ARRIVALS
I was sometimes a sharp race for the bus drivers from the Old Harbour
to the New Harbour and return, when the two regular boats came in. But
on Thursday the boat due to make the breach of the Great Salt Pond
and disembark her passengers at the New Harbour landing, was sighted
almost an hour before the boat from Newport came into view. So there
was plenty of time for Captain Littlefield to drive over with Worry and
Trouble to meet the new clerk of the Truefelt House and his family; and
the captain took Carolyn and Prince on the driver's seat with him.
"I'm so excited!" said Carolyn May, fairly bounding up and down on the
slippery cushion. "To think that my pale lady and her baby are really,
truly coming here to Block Island for the summer! Do you know, Mr.
Cap'n Littlefield, this island is a very nice place and the folks on it
are awfully nice--most of them, anyway; but there's not anybody just
like my pale lady. _You'll_ see!"
It was quite true that Captain Littlefield had never seen many people
like Baby Laird's mother, as Carolyn insisted upon calling her friend
when her husband helped her off the boat and into the hotel bus. And
the poor little baby! They were both at the point of exhaustion.
"Dear little Carolyn May," murmured the pale lady, snuggling the little
girl beside her upon the seat of the bus. "It was so dear of you to
remember us. I feel already that I shall get better--Baby Laird, too."
Even her husband seemed to think that Carolyn had much to do with
opening the way for their coming to the island. He shook hands gravely
with the little girl.
"I fancy your father is right, Carolyn," he said. "You are prone to
interfere in everybody's affairs, but always to a good end. I thank you
for recalling me to Ben Truefelt's mind."
"Oh, but I didn't do that!" cried the little girl honestly. "He
'membered you his own self. Mr. Cap'n Littlefield says the crew
mutinied, includin' the supercargo, and Mr. Ben just _hates_ to talk to
folks--"
"Yes. I know he always was a regular quahaug," observed the pale lady's
husband, smiling.
"Why!" murmured the little girl; "not a _reg'lar_ quahaug, you know.
That's a clam; and Mr. Ben's got legs like any other party--'ceptin'
Mr. Cap'n Littlefield and his Cousin Oly. They both have wooden sticks
on one side for legs."
Motherly Mrs. Truefelt welcomed the pale lady and her baby very kindly
indeed. A room for the little family was found for that night. Mrs.
Cameron, too, greeted Carolyn's friend warmly. "Mr. Laird," as Carolyn
insisted upon calling the new clerk, went to work at once, to Mr. Ben
Truefelt's open satisfaction.
The next morning the wooden-legged man drove the pale lady and her
little one over to Barzilla Ball's place in the two-seated buckboard;
and of course Carolyn May and Prince went, too.
"It's got so," said Captain Littlefield to the baby's mother, "that I
dunno as I could steer a proper course about this island 'nless I had
this young 'un with me--an' the dog. They are gre't comp'ny, for a
fact."
"Carolyn May is the friendliest little soul alive," replied the pale
lady, her wan countenance lighting with appreciation.
"Ain't she, jest?" agreed the wooden-legged man. "I dunno but if she
had a chance't she might cure Cousin Oly of the megrums--an' Oly's some
settled in his ways! Dunno how poor old Sue-Betsey ever got along with
him all the ten year they was married and livin' together. But they do
say," and his eyes began to twinkle, "that when Oly got too much upsot
for even her to stand, she useter steal his wooden leg and go out to
the neighbours to get shet of Oly's tongue."
"Then," said the pale lady in some wonderment, "you are not the only
member of your family that has the misfortune to need an artificial
limb?"
"Tell ye what," chuckled the captain, "wooden laigs do run in our
family, an' no mistake. There air Littlefields that have a full suit
o' limbs; but Oly an' me--Wal, it does seem as though we'd been mighty
careless, or sumpin'. Both on us air shy a laig. But we manage to git
on purt' well considerin', as the feller said."
Carolyn listened with stretched ears to the wooden-legged man's speech;
but not a hint did he drop about the catastrophe that cost him--and
Cousin Oly--the missing limb. It was a mystery!
The ride across the island was just as delightful as it had been
before, and they were as warmly welcomed at the Ball cottage. Besides
Molly Icivilla, her brother was present. He was a tall, pleasant, good
looking young man, dressed in brown sea boots and a blue guernsey, with
a tarpaulin pushed back from his sea-browned face. He sat in the sun
mending a seine.
While his sister ushered the pale lady into the little house on the
edge of the bluff, Captain Littlefield and Barzilla talked, Carolyn and
her dog standing by with much interest in the net-mending.
"How ye makin' out with the _Snatch It_, this season, Barzilla?" asked
the wooden-legged man. "They tell me swordfish is leavin' the island
waters an' gettin' to be as scurce as hen's teeth."
"I dunno, Ozy," said the younger man. "Swordfish made our livin' in
my father's time an' in poor old gran'ther's time. They were both
swordfishers; and I would be sorry to change, myself. Seems as though
what was good enough for them ought to be good enough for me."
"Times is changed, Barzilla--and fashions with it," said the captain.
"True as you're born!" agreed Mr. Ball. "But swordfish don't change
none. They are still to be found sleepin' on top of the water, and can
be come upon in the same old way as when the first double-ender ever
put out o' this port.
"While them fellers from Nantucket and the Cape go out to the Georges
in their steam tugs and put out dories an' crews to fight for the
swordfish, I can take one man in the old _Snatch It_, creep up on a
fish like I was shown by my father, an' put an iron in him from the
pulpit nine times out o' ten. Them noisy tugs scare off the fish half
the time, and the dories lose 'em. Change of fashion ain't always an
improvement, Ozy."
"No. You'm right there," agreed Captain Littlefield. "But them
rattle-de-bang motor boats and sech seem to be drivin' all the fish off
shore."
"I can foller 'em, Ozy. I can foller 'em in the _Snatch It_. Let them
furriners with their motor boats go after the tunny fish if they
want. They're nothin' more than blackfish, an' we didn't use to think
blackfish was wuth more'n pilot-whales. But for swordfish there's
always a market."
"Yes, yes. You'm right, Barzilla," agreed the wooden-legged man again.
"But it's a short season."
"'Twouldn't be a short season if I had capital," said Mr. Ball,
nodding his head with confidence. "I guess you are right on one point,
Ozy. Fashions do change. If I could salt down swordfish like they do
mack'rel--Wal! no use talkin' 'bout it. They do so at New London, and
make money on't. No reason why we couldn't do it here. We're nearer
the banks. The fish are out there. I ain't satisfied to be just a
fisherman, I admit, and live all my life on potatoes and pollock."
"Uh-huh! But 'taters and pollock are a sight better than nothing,"
chuckled Captain Littlefield. "That's a dish that no true islander
will deny, Barzilla. Well, we'd better be gettin' home, leetle gal. I
'spect ye'll be over here to see Molly I. and Barzilla often enough,
now't your friends have come here to stop."
"Oh, yes, sir, if I may," said Carolyn, shaking hands with the young
fisherman. But it was to Captain Littlefield she addressed the question
that was troubling her mind. She asked it before the buckboard rattled
out of the lane:
"Mr. Cap'n Littlefield, do swordfishes have real swords?"
"You'd think so," he responded. "An' purt' average savage with 'em they
be, too."
"But swords are kept in scabbards. Mr. Price, Edna's father, has got
one. He b'longs to the Knights of Pythias. And if the swordfish's sword
is in a scabbard, how does he manage to draw it? Not with his _fin_?"
"My cracky, what a young 'un!" chuckled Captain Littlefield. "No.
'Tain't rigged jest that way. Ye see, he has his sword on his nose."
"Oh! Mis-ter--Cap'n--Littlefield!" gasped Carolyn May, shocked by this
statement, for it seemed utterly impossible.
"Sure thing," he said. "Why, that isn't so wonderful, is it? Look at an
elephant's trunk. Ain't that spliced on to his nose? Wal, a swordfish's
sword is spliced on same way. And it's some sword, too! I've seen 'em
two-three feet long."
"Dear me! Isn't that funny?" gasped Carolyn. "Fishes with swords! Do
any of 'em have guns, I wonder?"
"Wal, I ain't never seen 'em myself. But they do say that in Australia
there's a fish that shoots drops of water like bullets and knocks
down little birds an' insects along the banks of the streams. And of
course," he added, ruminatively, "there's whales. They shoot a stream
of spray right up through their blowholes. I've been near enough in a
whaleboat more'n once to git showered by that--an' with blood, too, in
a death waller."
Carolyn May thought all this, of course, very wonderful; and in her
estimation Captain Ozias Littlefield was a very entertaining man. So
different from his cousin!
She saw the cockatoo-looking old fellow down in the Old Harbour more
than once. He usually carried a cane and a basket, and he always shook
the former threateningly at Prince.
"But don't you and your dog pay Oly a mite of attention," Captain Ozias
advised. "His bark is a whole lot worse than his bite, in any case. And
after all, I shouldn't wonder if he'd be glad to be friends with ye,
only he's stuffy and won't play."
For it did fret Carolyn that anybody should not like her--and Prince.
She was happiest when she could temper all about her with her own
sunniness. She felt that Mr. Oliver Littlefield, like his cousin, must
be a very interesting man to be friends with--if only for the reason
that he, too, had a wooden leg!
The excitement of the coming of the pale lady and her family to
the island, and she and the baby being settled on Friday at the
Ball cottage on the West Side, was merely the forerunner of greater
excitement for Carolyn May. She had not seen Papa Cameron for almost
three weeks, and now he was expected to arrive on the Saturday boat
that connected with the Long Island train at Sag Harbour.
They walked over to the New Harbour landing, for the _Shinnecock_ was
late, and Captain Littlefield, with Worry and Trouble, was detained at
the other dock. The sparkling blue waters of the Great Salt Pond were
dotted with the fishing boats and pleasure craft at their moorings.
Barzilla Ball came ashore in a dory from his _Snatch It_ that lay
at her moorings in the well protected harbour--almost the last
double-ender to be built at the island and still in commission. As her
description implied, she was as sharp at one end as she was at the
other.
Barzilla halted to speak to Carolyn and Prince, and thereby became
acquainted with Mrs. Cameron. He was a pleasant young man with more
than ordinary intelligence.
"You'll be coming over to the West Side to see us, you and the little
girl, now your friends are with my sister," the fisherman said. "We'll
be proud to have you come."
"Thank you, Mr. Ball. I shall find some means of getting to your house,
I have no doubt. Carolyn considers it quite the nicest house she has
ever seen, and wants to live in one situated just like it--right over
the ocean."
"Yes. Great-gran'ther Ball built it so's he'd be sure to hear the surf
and know when the wind changed at night. I wonder if he wasn't hard
o' hearing?" said Barzilla, smiling. "Sometimes the sea cuts up so we
can't hear ourselves think."
"But, dear me!" said Carolyn May, "how handy it is to go bathing. All
you have to do, I guess, Mamma, is to jump out of the window in your
bathing suit, and there you are!"
"There you would be, or thereabout," chuckled the fisherman. "So, your
daddy is coming on the _Shinnecock_ today, is he?"
The gaze of Carolyn's eyes scarcely left the steamboat that was now
coming through the breach. She nodded joyfully.
"Oh, yes!" she said. "He is coming. And he will bring us things. And
we'll go walking. And he'll buy picture post-cards. Why, there's just
loads and _loads_ of folks I want to send them to."
There were a number of summer people gathered at the dock when the boat
made her landing. The hotel vehicles came racing over from the Old
Harbour where the Newport boat had already landed her passengers.
Mr. Cameron had been waving to Carolyn and her mother, and to Prince,
from the upper deck with his paper, and he was now one of the first
ashore. He carried a good-sized hamper, as well as his bag. And how
glad Carolyn was to see him!
"Dear me, Papa Cameron," she declared, "it seems almost as though I'd
grown up since I saw you. Don't I _look_ different?"
"I would scarcely have known you, Snuggy, if you had not been with
mamma and Prince," he told her with gravity. "And my! you look almost
like a red Indian. Are you sure, mamma, that you haven't changed our
Carolyn May for an Indian papoose?"
"'Papoose!' How very ridiculous!" laughed the little girl. "Why, a
papoose is an Indian baby, and they keep them strapped to a board and
carry them on their backs like soldiers do knapsacks. And they never
cry."
"Who never cry? The knapsacks or the soldiers?" demanded her father,
looking very much surprised.
"The papooses never cry. You know soldiers don't cry, Papa Cameron,"
admonished Carolyn May.
She was very eager to introduce him to her particular friend, the
wooden-legged Captain Littlefield; but there was so much confusion
and so many passengers for the Truefelt House bus, that the Camerons
decided to ride over in one of the carryalls. So Mr. Cameron's
introduction to Ozias was postponed.
With their bags they got into a rather creaking old vehicle driven by a
boy whom Carolyn already knew as Tommy Trivett, and who was about the
age--and almost the gangling length--of Chet Gormley at Sunrise Cove.
She begged the privilege of having Prince with her on the front seat,
and he finally managed to scramble in by himself over the front wheel
and squat down between his little mistress and Tommy Trivett.
"Old Oly Littlefield," drawled the youthful driver, "says this dog o'
yourn oughter be shot."
"Oh--ee! he wouldn't be so wicked, would he?" gasped Carolyn.
"Says he's dang'rous to be runnin' at large. Says he'll carry the marks
of the dog's teeth to his grave. And if he gits hydrophoby the Town of
New Shoreham'll hafter pay damages to his heirs an' assigns, for ever
an' ever, amen!"
"My!" said Carolyn, "you sound just like you were in church, don't you?
But if Mr. Oly Littlefield runs mad 'cause Prince bit his wooden leg,
do you s'pose he'll be much diff'rent from what he us'ally is? Mr.
Captain Littlefield says his Cousin Oly is most always mad."
"He! he!" chuckled Tommy Trivett. "Ozy ought to know. Ozy has summered
and wintered him now a good many years. If I'd been your dog, I'd ha'
nipped a piece out o' Oly's sound laig--that's what I'd've done."
Carolyn May looked sideways at the not altogether prepossessing Tommy.
"Well," she said, with evident relief in her tone, "you're not my dog,
are you?"