“Well,” she said, “I only hope you’re getting something out of it.”
“I am getting the pleasure of assisting people who need assistance.”
“I’ll tell the world you are!” said Lily May. And after giving Mr.
Smith a most unpleasant look she went away again.
But the very next day, rounding the corner, who should we see but Lily
May at Smith’s wharf, sitting on the edge of the boat and smiling, and
Mr. Smith talking in a very loud and angry voice. Once he even seemed
to shake his fist at her, but she kept right on smiling.
She was certainly a queer child.
Then, one night early in August, we had another visit from Mr.
MacDonald. He said that liquor was coming in from somewhere in
quantities, and that trucks on the mainland were distributing it all
over the country. I happened to have my eye on Lily May, and she turned
pale. I said nothing to Tish, but from that time on Aggie and I kept a
watch on her, and I really shudder to recall what we discovered. Night
after night our boat was going out; sometimes with Christopher alone in
it, and sometimes with Lily May also. And on one such night we quietly
searched her room.
We knew she had practically no money, for her mother had been afraid
she would run away, back to the Field boy. But under her mattress we
found three hundred and twenty dollars, mostly in small bills!
I simply cannot record how we felt about it. Especially as in other
ways the child was really quite lovable. She and Aggie had become
great friends, and she would listen for hours while Aggie told her of
Mr. Wiggins. But on Aggie’s endeavoring to discuss bootlegging with her
she would shut up like a clam. Aggie tried to draw her out.
“Of course,” she said one day, “if we knew some of the reasons behind
bootlegging, we might be more lenient.”
But there was no use trying to gain her confidence. She only gave Aggie
another of her strange looks, and got up and went away.
Tish knew nothing of our worry, and day after day we went out in the
boat, watching for rum runners. On Tuesdays and Fridays we made our
trips to the revenue boat, but on other days Aggie and I fished, while
Tish stood erect with her glasses, sweeping the surface of the sea.
She was particularly severe with the lobster men, and after showing
her badge would search their boats carefully. On one such occasion a
lobster fastened itself to her and remained unnoticed until Aggie gave
a terrible scream. She had sat down on the thing.
But mostly life in the Swallow moved quietly enough. Aggie worked at
a bag she was making out of steel beads, with a fishing line looped
around her arm; a habit she was obliged to alter, after a very large
fish one day unexpectedly took her hook and but for Tish’s presence
of mind in grasping her feet would have taken her overboard. And I did
most of my Christmas fancy-work.
And thus things were up to the twenty-ninth of August, a day, or
rather a night, which none of us will ever forget. At two o’clock that
afternoon three of us started out; at four in the morning I returned
home alone, in such agony of spirit as can only be imagined when the
facts are known.
V
It was our day to go out to the revenue boat, and there were
indications of a fog. Poor Aggie did not want to go. It was as though
she had a premonition of trouble, but Tish insisted, and even took
along some seasick remedy. Aggie, who has been somewhat bitter since,
should remember that, and the real kindness which lay behind it.
We made jelly in the morning, so it was late when we started, and the
fog was fairly thick already. But Tish took along a compass, and we
started at two p.m. For once Lily May insisted on going along, although
the sea was very rough, and she flirted quite dreadfully with the
captain of the revenue boat while Joe and Bill were loading.
But she was seasick on the way back, and so was Aggie. I took the
lookout, therefore, and it must have been four or five miles from land
that I saw something straight ahead in the fog, and Tish turned out
just in time to avoid a bell buoy. It was not ringing!
Tish at once stopped and examined it. It consisted of a small platform
above which rose a superstructure with a bell at the top, and clappers
which struck the bell as the sea moved it this way and that. But the
bell had fallen down and now lay on the platform.
“This is a very serious matter,” Tish said. “This buoy is here to save
our shipping. Undoubtedly it marks a reef. And now when it is most
needed its warning voice is stilled.”
“I wish you’d still your own voice, Tish,” Aggie groaned. “Or else get
out on it and yell ding-dong.”
It was an unfortunate suggestion. Aggie was taking a dose of her remedy
for sea-sickness at the moment, and she did not see Tish’s eyes as they
traveled from her to me, but I did.
“You couldn’t do it, Lizzie,” she said. “You’re too stout. But Aggie
could.”
“Could what?” said Aggie, giving her a cold glance.
“Your duty,” said Tish gravely. “That bell must ring, Aggie. The fog is
intense, and all about are--or may be--men who depend on its warning
signal for their lives. Can we fail them?”
“I can,” said Aggie shortly.
Lily May said it was all nonsense, but “Give me a hammer and I’ll do
it,” she said. “I suppose I can stick it out for an hour or so, and
after that I dare say I’ll not care.”
But Tish said the child was in her care, and she was to stay just where
she was. And in the end Aggie crawled onto the bell buoy, and we placed
one of the boxes on the platform as a seat for her.
“It will take only a short time,” were Tish’s final words, “to get to
the coast-guard station. We shall return at once.”
But it was a painful sight, as we moved away, to see our poor Aggie
thus marooned, watching us into the fog with wistful eyes and ever and
anon striking the bell with the hammer as she sat on the box.