At the Black Rocks Part 12

"Fact is I've been a-thinking of you. Want a job, young man?"

"Me, sir? I expect to go home to-morrow."

"Got to return for anything special?"

"Well, my visit is out."

"Nothing special to call you home?"

"Oh, I help father, and go to school when there is one."

"Well," said the old light-keeper, fixing his eyes on the boy, "how should you like to help to keep a lighthouse for three weeks?"

"Me?" said Dave eagerly.

"Yes, you. You know I have an a.s.sistant, Timothy Waters. He wants to be off on a vacation for three weeks, and I must have somebody to take his place. I want somebody who can work in there, sort of spry and handy. Now, I think you would do. How should you like it?"

"When do you want to know?"

"The last of this week."

"I will go home to-morrow and talk it over with the folks, and I can get you an answer by day after to-morrow."

"Yes, that will do."

Dave went home, obtained the consent of his parents, and the boat that brought Timothy Waters to Shipton to begin his vacation took back to the lighthouse Dave Fletcher and his trunk. It was the light-keeper, Mr.

Toby Tolman, who brought the former a.s.sistant to Shipton, and then accompanied Dave to Black Rocks. It was a mild summer day. The wind seemed too lazy to blow, and the sea too lazy to roll. There were faint little puffs of air at intervals, and along the bar and the sh.o.r.e the low surf turned slowly over as if weary. The light-tower and its red annex the fog-signal tower rose up out of one sea of blue into another of gold, and then above this sea of sunshine rolled another of blue again, where the white-sailed clouds seemed to be all becalmed. It was low tide, and the light-keeper's dory brushed against the exposed ma.s.ses of the ledge, weed-matted and brown, on which the lighthouse rested.

"This looks like home to me," said the keeper, when they had climbed the ladder and gained the door in the fog-signal tower. When they entered the light-tower the keeper detained Dave and said, "I want to tell you something about my home here on the rocks. There, this tower is about seventy feet high. It is built as strong as they can make stone masonry. This is the first room. We keep various stores here. Do you see this?"

Mr. Tolman with his foot tapped a round iron cover in the floor and then raised it.

"Down here is the tank where we keep our fresh water."

The iron cover went down with a dull slam; and then he pointed out various stores in the room--vegetables, wood, coal, and a quant.i.ty of hand-grenades (gla.s.s flasks filled with a chemical, to be used in putting out fires).

"How thick are the walls here, Mr. Tolman?"

"Four feet here of stone, solid; and then there is an inner wall of brick, foot and a half thick. Now we will go up into the kitchen. You saw those hand-grenades of ours. Precious little here that will burn.

You see the stairways from room to room are of iron, and then every floor has an iron deck covered with hard pine. Ah, my fire is still in!"

Yes, the kitchen stove had guarded well its fire, and the heat of the room was tempered by a mild, cool draught of air that came through an opened window from the flashing sea without. Besides a softly-cushioned rocking-chair near the stove, there were three chairs ranged near a small dining-room table, and their language was, "You will find a welcome here." Clock, looking-gla.s.s, cupboard, lamp-shelf, and other conveniences were in the room.

"Let's take a peep at the next room," said the keeper.

Again they climbed an iron staircase, and reached a bedroom. Besides a single bed, there were a clothes-closet, three green chairs, a green stand, a gilt-framed looking-gla.s.s, and on the wall several pictures of sea-life. The floor was covered with oil-cloth, and directly before the bed was a rag mat that had a very domestic look.

"There--this is my room; and now we will go up into the a.s.sistant's, your quarters. We will bring up your trunk directly," said the keeper.

This room was furnished like the keeper's, only it had two chairs, and before the bed was a strip of woollen carpet.

"I can put my trunk anywhere, I suppose, Mr. Tolman?"

"Anywhere you please."

"Mother gave me a few pictures, too, that she said I could stick up, to make it look homelike."

"Just what I like to have you do. Now for the watch-room."

This was at the head of another iron stairway, and held a small table, a library-case, a green chest, two chairs, and a closet for the keeping of curtains that might be used in the lantern, and other useful apparatus.

"This room is where we can sit and watch the lantern," explained the keeper.

"And what is this?" asked Dave, pointing at a weight that hung down from the ceiling.

"That weight? It is a part of the machinery that turns round the lens in the lantern. Now, let us go up into the lantern."

The lantern was a circular room. The walls were of iron, up to the height of three feet, and cased with wood, and then there was a succession of big panes of the clearest gla.s.s, making a broad window that extended about all the lantern. In the centre was a lens of "the fourth order," shaped like a cone, and consisting of very strong magnifying prisms of gla.s.s. Within this lens was a kerosene-lamp.

"There!" said Mr. Tolman; "all this tower of stone, all the arrangements of the place, all the serving of the keeper and his a.s.sistant, all the doing by day and the watching by night, is just to keep that little lamp a-going. Put out the lamp at night, and you might just as well send the keepers home and tear down the lighthouse."

"It is not so big a lamp as I supposed."

"No; that is a small lamp for so big a light as folks outside see. It is this lens that does the work of magnifying."

"Can I step outside, sir? I wanted to when we were down here that night, but we did not have so good a chance for looking about."

"Oh yes."

Outside of the lantern was a "deck," about six feet broad, and compa.s.sing the lantern. It was a shelf of stone covered with iron.

"Good view here," said the keeper.

"Yes; nothing to hide the prospect," replied Dave. "There is Shipton up beyond the harbour, and there is the sea in the other direction."

Only sea, sea, sea, to north, south, east--one wide, restless play of blue water.

"The wind must blow up here sometimes, Mr. Tolman."

"Blow! That is a mild word for it; and in winter it is cold. It is no warm job when we have to sc.r.a.pe the snow and ice off the lantern. Folks outside must see, and it is our place to let them see."

When the keeper and Dave returned to the kitchen, preparations for dinner were started, and then Mr. Tolman said, "We have a few minutes to spare, and I guess we will take up our boat."

"Take it up?"

"Well, if it should promise to be a quiet day I could moor it near the light; but, of course, in rough weather, when everything is tumbling round the rocks, I had better have it h'isted into a safe place. I'll show you."

"Isn't it going to be quiet?" asked Dave eagerly. "I'd like to see a storm out here."