SOME LOBSTERS
It was strange. As Donald Bracket shaded his eyes to peer into the
driving fog he seemed to see a face. The muscles of that face were
twisted into a smile. Not a pleasant smile, it came near being a leer.
Of course, there was no face; only an after image that had somehow crept
up from the shadowy recesses of his brain. A very vivid image, it
remained there against the fog for many seconds before it slowly faded.
“Peter Tomingo,” he said to himself. “It’s fairly spooky, as if he had
sent us out to get into this mess, knowing we’d fall into it.
“But then,” he thought a moment later as he steered his sloop square into
the heart of a great wave, “he didn’t know. No one could foretell such a
storm four days in advance. Besides, he couldn’t count on my coming out
this very day.”
“Whew!” He caught his breath. Cutting its way through the crest of the
wave, his twenty-foot fishing boat went plunging down the other side. For
a matter of seconds the air about him was all white spray. This passed,
but the driving fog remained.
“Good thing the canvas is there.” He tightened a rope that held a
protecting canvas across the prow of his boat. “Be dangerous to get one’s
motor wet in such a blow. Might be fatal.”
Once more, wrinkling his brow, he stared into the fog. “Wish I could
sight Monhegan. Wish——”
An exclamation escaped his lips. He drew his hands hastily across his
eyes. The face, the crafty smile, were there again. The lips appeared to
move. They seemed to be saying:
“The shoal is just there. Plenty da lobsters. Plenty big. Wanta go. Boat
too small, mine. Too far froma da shore. Plenty da lobster. Get reech
queek.”
“Well, anyway, he told the truth,” Don said to himself. “There are
lobsters aplenty.” He glanced down at a crate where a mass of legs, eyes
and great green pinchers squirmed and twisted while the boat, worried by
the ever increasing storm, rolled and pitched like a bit of drift in a
mountain cataract.
He threw a look at the two water drenched girls, Pearl and Ruth, who sat
huddled in the prow, and his brow wrinkled.
“Have to get out of this,” he told himself, taking a fresh grip on his
steering stick. “Only question is, where?”
That indeed was the question. Fifteen miles to the westward was the
mainland and rocky shores little known to him. He was far from his usual
fishing ground. Somewhere out there in the fog, perhaps very near,
scarcely a mile long, a mere granite boulder jutting out of the sea, was
the island called Monhegan. Smaller rocks jutting up from the sea formed
a safe harbor for this island. Once there he could weather the storm in
safety. Again he shaded his eyes to peer into the fog.
For a full moment, with straining eyes, he stood there motionless. Then
of a sudden a sigh of satisfaction escaped his lips. Towering a hundred
or more feet above the sea, a bold headline loomed before him.
“Black Head,” he whispered. “That’s better.”
Touching his lever, he set his boat at a slight angle to the rushing
waves, then took a deep breath. The battle was begun, not finished. The
channel that led to Monhegan’s cozy harbor was narrow. It was guarded by
nature’s sentinels—black and frowning rocks on one side, reefs booming
and white on the other. Many a stauncher boat than his had turned back
before these perils. The rocky shore of Monhegan has taken its toll of
lives all down the years.
“It is to be a battle,” he exulted, “and I shall win!”
In the meantime, while his immediate attention was devoted to the present
struggle, the questions regarding Tomingo and the lobster industry were
revolving themselves in the back of his mind.
They, the three of them, Don, Ruth and Pearl, had reached the mainland
nearest to the island of Monhegan, Booth Bay Harbor, in safety. There
they had taken up their abode in an abandoned fisherman’s shack. Shortly
after that Don had met Tomingo.
To Tomingo he had confided his plans for lobster trapping. Tomingo had
told him of the reef far out from the mainland, but near Monhegan, where
the lobster fishing was unusually good. Without thinking much about it,
he had followed the tip. The weather had been fine. Having piled his
motor boat high with lobster pots, he had gone pop-popping away toward
Monhegan.
He had experienced no difficulty in finding the long sunken reef Tomingo
had pointed out on the chart. He had baited his pots with codfish heads,
then dropped them one by one along the reef. After adjusting the bright
red floats, each marked with his initials, he had cast an appraising eye
along the tossing string of them, then turned his boat’s prow toward his
shack.
“Fifteen miles is a long way to come for lobsters,” he had thought to
himself. “But the reefs close in are fished out. If the catch is good
I’ll do well enough.”
A two days’ storm had kept him from his traps. The morning of this, the
third day, had promised fair weather; so with his sister and cousin on
board, he had ventured out. Nature had kept but half her promise. Fair
weather had continued while he was visiting the shoal. The work of
lifting the traps had been particularly difficult. Ruth had given him a
ready hand at this. Six traps were fairly loaded with lobsters. A seventh
had been torn in pieces by a fifteen pound codfish that had blundered
into it. Another trap had been demolished by a dogfish. All the other
traps had yielded a fair harvest.
“It sure was a good catch,” the boy told himself as he thought of it now.
“Never had a better.”
“But that Tomingo,” he thought again. “Why did he tell me about it, me, a
stranger and an American?”
That, indeed, was a question worthy of consideration. The conflict
between native born and foreign born fishermen all along the Maine coast
has for many long years been a hard-fought and bitter one. At times
floats have been cut and traps set adrift and sharp battles fought with
fists and clubbed oars. It seemed inconceivable, now that he thought of
it, that any foreigner should have told him of this rich fishing ground.
“It is true,” he told himself, “that Tomingo’s boat is smaller and less
seaworthy than mine. I wouldn’t want to come this far in it myself. But
some of his friends and fellow countrymen have far better boats than
mine. Why should they not fish that shoal?”
He could not answer this question. “There’s a trick in it somewhere, I’ll
be bound, and I’ll find it soon enough without doubt. Meanwhile there is
business at hand.”
And, indeed, there was. The frowning rocks of Black Head, Burnt Head and
Skull Rock loomed squarely before him. He had been told enough to know
that this was the back of the island, that he must round the point to the
left, circle half about the island and enter from the other side.
“Going to be a hard pull,” he said, setting his teeth hard, “but if the
old engine stays with me I’ll make it.”
The memory of that next hour will remain with the boy as long as the
stars shine down upon him and the sun brightens his mornings.
The wind, the fog, the storm, the falling night. Above the roar of the
sea a long-drawn voice, hoarse and insistent, never ending, the voice of
Manana, the great fog horn that, driven by great engines, watched over
night and day, warned of rocky shoals and disaster.
With that voice sounding in his ears, with damp spray cutting sharply
across his face, with his light craft like a frightened rabbit leaping
from wave to wave, he steered clear of Black Head, White Head and Skull
Rock, to round the point and come swinging round toward the narrow
entrance where he would find safe haven or a grave.
He was heading for what he believed to be the channel when a light
creeping slowly across the sky caught and held his attention. It was
growing dark now, difficult to see ten yards before him. He needed to get
in at once. For all this, the mysterious light intrigued him. Beginning
at the right, it moved slowly over a narrow arc against the black sky.
Pausing for the merest fraction of a second, it appeared to retrace its
way over an invisible celestial way.
“What can it be?” For a moment he was bewildered. Then, like a flash it
came to him. He was looking at the crest of the great rock that lay
before Monhegan. On Monhegan a powerful light was set. As it played
backward and forward it tinged the crest of Manana, as the rock was
called, with a faint halo of glory.
“What a boon to the sailor!” he thought. “What real heroes are those who
live on this bleak island winter and summer! What—”
His thoughts broke straight off. Before him he had caught an appalling
sound, the rush of surf beating upon a rocky shoal.
Reflected from Manana, a single gleam of light gave him further warning.
The shoals were just before him. The waves there were breaking mountain
high. Turning his boat squarely about, he set his engine to doing its
best and trusted himself to the trough of a wave. Instantly there came a
drenching crash of cold black water.
He clung desperately to his course. Any moment the engine, deluged by a
greater sea, might go dead. Then would come the end.
“But there’s no other way.” He set his teeth hard.
Once more he caught the moving gleam across the sky. That gleam saved
him. He held to a course perpendicular to its line of motion as long as
he dared. Then, swinging through a quarter circle he shot straight ahead.
Five minutes later, drenched to the skin, panting from excitement and
well nigh exhausted, but now quite safe, he ran his boat alongside a punt
where a yellow light gleamed.
“Hello!” said a voice. A lantern held high revealed a boyish face.
“Pretty lucky you got in. Nasty night. Some blow!” said the boy.
“Wouldn’t have made it,” said Don, “only I caught the gleam on the crest
of Manana. It guided me in.”
“Tie up,” invited the boy. “I’ll take you ashore in my punt.”
“What you got there?” he asked in a surprised tone as the light of his
lantern fell upon the crate.
“Lobsters,” said Don.
“Lobsters?” The boy let out a whistle of surprise. “Where’d you get ’em?”
“On a shoal, little way out.” Don hadn’t meant to tell that. He hadn’t
liked the sound of that whistle. He spoke before he thought.
“You’d better watch out,” said the other boy. Then without allowing time
for further remarks, “All set? Hop in then. I got to go ashore. The gang
will be looking for me.”
As the young stranger rowed the two girls and Don ashore, Don wondered
over his strange warning.
“You better look out!” What could he have meant? He wanted to ask.
Natural reserve held him back.
Only once during the short journey was the silence broken. They were
passing a boat covered with canvas and sunk to the gunwale.
“What’s that for?” Don asked.
“Lobster pond. Keep lobsters there.”
“Why do they keep them?”
“There are a hundred or more of us summer folks out here,” the other boy
explained. “We like a lobster salad now and then. They keep them for us.
Mighty decent of them to bother. A fine lot, these fishermen. Real
sports.”
Don thought it strange that lobsters should be kept when there was a
steady market for them and they were to be caught out here with
comparative ease. However, he asked no further questions.
“Thanks for the lift.” He stood looking up at the few lights that gleamed
through the fog. “Suppose I’ll have to stay here all night.”
“Suppose so. I’d take you to our cottage, but it’s small. We’re full up.
Couldn’t crowd one more in an end. There’s a summer hotel up yonder.”
“Summer hotel. Four dollars up. Society folks.” Don looked down at his
sodden garments. “No, thanks. Where do the fisherfolk live? I’m one of
them.”
“Why——” The boy appeared surprised. “Captain Field lives just down there
beyond the wharf. But you wouldn’t go there?”
“Wouldn’t? Why not?” Something in the other boy’s tone angered Donald.
“You ought to know.” The boy’s tone was sharp. He turned to go.
“But I don’t.”
“Then you’re dumb. That’s all I have to say for you. You’re breaking into
the closed season on lobsters. You couldn’t do anything worse.”
“The closed season!” Don’s eyes opened wide. “You’re crazy. There’s no
closed season on lobsters, not in the State of Maine.”
“On Monhegan there is, and believe me it’s tight closed. Try it out and
see.”
“But that would have to be a law. No one owns the shoals.”
“Guess if you lived on this rocky island winter and summer, heat, cold,
supplies, no supplies, if you took it all as it came, you’d feel that you
owned the shoals. That’s the way the folks here feel. They want time to
fish for cod and take summer parties about, so they haul up their traps
and call June to November a closed season.
“Listen!” The other boy’s tone was kindly now. “You seem a decent sort. I
don’t know what got you out here. But you go back. Take your traps with
you. When people live in a place like this they’ve got a right to make a
few laws. Know those Italian fishermen over at the Bay?” he asked
suddenly.
“Yes, one of them. Tomingo.”
“Tomingo. That’s his name. He’s their leader. They tried trapping on the
Monhegan shoals. Know what happened? Someone cut their floats. Never
found their traps, nor the lobsters in ’em. Goodnight. Wish you luck.”
The boy disappeared into the fog.
So that was it! And that was why Tomingo was so willing to direct him to
rich lobster fields! Don sat limply down upon a rock. The two girls stood
staring at him in silence.
“He wanted to keep us off any ground he might wish to trap on, and wanted
to repay a debt to these Monheganites,” he said to his companions.
For five minutes he sat there enshrouded in fog, buried in thought.
“Closed season!” he exploded at last. “What nonsense! Who ever heard of
such a thing? Of course, we won’t pay any attention to it. And if they
cut my floats I’ll have them in jail for it. There are laws enough
against that.”
With this resolve firmly fixed in his mind, but with an uneasy feeling
lurking there as well, he thought once more of supper and a bed for the
night.
“We’ll go to this Captain Field’s place,” he said to the girls. “I’ll
tell him I am a fisherman from Peak’s Island. That’s true. I’ll get an
early start in the morning. He need never know about my catch of
lobsters.”
With this settled in his mind he led the way round the bank, across the
wharf and up the grass grown path that led to the dimly gleaming light
that shone from Captain Field’s window.
A half hour later, with thoughts of the forbidden lobsters crowded far
back in the hidden recesses of their minds, the trio found themselves
doing full justice to great steaming bowls of clam chowder topped by a
wedge of native blueberry pie.
All this time and for a long while after, Don talked of sails and
fishing, nets, harpoons, and long sea journeys with his smiling,
lean-faced and fit appearing host. Captain Field, though still a young
man, had earned his papers well, for he had sailed the Atlantic in every
type of craft and had once shipped as a harpooner on a swordfishing boat
outfitted in Portland harbor.
As they talked Don’s eyes roved from corner to corner of the cabin.
Everything within was scrupulously clean, but painfully plain, much of it
hand hewn with rough and ready tools.
As if reading his thoughts, the young Captain smiled as he said:
“There’s not a lot of money to be had on Monhegan. The ground’s too rough
for farming or cattle. We fish in summer and trap lobsters in winter. But
we must have an eye on the purse strings every day of the year.”
As he said this a curly-haired girl of eight and a brown-faced boy of six
came to kneel by their mother’s knee to say their goodnight prayers.
As he bowed his head with them, something very like a stab ran through
Don’s heart and a voice seemed to whisper:
“You are a thief. You are robbing these little ones and their honest
parents of their bread. They endure all the hardships of the year. You
come to reap a golden harvest from their lobster fields while their backs
are turned.”
He retired soon after. The bed they gave him was a good one. He was
tired, yet he did not sleep. For a full hour he thrashed about. Then a
sudden resolve put him to rest.
As is the way with persons endowed with particularly splendid physique,
Ruth, in the broad rope bed beside her cousin, fell asleep at once. She
had wrestled long that day with trap lines. The struggle to reach shore
had been fatiguing. Her sleep was sweet and dreamless.
Not so with Pearl. Her mind ever filled with fancy, was now overflowing.
She was now on Monhegan, the island of her dreams. She recalled as if
they were told yesterday the tales she had heard told of this island by
her seafaring uncle before she was old enough to go to school.
“Oh, Uncle,” she had cried. “Take me there! Take me to Monhegan!”
“Some day, child,” he had promised.
Alas, poor man, he had not lived to fulfill his promise. Like many
another brave fisherman, he had lost his life on the dreary banks of
Newfoundland.
“Dear Uncle,” she whispered as her throat tightened, “now I am here.
Here! And I know you must be glad.”
The storm was still on. She could hear the distant beat of waves on Black
Head, Burnt Head and Skull Rock. The great fog horn still sent out its
message from Manana.
“Hoo-who-ee-Whoo-oo!” Sometimes rising, sometimes falling, it seemed a
measureless human voice shouting in the night. The sound of it was
haunting.
Rising and wrapping a blanket about her, the girl went to the low window
sill, to drop upon the floor and sit there staring into the night.
There was little enough to see. The night was black. But across the crest
of that great rock, the spot of light played incessantly.
“Fifteen miles out to sea,” she thought. “Seems strange. One does not
feel that this house rested on land. It is more as if this were a ship’s
cabin, the lighthouse our search light, the fog horn our signal, and we
sail on and on into the night. We——”
She was awakened from this dream by an unfamiliar sound, thundering that
was not waves beating a shore, that might have been the roar of the
distant battle front.
A moment passed, and then she knew.
“A seaplane,” she thought suddenly. “And on such a night! Why, that can
mean only one thing, a trans-Atlantic flyer!”
How her heart leaped at the thought! She recalled with a tremor the day
she got news of “Lindy’s marvelous achievement.”
Such flyers had become fairly common now. Yet she had never seen one in
his flight.
“If he comes near enough,” she said to herself, straining her eyes in a
vain attempt to pierce the inky blackness of the night.
Then a new thought striking her all of a heap set her shuddering. “What
if he does not realize he is near Monhegan? If he is flying low, he will
crash.”
Involuntarily a little prayer went up for the lone navigator of the night
air.
Nor was the prayer unheeded. As she looked a dark spot appeared over
Manana. Then the plane came into full view. As if set to the task, the
light from the island beacon followed the aviator in his flight. Ten
seconds he was in full view. Then he was gone, passed on into the night.
“Why!” the girl exclaimed, catching her breath, “How—how strange!”
The thing she had seen _was_ strange. A broad-winged seaplane with a wide
fusilage that might have been a cabin for carrying three or four
passengers, had passed. The strange part of it all was that it was
painted the dull gray-green of a cloudy sea, and carried not one single
insignia of any nation.
“The Flying Dutchman of the air,” she thought as a thrill ran up her
spine.
For a long time she sat there staring at the darkness of night that had
swallowed up the mysterious ship of the air.
At last, with a shudder, for the night air of Monhegan is chill even in
summer, she rose to creep beneath the blankets beside her sleeping
companion.
She was about to drift away to the land of dreams, when she thought of
Captain O’Connor and what he had told her of smugglers along the Maine
coast.
“Can it be?” she thought. “But no! One would not risk his life crossing
the ocean in a seaplane just to smuggle in a few hundred dollars’ worth
of lace or silk or whatever it might be. ’Twouldn’t be worth the cost.
“But men,” she thought quite suddenly. “He said something about smuggling
men into the country. It might be——”
Her eyes were drooping. The day had been long. The salt sea air lay heavy
upon her. She fell asleep.
It was a little dark when Don arose. The girls were still asleep.
Somewhat to his surprise, as he reached the beach he found the boy of the
previous night there before him.
“Sleep here?” he asked good-naturedly.
“Nope.” There was something in Don’s look that made this boy like him.
“Going so soon? Want me to take you out?”
“Thanks. Yes.”
“Where is Captain Field’s lobster pond?” Don asked as the punt bumped the
side of his boat.
“That green one.” The boy opened his eyes wide. “Why?”
“Nothing. Give me a lift, will you?” Don was tugging at the crate of
lobsters in the bottom of his motor boat.
“There!” he sighed as the crate dropped into the punt. “Just row me over
to the Field lobster pond, will you?”
Once there, to the boy’s astonishment, Don loosed the lacings of the
canvas on Field’s lobster pond, then one at a time he took the lobsters
from his crate and dropped them into the pond.
“He buy them from you?” The younger boy was incredulous.
“No.”
“You quitting?”
Don nodded.
“I like you for that.” The other boy put out a hand. For a second Don
gripped it. Then, together they rowed back to the motor boat.
The sea was calm now. Twirling the wheel to his motor, Don went
pop-popping away to his lobster traps. Having lifted these, he piled them
high on the deck, then turned his prow once more toward Monhegan. His
lobster fishing days on Monhegan shoals were at an end. But he was not
going to leave Monhegan, not just yet. The wild charm of the place had
got him. Strange and startling things were yet to greet him there.