THE CAPTAIN CALLS
They reached the island about four-thirty, and the remainder of the day
was crowded with things waiting to be done.
“Right now, in the beginning, let’s start with some system,” said Kate.
“If we don’t we’ll all be getting in each other’s way. Polly, come in
here and stop gazing at the water. Help me plan the house. There are
three rooms upstairs, just plain boarded chambers, but they’ll do to
sleep in if the nights are not too hot. I ordered a bolt of mosquito
netting, and we must start in to-morrow to tack it up. There are five
cots upstairs, but only one bed downstairs, in the bedroom off the
kitchen. Can you figure out where we are all to rest our weary heads? I
give it up.”
Polly considered.
“Let’s give Aunty the full grown bed, because she’s old and will have
all the cooking and washing and ironing to do. I guess we’ll have to get
two more cots. When grandfather goes back to the hotel, we can ask him
to send them up to us.”
“Where will you put them?” asked Kate, quite calmly. “On the porch?”
“No, ma’am. Right in this room. Daytimes we can turn them into divans.”
“Isn’t she a wonderful schemer?” Sue put her head in at the open window
and laughed. “Where did you pack the chafing dish?”
“In my little suitcase. Why?”
“Aunty says we may have supper out on the porch and save trouble.”
“Then I’ll fix lobster _a la_ Newburg in a jiffy.” Polly forgot all
about beds and such ordinary things, and rose at once, but the majestic
form of Welcome appeared in the kitchen doorway and waved a cooking
spoon in her direction.
“Deed, an’ you ain’t a-going to eat any sech mess before bedtime,” she
said firmly. “Yo’ keep your patience in evidence, chile, and your
obstreperousness in subjection, and I’ll have some frizzled eggs ready
before you know it, and some toast and marmalade.”
The Admiral had declined staying for tea that first night. He had looked
the entire place over, and, as Polly remarked, noticed points they never
would have thought of, the drainage, the shingles, and the condition of
the cellar. He even went down to the boat landing, and examined its
supports and noted the high tide marks along its piling.
“Seas went all the way over there, didn’t they, Tom?” he asked,
casually.
“Well, yes, sir,” acknowledged Tom. “They always do slosh over some in
heavy weather. Ours do too. When the February gales hit the Sickle, I
tell you, we all jam down pretty close to keep from being blown clean
off.”
“How about the bay? Do you get many bad puffs out there? It looks fairly
well sheltered.”
Tom nodded his head with comradely understanding. As he told his father
that night, the Admiral and he were good mates, and understood each
other perfectly.
“Oh, it blows up now and then, but if any storms should hit us, don’t
you worry. Father and I’ll keep a weather eye on the Knob. You see the
beach patrol passes about six hundred yards over to seaward. Sometimes I
tramp it with the men from the Station, because I’m going as soon as I’m
old enough.”
“You couldn’t do a braver thing, my lad,” responded the Admiral,
thoughtfully. “I feel like saluting every time I see one of the boys who
wear the fouled anchor on their sleeve. They are a courageous lot.”
While Aunty Welcome was busy preparing supper, the girls went off down
the beach, hatless and happy, with sweaters buttoned to their chins, for
the evenings were chilly along the shore.
Polly and Sue were ahead, and the rest followed as they pleased. The
tide was in full and high, and they laughed and shouted to see the long,
foamy swirls of water slip up the beach, up and up, each time a little
bit farther, till they all sprang back for fear of wet feet.
“Doesn’t it make you think of all the sea stories you ever read?” cried
Polly, her eyes shining, her long curls blown back by the wind. “When I
feel the wind like that in my face, I want to be a viking, and stand
right up in the prow of a boat, and sail, sail right out into the
sunset.”
“You’d look like the Winged Victory,” called Kate. “But I know what you
mean. Like this?” She opened her white sweater coat, and held it wide to
the wind, like wings. “It makes you feel like a gull.”
“Oh, my feet are wet, girls.” Ted sat down on a rock, and deliberately
took off her low tan shoes. “What’s the difference? I’m going barefooted
and have some fun.”
Five minutes later Aunty Welcome looked out of the kitchen door and saw
a sight that made her fairly gasp. Carrying their shoes and stockings, a
line of barefooted girls clambered up the mass of rocks at the Knob.
“Well, for de land’s sakes,” cried Aunty. “Who’d believe dose wasn’t a
pack ob gypsies?”
But the girls waved back to her, and she had to laugh over the sight
after all.
“Those rocks up there are the highest part of the island,” said Polly.
“Let’s go clear up to the top.”
The girls clambered after her, over the slippery rocks, rocks that were
gray with barnacles down along their sides. The water had filled up all
the little hollows, and Polly bent down over one to examine it.
“Just look, girls,” she said. “These are limpets, the kind that open
their shells to the tide, as if they were thirsty. You know them, Ruth.”
“_Patella pellucida_, semi-transparent, sticks to fronds of seaweed,”
responded “Grandma,” in her deliberate way.
She lifted a long, wet strand of seaweed, and waved it in the air.
Something fell off.
“It’s a crab,” said Ted. “Look at him play ’possum.”
Ruth poked at the shell diligently, until she turned it over on its
back.
“It’s a horse-shoe crab,” she said. “They call them king crabs too. They
shed their shells, and then they are the soft shelled crabs. They’re
regular fighters unless you catch one with a new shell, then he’s tame
enough.”
“What are hermit crabs, Ruth?” asked Sue.
“I don’t know why they call them hermits, unless it’s because they steal
other shells and live in them.”
“Hermits don’t do that, Ruth. They’re just people who isolate themselves
from the world.”
“Well, these crabs like to live all by themselves. They hunt up snails,
and eat the snail and steal its shell. Sometimes two crabs will fight
over the same shell.”
“Just like people,” Sue said. “I think it’s awfully queer how much
people and animals and fishes and everything look and act alike. Maybe
we’re much closer related than we think.”
“Now, Sue, I refuse to have this crab’s pedigree traced to mine,”
laughed Kate. “Throw him back into the sea.”
“That’s good,” said Crullers, solemnly. “Maybe he’s the father of a
large family.”
Polly tossed it back into the next upcurling wave, and they all made up
some poetry on the spot, and chanted joyously.
“Oh, I am a family crab, so treat me quite tenderly.
There are generations down below, and they’re all awaiting for me.
I’ve sisters and cousins and aunts, and some great-grand-children too.
So I beg you not to cook me into crab _a la_ Newburg stew.”
Suddenly a hail came from the main shore, and they were silent. It was
past sunset, and a soft twilight afterglow was settling over the world.
Coming along the ridge of sand from the Point was a lone figure, and
from where they stood it looked immensely tall, outlined against the
clear orange of the southern sky. Even while they hesitated, wondering
who it could be, Nancy’s clear voice called far down the shore,
“Ahoy, dad, ahoy!”
“It’s the Captain,” said Polly, starting to put on her stockings
instantly. “Hurry, and catch up with him. Nancy says she goes to meet
him every night.”
They slipped on shoes and stockings quickly, and ran back to the house
just in time to see Nancy and the Captain crossing the hummocks. Polly
never forgot that first look she had of Captain Ben Carey of the Sickle
Point Life Saving Station. Tom was a pretty good reproduction of him,
but there was something in the Captain’s expression that Tom lacked, a
curious look in his deep blue eyes, as though they had always gazed out
over wide distances. He was tall and broad shouldered and mighty, the
girls thought. His face was smooth-shaven, but tanned and weather-beaten
and crisped into innumerable fine wrinkles, until Sue declared it made
her think of a baked apple. His hair was thick and curly like Tom’s, and
his closely shut lips seemed to be ever smiling out at a world that even
its Maker could still pronounce good as He had at its first dawning. But
it was his voice that Polly loved best. Such a rich, hearty voice it
was, with a rollicking roll to it when it burst into a sailor boy
“come—all—ye,” and a deep, resonant tone in speaking that simply won
your heart.
“Ahoy, there, ahoy,” he shouted back, as they called to Nancy and him,
and then Polly saw that he was to be their best friend all that long
happy summer.
“It’s this way, you see,” he told them all, when they had led him up on
the porch of the cottage, and gathered around for good advice. “I’ve
told the Admiral that he may leave you here alone any time, and we’ll
all keep an eye on you. Tom and he were down to the Point awhile back,
and had a talk.”
“And he told us he was going back to the hotel,” said Polly.
“Well, he changed his course. He says to me, ‘Cap’n, do you think
they’ll be able to handle a lot of yachts alone?’ And I told him, ‘Leave
’em to me, sir, with an easy conscience. I’ll keep my mind on them, and
so will Mrs. Carey, and so will the children. And as for handling the
boats, why, Lord love you, there ain’t nothing over fifteen foot in the
lot.’ My Nancy here runs all over the bay in Tom’s knockabout, the
_Pirate_, and her own catboat. She’s been out around the Point too,
alone, in fair weather. And she’s only thirteen. Tom is going on
sixteen, and I guess betwixt the two of them, you’ll turn into able
seamen, and learn how to handle a boat. If you don’t, they won’t sink
anyhow. You want to learn how to swim, every girl jack of you, first of
all. What would you do out in the bay if the boat took a notion to stand
on her beam ends, and ship a lot of water clean over into the cockpit?
I’m a believer in swimming. It’s a good deal like unto the Kingdom of
Heaven, I’m thinking. Learn how to swim first, and all these things
shall be added unto you.” He smiled around at the circle of young faces,
and rose. “Come on, Nancy. Mother’ll have supper piping hot, and she’ll
give us pickles if we’re late.”
“Oh, please wait just a minute,” begged Polly. “We have so much to ask
you, you know. You believe in prevention first, don’t you?”
“Prevention first,” answered the Captain, a trifle gravely. “Indeed I
do, indeed I do; with over a thousand youngsters dying off every year at
our summer resorts, just from carelessness in swimming and handling
boats when they don’t know how to do either one right. Why, if I had my
way, I’d take every land lubber in the lot, and put them through a
course of sprouts, so they could qualify for a volunteer life saver ever
after. Yes, I would.”
“I can’t swim,” said Sue, ruefully. “And Polly and Kate and Ted can only
paddle around a little, and they think they could save all of us.”
“Then not one of you can go out in a yacht alone until you can all swim
like a school of tommycods,” said the Captain, positively. “If I’m to be
responsible for this station, I’m going to have things shipshape and
seamanlike. To-morrow morning every one of you be ready at ten sharp,
and Nancy and I’ll be over and teach you how to keep your chins out of
water, anyway. And not one boat shall Tom bring over until you have
learned.”
“Captain,” asked Polly, seriously, leaning forward with her chin on her
palms, “Did anything ever happen to make you feel that way?”
The Captain eyed her whimsically.
“Found me out, didn’t you? Well, I don’t care. I’ll tell you about it,
and maybe it will make you keep an eye on the buoys and signal lights. I
used to have a knockabout called the _Three Widows_—”
“What a funny name for a boat!” exclaimed Crullers.
“She was named before I got her, by a skipper out of Noank, down on the
Connecticut coast. Pretty light she was, too, and frisky in a gale. Tom
and I could haul her close, but I didn’t let her out to any of the
summer folks. Cats and flaties are the best for them, and then they
can’t drown unless they jump overboard. But, anyway, this day I had been
on duty down at the Point all night, and it was late before I got home.
It was in September, and we’d had a regular run of nor’westers with
thunder storms and general equinoctial cut-ups. Most of the summer folks
had gone home except a few down at the hotel, and while I was on duty
they persuaded Tom they could sail the _Three Widows_. And they didn’t
know when to stop.” The Captain paused to let this part of his narrative
sink deeply into the memories of his listeners.
“They sailed clear out around the Point, and when the big sea hit her
just outside the channel in the open, she keeled over like a pasteboard
box. We’d seen them by that time. Billy Clewen, the keeper at the
station, sings out to us, and we got the boat out. There were five
aboard, three lads and two of their sisters. Three went down while we
were getting to them, two boys and a girl.” The Captain cleared his
throat, and before he continued he looked out over the bay for a minute
to where a lone star had lighted its signal fire in the eastern sky.
“The last one of the lads managed to get his sister where she could get
a grip on the centerboard, and the two of them clung until we took them
off.”
“And the rest?” asked Polly, softly.
“That’s what I’m telling you. There wasn’t any rest left. None of them
could swim an inch, and they went down. And that night their fathers and
mothers came down along the Sickle yonder, and they walked the beach
with us men, walked hour after hour, and sometimes the women folks would
break down and cry. I found one of the lads myself, and brought him back
to his mother, and while my heart sympathized with her, my common sense
asked why in tunket she hadn’t taught the lad to swim and manage a boat
right before she’d let him come nigh salt water. There won’t be any boys
or girls that I have dealings with go into it till they can swim like a
tommycod. That’s all. To-morrow at ten.”
“We’ll be ready, Captain Carey,” Polly promised. After the captain and
Nancy had gone, the girls were rather subdued for a while, thinking over
the Captain’s words, and as they stood out on the porch after supper,
and looked seaward, they thought of what that night’s vigil along the
lonely shore must have been, waiting for the bodies of the loved ones to
be washed up by the waves.
It was strangely quiet away out there on the little island. They could
hear the running feet of the surf along the shore, and its steady break
against the rocks up at the Knob. The darkness seemed to fold itself
around them like a tangible presence, but it brought no sense of fear,
rather of peace and restfulness.
Over on the bay shore there were plenty of lights to keep them company.
As Ted said, the hotel looked like a Mississippi steamboat with its
triple rows of bright lights. Far out on the end of the Sickle, they
could see the Point light blinking like some great eye.
“Oh, look, Polly,” cried Isabel. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Polly leaned on the veranda railing and nodded absently, her eyes half
closed like the Captain’s, as she watched the bay.
“It makes me feel as though somebody were watching us,” she said.
“Doesn’t it seem queer to think that while we are all asleep, the life
savers patrol the beach, taking care of things. Grandfather’s a sort of
a coast patrol. He’s on the retired list, Rear-Admiral Robert L. Page,
you know. He cannot go to sea any more on active duty, but he’s our
coast patrol, and he sees that all wrecks are looked after, and relief
sent. I think he’d make a good one.”
“You don’t mean that really, do you, Polly?” Isabel never could catch a
figure of speech until it had been fully explained to her. But Polly
only smiled and straightening up she started to sing, her full, young
soprano voice floating out clearly on the still night air.
“Sunset, and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea.”
Softly the other girls came from the inner room, and joined in the old,
sweet words.
“But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
“Twilight and evening bell.
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark.
“But though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.”
There was silence for a few minutes, then Aunty Welcome’s voice came
from the kitchen, in agonized accents,
“For de mercy sakes alive, he’s got me by mah toe!”
Sue was the first to grasp the situation, and she made a frantic dash
for the door.
“It’s my pet crab,” she exclaimed. “I found him down on the rocks after
you girls had gone away, and I brought him back and put him into a tin
can in the kitchen so we could tame him.”
“Tame a crab, you goose,” cried Polly, and she followed at headlong
speed, for Aunty’s wails rose higher and higher.
The crab had managed to wriggle out of the tin can where Sue had left
him to meditate, and had started on a leisurely examination of the
kitchen floor. Aunty Welcome’s big toe had proved a happy diversion, as
she was going to bed, and he had caught at it instantly. Polly
disconnected him with difficulty, took him down the beach, and threw him
out into the water.
“Now, you stay there, you family crab,” she cried.
“Oh, Polly, how cruel, when I wanted to tame him and study his
construction,” Sue protested.
“I reckon that was what he was trying to do to Aunty, study her
construction,” laughed Polly. “Let’s turn in now. And, say, girls,” she
paused a minute, her face suddenly sober and earnest. “I don’t know just
what it is, but doesn’t it truly seem as if we were nearer Heaven away
out here? I wonder why? And didn’t you notice that the Captain and Tom
speak of God as if they almost knew Him, instead of just worshiping Him?
Did you hear them singing ‘Pull for the Shore,’ as they walked down the
shore road to-night? While we are all here, let’s say our evening prayer
together out on the porch, and put in the one about ‘all perils and
dangers of this night.’ You know, Ruth.”
So out there in the darkness the girls knelt, with their heads bent on
the railing looking seaward, while Ruth’s voice led them in the
beautiful old evening prayer.
“‘Lighten our darkness we beseech Thee, O Lord, and of Thy great mercy
save and defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the
love of Thy only son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.’”
And from the far corner of the veranda, they heard Aunty Welcome’s
deep-toned response, “Amen, chile, Amen.”
So ended the first day on Lost Island.