Purty nigh a hull week that ship hed been seen manoovrin' outside the
Beach. Fust, she'd 'pear to be purty well in, an' then she'd be way off
a'most out o' sight; an' so it went, off an' on, off an' on. The
neighbors--thar wa'n't many on 'em, the houses bein' scatterin'--hed
seen 'er; an thar wuz a good deal o' conjectur 'bout what she could be
doin'. Nobody could tell. Thar wusn't no war--ef that hed 'a been,
'twouldn't 'a been 'tall puzzlin' what she wur a-manoovrin' at on the
coast. On a Friday arternoon she dis'peared, an' nothin' wuz seen o' her
on a Saturday. Sunday mornin' arly, I looked over to the Beach, but
didn't see anythin' o' the ship. She'd gone fur good, we concluded.
Long middle forenoon, John an' me made up our minds to go to the Beach.
It wuz hossfootin time, an' that night wuz full moon. We put up suthin'
to eat, an' told the folks to hum that we wuz goin', an' didn't
calc'late to be back till long towards nex' mornin'.
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
Our plan wuz to sail over, saunter long the Beach that arternoon, an'
'bout nightfall git a pen ready to put the hossfeet in, an' when the
moon wuz up an' the tide flood, ketch all the hossfeet we could. That's
the best time o' the month to ketch 'em--full moon and flood tide.
Hossfeet, you know, crawl up in pairs on to the shore at the height o'
the flood. You wade along an' find 'em in the edge o' the water; throw
'em up onto shore high and dry, an' stick their tails into ground.
They're fast, then. You got to work quick, 'cause the nick o' the tide
don't stay on long. It's git all you kin afore they go off. When they're
gone, you kin take your own time in loadin' 'em into the boat, ur
puttin' 'em into pen till you kin take 'em off.
John an' me intended to put 'em in a pen, let 'em be thar till we could
bring on the scow to load 'em into, and then tow 'em off. One year we
got purty nigh three thousan' hossfeet in one night. It's excitin' work
to wade along, lookin' close to see 'em, fur the water's dark an'
they're dark; ur else hittin' 'em with your feet, an' then reachin' to
find 'em. You got to be more'n car'ful, though, 'bout one thing, an'
that's not to git their tails stuck into yer feet ur hands. Ef you do,
an' it goes in deep, ten chances to one you're a "goner."
Well, John an' me expected to mek a big haul that night. We went down to
the landin', an' fussed 'roun' thar, gittin' the old skiff ready. We
warn't in any hurry, fur we hed all day afore us. 'Twur one o' them
shiny, quiet June days, an' it bein' Sunday made it 'pear all the more
so.
The Bay wuz ez blue ez could be--the water wuz becomin warm--that's what
made it blue. Thar wuz only a little mite o' wind, jist enough to fill
the sail.
I remember that sailin' ez plain ez if it all happened yisterday. I
steered part o' the way, then John took hold, an' I stretched myself out
in the skiff. The sun shun warm--that kind o' pleasant warmth that you
wanted to let soak in an' in.
The skiff slid for'ard easy--no tuggin' an' jumpin'; the waves--the
water wuz only roughened a little--rippled an' slapped up alongside,
soundin' holler to me in the bottom of the skiff, an' the water bubbled
aroun' the rudder--that's 'bout all thar wuz to it, but somehow I could
'a sailed on for a fortni't.
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
The tide wuz low when we got across, but we had no diffikilty to git
close to the medder, ez John steered up into a dreen. We took out the
mast, rolled the mutton-leg sail round it, an' drawed the skiff up into
the grass. Then we eats somethin', put the rest o' our victuals away
till night, an' went over to the surf shore. Thar we set down a short
spell, jist ez ev'rybody does, I guess, when they go over to the ocean
an' have a plenty o' time to spar', ez we hed. Fin'ly we begun our walk
'long shore to see what we could find.
This ere walk 'long shore wuz one reason why we'd come over to the Beach
in the forenoon. I don't remember how fur we walked, but we sauntered
along an hour or so--the sun wuz quite a piece to the west--when all on
a sudden John p'inted off shore an' says, "Jess, look-a-thar. What do
you mek o' that? Thar she is ag'in standin' right onto shore."
"That's her," says I; "that's the same ship, an' she ain't a-beatin'
nuther, with the wind this way." I somehow kind o' felt that that ship
wuzn't standin' close in fur no good puppose, and I didn't care to be in
sight on-shore, ez thar hed been no end o' strange things done on that
Beach fust an' last. I thought quick o' what, accordin' to all accounts,
hed happened in my granther's days, an' even thirty year back, in my
father's, so I says agin to John, "Come, let's git up in the hills out
o' sight."
In less 'an no time, we slipped round the hills, climbed up one on 'em
to where we could jist peek over, an' laid down. The ship kep' a comin'.
She didn't seem to change her course by a yard's breadth. Ev'ry sail wuz
spread an' pullin', an' I tell you she wur a purty sight to look at.
'Fore long, John says, "Jess, that vessel's got some puppose, an' we'd
better go east."
So we scooted 'long behind the hills, an' ev'ry low gap atween the hills
we come to, we'd stop car'ful an' look out to see ef the ship kep' on
the same course. Ev'ry time we looked out, she wuz nigher an' nigher.
When we'd got a stretchin' good piece east we didn't run any further,
but crawled up a low hill to take a good look-out agin. By this time,
the ship wur pretty well in. Afore long, she rounded up into the wind,
clewed up her squarsails, an' anchored.
"What're they doin' now, John?" I asked; "kin you mek out?"
"Lowerin' a yawl, it looks like to me," he says.
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
An' so they wuz. In a short time the yawl pushed out from the ship, an'
then I could see plain enough what it wuz, an' that some on the ship's
crew wuz comin' ashore in that ere yawl.
We hunted round fur a place to hide, 'cause we knowed they couldn't be
a-comin' ashore fur water. There wuzn't no water to be got. Behind us
wuz a clump o' cedars purty thick, so we run 'long a windin' holler, an'
crep' up into that bunch o' low cedars. When we looked out, the yawl wuz
behind the hills; but purty soon it come into range near shore, an'
disappeared ag'in, fur the way on it wuz, thar wur a small gap 'tween
the hills that give us this sight o' the yawl. Arter the yawl got across
that gap, we waited a long time--I tell you it wuz long--afore we see
anythin' more on 'em. We got scared a-waitin'; fur how could we tell but
what they wuz mekin' towards us? While I'd got sort o' tired a-strainin'
an' lookin' here an' thar, an' fell to conject'rin' what under the sun
wuz goin' to turn out on it all, John says all on a sudden, "Jess, look,
thar's one on 'em on yunder hill."
I looked quick, and thar stood a sailor with a spy-glass searchin' in
ev'ry d'rection. We crouched flat, scratchin' our hands an' face in
gittin' under the branches near ground. We'd a been layin' down all the
time, but a spy-glass is purty fur-sighted, an' we knowed it, so we
crawled under the branches to be all the more out o' sight.
In jist about three minutes the sailor wuz gone. Then we hed another
time o' fearin' what 'ud come next, but soon some men 'peared on the top
o' the hill. Thar wuz five on 'em. I breathed hard, an' so did John,
till we see they wurn't comin' towards us. They wuz carryin' somethin'
_heavy_, ez they'd stop, set it down, an' take turns. An' when they
changed what they wuz carryin', they changed shovels. They hed shovels
with 'em, for these we could see plain enough.
These five men went onwards to a hill in the middle of the Beach--the
highest hill within sev'ral miles--an' stopped on the side o' it toward
the ocean. They stopped a long while an' 'peared to be takin' certain
ranges. Fin'ly they begun to dig. Ev'ry single one o' the five wur
a-diggin'. The bank o' course kep' a growin', and got so high, ur the
hole got so deep, I dun know which, that we couldn't see 'em any longer
a-diggin'. Nex' they all come out, took what they hed fetched with 'em,
and put it into the hole. Then thar wuz a long halt--all on 'em down in
the hole. Not one on 'em wuz seen fur a long time. That time they wuz
out o' sight so long that John proposed to skulk to our boat.