Flood Tide Part 8

Moving abruptly to the work-bench he began to overturn at random the tools lying upon it.

Something in this unusual proceeding arrested Jan's attention, causing him to glance with suspicion from Robert Morton to the inventor, and from the inventor back to Robert Morton again. The elder man was whistling "Tenting To-night," an air that had never been a favorite of his; and the younger, with self-conscious zeal, was shredding into bits a long curl of shavings.

Jan eyed both of them with distrust

"I figger we're goin' to have a spell of fine weather now," remarked Willie with jaunty artificiality.

The offhand a.s.sertion was too casual to be real. Cloud and fog were not dealt with in this cursory fashion in Wilton. It clinched Jan's doubts into certainty. Something was being kept from him, something of which this stranger, who had only been in the town a few hours, was cognizant. For the first time in fifty years another had usurped his place as Willie's confidant. It was monstrous! A tremor of jealous rage thrilled through his frame, and he stiffened visibly.

"I reckon I'll be joggin' along home," said he, moving with dignity toward the door.

"But you've only just come, Jan," protested Willie.

"I didn't come fur nothin' but to leave this hammer," Jan answered, placing the implement on the long bench before which his friend was standing.

"Maybe there was something you wanted to see Mr. Spence about,"

ventured Bob. "If there was I will--"

"No, there warn't," snapped Janoah. "Mister Spence ain't got nothin'

confidential to say to me--whatever he may have to say to other folks,"

and with this parting thrust he shot out of the door.

Bob gave a low whistle.

"What's the matter with the man?" he asked in amazement.

Willie flushed apologetically.

"Nothin'--nothin' in the world!" he answered. "Jan gets like that sometimes. Don't you remember I told you he was kinder quick. It's just possible it may have bothered him to see me talkin' to you. Don't mind him."

"Do you think he suspected anything?"

"Mercy, no! Not he!" responded Willie comfortably. "He's liable to fly off the handle like that a score of times a day. Don't you worry 'bout him. He'll be back before the mornin's over."

Nevertheless, sanguine as this prediction was, the hours wore on, and Janoah Eldridge failed to make his appearance. In the meantime Bob and Willie became so deeply engrossed in their new undertaking that they were oblivious to his absence. They worked feverishly until noon, devoured a hurried meal, and returned to the shop again, there to resume their labors. By supper time they had made quite an encouraging start on the model they required, their combined efforts having accomplished in a single day what it would have taken Willie many an hour to perfect.

The inventor was jubilant.

"Little I dreamed when you came to the front door, Bob, what I was nettin'!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand vigorously on the young man's shoulder. "You're a regular boat-builder, you are. The moon might 'a'

pogeed an' perigeed before I'd 'a' got as fur along as we have to-day.

How you've learned all you have about boats without ever goin' near the water beats me. Now you ain't a-goin' to think of quittin' Wilton an'

leavin' me high an' dry with this propeller idee, are you? 'Twould be a downright shabby trick."

Bob smiled into the old man's anxious face.

"I can't promise to see you to the finish for I must be back home before many days, or I'll have my whole family down on me. Besides, I have some business in New York to attend to," he said kindly. "But I will arrange to stick around until the job is so well under way that you won't need me. I am quite as interested in making the scheme a success as you are. All is you mustn't let me wear out my welcome and be a burden to Aunt Tiny."

"Law, Tiny'll admire to have you stay long as you can, if only because you drag me into the house at meal time," chuckled Willie.

"At least I can do that," Bob returned.

"You can do that an' a durn sight more, youngster," the inventor declared with earnestness. "I ain't had the pleasure I've had to-day in all my life put together. To work with somebody as has learned the right way to go ahead--it's wonderful. When me an' Jan tackle a job, we generally begin at the wrong end of it an' blunder along, wastin'

time an' string without limit. If we hit it right it's more luck than anything else."

Robert Morton, watching the mobile face, saw a pitiful sadness steal into the blue eyes. A sudden shame surged over him.

"I ought to be able to do far more with my training than I have done,"

he answered humbly. "Dad has given me every chance."

"Think of it!" murmured Willie, scrutinizing him with hungering gaze.

"Think of havin' every chance to learn!"

For an interval he smoked in silence.

"Well," he a.s.serted at length, "you've sure proved to-day that brains with trainin' are better'n brains without. Now if Jan an' me--" he broke off abruptly. "There! I wonder what in tunket's become of Jan,"

he speculated. "We've been so busy that he went clean out of my mind.

It's queer he didn't show up again. He ain't stayed away for a whole day in all history. Mebbe he's took sick. I believe I'll trudge over there an' find out what's got him. I mustn't go to neglectin' Jan, inventin' or no inventin'."

He rose from his chair wearily.

"I reckon a note would do as well, though, as goin' over," he presently remarked as an afterthought. "I could send one in the box an' ask him to drop round an' set a spell before bedtime."

He caught up a piece of brown paper from the workbench, tore a ragged corner from it, and hastily scrawled a message.

Bob watched the process with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"There!" announced the scribe when the epistle was finished. "I reckon that'll fetch him. We'll put it in the box an' shoot it across to him."

Notwithstanding the dash implied in the term, it took no small length of time for the diminutive receptacle to hitch its way through the fields. The two men watched it jiggle along above the bushes of wild roses, through verdant clumps of fragrant bayberry, and disappear into the woods. Then they sat down to await Jan's appearance.

The twilight was rarely beautiful. In a sky of palest turquoise a crescent moon hung low, its arc of silver poised above the tips of the stunted pines, whose feathery outlines loomed black in the dusk. From out the dimness the note of a vesper sparrow sounded and mingled its sweetness with the faintly breathing ocean.

The men on the doorstep smoked silently, each absorbed in his own reveries.

How peaceful it was there in the stillness, with the hush of evening descending like a benediction on the darkening earth!

Bob sighed with contentment. His year of hard study was over, and now that his well-earned rest had come he was surprised to discover how tired he was. Already the peace of Wilton was stealing over him, its dreamy atmosphere almost too beautiful to be real. From where he sat he could see the trembling lights of the village jewelling the rim of the bay like a circlet of stars. A man might do worse, he reflected, than remain a few days in this sleepy little town. He liked Willie and Celestina, too; indeed, he would have been without a heart not to have appreciated their simple kindliness. Why should he hurry home? Would not his father rejoice should he be content to stay and make his aunt a short visit? There was no need to bind himself for any definite length of time; he would merely drift and when he found himself becoming bored flee. To be sure, about the last thing he had intended when setting forth to the Cape was to linger there. He had come hither with unwilling feet solely to please his parents, and having paid his respects to his unknown relative he meant to depart West as speedily as decency would permit, reasoning that it would be a mutual relief when the visit was over.

But a single day in the cozy little house at the water's edge had served to convince him how erroneous had been his premises. Instead of being tiresome, his Aunt Celestina was proving a delightful acquisition, toward whom he already found himself cherishing a warm regard. And what a cook she was! After months of city food her bread, pies, and cookies were ambrosial.

As for Willie--Bob had never before beheld so gentle, ingenuous and lovable a personality. Undoubtedly the little inventor had genius.

What a pity he had been cheated of the opportunity for cultivating it!

There was something pathetic in the way he reached out for the knowledge life had denied him; it reminded one of a patient child who asks for water to slake his thirst.

If, for some inscrutable reason, fortune had granted him, Robert Morton, the chance denied this groping soul, was it not almost an obligation that, in so far as he was able, he should place at the other's disposal the fruits of the education that had been his?

Presumably this motor-boat idea would not amount to much, for if such an invention were plausible and of value, doubtless a score of nautical authorities would have seized upon it long before now. But to work at the plan would give the gentle dreamer in the silver-gray cottage happiness, and after all happiness was not to be despised. If together he and Willie could make tangible the notion that existed in the latter's brain, the deed was certainly worth the doing. Moreover the process would be an entertaining one, and after its completion he might go away with a sense of having brightened at least one horizon by his coming.