The following morning Kate waited with exceeding patience for the proper
moment to arrive in which to speak to Frank regarding the _Clover_ and
Mr. North.
“And I told him, Frank,” she went on to say, as he stood glowering at
her from his superior height, “that the boat cost—I mean that papa paid
forty—”
“It was fifty dollars, Kate,” ejaculated Frank, “that was paid for the
boat; and if you hadn’t—”
“O, Frank!” besought Kate, with an eager tremble in her voice, “I am so
sorry I forgot. I thought it was forty; but you can tell him and then
you’ll get back ten dollars that you can spend just as you please; and
you are always wanting new things, you know. You can buy, Frank, that
nice new kind of a fishpole that you asked papa for, or you can get—”
“Just like you,” returned Frank, interrupting her suggestion. “A
fishpole would do me a good deal of good without the _Clover_ to go with
it. I’ll tell you what, I’ll just keep my boat and get the pole in some
way. Mother will help me out with it.”
“O, Frank Hallock! if you only knew what mamma is doing, and going to
do, this winter, you’d never think of asking her for a penny. When you
are gone, Mary is going away and we will only have the cook and mamma,
and I am going to do all Mary’s work; and I heard papa talking about
having only Hugo or some one other man to do everything that is to be
done outside of the house. I shall enjoy helping about everything so
much, dear Frank, when I think that you are having a good time at school
and it is making you happier.”
Frank turned away without a word and went out into the sweet, cool air
of the morning.
Kate ran lightly up the staircase, and in two minutes came down again
with hat and wrappings on to drive her father to the railway station.
Mr. Hallock appeared presently, looking very grave and anxious. As he
came, Kate said: “All ready, papa, and waiting for you.”
“Kate, dear,” he replied, “I have a reason for wishing that Frank should
go with me this morning, and you may meet me this afternoon at five. I’m
coming home early to-day. Good-bye, my child,” and he gave the
disappointed face a kiss and went out. Kate followed, thinking to find
Frank for her father. The boy was already at the stable.
“Come, Frank!” said Mr. Hallock, “I wish you to go with me this
morning.”
“Can’t Kate go, or Hugo?” returned Frank. “The tide is just right for
fishing and it will use up half an hour or more.”
“Get in,” said his father, sternly. With a frown and a surly air, Frank
slipped into the light wagon and threw himself upon the seat.
“Never mind, Frank,” urged Kate in a low voice, close to the wheel on
Frank’s side. As the horse started, she added: “I’ll have the
fishing-tackle all ready for you, and the bait, too, if I can.”
Mr. Hallock drove and not a word had been spoken when they reached the
village. As they were passing along the principal street, Mr. Hallock
said:
“My son, I am in the midst of cares and business difficulties that you
cannot understand. Your mother and myself are willing to do many things
this winter, in order to send you to school. We do it gladly, out of
love for you. If you could stay fourteen a year or two, it would not
matter so much whether or not you went this winter; but time is
precious. Now, my boy, Kate told me last night that Mr. North suggested
taking your boat, and I wish you to part from it cheerfully and without
a word of repining. It is yours, and it is you who must write to him
to-day and tell him that he can have it.”
“But, father—” and then came the signal of the advancing train. In two
minutes Mr. Hallock was upon it on his way to New York and Frank was
rushing with speed through the village on his way home, cherishing, as
he went, no very kind feeling toward his sister Kate.
Having left the horse, he was going toward the boathouse, when Kate
appeared on the highway, carrying a basket.
“I was afraid to stay a minute longer,” she said, when they came within
speaking distance. “I was so afraid you would be gone, Frank. I found a
few clams—look! enough to keep you in bait quite awhile,” Kate
continued, speaking very rapidly, as though apprehensive of
interruption. “You know, Frank, you are going to be a beautiful brother
and let Mr. North have the _Clover_; and mamma said I might go fishing
with you to-day, if you would keep inside the harbor.”
“Kate Hallock!” exclaimed Frank, “it was none of your business to go
telling father what Mr. North said. I could tell him myself, when I
wanted him to know anything about it. No! I won’t let you go with me
just because you did tell.”
“O, Frank! I thought papa would be so very glad, because I heard him say
that he needed every single dollar he could save; and I thought you
would be as happy as I was myself, when he said he would do it. And I
went and got your lines and clams and everything; and I don’t care to
fish, so I’ll bait your hook every time.”
“No, Kate; I’ve got to give up the boat, and I will have it all to
myself this last day; besides, it is still, and if I see Captain Green
outside, I’m going out beyond the island to fish. So you see you could
not go.”
“O, Frank, don’t go alone; please don’t! Get Harry Cornwall to go with
you,” she urged; but he resisted that appeal, and saying there was no
time to spare in hunting up Harry, who was doubtless off in some potato
field or other, kept on his way to the little boathouse where the
_Clover_ lay.
“I’ll tell you what, Frank,” said Kate, her heart beating fast with
hope, “I’ll run across lots to the Lane and find him, and I’m sure he’ll
go if I ask him; and you can wait and fish a few minutes down by the
coal dock, till he has time to get there. I’ll be as quick as ever I
can. I don’t believe mamma will care if I do not stop to go back and ask
her.”
Kate was running by the time she finished speaking, and she did not hear
Frank’s last call, which was “I sha’n’t wait a minute for anybody”; and
she did not stop until she reached the stone wall that separated the
meadow lands from the highway. When she stood within the low doorway of
Mrs. Dobson’s kitchen, she could only gasp forth,
“Where’s Harry?”
“What is the matter with you, Kittie, my Clover? You’re as—”
“Please tell me quick where Harry is,” panted forth Kate. “I must find
him.”
“Then you come right in and sit down until you get your breath and I’ll
go call him. He’s topping corn this morning.”
Now Kate knew the Dobson cornfield just as well as anyone, and off she
started, before Mrs. Dobson could take down her sunbonnet and shawl from
its peg on the kitchen wall.
Arrived there, she shouted for Harry, who presently appeared out of the
corn and hastened to the fence where Kate waited.
It seemed so trivial, this calling Harry away from real,
necessary-to-be-done work to go fishing, just because Frank would run
into danger, that for an instant, as Harry came forward, she resolved to
let Frank go; but the wave of fear returned upon her by the time he
reached the fence and she cried out:
“O, Harry, will you do something for me? Tell me ‘yes’ quick!”
“You know I will, Kittie,” said Harry, removing his hat to wipe his
forehead—for he had been working fast.
“Then go fishing right off with Frank; it’s the last time he’s going in
the _Clover_, and he would go off to the island. Make haste now and you
can catch him at the coal dock. He has gone down the harbor and he is
all alone, and if the wind should blow”—she said, with a sudden tremble
in her tones—“or if the fog should come and he off there fishing all
alone—”
Whether it were the pleading of Kate’s eyes or of her voice, or the
arguments she used that influenced Harry, it were impossible to
determine; but he went in haste across field and meadow to the coal
dock, only to see Frank and the _Clover_ making great speed outside the
harbor toward the island.
As he stood there, helpless, on the beach, watching the boat, Kate
reached his side, and, seeing her brother in the distance, she burst
into tears.
“I’m sure I did everything I could,” she sobbed. “Only if Frank should
get lost, I never, never could forgive myself for having told papa!” and
Kate sank down on the sand and cried out her sorrow and disappointment,
as well as her weariness.
Harry waited patiently until the little storm was over. Then he said:
“If you were to tell me all about it, don’t you think I could help you a
little?”
“I wanted to tell you ever since I knew,” sighed Kate, with one
tear-dimmed glance seaward, “only I thought that perhaps papa and mamma
might wish it not spoken of; but now I am sure—” and then Kate went on
to tell Harry all that she knew and thought, and a good deal that she
felt, about affairs at home. At last she said, “I can bear everything
but to let Neptune go. If poor Nep goes, Harry, I want to go with him.
He’s my friend—just as Josh is Mrs. Dobson’s; and O, Harry, _do_ you
think I ought to tell papa he may sell him?”
Harry was trying to see Frank’s _Clover_, but somehow it looked very
much as though it had been caught in a sudden fog; but it was a fog
easily brushed away from the lad’s eyes, as he turned to say to Kate:
“If, Kittie, it comes to selling Neptune, promise me one thing—that you
will not let him go until you have told me about it.”
“I promise, Harry; but what good will that do?”
“We will see when the time comes. I am glad you have told me. But,
Kittie, I must not spend my morning here. If the wind blows hard, I will
go to the town wharf and get a boat to go out after Frank.”
“Mamma has not the least idea that I am not gone with Frank. I must go
home and tell her,” said Kate; and thus they parted, Kate going by the
way of the brown house to explain her conduct to Mrs. Dobson, and Harry
to the cornfield, summing up as he went, for the fortieth or fiftieth
time, his little earthly all and wondering whether or not it would do
any good to get it all together, in readiness for an emergency.
The day went on, bright and warm for the season, until the afternoon
came, and with it there breathed in from the sea a cool, damp air, that
presently, almost before one thought of it, changed all the atmosphere
to dense fog.
Kate had many times during the morning hours made little visits to the
tower room and adjusted the glass, to take into view Frank’s boat.
Seeing it, lying off the island and nearby another boat—Captain Green’s,
without doubt—she had ceased to feel troubled. Even Mrs. Hallock was
satisfied with Kate’s reports, as they came to her from time to time,
and contented herself, being very busy in preparing Frank’s clothing for
school, until she saw the fog sweep past the windows. Hugo was sent off
in haste to learn the whereabouts of Captain Green and the whole
household grew anxious and restless.
Kate drove Neptune to the station to meet her father, and greeted him
with the news that Frank was off fishing outside of the island, all
alone, when the fog came down.
The September twilight followed. It was night and still the fog held
down. The old sea began to roll with an easterly swell, and Frank was
not heard from. Kate put every lamp that she could muster into the tower
room, for a lighthouse.