re just the same length and everything,” asserted Hal stoutly.
“Of course they’re mine!”
“They’re yours if you say so and they’re his if he says so,” said Bee
judicially. “I guess he’s got ahead of us here, Hal. I don’t believe
we’d have any right to take them. We never could prove they were the
oars that were stolen from us.”
“But――but――” began Hal excitedly.
“Let’s just look around a bit,” said Jack, “and see if we can find
anything else that belongs to you. We’d better not waste too much time,
either. It’s probable, Honest William is off for the day, but there’s
no telling.” He pushed open the door and stepped inside the cabin and
the others followed. It was so dark in there that for a moment they
could see nothing clearly and while they waited to accustom their eyes
to the gloom there was a sudden clamor that sent their hearts into
their throats and sent them tumbling over each other’s back through the
doorway.
_Ding-ding, ding-ding, ding! Dong-dong, dong-dong, dong! Tink-tink,
tink-tink, tink! Ding-dang, ding-dang, ding!_
“Ship’s-clocks,” laughed Jack, “and dozens of them, from the noise! I
guess they won’t hurt us. Come on.”
They stepped inside again just as the last clang died away, and Jack
opened the door as far as it would go to afford more light. When they
could finally see each of the boys gave expression to his astonishment.
“Gee!” exclaimed Bee.
“Well!” cried Jack.
Hal grunted. “It’s a regular robber’s den,” he said.
The cabin was perhaps fourteen feet one way by twelve the other. Under
the window was a small table with the remains of a meal on it. In
one corner was a cook-stove, with a cupboard above it in which stood
cooking utensils and a few groceries. In another corner was a bed.
Perhaps bunk would describe it better, for it was built against the
two walls for all the world like a ship’s berth. There was a seaman’s
chest near the stove, a rocking chair near the door and a stool by
the table. The floor was partly hidden by pieces of oilcloth and
scraps of carpets. The walls had been at some time covered with paper,
wrapping paper, newspaper, colored pictures, but over the paper hung
as remarkable a collection of objects as one is likely to find outside
a museum. Ship’s-clocks――Bee counted fourteen of them later――and
sextants, quadrants, spy-glasses, lanterns, barometers, log-lines,
rusty cutlasses and swords, a carbine or two and a flint lock musket,
pictures of sailing vessels, flags and signals, brass rowlocks in
bunches, a ship’s name-board bearing in faded gilt letters the
inscription _Susan T. Moody_, the model of a full-rigged five-master in
a glass case and, last of all, a parrot in a cage. It was Bee who first
spied the parrot and tiptoed up to it.
[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF MANY CLOCKS.]
“Hello, Polly,” he said softly. But Polly refused to even wink. “Pretty
Poll! Polly want a cracker?” The parrot regarded him fixedly with
glassy eyes.
“What’s the matter with you? Can’t you talk?” asked Jack. “You
look――Oh, shucks, fellows, it’s only a stuffed parrot!”
“Wonder where he stole it,” said Hal, prodding it through the bars of
the cage to make certain that it was really not alive. Just then there
was a noise behind them and the three turned startledly to see a big
yellow cat emerge from beneath the stove, arching his back and blinking
gravely across at them.
“Gee, you scared me, pussy,” said Bee.
“What’s your name? Come over here and have your back rubbed, you old
rascal.” The cat accepted the invitation, crossing the room to rub
against their legs and purr ecstatically.
“Nice old kitty,” murmured Bee, scratching the cat’s neck. “Isn’t he a
dandy, Hal?”
“Yes, I wonder where he stole him,” replied Hal darkly. Jack laughed.
“Hal, you haven’t a very good opinion of our friend Bill, have you?
Well, there’s plenty of truck here, fellows, but I don’t see any
compasses or fog-horns, although there’s a brass trumpet up there. If
those are your oars out there, Hal, what do you suppose he did with the
boat-hook?”
“And that new rope,” added Bee.
“They’re here somewhere, I guess,” answered Hal, surveying the room
again. “Maybe the rope’s in the shed. There was a lot there.”
The cat leaped to the table and began to lick one of the dishes.
“That’s the way Bill gets his things washed up, I suppose,” said Bee.
“I wonder if we couldn’t get a cat, fellows. It would save us a lot of
bother!”
“I’ll bet anything my compass and fog-horn are in that chest,” said
Hal, eyeing it suspiciously. “I guess I’ll have a look.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Jack. “We haven’t any right in here really, and
it wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do, Hal.”
“But he stole my things!” Hal objected.
“Maybe he did; I think so too; but I don’t like the idea of sneaking
into a man’s house while he’s away and prying into his chest. We’ll
have a look in the shed. Just hear those clocks tick. Funny we didn’t
notice them at first. He’s got some dandies here, too. Look at this
one, Hal. That must have cost sixty or seventy dollars.”
“Wonder where he――”
“If you say that again,” warned Bee, “I’ll beat you. You’re worse than
a parrot! Come on out to the shed and let’s see if we can’t find the
boat-hook.”
“All right,” said Jack. “Old Bill may be back soon and we might as well
get away before he comes.”
“Wait a minute,” exclaimed Hal. “Look up there, fellows!”
They followed the direction of Hal’s finger and saw a trap door that
evidently opened into a space between the ceiling and the roof.
“I’ll bet you anything,” said Hal eagerly, “that that’s where he hides
his loot.”
“What makes you think he plays a lute?” asked Bee flippantly.
“I’m going up there,” asserted Hal resolutely.
“Better not,” counselled Jack. “Anyway, I don’t see how you can.
There’s no ladder in sight.”
“I don’t need any ladder. You fellows lift me up and I can push off
that hatch and get through. I don’t believe it’s locked.”
“I don’t like it,” said Jack. “After all, the things didn’t cost very
much, and you’ve bought new oars and――”
“I don’t care if they only cost ten cents,” replied Hal doggedly.
“They’re mine and I mean to have them if they’re there. If you fellows
won’t help me I’ll go out and find a ladder; or I’ll move the table
under here and――”
“Don’t be a silly goat,” pleaded Bee. “If your things are up there the
hatch is sure to be locked. Come on and be sensible.”
“It can’t be locked. There’s no lock there. Look for yourself.” Hal
measured the distance from floor to ceiling with his eye and looked
speculatively at the table on which the yellow cat had curled himself
up and was washing his face. “Anyhow, I mean to have a try at it and I
think you fellows might give me a lift. If they were your things that
were stolen I’d try to help you get them instead of siding with the
thief!”
“Well――” began Bee irresolutely.
But just then a shadow darkened the doorway and,
“Ho, mates,” said a deep gruff voice, “makin’ yourselves to home I
see!”