THE STRANGE WORK OF A WILDERNESS EXILE
Captain Joe Anderson’s real home was in the north on one of the great
lakes. As a young man he had devoted much of his time to yachting.
Therefore, when he and Mrs. Anderson sought a winter home in the south,
he built his bungalow on the wide, baylike Indian River.
To this salubrious spot Captain Joe and his wife hastened each fall.
With no servants, Mrs. Anderson saw to the few household needs. Living
on the shore of the biggest and most beautiful body of boating water
in America, Captain Joe gave every daylight hour to sailing and making
boats.
Just to the left of his trim little cottage was a low, wide building.
Therein, when summer came, Captain Anderson stored his boats. These
ran from his well-known sailing yacht “Valkaria,” down through smaller
craft for fishing and cruising to three or four skiffs or rowboats. He
had no power-boats and, as Andy Leighton soon learned, had no patience
with those who owned or operated them.
At this time of the year, with his boats safely moored at the long
pier, which extended 150 yards out into the shallow river, the
boathouse was a boat shop. Here, when he was not on the water sailing
with Mrs. Anderson, Captain Joe was busy, slowly working into shape
some new water craft. Some days, when it rained or a norther brought a
chill to the balmy spot, he would kindle a fire in the big stove in the
boathouse, and, his tools lying idle, sit and read.
Before Mrs. Leighton and Andy had even come in sight of the light in
the Anderson home the captain had rejoined them.
“I don’t know how we are going to repay you for your kindness, Captain
Anderson,” Andy’s mother began.
“I know one way,” answered their rescuer good-humoredly. “Your
brother-in-law’s home isn’t much of a place, but if you and your son
can see your way to livin’ there awhile each winter, that’ll be all the
reward I want. It gets pretty lonesome down here sometimes for Mrs.
Anderson.”
Then the two older persons began to exchange talk about their northern
homes and possible mutual friends. At the first opportunity, Andy broke
in:
“Captain Anderson, what did my uncle do down here? I suppose he raised
oranges.”
“Your uncle was a peculiar man,” answered the captain. “I liked him.
But I never could understand why a good lawyer should bury himself in
the wilderness.”
“Father says he used to be a fine lawyer,” commented the boy, “but his
health failed.”
“And like a lot more such people,” added Captain Anderson, “he got to
livin’ alone and bein’ so much alone, he got sort o’ peculiar.”
“One could tell that from his letters, when we got any,” interrupted
Mrs. Leighton. “He used to write about some invention on which he was
working.”
“An engine,” broke in Andy. “Father told me my uncle thought he had an
engine that was to do wonderful things. Did it work?”
“Oh, his engine worked all right,” answered Captain Joe soberly.
“There wasn’t any trouble about that. That wasn’t his real weakness.
He made engines that’d work just as long as he ran ’em like other
people, with steam or gasoline. But steam and gasoline didn’t suit
him. He was lookin’ for some other kind o’ power; something cheap and
light――calcium something I think it was.”
“Gas from calcium carbide?” suggested Andy impulsively.
“Yes, that’s it――calcium carbide,” went on Captain Joe, “though I never
took any stock in it and never paid much attention to it. He said when
he got his generator finished, he’d be able to carry his power in a
little tube.”
“And did he?” persisted Andy, pushing forward. “Did he finish his
generator?”
Instead of replying at once, Captain Anderson dropped back by Mrs.
Leighton’s side.
“Madam,” he said soberly, “the doctor said your brother-in-law died o’
heart disease. But there was enough other things in that shop o’ his to
kill him,――gases and fumes and odors,――and if I had a guess about what
ended his lonesome life, I’d say it was as much that idea of his as a
weak heart. If he ever got at the bottom o’ what he was lookin’ for,”
added Captain Anderson, turning to the eager Andy, “I reckon no one’ll
ever know unless he wrote it down. And there’s nothin’ o’ that sort so
far as I know.”
While Mrs. Leighton made further inquiries concerning her late
relative Andy’s brain was beginning to burn with a sudden and new
curiosity. Andy’s father was a factory foreman, and the family lived
in a modest home in a city suburb, but the boy had already finished
the second year of high school. Andy had all the dreams, desires, and
determinations of the average boy. But he had something more――a decided
bent for mechanics.
Only the summer before, Andy and a classmate had made a single-cylinder
gas engine. It didn’t happen to work when completed, but that didn’t
matter. The making of it had given Andy a good knowledge of engines.
Like many an older person, he was already theorizing on a new motive
power. Anyway, he knew what Captain Joe meant when he spoke of “calcium
something.”
“Captain Anderson,” said Andy, breaking in on the talk of his elders,
“is it too late to see my uncle’s shop to-night?”
“It’ll be too late when we’ve had some supper. But in the morning
I’ll turn over the key. Everything is there just as Mr. Leighton
left it――except the engine he made two years ago, and that’s in my
boathouse.”
“Does that one work?” persisted Andy, eagerly.
“It does, with gasoline,” returned the man. “That’s the one your uncle
made for the aero-catamaran. I’ll turn that over to you――I haven’t any
use for power-boats.”
“Aero-catamaran?” exclaimed Andy. “What’s that?”
“That?” repeated the captain. “Why,――but here’s the house.”
“Tell me just one thing,” pleaded the excited boy. “Is the aero-catamaran
a boat?”
“A kind of a boat――or was,” laughed the captain.
“And it belonged to my uncle?”
“I made the boat, but your uncle made the engine, and I gave him the
boat――no power-boats for me.”
“Can I have it?” blurted out Andy.
“Andrew!” broke in Mrs. Leighton. “What do you mean? I’m ashamed of
you.”
“I meant,” began Andy, abashed, “that I’d like to see it and――and run
it.”
“Of course,” laughed the captain. “I understand. Well, anyway, it’s no
use to me. I know nothing about engines.”
Just then the party reached the cottage. Mrs. Anderson waited for no
introductions. In a few minutes Mrs. Leighton and Andy were seated
in a summery living room. While Mrs. Leighton protested over the
unexpected hospitality and Mrs. Anderson removed her guest’s wraps,
Captain Anderson could be heard starting anew the fire in the kitchen
cook stove.
“We haven’t any guest chamber,” explained Mrs. Anderson, with a laugh;
“but you,” taking Mrs. Leighton by the arm, “will share my bedroom with
me. Captain Anderson will sleep in the boathouse, and the boy can sleep
on the couch in this room.”
Their hostess had already led Mrs. Leighton into the adjoining room.
So Andy improved the opportunity to look about. The room had a sort of
seaside air. Within an unusual fireplace of stone, stood the model of a
schooner-rigged yacht. On the mantel was a large silver cup, apparently
a prize or a trophy, while at the right and the left of it, were large
pink-hearted conch shells. On the wall above was a decoration of pink,
yellow, and purple West Indian sea fans.
While the highly interested boy was noting these things, Captain
Anderson reappeared.
“I reckon mother can see to something in the way of eatin’, Andy,” he
said with a laugh, “and we’ll just about have time to get the trunks.”
As the boy responded with a laugh of his own he pointed to the sea fans
on the wall.
“They don’t grow here, do they?” he asked.
“Those?” said the boy’s host. “Oh, no; they came from the sea gardens
near Nassau. Mrs. Anderson and I usually sail over there each
spring――for a change.”
“From here?” asked Andy.
“Why not?” responded the captain, with a smile. “But I suppose you
don’t know that the Indian River is only an arm of the sea. It runs all
along the coast like a big inland lake, and there are several places
where you can get out to sea.”
“And Nassau,” repeated the open-mouthed Andy――“where’s that?”
“I reckon I’ll have to get down the map for you,” answered the amused
captain. “Nassau is the only town in all the three thousand or more
Bahama Islands. And it’s about two hundred and fifty miles from here.
But you can strike the Bahamas long before that. In one place they’re
not over eighty-five miles from America.”
As Andy’s eyes contracted, a mind reader would have detected these
thoughts already linking themselves in the boy’s brain: “working
engine, boat, Indian River, ocean, Bahama Islands.”
“I guess I know what you’re thinkin’ about,” ventured Captain Anderson,
with a mischievous laugh. “And if I’m not mistaken, in the next few
days there’s goin’ to be a pretty busy boy around these parts.”
“Well,” answered Andy, with a similar smile, “wherever I am, I’m not in
the habit of takin’ root. And I won’t need a gong to get me up in the
morning.”
By the time the man and the boy had secured the broad-wheeled trundle
cart that Captain Anderson used in transporting freight, and had gone
for the trunks, Mrs. Leighton had refreshed herself by removing the
stains of travel, and Mrs. Anderson was well forward in the preparation
of a supper for the strangers.
“It’s a long way to haul the trunks for just over night,” said Mrs.
Leighton, as Captain Anderson and Andy carried them onto the gallery.
“It’s the easiest way,” explained Captain Anderson. “When you want to
send them to Mr. Leighton’s house, we’ll take ’em by water. Goat Creek
empties into the river just above here, and it winds back right past
your brother-in-law’s place. I’ll have to lend Andy one of my rowboats.”
“Supper’s all ready,” announced Mrs. Anderson. “We haven’t any real
milk or cream, and no real butter, but we get used to substitutes.”
With this apology she seated her guests to a repast of fried lake
trout, fried yams, homemade bread, orange marmalade, guava jelly,
tea, and by way of dessert, an enormous pineapple ripened on the
plant. By the time the tired and hungry travelers had shown their full
appreciation of Mrs. Anderson’s culinary skill it was well after ten
o’clock. Mrs. Leighton and Mrs. Anderson having arranged Andy’s bed on
the couch, they withdrew.
As Captain Anderson lit a lantern for use in the boathouse, Andy, a
little embarrassed, whispered:
“Captain Anderson, can’t I see those maps you were talking about――those
that show where the Bahama Islands are?”
The captain, with a grunt of amusement, went to a rack and took down a
chart.
“On one condition: you mustn’t stay up more than fifteen minutes.”
With a nod of acquiescence, Andy――who had never seen the ocean, and who
had not the slightest knowledge of boats――caught the map eagerly and
hastened to the table on which was a big oil lamp. As Captain Anderson
left the room he glanced back and saw the excited boy intently poring
over an old chart of the Bahama and West India Islands.