Killykinick Part 11

"Indeed he was a G.o.d-fearing man, I'm sure, this uncle of laddie's."

"He was," agreed Captain Jeb; "a little rough-talking sometimes, but all sailors are."

"Well, it's a rough life," said Brother Bart, recalling his own late experience. "It's little chance it gives you to think or pray. But the old man ye talk of prayed; I am sure of that. The beads here bear token of it."

"Aye," answered Captain Jeb. "He held to them to the last as tight as if they was an anchor chain,--why I don't know."

"That's yer ignorance, poor man!" said Brother Bart, compa.s.sionately. "Ye should pray morning and evening for light, and perhaps ye'll be given the grace to know what the hould of blessed beads is to a dying hand. Now, if ye don't mind, I'll rest a bit in this quiet place, and try to say me own prayers that I missed last night; for it was a sore trying time to me, both body and soul. There's no harm can come to the boys, now that they are safe here."

"I wouldn't swear to four younkers like them anywhere," was the grim answer. "But ye can rest easy, Padre: I'll keep an eye on them, never fear." And, closing the old Captain's door on his anxious guest, Captain Jeb proceeded to "keep an eye" on the boys who were exploring Killykinick in every direction.

As it had little more than half a mile of visible surface, the exploration was naturally limited; but there was a "deal more below," as Captain Jeb a.s.sured them,--reefs and shoals stretching out in every direction, and widening every year with the silt carried down from the sh.o.r.e. There were one or two wide hollows between the rocks, where that same silt, top-dressed with richer earth imported from more favored spots by Captain Jeb, served as kitchen garden, in which beans, cabbages and potatoes made a promising show. On another sheltered slope, green with coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, brown Betty was pasturing peacefully; while in a henhouse beyond there was clucking and cackling, cheerfully suggestive of chickens and eggs.

"We used to hev mostly ship rations," said Captain Jeb. "But the old man got sort of picky and choosy these last years, and turned agin the hard-tack and old hoss meat that had been good enough for him before. So I got a few boat-loads of good earth and took to growing things. And things do grow here for sure, if you only give them a chance. All they want is root hold; the sun and the air and the soft mists do the rest."

Then there was the pump house; for even the toughest of old "salts" must have fresh water. And it had cost many a dollar to strike it in these rocks; but strike it at last the well-borers did, and the pump was roofed and walled in as Killykinick's greatest treasure.

"Stick round here, younkers, along by the 'Lady Jane' and the wharf and the garden beds, and down by the 'Sary Ann' and the boats to the south beach, and you'll be pretty safe. But I'm going to show you a place whar you can't do no monkey shining, for it ain't safe at all."

And as Captain Jeb spoke he turned to the high wall of rock that had backed and sheltered the "Lady Jane" for nearly fifty years; and, bending his thin form, he pushed through a low, narrow opening, with, it is needless to say, four wide-eyed boys scrambling breathlessly behind him,--Dan, as usual, in the lead, pulling Freddy on.

For a moment they stumbled in darkness, through which came a thunderous sound like the swell of some mighty organ under a master hand; and then they were out in light and s.p.a.ce again, with the ocean cliff of Killykinick arching above and around them in a great cave hollowed by the beating waves out of solid rock. Wall and roof were rough and jagged, broken into points and ledges; but the floor was smoothed by the tide into a shining, glittering surface, that widened out to meet the line of breakers thundering white-foamed beyond, their sprays scattering in light showers far and near.

"Jing! Golly! Hooray!" burst from the young explorers; and they would have dashed off into bolder investigation of this new discovery, but Captain Jeb's sudden trumpet tone withheld them.

"Stop,--stop thar, younkers! Didn't I tell you this warn't no play-place?

How far and how deep these caves stretch only the Lord knows; for the sea is knawing them deeper and wider every year. And thar's holes and quicksands that would suck you down quicker than that whale in the Good Book swallowed Jonah. And more than that: in three hours from now these here rocks whar we are standing will be biling with high tide. This ain't no play-place! I'm showing it to you so you'll know; for thar ain't no reefs and shoals to easy things here. It's deep sea soundings that no line can reach, this nor'east sh.o.r.e. Them waves hev a clean sweep of three thousand miles before they break here. And thar ain't to be no ducking nor swimming nor monkey shining around here unless me or Neb is on watch. Neb ain't much good for navigating since he got that hit with the marline spike, but for a watch on ship or sh.o.r.e he is all right. So them 'orders'

is all I hev to give: the Padre, being a bit nervous, may hev some of his own; but thar ain't nothing to hurt four strapping younkers round Killykinick except right _here_. And now, I reckon, it's about time for dinner. I'm ready for some of Neb's clam-chowder, I know; and I guess you are, too."

"Jing! but this is a great place of yours, Freddy!" said Dan, as they turned back to the ship house. "We could not have found a better."

"That's all you know," scoffed the lordly Dud. "I mean to keep on the right side of the old duffer," he added _sotto voce_, "and get over to Beach Cliff in that tub of his whenever I can. Minnie Foster asked me to come; they've taken a fine house down on the sh.o.r.e, and have all sorts of fun--dances, picnics, boat races. I'll get sick of things here pretty soon; won't you, Jim?"

"I don't know about that," was the lazy answer. "About as good a place to loaf as you'll find."

"Loaf?" put in Dan. "There isn't going to be any loafing at Killykinick for me. I'm for boating and fishing and clamming and digging up those garden beds. I don't know what those others are paying," said Dan, who had fallen behind with Captain Jeb; "but I've got no money, and am ready to earn my board and keep."

"You are?" said the Captain, in surprise. "As I took it, the Padre bunched you all together for as fair a figure as I could ask."

"Not me," replied Dan. "These other chaps are plutes, and can pay their own way; so cut me out of your figures and let me work for myself."

"Well, that's sort of curious talk for a younker with a high-cla.s.s schooling," said Captain Jeb, dubiously. "You mean you want to hire out?"

"Yes," said Dan, remembering Aunt Winnie and how doubtful his claim was upon St. Andrew's.

"Thar will be considerable stirring round, I'll allow," was the reflective answer. "I was thinking of getting Billy Benson to lend a hand, but if you'd like the job of sort of second mate--"

"I would," said Dan. "What is a second mate's work?"

"Obeying orders," answered Captain Jeb, briefly.

"That's dead easy," said Dan, with a grin.

"Oh, is it?" was the grim rejoinder. "Jest you wait, younker, till you've stood on a toppling deck in the teeth of a nor'easter, with some dunderhead of a captain roaring cuss words at you to cut away the mast that you know is all that's keeping you out of Davy Jones' Locker, and then you'll find what obeying orders means. But if you want the job here, it's yours. What will you take?"

"My board and keep," answered Dan.

"That ain't no sort of pay," said the other, gruffly.

"Wait till you see me eat," laughed Dan; "besides, I was never a second mate before. Maybe I won't make good at it."

"Mebbe you won't," said Captain Jeb, his mouth stretching into its crooked smile. "You're ruther young for it, I must admit. Still, I like your grit and pluck, younker. Most chaps like you are ready to suck at anything in reach. What's your name?"

"Dan--Dan Dolan," was the answer.

"Good!" said Captain Jeb. "It's a square, honest name. You're shipped, Dan Dolan. I guess thar ain't no need for signing papers. This little chap will bear witness. You're shipped as second mate in the 'Lady Jane' now and here."

XII.--THE SECOND MATE.--A CONFAB.

Then Neb's bell clanged out for dinner, that was served on the long table in the cabin, shipshape, but without any of the frills used on land. There was a deep earthen dish br.i.m.m.i.n.g with chowder, a wonderful concoction that only old salts like Neb can make. It had a bit of everything within Killykinick reach--clams and fish and pork and potatoes, onions and peppers and hard-tack,--all simmering together, piping hot, in a most appetizing way, even though it had to be "doused" out with a tin ladle into yellow bowls. There was plenty of good bread, thick and "filling"; a platter of bacon and greens, and a dish of rice curried after a fashion Neb had learned cruising in the China Sea. Last of all, and borne in triumphantly by the cook himself, was a big smoking "plum duff" with cream sauce. There is a base imitation of "duff" known to landsmen as batter pudding; but the real plum duff of shining golden yellow, stuffed full of plums like Jack Horner's pie, is all the sailor's own.

Dan plunged at once into his new duties of second mate. Both Jeb and Neb were well past seventy, and, while still hale and hearty, were not so nimble as they had been forty years ago; so a second mate, with light feet and deft hands, proved most helpful, now that the "Lady Jane" had taken in a double crew.

Dan cleared the table and washed the dishes with a celerity bewildering to the slow brain dulled by the marline spike. He swabbed up the galley under Neb's gruff direction; he fed the chickens and milked the cow. For a brief s.p.a.ce in two summers of his early life, Dan had been borne off by an Angel Guardian Society to its Fresh Air Home, a plain, old-fashioned farmhouse some miles from his native city; and, being a keen-eyed youngster even then, he had left swings and seesaws to less interested observers, and trudged around the fields, the henhouse, the dairies, the barns, watching the digging and the planting, the feeding and the milking; so that the ways of cows and chickens were not altogether beyond his ken.

"Sure and yer board and keep was to be paid for with the rest, lad," said Brother Bart, kindly.

"I don't want it paid, Brother," replied Dan. "St. Andrew's does enough for me. I'd a heap rather work for myself out here."

"Whether that is decent spirit or sinful pride I'm not scholar enough to tell," said the good Brother in perplexity. "It takes a wise man sometimes to know the differ; but I'm thinking" (and there was a friendly gleam in the old man's eyes) "if I was a strapping lad like you, I would feel the same. So work your own way if you will, Danny lad, and G.o.d bless you at it!"

Even heartier was the well-wishing of Captain Jeb after his first day's experience with his second officer.

"You're all right, matie!" he said, slapping Dan-on the shoulder. "There will be no loafing on your watch, I kin see. You're the clipper build I like. Them others ain't made to stand rough weather; but as I take it, you're a sort of Mother Carey chicken that's been nested in the storm. And I don't think you'll care to be boxed up below with them fair-weather chaps. Suppose, being second mate, you swing a hammock up on the deck with Jeb and me?"

"Jing! I'd like that first rate," was the delighted answer.

And, as Brother Bart had no fear of danger on the "Lady Jane," Dan entered on all the privileges of his position. While Freddy and Dud and Jim took possession of the sheltered cabin, and the dignity of the Padre (so it seemed to Captain Jeb) demanded the state and privacy of the Captain's room, Dan swung his hammock up on deck, where it swayed delightfully in the wind, while the stout awnings close-reefed in fair weather gave full view of the sea and the stars.

He slept like a child cradled in its mother's arms, and was up betimes to plunge into a stretch of sheltered waves, still rosy with the sunrise, for a morning bath such as no porcelain tub could offer; and then to start off with old Neb, who, like other wise householders, began the day's work early. Neb might be deaf and dull, and, in boyish parlance, a trifle "dippy"; but he knew the ways of fish, from whales to minnows. He had a boat of his own, with its nets and seines and lines, that not even the st.u.r.dy old Captain in the days of his command dared touch.

That Dan was allowed to handle the oars this first morning proved that the second mate had already established himself firmly in Neb's favor. But, as Wharf Rat, Dan had gained some knowledge of boats and oars; and he was able to do his part under the old salt's gruff direction. They went far out beyond shoal and reef; beyond Numskull n.o.b (whose light was still blinking faintly in the glow of the sunrise), into deep waters, where the fishing fleet could be seen already at work in the blue distance hauling up big catches of cod, halibut, and other game.

"That ain't fishing!" growled old Neb. "It's durned mean killing."