TWO MUD-TURTLES.
"There goes a man drunk, Aunt Stanshy."
Aunt Stanshy said nothing, but continued to thump away on her
ironing-board.
"He is going down the lane, aunty."
Aunt Stanshy heard Charlie, but she said nothing, only ironing away
steadily as ever. Charlie heard her sigh once, or thought he did.
"Did you speak, aunty?"
"Me, child? Why, no!"
Charlie continued to look out of the window that fronted the narrow lane.
The drunken man was not a very attractive object. Then it was a dark,
lowery, and rainy day in the latter part of November. The streets were
muddy, fences damp and clammy to the touch. Over the river hung a gray,
cheerless fog. To such a day a staggering drunkard could not be said to
contribute a cheering feature, and it was no wonder that Aunt Stanshy
cared little to see him. Soon after this, Charlie went out into the barn.
It had a deserted look, especially up in the chamber.
"No White Shields here now," he said, mournfully.
That fastened window, too, the nail driven securely above the hook and
staple, had a mournful look to Charlie's soul. He remembered the story
that Simes Badger had told him about this window and the closed door
below.
"I wonder if they will ever be open," thought Charlie.
He remembered the river view that was possible from the "cupelo" above,
and he said, "Guess I'll climb up and see what the weather is." Charlie
was not a very experienced weather-observer, but he thought he would like
to obtain a wider outlook than the lane window had afforded him. He
planted an eye between the slats of his watch-tower and then looked off.
The view was neither extensive nor varied, mostly one of mud-flats. A
thick fog had come from the sea and stretched like a curtain across the
mouth of the dock in the rear of Aunt Stanshy's premises. The low tide had
left in the dock a stretch of ugly flats, out of which stuck various
family relics like pots and kettles, then pots and kettles again, and
finally a dead cat. Charlie saw several tall chimneys in the neighborhood,
but the buildings they decorated had been covered by the fog, and the
chimneys looked like a vessel's masts from which the hull had drifted
away, leaving them standing in depths of river-mud. Toward the sea it was
only mist, mist that looked extensive enough to reach as far as London,
whose fog-lovers would have welcomed it. Did the dock, the tall chimneys,
the mist, notice that curious eye up in the "cupelo" looking through the
slats and watching them?
"Guess I'll go down," said their owner.
The mist continued to wrap Seamont all that day and far into the night.
Will Somers was preparing to leave Dr. Tilton's store that evening. He had
sent off medicine to quiet the last earache in town that had been heard
from. He had also given powders to make poor Miss Persnips sleep quietly.
She was sick with a nervous fever. Will now closed the store, turned the
key in the lock, and went up the street, whistling "The Star-Spangled
Banner." It was half after ten. One by one the house-lamps had been
extinguished, and it was "dark as a pocket" in the lane. Still whistling,
Will neared Aunt Stanshy's. He ceased his tune suddenly for he caught an
outcry.
"Where does that come from!" asked Will. "Back of the barn, I guess. There
it is again! It is from the dock, I know, sure as I'm born."
He sprang across Aunt Stanshy's garden and then leaped a fence which
separated her estate from an open piece of ground bordering the dock and
used for various purposes. Fishermen dried their fish here on long flakes.
Around three sides of the dock went a stone wall, against which the tide
washed and rippled, mildly grumbling because the wall was stubborn and
would not budge an inch. On the stone wall bordering the upper end of the
dock rested that side of Aunt Stanshy's barn in which were the fastened
door below and the fastened window above.
Will, having leaped the fence, ran past the fish-flakes to the edge of the
stone dock-wall. It was so dark that his running was neither rapid nor
straight.
"Somebody is down in the dock," thought Will. "Don't worry!" he shouted,
"I am here."
He now heard a series of noises, some of them distinct and quite human.
Others were confused outcries.
"It's time for low tide," thought Will, and, without further reflection,
down he dropped into the dark, dismal dock, landing in a bed of mud soft
as ever a flounder slept on. He was conscious at once that this bed was a
very yielding one, but he could not stop to calculate how far down he
might sink, shouting at once, "Where are you? Sing out there!"
"M--m--moo--moo," replied the person, as if a cow in distress. "I'm
hic--here--hic!"
"Drank as a fool," thought Will. "Where?"
"Hic--here--hic!"
"Hie--haec--hoc, more likely," said Will, recalling his Latin. "Stay right
where you are."
"I'll stay--hic."
"Let me feel for you. O, here you are."
Will now felt of some one crouching against the stone-wall of the dock,
"How did you come here?"
"Dunno--hic--but I spect I did."
"You must have walked off the wall, and the great question now is how to
get back again."
"Yes--hic--that--is the question--hic--afore the house."
"Afore the dock, I should say. Whew, I believe I'm up to my thighs in mud,
and if that isn't water I'm splashing in! The tide is coming in, certain.
Come, friend, we must get out of this!"
"Yes, we must all--hic."
"Must all hic? We must all get out, you mean."
"Yes, all get-hic."
"Let me think. There are stairs out of this old bog somewhere, and where
are they? I declare! down at the other end, and the water is three or four
feet deep there when it is dry up here. Then put on top of it or under it
two or three feet of mud and you have five to six feet in all, and that is
an interesting state of things to wade through. We must stay at this end
of the dock; and back of Aunt Stanshy's barn, I believe, are steps. I must
work him up there, and do it myself somehow, for my shouting don't bring
any one."
Will had called several times for help, but there was no response. He now
addressed his boozy companion:
"I must get you up out of this somehow, and work you along where the steps
are. The wall is too high to boost you up here. If this isn't interesting,
nigh eleven o'clock, pitch dark, down in this old dock blundering with
you, drank as a fool! I feel like laughing."
"Yes--hic--you're drunk--as a--fool--and I
want--to--hic--laugh--he--he--he!"
Will did really laugh now. It seemed so funny there at that hour in that
place.
"But it's no laughing matter, friend, I'll tell you. O whew! Here's the
water half a foot deep all around us! Come now, lift up your feet and come
with me. Make an effort now."
The man rallied his strength so effectively to make this effort that he
lost his balance, and stumbling against Will, pitched him over.
"Look--look out--friend!" roared Will, as he floundered in mud and water.
"Can't you do better than that?"
"Besht--hic--I can do for you. Might try it again--hic."
"O, thanks--thanks. Be contented with that trial. There is my boot, stuck
fast in the mud, and let her go. Come, friend, make an effort to get
along. Stick close to the wall and work your way on, and lean on me.
There, you did splendidly then. Try again! There, there! Easy now. O
scissors, there goes my other boot! The next thing will be that I shall
get my legs in for good, and by to-morrow morning early the water will be
over us all. Come, friend, you don't want to get drowned. Pull away!
Steady there! Move on! We are making progress, you see. Again, there! On
she goes! Hem--now, once more! All together! There we are!"
There came a series of such trials, and finally Will shouted, "Must be
almost there--and--" bump they went against the stone wall at the upper
end of the dock.
"Three cheers, friend!"
"Hip--hip--hip--"
"No matter about giving them. Now we will work along to some steps back of
a barn. Careful!"
When the steps had been reached Will exclaimed, "So far, so good, friend."
"Yes--hic--I'm glad--I've--hic--got you--hic--so far safe--hic."
"Got me? You have my thanks. Well, now, you stay here by these steps until
I come for you. I will fetch a light. Stay here, now."
"I will--hic."
Will felt his way along the base of the wall until he came to the lane.
The stones in the wall were smooth with the slime accumulating there for
years, and it was hard work to get his feet out of the mud, and very hard
then to get them up and over the wall. He succeeded though, and grasping a
rail-fence and mounting it, dropped down into the lane.
"Glad to touch solid ground," thought Will, "though I be in my
stocking-feet."
He hurried to Aunt Stanshy's door, which had been left unlocked for his
admittance, and opening it, stepped upon the entry oil-cloth.
"Tick--tick! Who comes here?" the old clock now seemed to say, loudly,
solemnly ticking.
"How I shall muddy this sacred floor! Can't help it, though! Aunt
Stanshy," he now began to call; at the same time he rapped on the
baluster. "Aunt Stanshy!"
He looked up and saw the light from the lamp that she kept burning at
night. Soon there was the sound of a stirring, and a tall figure in white
bent over the railing. A second and smaller statue of snow was there in a
moment, leaning over the railing by the side of Aunt Stanshy.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I'm sorry to trouble you, but I've just come from the dock, and--"
"Why, you look like a mud-turtle," said Aunt Stanshy, bending over still
farther and holding out the lamp, whose light fell on Will.
"Mud-turtle? I don't wonder you say so, and there's another and
worse-looking one out in the dock."
"Two mud-turtles? What do you mean? Where _have_ you been?"
"I mean this; I was coming home and heard some one calling for help, and
ran to the dock and saw--no, I couldn't _see_ a barley-corn before my
nose--but I knew somebody was down there, and without thinking--"
"Just like you!" said Aunt Stanshy to herself.
"And in I went, and I succeeded in getting my man, who is drunk, round to
the upper aide of the dock."
"You did splendidly," said Aunt Stanshy, aloud.
"But I had to work for it! And now I want a light, which you may wonder I
didn't get before; but I was so anxious to help that fellow, I put and run
as soon as I heard him cry, and when I was in the dock I thought I might
as well stick to him and work him into a safe place. But haven't you a
door in the dock-side of your barn?"
"Y--e--s," said Aunt Stanshy, reluctantly, remembering an old decision
about the door. "I will be out, and you take the lantern that you will see
in the back entry. Don't mind my floor. I will be out in two minutes."
"Let me go down and show Will about the lantern," said Charlie.
"Are you dressed?"
"O yes. I thought I might help, you know," was the complacent remark of
Charlie, who had improved his time, and, while keeping his "ears out," had
been putting his legs into his pants as rapidly as possible.
"You have been smarter than your aunt, but she will be there soon."
Charlie showed Will where the lantern hung in the back entry, and together
they went into the barn.
"Here is the door," said Charlie, "that lets folks into the dock."
"But how do you get the thing open?" asked Will, flashing the light of his
lantern upon the door.
"I will open it," said Aunt Stanshy, who now appeared, and already decided
that the door might be consistently opened for a good deed's sake. She
carried a hammer in her hand, which she energetically swung about the
driven nails, soon removing them. Then she threw back the door, and out
into the black night peered anxiously. How long it had been since the last
time that she had looked out from that door! She could see nothing at
first, but in a moment made out a man's form below. As the rays of Aunt
Stanshy's lamp shone out, they made a bridge of light that stretched off
into the mist, as if anxious to reach the river and bridge it for some
poor, helpless soul in the water.
"Say, friend, you down there?" called out Will.
A voice below answered, "Yesh--hic--I'll help you--up--"
"You will? Better let me help you first."
"Shuit yourself--hic."
Will descended the steps, and found the man leaning against the dock-wall.
"Now, friend, we'll climb these stairs."
"I will--help you--hic--yes--up."
"You are very kind, but let me help you first. Now go it! Tough! You don't
gain a peg."
"You'll have me--hic--over--friend."
"Have _you_ over! It's the other way, man."
"Well--shay! It's all right, aint it?--hic."
"O yes! We wont quarrel about it. Look here, folks! haven't you got any
thing up there we could steer him by--a rope, perhaps, to which he could
cling? The water has risen and come up here, and it's not comfortable in
one's stocking-feet. Wish my fire company was here! We would make short
work of it."
"Shall I ring the church bell?" asked Charlie, excitedly.
"O don't, don't!"
"Here's a rope," said Aunt Stanshy.
"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Charlie, "and we will pull him in."
"We might do that, or at least help," said Aunt Stanshy, laughing.
"Yesh--hic--pull him in," said the man in the dock.
"We will fasten the rope about you, friend, and they'll draw on it, and
perhaps you could hold on to it and draw yourself up, and I will shove you
behind. Now, all, a good try!"
Will was now shoving, Aunt Stanshy and Charlie hauling, while the man
tried to grasp the sides of the steps; and so, out of the slime and the
mist and the night, up into the light, and then into Aunt Stanshy's barn,
came the face of--old Tim Tyler!
"Horrors!" said Aunt Stanshy, startled by this unexpected sight of the
second mud-turtle. Her face wore, indeed, a look of horror at first, and
then the expression changed to one of pity.
Over the door-sill he crawled, and then looking up, he said, in a drunken,
but abashed, humiliated way, "Stanshy, is it you? Real--hic--sorry to
trouble--hic--you."
Aunt Stanshy made no audible reply, but stood looking away as if into
distant years. She was recalling the words uttered by Tim long ago, when
he vowed that he would see himself "a-drownin' in that dock first afore
he'd ask a favor of her." "He has come up to his word," she said to
herself, and then she bowed her troubled face.
"Well, now," said Will, looking round with a worried face, "what next?"
"Guesh I'll--hic--go home now. Thank you, sir," he said, bowing to Will.
"Thank you, Stanshy," and he bowed still lower.
"Timothy," said Aunt Stanshy, calling him by the old name, "I wouldn't
turn a dog into the street a night like this, and you had better stay
here. I will get you some clothes, and, Will, perhaps you will see that he
gets off these."
"And bring me one of my suits, too, please. And if Charlie will bring me a
basin and some water, we will wash here. I will look after my man here.
Bring my slippers, please."
"Where's--hic--your boots?"
"O, they concluded to stay in the dock."
"I'll--get--you another pair--hic."
"I may find them at low-water and by daylight."
Tim Tyler stayed at Aunt Stanshy's that night The next morning he was in
his right mind, and, thanking Aunt Stanshy, said he must go. Then he
lingered, twirling in his hands the old felt hat that was his daily
companion, though a much abused one.
"He wants to say something," thought Charlie.
"Constantia, years ago you and I had a falling out. I think I was to blame
in tempting that boy's father, and I have often thought so, but have been
too proud to say it all these years. I did not like what you said; but no
matter, I was to blame for what I did, and I did not answer you back in
gentleman-fashion. I want to say I am sorry, and ask you to overlook it
and shake hands."
He held out his hand to Aunt Stanshy.
"He has spoken like a man and what will she do?" thought Will.
Aunt Stanshy was ready to show that she was a woman. She held out her
hand, also, and said, "I said more than I needed to, and I am sorry for
that. Let it go, please."
"Well," he exclaimed, "it was mean in me to tempt a man, though I did not
see then, as I do now, how low drink may bring a man. God knows I am low
enough."
The tears were now making their way down old Tim Tyler's face. Charlie saw
that Aunt Stanshy turned away from those present and looked in another
direction, but the quick-eyed boy thought he noticed a redness to Aunt
Stanshy's eyes when she faced the company again.
Will Somers had come from the store in season to hear Tim's words. A
fisherman soon called who had hurt his hand with a fish-hook and wished to
have a poultice applied by the "young doctor," as people sometimes called
Will. This second party had closely followed Will and had heard what was
last said. It was an interesting scene. There was the drunkard, confessing
how low he had fallen, and there was the woman who once had loved and
respected him. There was Charlie, the son of the man whom the drunkard
tried to lead astray. There was Will, and the fisherman made an additional
spectator.
Will stepped up to Tim.
"Mr. Tyler, excuse, me, but why do you stay so low? Why not come up
again?"
"Will's tone was full of sympathy.
"God knows I would like to come up again."
"You can, and be back in your old place, owning your own boat, too."
"Yes," said Aunt Stanshy, eagerly, "and fishing from the barn, just the
same as before."
"You are all kind, very kind. It does me good," and poor Tim actually
smiled at the prospect. "What would my sister, who has clung to me, say?
Wouldn't she be taken aback?"
The tears were again in the drunkard's eyes.
"Good deal of the man there yet," thought Will. "Your sister might be
taken aback, but in that kind of way that would help you forward. Come,"
he said, aloud, "I will go into my room and write a pledge for you, and be
back in a moment."
Tim looked intently at the pledge of total abstinence that Will brought.
"If--if--I had some one to sign with me, some one to stand with me," he
murmured.
"I will," said the fisherman, stepping forward, and now recognized as a
previous acquaintance.
"You, John Fisher, will you?"
"Yes, I have taken a drop now and then, but I'll sign and stand with you.
I don't want to get into the--"
"Dock, where I was?" asked Tim.
"No, I am sure I don't."
"And that's the very place where drop-people may fetch up. I was a
drop-taker once. I will sign, and God help me!"
"O he will," said Aunt Stanshy, encouragingly. Charlie now saw that her
eyes were redder than ever.
After the name of Timothy Tyler came the name of John Fisher.
"Now you will make those at home happy," said Will.
But only those with whom Tim made his home really knew how happy it made
them. How great was the change there! Young Tim speedily began to rally,
sitting up that very day, while Ann went round the house singing.
Charlie came up the next day with a delicacy from Aunt Stanshy for the
patient.
"Tell Aunt Stanshy to wipe out every thing, and we will start once more,"
was the message that Ann sent off by Charlie.
"It is all wiped out," was Aunt Stanshy's answer, and the two soon came
together and joined hands.
The barn-door toward the dock was now open, and, in a humble way, the firm
of "Tyler & Fisher" began business, drying their fish on the flakes
adjoining Aunt Stanshy's barn, while in the barn itself they stored their
possessions, as might be necessary.
A note from Mr. Walton arrived about that time. It was written in his
frank, simple, hearty way, congratulating both the men on the stand they
had taken. Referring to Tim's desire for fellowship in his new effort, of
which Mr. Walton had heard, he added, "There is another who will stand by
you, the Great Brother who came as a babe at Bethlehem, and Christmas will
soon remind us of it. Feeling for us and loving us, he at last died for
us. Ask him to stand with you. He came to help just such poor weak fellows
as we all are."
That touched the "firm," and the next Sunday they both sat in a back seat
near the stove by the church-door. As Tim Tyler sat there in old St.
John's and heard the dreary wind roaring without, he thought of the
fishing-boats that scud before such winds anxious to make port and reach
home.
"That's me, I hope, trying to get home," he thought, "and find harbor in
God's Church, will hold us all."