Caleb West, Master Diver Part 5

"Tell Betty I'll be home for Sunday," the men heard him call out, as they flew by under close reef.

CHAPTER 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.

"Turrible 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 gla.s.s 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.

Outside the little windows a wide-armed tree swayed in the storm, its budding branches tapping the panes. Sanford went to the window and looked out. The garden was dripping, and the plank walk that ran to the swinging-gate was glistening in the driving rain.

These changes in the weather did not affect his 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 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 picked up his big sponge that lay by the tin tub Aunty Bell always filled for him the night before.

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, snow-white, hung at the windows, and the bureau was covered with a freshly laundered white Ma.r.s.eilles 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, a.s.st. Supt. U. S. L. Estb't." In one corner of the room rested a field transit, and a pole with its red-and-white target.

The cottage itself was on the main sh.o.r.e road leading from the village to Keyport Light, and a little removed from the highway. It had two stories and 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 pa.s.sing, from the doctor to the tramp. This constant stream of visitors always met in the kitchen,-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,-and was really the cheeriest and cosiest room in the house.

Its fittings and furnishings 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 and sou'wester hats in summer. 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. Chairs of all kinds stood about,-rockers for winter nights, and more ceremonious straight-backs for meal-times. There was a huge table, too, with always a place for one more, and a mantel-rest for pipes and knickknacks,-never known to be without a box of matches or a nautical almanac. There were rows of hooks nailed to the backs of the doors, especially adapted to rubber coats and oilskins. And tucked away in a corner under the stairs was a fresh, sweet-smelling, bra.s.s-hooped cedar bucket 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 out-riggers 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 frying-pans, of a pattern unknown to the modern chef; each and every one dearly prized by the cheery little soul 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 little 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 and every griddle "sizzed" to please her, and every fire crackled and laughed at her bidding.

When Sanford entered there was hardly room enough to move. A damp, sweet smell of fresh young gra.s.s 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 superintendent, sat near the door, his chair tilted back. In the doorway itself stood Miss Mary Peebles, the schoolmistress, an angular, thin, mild-eyed woman, in a rain-varnished waterproof. Even while she was taking it off, she was protesting that she was too wet to come in, and could not stop. 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.

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

n.o.body, 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 half the people along the sh.o.r.e. 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 over-night 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 on a Sat.u.r.day when 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, and representing to the working-man that mysterious, intangible power known as the "government."

The superintendent 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 bl.u.s.ter, that he didn'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 cla.s.s. 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 embarra.s.s 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, a yellow diamond shirt-pin, and on Sundays patent leather shoes one size too small.

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 an edge of a window-sill among the sou'westers.

"Give me your hat an' coat, and do have breakfast, Captain Brandt,"

said Mrs. Bell in a tone as hearty 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 pa.s.sed out, each one reached for his hat and oilskins hanging behind the wooden door, and waddling out stood huddled together in the driving rain like yellow penguins, 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. Breaking clouds 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 the borrowed sou'wester and fell upon his blue flannel shirt. He looked up and down the road at the pa.s.sers-by tramping along in the wet: the twice-a-day postman, wearing an old army coat and black rubber cape; the little children crowding 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 threw both arms wide open 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 didn'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, "cutting" 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 n.o.body 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 right down here to Aunty Bell. Caleb wasn'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!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Swung back the gate with the gesture of a rollicking boy"]

With another laugh she turned to the table, 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 drying 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 as much as if she had been his own child. She filled a place in his heart of which he seldom spoke,-never to Aunty Bell,-a place empty until Betty came, and always aching since he and his wife had laid away, on the hill back of the village church, the only child that had ever come to them.

When Caleb gave up the lightship Captain Joe had established him with Betty's mother as boarder, and that was how the marriage came about.

When Betty returned to the room again, her arms loaded with plates, 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 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 nod, and, turning her head, caught sight of Lacey.

"What are you doing here, Bill Lacey?" she asked. "Why ain't you at the Ledge?"