Caleb West

V.

AUNTY BELL’S KITCHEN.

THE storm was still raging, the wind beating in fierce gusts against the house and rattling the window-panes, when Sanford awoke in the low-ceiled room always reserved for him at Captain Joe’s.

“Terrible dirty, ain’t it?” the captain called, as he came in with a hearty good-morning and threw open the green blinds. “ I guess she ’ll scale off ; it ’s hauled a leetle s’uth’ard since daylight. The glass is a-risin’, too. Aunty Bell says breakfas’ ’s ready jes’ ’s soon’s you be.”

“ All right, captain. Don’t wait. I 'll come in ten minutes,” replied Sanford, picking up his big sponge.

Outside the little windows a widearmed tree swayed in the storm, its budding branches tapping the panes. Sanford drew aside the white dimity curtains and looked out. The garden was dripping, and the plank walk that ran to the swinging-gate was glistening in the driving rain.

These sudden changes in the weather did not affect Sanford’s plans. Bad days were to be expected, and the loss of time at an exposed site like that of the Ledge was always considered in the original estimate of the cost of the structure. If the sea prevented the landing of stone for a day or so, the sloop, as he knew, could load a full cargo of blocks from the stone wharf across the road, now hidden by the bursting lilacs in the captain’s garden ; or the men could begin on the iron parts of the new derricks, and if it cleared, as Captain Joe predicted, they could trim the masts and fit the bands. Sanford turned cheerfully from the window, and began dressing for the day.

The furniture and appointments about him were of the plainest. There were a bed, a wash-stand and a portable tub, three chairs, and a small table littered with drawing materials. Dimity curtains hung at the windows, and the bureau was covered with a freshly laundered white Marseilles cover. On the walls were tacked mechanical drawings, showing cross-sections of the several courses of masonry, —prospective views of the concrete base and details of the cisterns and cellars of the lighthouse. Each of these was labeled “ Shark Ledge Lighthouse. Henry Sanford, Contractor,” and signed, “ W. A. Carleton, Asst. Supt. U. S. L. Estb’t.” In one corner of the room rested a field level, and a pole with its red and white target.

The cottage itself was on the main shore road leading from the village to Keyport Light, and a little removed from the highway. It was a two-story double house, divided by a narrow hall with rooms on either side. In the rear were the dining-room and kitchen. Overlooking the road in front was a wide portico with sloping roof.

There were two outside doors belonging to the house. These were always open. They served two purposes, — to let in the air and to let in the neighbors. The neighbors included everybody who happened to be passing, from the doctor to the tramp. This constant stream of visitors always met in the kitchen, really the cheeriest and cosiest room in the house, — a low-ceiled, old-fashioned interior, full of nooks and angles, that had for years adapted itself to everybody’s wants and ministered to everybody’s comfort.

The fittings and furnishings of this delightful room were as simple as they were convenient. On one side, opposite the door, were the windows, looking out upon the garden, their sills filled with plants in winter. In the far corner stood a pine dresser painted bright green, decorated with rows of plates and saucers set up on edge, besides various dishes and platters, all glistening from the last touch of Aunty Bell’s hand polish. Next to the dresser was a broad, low settle, also of pine and also bright green, except where countless pairs of overalls had worn the paint away. There were chairs of all kinds, — rockers for winter nights, and more restful straight - backs for mealtimes. There was a huge table, with always a place for one more. There was a mantel-rest for pipes and knick-knacks, — never known to be without a box of matches, — and a nautical almanac. There were rows of hooks nailed to the backs of the doors, especially adapted to rubber coats and oilskins. And last of all, there was a fresh, sweet-smelling, brass-hooped cedar bucket, tucked away in a corner under the stairs, with a cocoanut dipper that had helped to cool almost every throat from Keyport Village to Keyport Light.

But it was the stove that made this room unique : not an ordinary, commonplace cooking - machine, but a big, generous, roomy arrangement, pushed far back out of everybody’s way, with outriggers for broiling, and capacious ovens for baking, and shelves for keeping things hot, besides big and little openings on top for pots and kettles and fryingpans, of a pattern unknown to the modern chef ; each and every one dearly prized by the little woman who burnt her face to a blazing red in its service. This cast-iron embodiment of all the hospitable virtues was the special pride of Aunty Bell, the captain’s wife, a neat, quick, busy woman, about half the size of the captain in height, width, and thickness. Into its recesses she poured the warmth of her heart, and from out of its capacious receptacles she took the products of her bounty. Every kettle sang to please her, and every fire she built crackled and laughed at her bidding.

When Sanford entered there was hardly room enough to move. A damp, sweet smell of fresh young grass came in at an open window. Through the door could be seen the wet graveled walks, washed clean by the storm, over which hopped one or more venturesome robins in search of the early worm.

Carleton, the government inspector, sat near the door, his chair tilted back. In the doorway itself stood Miss Peebles, the schoolmistress, an angular, thin, mildeyed woman, in a rain-varnished waterproof. She was protesting that she was too wet to come in, and could n’t stop a minute. Near the stove stooped Bill Lacey, drying his jacket. Around the walls and on the window-sills were other waifs, temporarily homeless, — two from the paraphernalia dock (regular boarders these), and a third, the captain of the tug, whose cook was drunk. On the door-mat lay a dog that everybody stepped over, and under the dresser sat a silent, contemplative cat, with one eye on the table.

All about the place — now in the pantry, now in the kitchen, now with a big dish, now with a pile of dishes or a pitcher of milk — bustled Aunty Bell, with a smile of welcome and a cheery word for every one who came.

Nobody, of course, had come to breakfast, — that was seen from the way in which everybody insisted he had just dropped in for a moment out of the wet to see the captain, hearing he was home from the Ledge, and from the alacrity with which everybody, one after another, as the savory smells of fried fish and soft clams filled the room, forgot his good resolutions and drew up his chair to the hospitable board.

Most of them told the truth about wanting to see the captain. Since his sojourn among them, and without any effort of his own, he had filled the position of adviser, protector, and banker to about half the people along the shore. He had fought Miss Peebles’s battle, when the school trustees wanted the girl from Norwich to have her place. He had recommended the tug captain to the towing company, and had coached him overnight to insure his getting a license in the morning. He had indorsed Caleb West’s note to make up the last payment on the cabin he had bought to put his young wife Betty in ; and when the new furniture had come over from Westerly, he had sent two of his men to unload it, and had laid some of the carpets himself the Saturday Betty expected Caleb in from the Ledge, and wanted to have the house ready for his first Sunday at home.

When Mrs. Bell announced breakfast, Captain Joe, in his shirt-sleeves, took his seat at the head of the table, and with a hearty, welcoming wave of his hand invited everybody to sit down, — Carleton first, of course, he being the man of authority, representing to the working man that mysterious, intangible power known as the “government.”

Carleton generally stopped in at the captain’s if the morning were stormy; it was nearer his lodgings than the farmhouse where he took his meals — and then breakfast at the captain’s cost nothing! He had come in on this particular day ostensibly to protest about the sloop’s having gone to the Ledge without a notification to him. He had begun by saying, with much bluster, that he did n’t know about the one stone that Caleb West was reported to have set; that nothing would be accepted unless he was satisfied, and nothing paid for by the department without his signature. But he ended in great good humor when the captain invited him to breakfast and placed him at his own right hand. Carleton liked little distinctions when made in his favor; he considered them due to his position.

The superintendent was a type of his class. His appointment at Shark Ledge Light had been secured through the efforts of a brother-in-law who was a custom-house inspector. Before his arrival at Keyport he had never seen a stone laid or a batch of concrete mixed. To this ignorance of the ordinary methods of construction was added an overpowering sense of his own importance coupled with the knowledge that the withholding of a certificate — the superintendent could choose his own time for giving it — might embarrass everybody connected with the work. He was not dishonest, however, and had no faults more serious than those of ignorance, self-importance, and conceit. This last broke out in his person: he wore a dyed mustache and a yellow diamond shirt-pin, and — was proud of his foot.

Captain Joe understood the superintendent thoroughly. “Ain’t it cur’us,” he would sometimes say, “ that a man’s old’s him is willin’ ter set round all day knowin’ he don’t know nothin’, never larnin’, an’ yit allus afeard some un ’ll find it out? ” Then, as the helplessness of the man rose in his mind, he would add, “Well, poor critter, somebody ’s got ter support him ; guess the guv’ment’s th’ best paymaster fur him.”

When breakfast was over, the skipper of the Screamer dropped in to make his first visit, shaking the water from his oilskins as he entered.

“Pleased to meet yer, Mis’ Bell,” he said in his bluff, wholesome way, acknowledging the captain’s introduction to Mrs. Bell, then casting his eyes about for a seat, and finally taking a vacant window-sill.

“ Give me your hat an’ coat, and do have breakfast, Captain Brandt,” said Mrs. Bell in a tone as cheery as if it were the first meal she had served that day.

“ No, thank ye, I had some ’board sloop,” replied Captain Brandt.

“ Here, cap’n, take my seat,” said Captain Joe. “I’m goin’ out ter see how the weather looks.” He picked up the first hat he came to, — as was his custom, — and disappeared through the open door, followed by nearly all the seafaring men in the room.

As the men passed out, each one reached for his oilskin hanging behind the wooden door, and waddling out like penguins they stood huddled together in the driving rain, their eyes turned skyward. Each man diagnosed the weather for himself. Six doctors over a patient with a hidden disease are never so impressive nor so obstinate as six seafaring men over a probable change of wind. The drift of the cloud-rack scudding in from the sea, the clearness of the air, the current of the upper clouds, were each silently considered. No opinions were given. It was for Captain Joe to say what he thought of the weather. Clearing weather meant one kind of work for them, — fitting derricks, perhaps, — a continued storm meant another.

If the captain arrived at any conclusion, it was not expressed. He had walked down to the gate and leaned over the palings, looking up at the sky across the harbor, and then behind him toward the west. The rain trickled unheeded down his sou’wester and fell upon his blue flannel shirt. He looked up and down the road at the passers-by tramping along in the wet: the twice-a-day postman, wearing an old army coat and black rubber cape ; the little children huddled together under one umbrella, only the child in the middle keeping dry; and the butcher in the meat wagon with its white canvas cover and swinging scales. Suddenly he gave a quick cry, swung back the gate with the gesture of a rollicking boy, and opened both arms wide in a mock attempt to catch a young girl who sprang past him and dashed up the broad walk with a merry ringing laugh that brought every one to the outer door.

“ Well, if I live ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Bell. “ Mary Peebles, you jes’ come here an’ see Betty West. Ain’t you got no better sense, Betty, than to come down in all this soakin’ rain ? Caleb 'll be dreadful mad, an" I don’t blame him a mite. Come right in this minute and take that shawl off.”

“ I ain’t wet a bit, Aunty Bell,” laughed Betty, entering the room. “ I got Caleb’s high rubber boots on. Look at ’em. Ain’t they big ! ” showing the great soles with all the animation of a child. “ An’ this shawl don’t let no water through nowhere. Oh, but did n’t it blow round my porch las’ night! ” Then turning to the captain, who had followed close behind, “ I think you ’re real mean, Cap’n Joe, to keep Caleb out all night on the Ledge. I was that dead lonely I could’er cried. Oh, is Mr. Sanford here ? ” she asked quickly, and with a little shaded tone of deference in her voice, as she caught sight of him in the next room. “ I thought he ’d gone to New York. How do you do, Mr. Sanford ? ” with another laugh and a nod of her head, which Sanford as kindly returned.

“We come purty nigh leavin’ everybody on the Ledge las’ night, Betty, an’ the sloop too,” said Captain Joe, cocking his eye at the skipper as he spoke. Then in a more serious tone, “I lef’ Caleb a-purpose, child. We got some stavin’ big derricks to set, an’ Mr. Sanford wants ’em up week arter next, an’ there ain’t nobody kin fix the anchor sockets but me an’ Caleb. He ’s at work on ’em now, an’ I had to come back to git th’ bands on ’em. He 'll be home for Sunday, little gal.”

“Well, you jes’ better, or I’ll lock up my place an’ come light down here to Aunty Bell. Caleb warn’t home but two nights last week, and it’s only the beginnin’ of summer. I ain’t like Aunty Bell, — she can’t get lonely. Don’t make no difference whether you ’re home or not, this place is so chuck-full of folks you can’t turn round in it; but ’way up where I live, you don’t see a soul sometimes all day but a peddler. Oh, I jes’ can’t stand it, an’ I won’t. Land sakes, Aunty Bell, what a lot of folks you’ve had for breakfast! ”

Turning to the table, she picked up a pile of plates and carried them into the pantry to Miss Peebles, who was there helping in the wash-up.

Lacey, who had stopped to look after his coat when the men went out, watched her slender, graceful figure, and bright, cheery, joyous face, full of dimples and color and sparkle, the hair in short curls all over her head, the throat plump and white, the little ears nestling and half hidden.

She had been brought up in the next village, two miles away, and had come over every morning, when she was a girl, to Miss Peebles’s school. Almost everybody knew her and loved her; Captain Joe cared for her as though she had been his own child. When Caleb gave up the light-ship Captain Joe established him with Betty’s mother as boarder, and that was how the marriage came about.

When Betty returned to the room again, Carleton and Lacey were standing.

“ Take this seat; you must be tired walking down so far,” said Carleton, with a manner never seen in him except when some pretty woman was about.

“No, I’m not a bit tired, but I ’ll set down till I get these boots off. Aunty Bell, can you lend me a pair of slippers ? One of these plaguy boots leaks.”

“ I 'll take ’em off,” offered Carleton, with a gesture of gallantry.

“ You ’ll do nothin’ of the kind ! ” she exclaimed, with a half-indignant toss of her head. “ I ’ll take ’em off myself,” and she turned her back, and slipped the boots from under her dress. “ But you can take ’em to Aunty Bell an’ swap ’em for her slippers,” she added, with a merry laugh at the humor of her making the immaculate Carleton carry off Caleb’s old boots. The slippers on, she thanked him, with a toss of her curls, and, turning her head, caught sight of Lacey.

“ What are you doing here, Bill Lacey ? ” she asked. “ Why ain’t you at the Ledge ? ”

Although the young rigger had been but a short time on the captain’s force, he had lost no part of it before trying to make himself agreeable, especially to the wives of the men. His white teeth flashed under the curling mustache.

“Captain wants me,” he answered, “ to fit some bands round the new derricks. We expect ’em over from Medford to-day, if it clears up.”

“An’ there ain’t no doubt but what ye ’ll get yer job, Billy,” burst out the captain; “ it’s breakin’ now over Crotch Island,” and he bustled again out of the open door, the men who had followed him turning back after him.

Carleton waited until he became convinced that no part of his personality burdened Betty’s mind, and then, a little disconcerted by her evident preference for Lacey, joined Sanford in the next room. There he renewed his complaint about the enrockment block having been placed without a notification to him, and he became pacified only when Sanford invited him on the tug for a run to Medford to inspect Mrs. Leroy’s new diningroom.

As Mrs. Bell and the schoolmistress were still in the pantry, a rattling of china marking their progress, the kitchen was empty except for Lacey and Betty. The young rigger, seeing no one within hearing, crossed the room to Betty, and, bending over her chair, said in a low tone, “ Why did n’t you come down to the dock yesterday when we was a-hoistin’ the stone on the Screamer? ’Most everybody ’longshore was there.”

“ Oh, I don’t know,” returned Betty indifferently.

“ Ye ought’er seen the old man,” continued Lacey; “ me an’ him held the guy, and he was a-blowin’ like a porpoise.”

Betty did not answer. She knew how old Caleb was.

“ Had n’t been for me it would’er laid him out.”

The girl started, and her eyes flashed. “ Bill Lacey, Caleb knows more in a minute than you ever will in your whole life. You shan’t talk that way about him, neither.”

“ Well, who ’s a-talkin’ ? ” said Lacey, looking down at her, more occupied with the curve of her throat than with his reply.

“ You are, an’ you know it,” she answered sharply.

“ I did n’t mean nothin’, Betty. I ain’t got nothin’ agin him ’cept his gittin’ you.” Then in a lower tone, “You need n’t take my head off, if I did say it.”

“ I ain’t takin’ your head off, Billy.” She looked into his eyes for the first time, her voice softening. She was never angry with any one for long; besides, she felt older than he, and a certain boyishness in him appealed to her.

“ You spoke awful cross,” he said, bending until his lips almost touched her curls, “ an’ you know, Betty, there ain’t a girl, married or single, up ’n’ down this shore nor nowheres else, that I think as much of as I do you, an’ if ” —

“ Here, now, Bill Lacey ! ” came a quick, sharp voice.

The young rigger stepped back, and turned his head.

Captain Joe was standing in the doorway, with one hand on the frame, an ugly, determined expression filling his eyes.

“ They want ye down ter the dock, young feller, jes’ ’s quick’s ye kin get there.”

Lacey’s face was scarlet. He looked at Captain Joe, picked up his hat, and walked down the garden path without a word.

Betty ran in to Aunty Bell.

When the two men reached the swinging-gate, Captain Joe laid his hand on Lacey’s shoulder, whirled him round suddenly, and said in a calm, decided voice that carried conviction in every tone, “ I don’t say nothin’, an’ maybe ye don’t mean nothin’, but I ’ve been a-watchin’ ye lately, an’ I don’t like yer ways, Bill Lacey. One thing, howsomever, I ’ll tell ye, an’ I don’t want ye ter forgit it: if I ever ketch ye a-foolin’ round Caleb West’s lobster-pots, I ’ll break yer damned head. Do ye hear ? ”

VI.

A LITTLE DINNER FOR FIVE.

Sanford’s apartments were in galadress. The divans of the salon were gay with new cushions of cornyellow and pale green. The big table was resplendent in a new cloth, a piece of richly colored Oriental stuff that had been packed away and forgotten in an old weddingchest that stood near one window. All the pipes, tobacco pouches, smoking-jackets, slippers, canes, Indian clubs, dumbbells, and other bachelor belongings scattered about the rooms had been tucked out of sight, while books and magazines that had lain for weeks heaped up on chairs and low shelves, and unframed prints and photographs that had rested on the floor propped up against the wall and furniture, had been hidden in dark corners or hived in several portfolios.

On the table stood a brown majolica jar taller than the lamp, holding a great mass of dogwood and apple blossoms, their perfume filling the room. Every vase, umbrella jar, jug, and bit of pottery that could be pressed into service, was doing duty as flower-holder, while over the mantel and along the tops of the bookcases, and even over the doors themselves, streamed festoons of blossoms intertwined with smilax and trailing vines.

Against the tapestries covering the walls of the dining - room hung big wreaths of laurel tied with ribbons. The centre of one wreath was studded with violets, forming the initials H. S. The mantel was a bank of flowers. From the four antique silver church lamps suspended in the four corners of the room swung connecting festoons of smilax and blossoms. The dinner-table itself was set with the best silver, glass, and appointments that Sanford possessed. Some painted shades he had never seen before topped the tall wax candles.

Sanford smiled when he saw that covers had been laid for but five. That clever fellow Jack Hardy had been right in suggesting that so delicate a question as the choosing of the guests should be left in the hands of Mrs. Leroy. Her tact had been exquisite. Bock had been omitted, there were no superfluous women, and Jack could have his tête-àtête with Helen undisturbed. With these two young persons happy, the dinner was sure to be a success.

Upon entering his office, he found that the decorative raid had extended even to this his most private domain. The copper helmet of a diving-dress — one he himself sometimes used when necessity required — had been propped up over his desk, the face-plate unscrewed, and the hollow opening filled with blossoms, their leaves curling about the brass buttons of the collar. The very drawing-boards had been pushed against the wall, and the rows of shelves holding his charts and detailed plans had been screened from sight by a piece of Venetian silk exhumed from the capacious interior of the old chest.

The corners of Sam’s mouth touched his ears, and every tooth was lined up with a broad grin.

“ Doan’ ask me who done it, sah. I ain’t had nuffin to do wid it, — wid nuffiu but de table. I sot dat.”

“ Has Mrs. Leroy been here ? ” Sanford asked, coming into the dining-room, and looking again at the initials on the wall.

“ Yaas ’r, an’ Major Slocomb an’ Mr. Hardy done come too. De gen’lemen bofe gone ober to de club. De major say he comin’ back soon’s ever you gets here. But I ain’t ter tell nuffin ’bout de flowers, sah. Massa Jack say ef I do he brek my neck, an’ I ’spec’s he will. But Lord, sah, dese ain’t no flowers. Look at dis,” he added, uncovering a great bunch of American Beauties, — “ dat ’s ter go ’longside de lady’s plate. An’ dat ain’t ha’f of ’em. I got mos’ a peck of dese yer rose-water roses in de pantry. Massa Jack gwine ter ask yer to sprinkle ’em all ober de table-cloth ; says dat’s de way dey does in de fust famblies South.”

Sanford, not wishing to betray his surprise further, turned towards the sideboard to till his best decanter.

“ Have the flowers I ordered come ? ” he asked.

“ Yaas ’r, got ’em in de ice-chest. But Massa Jack say dese yere rose-water roses on de table-cloth’s a extry touch; don’t hab dese high-toned South’n ladies ebery day, he say.”

Sanford reëntered the salon and looked about. Every trace of its winter dress had gone. Even the heavy curtains at the windows had been replaced by some of a thin yellow silk. A suggestion of spring in all its brightness and promise was everywhere.

“ That’s so like Kate,” he said to himself. “She means that Helen and Jack shall be happy, at any rate. She’s missed it herself, poor girl. It’s an infernal shame. Bring in the roses, Sam : I ’ll sprinkle them now before I dress. Any letters except these ? ” he added, looking through a package on the table, a shade of disappointment crossing his face as he pushed them back unopened.

“ Yaas ’r, one on yo’ bureau dat’s jus’ come.”

Sanford forgot his orders to Sam, and with a quick movement of his hand drew the curtains of his bedroom and disappeared inside. The letter was there, but he had barely broken the seal when the major’s cheery, buoyant voice was heard in the outside room. The next instant the major pushed aside the curtains and peered in.

“ Where is he, Sam ? In here, did you say ? ”

Not to have been able to violate the seclusion of even Sanford’s bedroom at all times, night or day, would have grievously wounded the sensibilities of the distinguished Pocomokian ; it would have implied a reflection on the closeness of their friendship. It was true he had met Sanford but half a dozen times, and it was equally true that he had never before crossed the threshold of this particular room. But these trifling formalities, mere incidental stages in a rapidly growing friendship, were immaterial to him.

“ My dear boy, but it does my heart good to see you.”

The major’s arms, as he entered the room, were wide open. He hugged Sanford enthusiastically, patting his host’s back with his fat hands over the spot where the suspenders crossed. Then he held him for a moment at arm’s length.

“ Let me look at you. Splendid, by gravy! fresh as a rose, suh, handsome as a picture ! Just a trace of care under the eyes, though. I see the nights of toil, the hours of suffering. I wonder the brain of man can stand it. But the building of a lighthouse, the illumining of a pathway in the sea for those buffeting with the waves, — it is gloriously humane, suh ! ”

Suddenly his manner changed, and in a tone as grave and serious as if he were full partner in the enterprise and responsible for its success, the major laid his hand, this time confidingly, on Sanford’s shirt-sleeve, and said, “ How are we getting on at the Ledge, suh ? Last time we talked it over, we were solving the problem of a colossal mass of — of — some Stuff or other that” —

“ Concrete,” suggested Sanford, with an air as serious as that of the major. He loved to humor him.

“ That’s it, — concrete; the name had for the moment escaped me, — concrete, suh, that was to form the foundation of the lighthouse.”

Sanford assured the major that the concrete was being properly amalgamated, and discussed the laying of the mass in the same technical terms he would have used to a brother engineer, smiling meanwhile as the stream of the Pocomokian’s questions ran on. He liked the major’s glow and sparkle. He enjoyed most of all the never ending enthusiasm of the man, —that spontaneous outpouring which, like a bubbling spring, flows unceasingly, and always with the coolest and freshest water of the heart.

The major rippled on, new questions of his host only varying the outlet.

“ And how is Miss Shirley ? ” asked the young engineer, throwing the inquiry into the shallows of the talk as a slight temporary dam.

“ Like a moss rosebud, suh, with the dew on it. She and Jack have gone out for a drive in Jack’s cart. He left me at the club, and I went over to his apartments to dress. I am staying with Jack, you know. Helen is with a school friend. I know, of cou’se, that yo’r dinner is not until eight o’clock, but I could not wait longer to grasp yo’r hand. Do you know, Sanford,” with sudden animation and in a rising voice, " that the more I see of you, the more I " —

“ And so you are coming to New York to live, major,” said Sanford, dropping another pebble at the right moment into the very middle of the current.

The major recovered, filled, and broke through in a fresh place.

“ Coming, suh ? I have come. I have leased a po’tion of my estate to some capitalists from Philadelphia who are about embarking in a strawberry enterprise of very great magnitude. I want to talk to you about it later.” (He had rented one half of it—the dry half, the half a little higher than the salt-marsh — to a huckster from Philadelphia, who was trying to raise early vegetables, and whose cash advances upon the rent had paid the overdue interest on the mortgage, leaving a margin hardly more than sufficient to pay for the suit of clothes he stood in, and his traveling expenses.)

By this time the constantly increasing pressure of his caller’s enthusiasm had seriously endangered the possibility of Sanford’s dressing for dinner. He glanced several times uneasily at his watch, lying open on the bureau before him, and at last, with a hurried “ Excuse me, major,” disappeared into his bathroom, and closed its flood-gate of a door, thus effectually shutting off the major’s overflow, now perilously near the dangerline.

The Pocomokian paused for a moment, looked wistfully at the blank door, and, recognizing the impossible, called to Sam and suggested a cocktail as a surprise for Sanford when he appeared again. Sam brought the ingredients on a tray, and stood by admiringly (Sam always regarded him as a superior being) while the major mixed two comforting concoctions, — the one already mentioned for Sanford, and the other designed for the especial sustenance and delectation of the distinguished Pocomokian himself.

This done he took his leave, having infused, in ten short minutes, more sparkle, freshness, and life into the apartment than it had known since his last visit.

Sanford saw the cocktail on his bureau when he entered the room again, but forgot it in his search for the open letter he had laid aside on the major’s entrance. Sam found the cocktail when dinner was over, and immediately emptied it into his own person.

“ Please don’t be cross, Henry, if you can’t find all your things,” the letter read. “ Jack Hardy wanted me to come over and help him arrange the rooms as a surprise for the Maryland girl. He says there’s nothing between them, but I don’t believe him. The blossoms came from Newport. I hope you had time to go to Medford and find out about my dining - room, and that everything is going on well at the Ledge. I will see you to-night at eight.

K. P. L.”

Sanford, with a smile of pleasure, shut the letter in his bureau drawer, and entering the dining-room, he picked up the basket of roses and began those little final touches about the room and table which he never neglected. He lighted the tapers in the antique lamps that hung from the ceiling, readjusting the ruby glass holders ; he kindled the wicks in some quaint brackets over the sideboard ; he moved the Venetian flagons and decanters nearer the centrepiece of flowers, — those he had himself ordered for his guests and their chaperon, — and cutting the stems from the rose - water roses sprinkled them over the snowy linen.

With the soft glow of the candles the room took on a mellow, subdued tone; the pink roses on the cloth, the rosebuds on the candle-shades, and the mass of Mermets in the centre being the distinctive features, and giving the key-note of color to the feast. To Sanford a dinnertable with its encircling guests was always a palette. He knew just where the stronger tones of black coats and white shirt-fronts placed beside the softer tints of fair shoulders and bright faces must be relieved by blossoms in perfect harmony, and he understood to a nicety the exact values of the minor shades in linen, glass, and silver, in the making of the picture.

The guests arrived within a few minutes of one another. Mrs. Leroy, in yellow satin and black bows, a string of pearls about her throat, came first. It was one of the nights when she looked barely twenty-five, and seemed the fresh, joyous girl Sanford bad known before her marriage. The ever present sadness which her friends read in her face had gone. She was all gayety and happiness, and her eyes, under their long lashes, were purple as the violets which she wore. Helen Shirley was in white muslin, — not a jewel, — her fair cheeks rosy with excitement. Jack, hovering near her, was immaculate in white tie and high collar, while the self-installed, presiding genial of the feast, the major, appeared in a suit of clothes that by its ill-fitting wrinkles betrayed its pedigree, — a velvet-collared coat that had lost its dignity in the former service of some friend, and a shoestring cravat that looked as if it had belonged to Major Talbot himself (his dead wife’s first husband), and that was now so loosely tied it had all it could do to keep its place.

While they awaited dinner, Jack, eager to show Helen some of Sanford’s choicest bits, led her to the mantelpiece, over which hung a sketch by Smearly, — the original of his Academy picture ; pointed out the famous wedding-chest and some of the accoutrements over the door ; and led her into the private office, now lighted by half a dozen candles, one illumining the copper diving-helmet with its face-plate of flowers. Helen, who had never been in a bachelor’s apartment before, thought it another and an enchanted world. Everything suggested a surprise and a mystery.

When she entered the dining-room on Sanford’s arm, and saw on the wall the initials H. S., she gave a little start, colored, avoided Jack’s gaze, then recovering herself said, " I never saw anything so charming. And H. S., — why, these are your initials, Mr. Sanford,” looking up innocently into his eyes.

Sanford started, and a shade of cruel disappointment crossed Jack’s face. Mrs. Leroy broke into a happy, contagious laugh, and her eyes, often so impenetrable in their sadness, danced with merriment.

The major watched them all with illdisguised delight, and, beginning to understand the varying expressions flitting over his niece’s face, said, with genuine emotion, emphasizing his outburst by kissing her rapturously on the cheek, “ You dear little girl, you, don’t you know your own name ? H. S. stands for Helen Shirley, not Henry Sanford.”

Helen blushed scarlet. She might have known, she said to herself, that Jack would do something lovely, just to surprise her. Why did she betray herself so easily ?

Sanford looked at Mrs. Leroy. (‘No one would have thought of all this but you, Kate,” he said.

“ Don’t thank me, Henry. All I did,” she answered, still laughing, “ was to put a few flowers about, and to have my maid poke a lot of man-things under the sofas and behind the chairs, and take away those horrid old covers and curtains. I know you 'll never forgive me when you want something to - morrow you can’t find, but Jack begged so hard I could n’t help it. How do you like the candle-shades ? I made them myself, " she added, tipping her head on one side like a wren.

Helen turned and looked again at the wreath of violets on the wall. When, a moment later, in removing her glove, she brushed Jack’s hand, lying on the table-cloth beside her own, the slightest possible pressure of her little finger conveyed her thunks.

Everybody was brimful of happiness : Helen radiant with the inspiration of new surroundings so unlike those of the simple home she had left the day before ; Jack riding in a chariot of soapbubbles, with butterflies for leaders, and drinking in every word that fell from Helen s lips ; the major suave and unctuous, with an old-time gallantry that delighted his admirers, boasting now of his ancestry, now of his horses, now of his rare old wines at home ; Sanford leading the distinguished Pocomokian into still more airy flights, or engaging him in assumed serious conversation whenever that obtuse gentleman insisted on dragging Jack down from his butterfly heights with Helen, to discuss with him some prosaic features of the clubhouse at Crab Island ; while Mrs. Leroy, happier than she had been in weeks, watched Helen and Jack with undisguised pleasure, or laughed at the major’s good-natured egotism, his wonderful reminiscences and harmless pretensions, listening between pauses to the young engineer by her side, whose heart was to her an open book.

Coffee was served on the balcony. Mrs. Leroy sat on a low camp-stool with her back to the railing, the warm tones of the lamp falling upon her dainty figure. Her prematurely gray hair, piled in fluffy waves upon her head and held in place by a long jewel-tipped pin, gave an indescribable softness and charm to the rosy tints of her skin. Her bluegray eyes, now deep violet, flashed and dimmed under the moving shutters of the lids, as the light of her varying emotions stirred their depths. About her every movement was that air of distinction, of repose, and of grace which never left her, and which never ceased to have its fascination for her friends. Added to this were a sprightliness and a vivacity which, although often used as a mask to hide a heavy heart, were tonight inspired by her sincere enjoyment of the pleasure she and the others had given to the young Maryland girl and her lover.

When Sam brought the coffee-tray she insisted on filling the cups herself, dropping in the sugar with a dainty movement of her fingers that was bewitching, laughing as merrily as if there had never been a sorrow in her life. At no time was she more fascinating to her admirers than when at a task like this. The very cup she handled was instantly invested with a certain preciousness, and became a thing to be touched as delicately and as lightly as the fingers that had prepared it.

The only one who for the time was outside the spell of her influence was Jack Hardy. He had taken a seat on the floor of the balcony, with his back next the wall — and Helen.

“ Jack, you lazy fellow,”said Mrs. Leroy, with mock indignation, as she rose to her feet, “ get out of my way, or I 'll spill the cup. Miss Shirley, why don’t you make him get up ? He’s awfully in the way here.”

One of Jack’s favorite positions, when Helen was near, was at her feet. He had learned this one the summer before at her house on Crab Island, when they would sit for hours on the beach.

“ I’m not in anybody’s way, my dear Mrs. Leroy. My feet are tied in a Chinese knot under me, and my back has grown fast to the rain-spout. Major, will you please say something nice to Mrs. Leroy and coax her inside ? ”

Sam had rolled a small table, holding a flagon of cognac and some crushed ice, beside the major, who sat half buried in the cushions of one of Sanford’s divans. The Pocomokian struggled to his feet.

“ You must n’t move, major,” Mrs. Leroy called. “ I ’m not coming in. I’m going to stay out here in this lovely moonlight, if one of these very polite young gentlemen will bring me an armchair.” She looked with pretended dignity at Jack and Sanford as she spoke, and added, “Thank you, Henry,” when Sanford dragged one toward her.

“ Take my seat,” said Jack. with a laugh, springing to his feet, suddenly realizing Mrs. Leroy’s delicate but pointed suggestion. “ Come, Miss Helen,” thinking of a better and more retired corner, “ we won’t stay where we are abused. Let us join the major.” With an arm to Miss Shirley and a sweeping bow to Mrs. Leroy, Jack walked straight to the divan nearest the curtains.

When Helen and Jack were out of hearing, Mrs. Leroy looked toward the major, and, reassured of his entire absorption in his own personal comfort, turned to Sanford, saying in low, earnest tones, “ Can the new sloop lay the stones, Henry ? You have n’t told me a word yet of what you have been doing for the last few days at the Ledge.”

“I think so, Kate,” replied Sanford, all the gayety of his manner gone. “ We laid one yesterday before the easterly gale caught us. You got my telegram, did n’t you ? ”

“ Yes, but I was anxious for all that. Ever since I had that talk with General Barton I’ve felt nervous over the laying of those stones. He frightened me when he said no one of the Board at Washington believed you could do it. It would be so awful if your plan should fail.”

“ But it’s not going to fail, Kate,” he answered, with a decided tone in his voice, and that peculiar knitting of the eyebrows in which one could read his determination. “ I can do it, and will. All I wanted was a proper boat, and I’ve got that. I watched her day before yesterday. I was a little nervous until I saw her lower the first stone. Her captain is a plucky fellow, — Captain Joe likes him immensely. I wish you could have been there to see how cool he was, — not a bit flustered when he saw the rocks under the bow of his sloop.”

Kate handed her empty coffee-cup to Sanford, and going to the edge of the balcony rested her elbows on the railing and looked down on the treetops of the square. When he joined her again she said, “ Caleb West, of course, went down with the first stone, did n’t he ? ” She knew Caleb’s name as she did those of all the men in Sanford’s employ. There was no detail of the work he had not explained to her. “ And was the sea-bottom as you expected to find it ? ” she added.

“ Even better,” he answered, eager to discuss his anxieties with her. To Sanford, as to many men, there were times when the sympathy and understanding of a woman, the generous faith and ready belief of one who listens only to encourage, became a necessity. To talk to a man in this way would bore him, and would perhaps arouse a suspicion of Sanford’s professional ability. He went over with her again, as he had done so many times before, all of his plans for carrying on the work and the difficulties that had threatened him. He talked of his hopes and fears, of his confidence in his men, his admiration for them, and his love for the work itself.

“ Caleb says,” he continued, “ that as soon as he gets the first row of enrockment stones set, the others will lie up like bricks. And it’s all coming out exactly as we have planned it, too, Kate.” Sanford now spoke with renewed energy ; the comfort of his confidence and her understanding had done its work.

“ I wonder what General Barton will think when he finds your plan succeeds ? He says everywhere that you cannot do it,”she added, with increased animation, a certain pride in her voice.

“ I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s hard to get these old-time engineers to believe in anything new, and this foundation is new. But all the same, I’d rather pin my faith to Captain Joe than to any one of them. What we are doing at the Ledge requires mental pluck and brute grit, — nothing else. Scientific engineering won’t help us a bit.”

Sanford, his back to the balcony rail, now stood erect, with face aglow and kindling eyes. Every tone of his voice showed a keen interest in the subject.

“ And yet, after all, Kate, I realize that my work is mere child’s play. Just see what other men have had to face. At Minot’s Ledge, you know, — the light off Boston, — they had to chisel down a submerged rock into steps, to get a footing for the tower. But three or four men could work at a time, and then only at dead low water. They got but one hundred and thirty hours’ work the first year. The whole Atlantic rolled in on top of them, and there was no shelter from the wind. Until they got the bottom courses of their tower bolted to the steps they had cut in the rock, they had no footing at all, and had to do their work from a small boat. Our artificial island helps us immensely ; we have something to stand on. And it was even worse at Tillamook Rock, on the Pacific coast. There the men were landed on the rock, — a precipitous crag sticking up out of the sea, — through the surf, in breeches buoys slung to the masthead of a vessel, and for weeks at a time the sea was so rough that no one could reach them. They were given up for dead once. All that time they were lying in canvas tents lashed down to the sides of the crag to keep them from being blown into rags. All they had to eat and drink for days was raw salt pork and the rainwater they caught from the tent covers. And yet those fellows stuck to it day and night until they had blasted off a place large enough to put a shanty on. Every bit of the material for that lighthouse, excepting in the stillest weather, was landed from the vessel that brought it, by a line rigged from the masthead to the top of the crag; and all this time, Kate, she was thrashing around under steam, keeping as close to the crag as she dared. Oh, I tell you, there is something stunning to me in such a battle with the elements ! ”

Kate’s eyes kindled as Sanford talked on. She was no longer the dainty woman over the coffee-cups, nor the woman of the world she had been a few moments before, eager for the pleasure of assembled guests.

“ When you tell me such things, Henry, I am all on fire.” Her eyes flashed with the intensity of her feelings. Then she paused, and there settled over her face a deepening shadow like that of a coming cloud. “ The world is full of such great things to be done,” she sighed, “ and I lead such a mean little life, doing nothing, nothing at all.”

Sanford, when she first spoke, had looked at her in undisguised admiration. Then, as he watched her, his heart smote him. He had not intended to wound her by his enthusiasm, nor to awaken in her any sense of her own disappointments ; he had only tried to allay her anxieties over his affairs. He knew by the force of her outburst that he had unconsciously stirred those deeper emotions, the strength of which really made her the help she was to him, but he did not ever want them to cause her suffering.

These sudden transitions in her moods were not new to him. She was an April day in her temperament, and could often laugh the sunniest of laughs when the rain of her tears was falling. These moods he loved. It was the present frame of mind, however, that he dreaded, and from which he always tried to save her. It did not often show itself. She was too much a woman of the world to wear her heart on her sleeve, and too good and tactful a friend to burden even Sanford with her sorrow. He knew what inspired it, for he had known her for years. He had witnessed the long years of silent suffering which she had borne so sweetly, — even cheerfully at times, — had seen with what restraint and self-control she had cauterized by silence and patient endurance every fresh wound, and had watched day by day the slow coming of the scars that drew all the tighter the outside covering of her heart.

As he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, — she leaning over the balcony at his side, — he could see that the tears had gathered under her lashes. It was best to say nothing when she felt like this. He recognized that to have made her the more dissatisfied, even by that sympathy which he longed to give, would have hurt in her that which he loved and honored most, — her silence, and her patient loyalty to the man whose name she bore. “ She’s had a letter from Leroy,” he said to himself, “ and he’s done some other disgraceful thing, I suppose ; ” but to Kate he made no reply.

Nothing had disturbed the other guests. From the softly lighted room where they sat came the clink of the major’s glass, and the intermittent gurgle of the rapidly ebbing decanter as Sam supplied his wants. On the foreordained divan, half hidden by a curtain, Jack and Helen were studying the contents of a portfolio, — some of the drawings upside down. Now and then their low talk was broken by a happy, irrelevant laugh.

By this time the moon had risen over the treetops, the tall buildings far across the quadrangle breaking the sky-line. Below could be seen the night life of the Park. Miniature figures strolled about under the trees, flashing in brilliant light or swallowed up in dense shadow, as they passed through the glare of the many lamps scattered among the budding foliage and disappeared. Now it was a child romping with a dog, and now a group of men, or a belated woman wheeling a baby carriage home. The night was still, the air soft and balmy ; only the hum of the busy street a block away could be heard where they stood.

Suddenly a figure darted across the white patch of pavement below them. Sanford leaned over the railing, a strange, unreasoning dread in his heart.

“ What is it, Henry ? ” asked Mrs. Leroy.

“ Looks like a messenger,” Sanford answered.

Mrs. Leroy bent over the railing, and watched a boy spring up the low steps of the street door, ring the bell violently, and beat an impatient tattoo with his foot.

“ Whom do you want ? ” Sanford asked gently.

The boy looked up, and, seeing the two figures on the balcony, answered, “ Death message for Mr. Henry Sanford.”

“ A death message, did he say ? ” asked Mrs. Leroy. Her voice was almost a whisper.

“Yes ; don’t move,” said Sanford to her, and as he laid a hand on her arm he pointed toward the group inside. He felt a quick, sharp contraction in his throat. “ Sam,” he called in a lowered tone.

“ Yaas ’r, — comin’ direc’ly.”

“ Sam, there’s a boy at the outside door with a telegram. He says it’s a death message. Get it, and tell the boy to wait. Go quietly, now, and let no one know. You will find me here.”

Mrs. Leroy sank into a chair, her face in her hands. Sanford bent over her, the blood mounting to his face, his own heart beating, his voice still calm.

“ Don’t give way, Kate ; we shall know in a moment.”

She grasped his hand and held on, trembling. “ Do you suppose it is Morgan ? Will Sam never come ? ”

Sam reëntered the room, his breath gone with the dash up and down three flights of stairs. He walked slowly toward the balcony and handed Sanford a yellow envelope. Its contents were as follows: —

“ Screamer’s boiler exploded 7.40 tonight. Mate killed ; Lacey and three men injured. JOSEPH BELL.”

Sanford looked hurriedly at his watch, forgetting, in the shock, to hand Mrs. Leroy the telegram. For a moment he leaned back against the balcony, absorbed in deep thought.

“ Twenty-three minutes left,” he said to himself, consulting his watch again. “ I must go at once ; they will need me.”

Mrs. Leroy put her hand on his arm. “ Tell me quick ! Who is it, Henry ? ”

“ Forgive me, dear Kate, but I was so knocked out. It is no one who belongs to you. It is the boiler of the Screamer that has burst. Three men are hurt,” reading the dispatch again mechanically. “ I wonder who they are ? ” as if he expected to see their names added to its brief lines.

She took the telegram from his hand. “ Oh, Henry, I am so sorry, — and the boat, too, you counted upon. But look ! read it again. Do you see ? Captain Joe signs it, — he’s not hurt! ”

Sanford patted her hand abstractedly, and said, " Dear Kate,” but without looking at her or replying further. He was calculating whether it would be possible for him to catch the midnight train and go to the relief of his men.

“ Yes, I can just make it,” he said, half aloud, to himself. Then turning to Sam, his voice shaking in the effort to control himself, he said in an undertone, " Sam, send that boy for a cab, and get my bag ready. I will change these clothes on the train. Ask Mr. Hardy to step here ; not a word, remember, about this telegram.”

Jack came out laughing, and was about to break into some raillery, when he saw Mrs. Leroy’s face.

Sanford touched his shoulder. " Jack, there has been an explosion at the work, and some of the men are badly hurt. Say nothing to Helen until she gets home. I leave immediately for Keyport. Will you and the major please look after Mrs. Leroy ? ”

Sanford’s guests followed him to the door of the corridor: Helen radiant, her eyes still dancing ; the major bland and courteous, his face without a ruffle ; Jack and Mrs. Leroy apparently unmoved.

“ Oh, I 'm so sorry you must go ! ” exclaimed Helen, holding out her hands. “ Mr. Hardy says you do nothing but live on the train. Thank you ever so much, dear Mr. Sanford ; I’ve had such a lovely time.”

“ My dear suh,” said the major, “ this is positively cruel ! This Hennessy ” — he was holding his glass — “ is like a nosegay; I hoped you would enjoy it with me. Let me go back and pour you out a drop before you go.”

“ Why not wait until to-morrow ? This night traveling will kill you, old man,” said Jack in perfunctory tones, the sympathetic pressure of his hand in Sanford’s belying their sincerity.

Sanford smiled as he returned the pressure, and, with his eyes resting on Helen’s joyous face, replied meaningly, “ Thank you, Jack; it ’s all right, I see.” Helen’s evening had not been spoiled, at all events.

Once outside in the corridor, — Sam down one flight of steps with Sanford’s bag and coat, — Mrs. Leroy half closed the salon door, and laying her hand on Sanford’s shoulder said, with a force and an earnestness that carried the keenest comfort straight to his heart, “ I shall not worry, Henry, and neither will you. I know it looks dark to you now, but it will be brighter when you reach Keyport and get all the facts. I’ve seen you in worse places than this; you always get through, and you will now. I am coming up myself on the early morning train, to see what can be done for the men.”

VII.

BETTY’S FIRST PATIENT.

The wounded men lay in an empty warehouse which in the whaling - days had been used for the storing of oil, and was now owned by a friend of Captain Joe, an old whaler living back of the village.

Captain Joe had not waited for permission and a key when the accident occurred and the wounded men lay about him. He and Captain Brandt had broken the locks with a crowbar, improvised out of old barrels and planks an operating-table for the doctors, and dispatched messengers up and down the shore to pull mattresses from the nearest beds.

The room he had selected for the temporary hospital was on the ground floor of the building. It was lighted by four big windows, and protected by solid wooden shutters, now slightly ajar. Through the openings timid rays of sunlight, strangers here for years, stole down leaning ladders of floating dust to the grimy floor, where they lay trembling, with eyes alert, ready for instant retreat. From the overhead beams hung long strings of abandoned cobwebs encrusted with black soot, which the bolder breeze from the open door and windows swayed back and forth, the startled soot falling upon the white cots below. In one corner was a heap of rusty hoops and mouldy staves, unburied skeletons of old whaling - days. But for the accumulation of years of dust and grime the room was well adapted to its present use.

Lacey’s cot was nearest the door. His head was bound with bandages ; only one eye was free. He lay on his side, breathing heavily. He had been blown against the shrouds, and the iron footrest had laid open his cheek and forehead. The doctor said that if he recovered he would carry the scar the rest of his life. It was feared, too, that he had been injured internally.

Next to his cot were those of two of the sloop’s crew, — one man with ribs and ankle broken, the other with dislocated hip. Lonny Bowles, the quarryman, came next. He was sitting up in bed, his arm in a sling, — Captain Brandt was beside him ; he had escaped with a gash in his arm.

Captain Joe was without coat or vest, his sleeves rolled up above the elbows, his big brawny arms black with dirt. He had been up all night; now bending over one of the crew, lifting him in his arms as if he had been a baby, to ease the pain of his position, now helping Aunty Bell with the beds.

Betty sat beside Lacey, fanning him. Her eyes were red and heavy, her pretty curls matted about her head. She and Aunty Bell had not had their clothes off. Their faces were smudged with the soot and grime that kept falling from the ceiling. Aunty Bell had taken charge of the improvised stove, heating the water, and Betty had assisted the doctors — there were two —with the bandages and lint.

“ It ain’t as bad as I thought when I wired ye,” said Captain Joe to Sanford, stopping him as he edged a way through the group of men outside. “ It’s turrible hard on th’ poor mate, jes’ been married. Never died till he reached th’ dock. There warn’t a square inch o’ flesh onto him, the doctor said, that warn’t scalded clean off. Poor feller,” and his voice trembled, “ he ain’t been married but three months; she’s a-comin’ down on the express to-day. Cap’n Bob’s goin’ ter meet ’er. The other boys is tore up some, but we 'll have ’em crawlin’ ’round in a week or so. Lacey ’s got th’ worst crack. Doctor sez he kin save his eye if he pulls through, but ye kin lay yer three fingers in th’ hole in his face. He won’t be as purty as he was,” with an effort at a smile, “but maybe that ’ll do him good. Now that you ’re here I ’ll go ’board the sloop an’ see how she looks.”

Sanford crossed at once to Lacey’s bed, and laid his hand tenderly on that of the sufferer. The young fellow opened his well eye, and a smile played for an instant about his mouth, the white teeth gleaming. Then it faded with the pain. Betty bent over him still closer and adjusted the covering about his chest.

“ Has he suffered much during the night, Betty ? ” asked Sanford.

“ He did n’t know a thing at first, sir. He did n’t come to himself till the doctor got through. He’s been easier since daylight.” Then, with her head turned toward Sanford, and with a significant gesture, pointing to her own forehead and cheek, she noiselessly described the terrible wounds, burying her face in her hands as the awful memory rose before her. “ Oh, Mr. Sanford, I never dreamed anybody could suffer so.”

“ Where does he suffer most? ” asked Sanford in a whisper.

Lacey opened his eye. “ In my back, Mr. Sanford.”

Betty laid her fingers on his hand. “ Don’t talk, Billy ; doctor said ye were n’t to talk.”

The eye shut again wearily, and the brown, rough, scarred hand with the blue tattoo marks under the skin closed over the little fingers and held on.

Betty sat fanning him gently, looking down upon his bruised face. As each successive pain racked his helpless body she would hold her breath until it passed, tightening her fingers that he might steady himself the better. All her heart went out to him in his pain. Aunty Bell watched her for a moment; then going to her side, she drew her hand with a caressing stroke under the girl’s chin, a favorite love-touch of hers.

“ Cap’n says we got to go home, child, both of us. You ’re tuckered out, an’ I got some chores to do. We can’t do no more good here. You come ’long an’ get washed up ’fore Caleb comes. You don’t want to let him see ye bunged up like this, an’ all smudged and dirty with th’ soot a-droppin’ down. He ’ll be here in half an hour. They’ve sent the tug to the Ledge for him an’ the men.”

“ I ain’t a-goin’ a step, Aunty Bell. I ain’t sleepy a bit. There ain’t nobody to change those cloths but me. Caleb knows how to get along,” she answered, her eyes watching the quick, labored breathing of the injured man.

The mention of Caleb’s name brought her back to herself. Since the moment when she had left her cottage, the night before, and in all her varying moods since, she had not once thought of her husband. At the sound of the explosion she had run out of her house bareheaded, and had kept on down the road, overtaking Mrs. Bell and the neighbors. She had not stopped even to lock her door. She only knew that the men were hurt, and that she had seen Captain Joe and the others working on the sloop’s deck but an hour before. She remembered now Lacey’s ghastly face as the lantern’s light fell upon it, the limp body carried on the barrow plank and laid outside the warehouse door, and could still hear the crash of Captain Joe’s iron bar when he forced off the lock. She would not leave the sufferer now that he had crawled back to life and needed her, — not, at least, until he was out of all danger. When Captain Joe passed with a cup of coffee for one of the sufferers, she was still by Lacey’s side, fanning gently. He seemed to be asleep.

“ Come, little gal,” the captain called out, “you git along home. You done fust-rate, an’ the men won’t forgit ye for it. Caleb ’ll be mighty proud when I tell ’im how you stood by las’ night when they all piled in on top o’ me. You run ’long now after Aunty Bell, an’ git some sleep. I ’m goin’ ’board the sloop to see how badly she’s hurted.”

Betty only shook her head. Then she put her face against Captain Joe’s strong arm and said, “ No, please don’t, Captain Joe. I can’t go now.”

She was still there, the fan moving noiselessly, when Mrs. Leroy and her maid and Major Slocomb entered the hospital, some hours later. The major had escorted Mrs. Leroy from New York, greatly to Sanford’s surprise, and greatly to Mrs. Leroy’s visible annoyance. All her protests the night before had only confirmed him in his determination to meet her at the train in the morning.

“ Did you suppose, my dear suh,” he said, in answer to Sanford’s astonished look, as he handed the lady from the train on its arrival at Keyport, “ that I would permit a lady to come off alone into a God-forsaken country like this, that raises nothin’ but rocks and scrub pines ? ”

Mrs. Leroy seemed stunned when she saw the four cots upon which the men lay. She advanced a step toward Lacey’s bed, and then, as she caught sight of the bandages and the ghastly face upon the blood-stained pillow, she stopped short and grasped Sanford’s arm, and said in a tremulous whisper, “ Oh, Henry, is that his poor wife sitting by him ? ”

“ No; that’s the wife of Caleb West, the master diver. That ’s Lacey lying there. He looks to be worse hurt than he is, Kate,” anxious to make the case as light as possible.

Her eyes wandered over the room, up at the cobwebbed ceiling and down to the blackened floor.

“ What an awfully dirty place ! Are you going to keep them here ? ”

“ Yes, until they can get to work again. The building is perfectly dry and healthy, with plenty of ventilation. We will have it cleaned up, — it needs that.”

Betty merely glanced at the group as she sat fanning the sleeping man. Their entrance had made but little impression upon her ; she was too tired to move, and too much absorbed in her charge to offer the fine lady a chair.

Something in the girl’s face touched the visitor.

“ Have you been here all the morning ? ” asked Mrs. Leroy, crossing to Betty’s side of the cot, and laying a hand on her shoulder.

Betty raised her eyes, the rims red with her long vigil, and the whites all the whiter because of the fine black dust that had sifted down and discolored her pale cheeks.

“ I’ve been here all night, ma’am,” she said sweetly and gently, drawn instinctively by her sympathetic face.

“ How tired you must be ! Can I do anything to help you ? ”

Betty shook her head.

After the first shock at the sight of the wounded men, the major had crossed over to the bed occupied by Lonny Bowles, the big Noank quarryman, whose arm was in a sling, and had sat down on the bed. No one had yet thought of bringing in chairs, except for those nursing the wounded. As the Pocomokian looked into Bowles’s bronzed, ruddy face, at the wrinkles about his neck, as seamy as those of a young bull, the great broad hairy chest, and the arms and hands big and strong, he was filled with astonishment. Everything about the quarryman seemed to be the exact opposite of what he himself possessed. This almost racial distinction was made clearer when, in the kindness of his heart, he tried to comfort the unfortunate man.

“ I’m ve’y sorry,” the major began, “ at finding you injured in this way, suh. Has the night been a ve’y painful one ? You seem better off than the others. How did you feel at the time ? ”

Bowles looked him all over with a curious expression of countenance. He was trying to decide in his mind, from the major’s white tie, whether he was a minister, whose next remark would be a request to kneel down and pray with him, or a quack doctor who had come to do a little business on his own account. The evident sincerity and tenderness of the speaker disconcerted him for the moment. He hesitated for a while, and formulated a reply in his mind that would cover the case if his first surmise were correct, and might at the same time result in his being let alone.

“ Wall, it was so damn’ sudden,” said the quarryman. “ Fust thing I knowed I wuz in the water with th’ wind knocked out’er me, an’ the next wuz when I come to an’ they hed me in here an’ the doctor a-fixin’ me up. I ’m drier ’n a limekiln. Say, cap,” — he looked over toward the water-bucket, and called to one of the men standing near the door, — " fetch me a dipper.”

To call a man " cap ” around Keyport is to dignify him with a title which he probably does not possess, but which you think would please him if he did.

“ Let me get you a drink,” said the major, rising from the bed. He dipped the floating tin in the bucket and brought it to the thirsty man.

Bowles drained the dipper to its last drop. " He ain’t no minister an’ he ain’t no sawbones,” he said to himself, as he returned the empty tin to Slocomb with a “ Thank ye, — much obleeged.”

The reply satisfied the major, somehow, far more than the most elaborately prepared speech of thanks which he remembered ever to have received.

Then the two men continued to talk with each other freely, the one act of kindness having broken down the barrier between them. The Pocomokian told of his home on the Chesapeake, of his acquaintance with Sanford, of his coming up to look after Mrs. Leroy. “ Could n’t leave a woman without protection, you know,” to which code of etiquette Bowles bobbed his head in reply. The major’s tone of voice was as natural and commonplace as if he had been conversing with himself alone. The quarryman, in turn, talked about the Ledge, and what a rotten season it had been, — nothing but southeaster since work opened ; last week the men only got three days’ work. It was terrible rough on the boss (the boss was Sanford), paying out wages to the men and getting so little back; but it was n’t the men’s fault, — they were standing by day and night, catching the lulls when they came; they’d make it up before the season was over ; he and Caleb West had been up all the night before getting ready for the big derricks that Captain Joe was going to set up as soon as they were ready ; did n’t know what they were going to do now with that Screamer all tore up. He gave unconsciously a record of danger, unselfishness, loyalty, pluck, hard work, and a sense of duty that was a complete revelation to Slocomb, whose whole life had been one prolonged period of loafing, and whose ideas of the higher type of man were somehow inseparably interwoven with a veranda, a splint-bottomed chair, a palm-leaf fan, and somebody within call to administer to his personal wants.

When Captain Joe returned from an inspection of the sloop’s injuries, Mrs. Leroy was still talking to Sanford, suggesting comforts for the men, and planning for mosquito nettings to be placed over their cots. The maid, a severe-looking woman in black, had taken a seat on an empty nail-keg which somebody had brought in, and which she had carefully dusted with her handkerchief before occupying. There was nothing she could possibly do for anybody.

Captain Joe looked at the party for a moment, noted Mrs. Leroy’s traveling costume of blue foulard, ran his eye over the maid who was holding her mistress’s dressing-case, then glanced at the major, in an alpaca coat, with white vest and necktie and gray slouch hat, and said in his calm, forceful, yet gentle way, “ It was very nice of ye to come an’ bring yer lady friend,” pointing to the maid, “ an’ any o’ Mr. Sanford’s folks is allers welcome at any time; but we be a rough lot, an’ the men’s rough, and ye kin see for yerself we ain’t fixed up fur company. They ’ll be all right in a week or so. Ef ye don’t mind now, I’m goin’ to shet them shetters to keep the sun out an’ git th’ men quiet, — some on ’em ain’t slep’ any too much. The tug ’ll be here to take ye over to Medford whenever ye ’re ready; she’s been to th’ Ledge fur th’ men. Mr. Sanford said mebbe ye’d be goin’ over soon. Ye ’re goin’ ’long, did n’t I hear ye say, sir? ” Then addressing Slocomb, whose title he tried to remember, “ We’ve done th’ best we could, colonel. It ain’t like what ye’re accustomed to, — kind’er ragged place, —but we got th’ men handy here where we kin take care on ’em, an’ still look after th’ work, an’ we ain’t got no time to lose this season; it’s been back’ard, blowin’ a gale half the time. There’s the tug whistle now, ma’am,” turning again to Mrs. Leroy.

Mrs. Leroy did not answer. She felt the justice of the captain’s evident want of confidence in her, and realized at once that all of her best impulses could not save her from being an intrusion at this time. None of her former experience had equipped her for a situation of such gravity as this. With a curious feeling of half contempt for herself, she thought, as she looked around upon the great strong men suffering there silently, how little she had known of what physical pain must be. She had once read to a young blind girl in a hospital, during a winter, and she had sent delicacies for years to a poor man with some affliction of the spine. She remembered that she had been quite satisfied with herself and her work at the time; and so had the pretty nurses in their caps, and the young doctors whom she met, the head surgeon even escorting her to her carriage. But what had she done to prepare herself for a situation like this ? Here was the reality of suffering, and yet with all her sympathy she felt within herself a fierce repugnance to it.

As she turned to leave the building, holding her dainty skirts in her hand to avoid the dirt, the light of the open door was shut out, and eight or ten great strong fellows in rough jackets and boots, headed by Caleb West, just landed by a tug from the Ledge, walked hurriedly into the room, with an air as if they belonged there and knew they had work to do.

Caleb stood by Lacey’s bed and looked down on him. His cap was off, his hands were clasped behind his back, while his big beard fell over his chest. He felt his eyes filling, and a great lump rose in his throat. He never could see suffering unmoved.

The young rigger opened his well eye, and the pale cheek flushed scarlet as he saw Caleb’s face bending over him.

“ Where did it hit ye, sonny ? ” asked Caleb, bending closer, and slipping one hand into Betty’s as he spoke.

Betty pointed to her own cheek. Lacey, she said, was too weak to answer for himself.

“ I’ve been afeard o’ that b’iler,” Caleb said, turning to one of the men, “ever sence I see it work.”

Betty shook her head warningly, holding a finger to her lips. Caleb and the men stopped talking.

“ You been here all night, Betty ? ” whispered Caleb, putting his mouth close to her ear, and one big hand on her rounded shoulder.

Betty nodded her head.

“ Ye ought’er be mighty proud o’ her, Caleb,” said Captain Joe, joining the group, and speaking in a lowered tone. " Ain’t many older women ’longshore would’er done any better. I tried ter git ’er to go home with Aunty Bell two hours ago, but she sez she won’t.”

Caleb’s face was suffused with pride and his heart gave a quick bound as he listened to Captain Joe’s praise of the girl wife that was all his own. His rough hand pressed Betty’s shoulder the closer. Now, as he thought to himself, the men about him could see the strong womanly qualities which had attracted him. He had always known that the first great sorrow or anxiety that came into her life would develop all her nature and make a woman of her.

“ Lemme take hold now, Betty,” said Caleb, still whispering, and stooping over her again. “Ye ’re nigh beat out, little woman.”

He slipped his arm around her slender waist as if to lift her from the chair. Betty caught his fingers and loosened his hand from its hold.

“ I’m all right, Caleb. You go home. I ’ll be ’long in a little while to get supper.”

Caleb looked at her curiously. Her tone of voice was new to him. She had never loosened his arm before, not when she was tired and sick. She had always crept into his lap, and put her pretty white arms around his neck, and tucked her head down on his big beard.

“ What ’s the matter, child ? ” he asked anxiously. “ Maybe it’s hungry ye be ? ”

“ Yes, I guess I’m hungry, Caleb,” said Betty wearily.

“ I ’ll go out, Betty, an’ git ye some soup or somethin’. I ’ll be back right away, little woman.” He tiptoed past the cot, putting on his cap as he went.

Two of the men followed him with their eyes and smiled. One looked significantly at Lacey and then toward the retreating figure, and shook his head in a knowing way.

Betty had not answered Caleb. She did not even turn her head to follow his movements. She saw only the bruised, pale face before her as she listened to the heavy breathing of the sufferer. She would have dropped from her chair with fatigue and exhaustion but for some new spirit within her which seemed to hold her up, and to keep the fan still in her hand.

When Sanford, after escorting Mrs. Leroy to her home, returned to the improvised hospital, the lanterns had been lighted, the doctor had dressed the men’s wounds, and had reported everybody on the mend. At Betty’s urgent request he had made a careful examination of Lacey, and pronounced him positively out of danger. Only then had she left her post and gone to her own cottage with Caleb.

Captain Joe had followed Aunty Bell home for a few hours’ rest, and all the watchers had been changed.

There was but one exception. Beside the cot upon which lay the sailor with the dislocated hip sat the major, with hat and coat off, his shirt-cuffs rolled up. He was feeding the sufferer from a bowl of soup which he held in his hand. He seemed to enjoy every phase of his new experience. It might have been that his sympathies were more than usually aroused, or it might have been that the spirit of vagabondage within him fitted him for every condition in life, making him equally at home among rich and poor, and equally agreeable to both. Certainly no newly appointed young surgeon in a charity hospital could have been more entirely absorbed in the proper running of the establishment than was Slocomb in the case of these rough men.

“ I’m going to take charge here tonight, major,” said Sanford, going toward him, realizing for the first time that he had neglected his friend all day, and with a sudden anxiety as to where he should send him for the night. “ Will you go to the hotel and get a room, or will you go to Captain Joe’s cottage? You can have my bed. Mrs. Bell will make you very comfortable for the night.”

The major turned to Sanford with an expression of profound sympathy for such misunderstanding in his face, hesitated for a moment, and said firmly, with a slight suggestion of wounded dignity in his manner, “ By gravy, suh, you would n’t talk about going to bed if you’d been yere ’most all day, as I have, and seen what these po’ men suffer. My place is yere, suh, an’ yere I’m going to stay.”

Sanford had to look twice before he could trust his own eyes and ears. What was the matter with the Pocomokian ?

“ But, major,” he continued in protest, determining finally in his mind that some quixotic whim had taken possession of him, “ there is n’t a place for you to lie down. You had better get a good night’s rest, and come back in the morning. There’s nothing you can do here. I ’m going to sit up with the men tonight.”

The major did not even wait for Sanford’s reply. He placed the hot soup carefully on the floor, slipped one hand under the wounded man’s head that he might swallow more easily, and then raised another spoonful to his lips.

F. Hopkinson Smith.

(To be continued.)