_HOW THE BOAT CAME ASHORE_
Vaguely Ann heard a bell ringing. She thought that she was lobstering
with Jo and that Jo was pulling up a bell in one of the heavy lobster
pots. They were bobbing about on waves as high as mountains.
“It is seven o’clock! No farmer stays in bed late, you know.”
It was Mrs. Seymour’s voice.
How could her mother have come away out to sea? Ann sat up in bed,
not awake yet. And then she saw the sun pouring in through the open
windows. Her mother was standing in the hall between Ann’s room and
Ben’s, swinging an old ship’s bell that she must have found somewhere
in the house.
“In one minute, mother!”
How queer to wash in a huge bowl in her room instead of in a bathroom!
And how lovely to dry oneself while standing on a braided mat before
the washstand with the sun pouring down on one’s back and legs!
Bloomers and middy had miraculously appeared from her baggage; some
fairy had been at work while Ann was sleeping.
The smell of breakfast tweaked her hungry nose and she scurried madly
with her dressing, for Ben and Helen would eat everything in sight if
they felt half as starved as she did.
The kitchen seemed altogether different in the daytime. It had grown
smaller without the flickering shadows from the lamps. The ceiling was
low and Mr. Seymour bumped his head as he came through the doorway; he
would have to remember to stoop.
The big kitchen stove hummed merrily with the sweet smell of wood smoke
seeping up through the lids, a delicate fragrant thread of gray that
curled and disappeared. Mrs. Seymour explained that Mr. Bailey built
the fire for her; he had come early to show her how to make it. Just as
she spoke he appeared in the doorway again with a foaming milk pail in
his hand. His face was unsmiling but his blue eyes were alight.
“So much milk for us?” inquired Mrs. Seymour.
“Drink it down, free as water,” he answered. “That’s what puts the
color in children’s cheeks. Get your milk pans ready.”
“Hello,” said Ann. “Isn’t this a fine morning?”
“Morning? Morning?” said Mr. Bailey. “This be the middle of the
forenoon.”
Ann saw that his eyes were laughing at her although his face never
moved a muscle. “What time is morning up here?” she demanded.
“Oh--about half past three, these days. That’s dawn.”
“Do we have to get up at half past three?” cried Ben.
“Well, you do if you want to keep up with Jo,” answered his father.
“Where’s Jo now?” Ben asked, getting up from his chair.
“He’s hoein’ corn,” said Mr. Bailey. “Got two rows done already. He’s
not one to lie in bed, not Jo.”
“May I hoe with him? I’d like to, really.”
Fred Bailey looked at Ben’s mother. She nodded permission and Ben was
off like a shot.
“Won’t you sit down and have a cup of coffee with us,” asked Mrs.
Seymour, “to celebrate our first morning?”
“I don’t know but what I might,” said Fred Bailey. “Only don’t leave
that pail o’ milk out there by the door for a minute.” And he picked it
up and handed it to Ann. “It’ll be tipped over the second you take your
eyes off it.”
“Your barn cats come over this far for milk?” inquired Mr. Seymour
laughing. “They can smell a good thing from a long distance.”
“It ain’t no cats that dump it out on me,” said Fred soberly. “And I
think that I’d better warn you, first thing. It’s the spirits, the
spirits from the ship. They pester me almost to death, dumping out the
milk from pails, and they tear up the packages left beside the door.
You don’t want to leave nothin’ about.”
“You think that ship is haunted?” Mrs. Seymour poured out a big cup of
coffee.
Helen had gone already and Ann hoped that neither of her parents would
notice that she had stayed. She made as little noise as possible with
the milk pans and then came and sat down quietly. She saw her mother’s
eye wander toward her but she smiled pleadingly, hoping that her mother
would know she could not be frightened by any story about ghosts.
Fred was evidently glad to talk, once he had started on the subject. “I
shouldn’t wonder but what something was aboard that boat that shouldn’t
be there. I know this much--I’ve been bothered uncommon ever since she
came ashore, and not by human beings.”
“How did she happen to be wrecked?” Mr. Seymour was as eager as Ann for
the story, now that he felt sure that a story existed.
“She struck last winter in January,” began Fred, settling himself more
comfortably in his chair. “It was during the worst storm we’ve had in
these parts in the last hundred years.”
“It must have been a howler,” commented Mr. Seymour.
Mr. Bailey nodded soberly. “You’re right, I never saw nothin’ like it,”
he said. “The storm had been brewing for days and we could feel it
coming long before it struck us up here; there was warning enough in
the Boston paper. Then the sea grew flat and shining without a hint of
a whitecap on her. The wind was so strong it just pressed right down
and smothered the waves, and it blew straight off the land. It never
let up blowing off the land all through the storm, and that was one of
the queer things that happened.
“We had three days o’ wind, and then the snow broke, all to once, as
though the sky opened and shook all its stuffing right out on us.
With the coming o’ the snow the wind eased up a bit an’ let the water
churn on the top of the sea until it was as white as the falling snow.
Finally I couldn’t tell where the water ended and the snow began.
“The wind driving the sleet was cruel. Whenever Jo or I ventured out it
cut our faces and made them raw and bleeding. At times the wind lifted
the house right off its stone foundations and shook it, and I feared it
would be blown clear over the bluff and set awash in the sea.”
“How terrible!” exclaimed Mrs. Seymour.
“It was all of that,” Fred agreed. “The second day of the snow I
thought the wind hove to a mite, it seemed more quiet. I went to the
window to see if the snow had let up. It had--but not in any way I ever
had seen it in all my fifty years of life on this bluff. It was as if a
path had been cut through the flying storm, straight and clear with the
wind sweeping through, so that I could see beyond the bluff over the
water. It was then I had my first glimpse of it, riding over the waves
and coming ashore dead against the gale. It was such a thing as no
mortal ever saw nowadays. I thought I was losing my wits to see a boat
coming toward me, riding in to shore against the wind and while the
tide was running out. I just couldn’t believe what my eyes were telling
me, for no boat that I ever heard tell of had struck on this section
of the coast. Nature built here so that they can’t come in, what with
Douglas Head stretching out to the north and making a current to sweep
wrecks farther down; they strike to the north or the south of us, but
never here.”
“To see a ship coming in and be powerless to help it!” exclaimed Mr.
Seymour as Fred paused for a sip of coffee and a bite of doughnut.
“There was nothing that you could do?”
“Not a thing. I was alone with Jo, and even if we had been able to
get out a small boat we couldn’t have done nothin’. She was coming in
too fast. So we bundled up, Jo and I, and went out to stand by on the
shore.”
“Into that storm?” Anne demanded. She had drawn close to her mother’s
chair during the story and now she stood tense against it. She could
almost see the two figures, Fred so tall and Jo a little shorter, as
they ventured out into the wind that threatened to blow them into the
water. How the cutting sleet must have hurt, and how cold they must
have been as they stamped their feet on the ice-covered rocks and beat
their hands to keep from freezing!
“Nothing else to do but try to save the men as they washed ashore, now
was there?” Fred asked gently, and Ann shook her head. She knew that if
she had been there she would have gone with them and borne the cold as
best she could.
“We waited and watched,” Fred continued. “And all that time the narrow
path stayed in the storm, swept clear of the driving snow. And the boat
came nearer with no sails set and on even keel. When she struck she
cried like a living thing.
“We couldn’t see a man aboard. We waited all day and when night closed
in I sent Jo down to the village for help, and I listened alone all
night for the cry of some one washed to the beach; but no one came.
“When dawn broke Jo came back with ten or twelve men. They hadn’t known
a thing about the wreck in the village nor we shouldn’t, either, if it
hadn’t been for that path in the storm; the snow was falling too thick
for any one to see through it. Well, that morning the storm was over
and the sun burst out. And there she lay, almost as you see her now,
but farther out. The water was boiling all about her. The waves were
crashing in pretty high but we thought we could get one of the boats
launched at the mouth of the river and work it round to the ship. So we
left Jo to watch the bluff here and picked my dory to make the trip as
she shipped less water and rode the waves easier. We got her down the
river and around the point and after a couple of attempts we pulled
in under the schooner’s stern and three of us swung aboard while Les
Perkins and Pete Simonds held the dory.
“When we got on the schooner’s deck we found that the sea had swept
her clean of anything that might have identified her. The name plates
looked as if a mighty hand had wrenched them loose and great cuts
showed in the bow and stern where they had been. There wasn’t a
sound but the pounding of the waves along her side. It made a queer
sussh-sussh that didn’t seem to come from where the water touched her.
We broke open the hatches and went down in her--two by two. Wasn’t a
man of us who dast go down there alone, for you never can tell what
you’re going to find in a wrecked ship’s cabin. We looked all about,
but no one was in the place and I don’t believe that any one was on
her when she struck. The crew’s quarters were in order but the cabin
appeared as if there had been a struggle there, though the sea might
have done it, tossing things about. Then we searched her careful but
found no log nor no papers. Some clothes were scattered here and there
but the pockets were empty and turned wrongside foremost. She had no
cargo and the fire was still a-going in the stove.”
Mr. Bailey had another cup of coffee and drank it silently while the
Seymours waited for the rest of the story.
“Well, that’s how she came in,” he said at last.
“But what makes you think there are spirits on board?” asked Mr.
Seymour. “There must have been something more than you have told us, to
make you believe that.”
“Yes, there is more to it,” admitted Fred, “but if I was to tell ye
you’d think me foolish.”
“We’d never think that, I can assure you,” said Mrs. Seymour quickly.
“If we had been with you on the schooner probably we should be feeling
exactly as you do about her.”
“Perhaps you might, and perhaps you might not. I would think that the
trouble was with me if it hadn’t been for the other men, but every one
of them down to the cove would back me up in what I say. And I might as
well tell you, because if I don’t some one else will, no doubt.
“We had almost finished searching when I got a sort of feeling that
some one or something was peering at me. I kept looking around behind
me, and then I noticed that the other men were doing the same thing.
There was nothin’ there. We kind of looked at each other and laughed
at first. But soon it was all I could do to keep from running around
the next corner to catch whatever was behind it. We did our search
thorough, but I can tell you I was glad when Les Perkins pulled the
dory under the stern and I could drop into her. None of us hankered to
stay aboard that ship.”
In spite of herself Ann shivered and was glad when her mother hugged
her reassuringly.
“Two days after that,” Fred continued, “we picked up four men who
had been washed in by the sea. We are God-fearing people up here and
I couldn’t understand why the folks in the village wouldn’t put those
sailors in the churchyard, but some of the people were foolish and
said those men should not be put in consecrated ground, coming out of
the sea like that. I didn’t know quite what to do, and I suppose I
should have taken them out and put them back into the sea, the way most
sailormen are done by when they’re dead. But I didn’t decide to do that
way; I buried them with my own people, yonder in the field, and they
lie there marked by four bits of sandstone.
“Jo and I have been back on the boat several times, for we felt we had
a duty by her, lying at our door as she does, but we can’t find a trace
of anything to identify her and we both had that feeling that something
there is wrong. Something was watching us all the time we were on her.
So I’ve given up trying to think where she came from or who sailed on
her, for such things a man like me is not supposed to know. Spirits
from the sea no doubt came on board during the storm and threw the crew
overside. But if those spirits are there now I don’t understand why the
sea don’t claim her and break her up. Sea seems to be shoving her back
on the land as though it wanted to be rid of her.”
“That is a great story, Fred,” said Mr. Seymour. “And I can sympathize
with the way you felt; it must have taken a great deal of courage to go
back to her when you and Jo looked her over. And you have never seen
anything move on the boat?”
Ann wanted to tell about the light she had seen there last night, but
that was her discovery and she so hoped to be the one to solve the
mystery! She said not a word about it.
“Nary a sight of anything have we ever had,” Fred answered.
“Very strange indeed,” said Mr. Seymour. “What about the coast guard?
Of course you reported the ship to them. Weren’t they able to discover
anything?”
Ann knew already of the blue-uniformed men who patrolled the shores of
the United States on foot and in small boats, men who were stationed
at dangerous points to look for ships in distress and help them, men
who were always ready to risk their own lives in their efforts to bring
shipwrecked sailors ashore.
“Yes, they came,” Fred answered. “They went aboard her, and they took
her measurements, her type and capacity, but they could find no record
of such a boat nor the report of any missing boat of her description.
And because there was no salvage on her and as she didn’t lie in such
a way as to be a menace to shipping they left her for the sea to break
up--and that’s going to take a long time, by the rate she’s going now.”
“I’d like to go on her,” Mr. Seymour said. “Would you be willing to
take me?”
“Any time,” Fred assented. “Any time you pick out as long as the sun
shines.”
“What about now?” Mr. Seymour smiled into Fred’s steady blue eyes.
“Just as good a time as any,” agreed Mr. Bailey, rising from his chair.
Ann’s eyes were beseeching but she knew that her father would not be
willing to have her go, too, so she did not ask. He stopped an instant
as he passed her on his way to the door and gave her a pat of approval,
for he was perfectly aware of how much she wanted to see the boat.
“If I find there is nothing on the ship,” he said, “you can play there
to your heart’s content.”
Fred heard, and he shook his head dubiously. But he said nothing more.
The two went out together and down the meadow toward the schooner.
Ann watched them, and as she stood in the doorway she noticed that
the figurehead on the bow had completely lost its twilight menace, as
her father had foretold. This morning it looked exactly as it was, a
battered wooden statue almost too badly carved to resemble anything.
The arms that she had thought were stretched above its head now seemed
to be wings and the expression of the face was almost peaceful.
She watched the men as they climbed on deck and then she turned back to
the cheerful cottage and her work.
“What brave men these fishermen are!” said Mrs. Seymour. “And they
don’t seem to realize it, particularly. It is all in the day’s work.
Think of Jo’s walking five miles through heavy snow to bring help!”
Ann nodded. In her enthusiasm she stopped sweeping and leaned on her
broom while she talked. “I’d like to have been here with them. Mother,
I think I’d have found something on that boat!”
Her mother laughed. “Perhaps. You surely would have seen if anything
had been there. But Mr. Bailey’s eyes are keen, too.”
“Y-e-s,” admitted Ann. “Aren’t he and Jo nice people! It is much more
exciting here than going to school and walking across the Common. Don’t
you think that I could stay here next winter and not go back to town?”
Her mother laughed again. “It is rather early to talk of next winter.
School is a bit more important than adventures for you until you are a
few years older.”
“I know that you are right,” Ann apologized. “Only I think that I will
study to be a farmer.”
“Very well,” agreed her mother. “But don’t grow up too fast, my darling
Ann. Promise me you won’t.”
Ann’s broom began to work fast. “If I have to grow up,” Ann said, as
she swept under tables and chairs, “you can be sure that I am not going
to sit around playing bridge with a lot of dressed-up people. No!
I’m going to wear overalls and buy a ranch. I might take Jo in as a
partner, but I haven’t decided on that yet, and I haven’t asked him.”