Edith Ballinger Price

“ Garth was everywhere at once, trying to help his mother to collect the picnic baskets and his father to make the skiff fast. He ended by tangling himself in the Cymba's painter and falling flat. Jim snatched him up by the back of his jumper, just as a wave slid up the beach.
"You haven't a bathing-suit on, you know," Jim remarked, as he brushed the sand out of Garth's hair. "Suppose that I hadn't picked you up with such truly lightning-like rapidity? We'd have had to hang you out on the gaff to dry! What are you laughing at?" ”

“ TREASURE, HO!
JOAN and Garth sat on the edge of the rocks, discussing wind and weather, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the advantages of the early days over a modern time.
"Even so," said Joan, flipping a stone into the water, "I don't see why this wouldn't be a good day for treasure-seeking."
Garth acclaimed the idea with joy.
"Let's!" he agreed. "But where shall we begin? We ought to have a map, or something. Let's make one! It would be lots more fun than just starting to dig anywhere."
"Wot," Joan inquired in the gruff tones of Bo'sun Bogstay, "might that be, sir?" ”

“ Joan reflected; "no one could."
Then, with quick humiliation, she remembered a time when Garth had tried to do something beyond his power and had fallen. Jim caught him as he fell, before Elspeth reached him, and in their faces had been a love so deep that Joan could hardly understand it, and had felt distant, awed, before it. Yet she had just said that no one could love him more than she! ”

“ And one day, just at the turn of noon, he reached a little village called Radulgo. This was hardly great enough to be called even a village, for there were no more than ten or a dozen gray huts huddled together on the dunes, with fish nets spread out to dry and a few brown children scrambling in the door-yards. These children all vanished like so many water-rats as our lad (whose name, by the way, was Roger Tafferel) came up and knocked at the stoutest door. He was weary of sleeping in the sand-hollows and eating where and when he could, and he wanted a good meal and a good bed that night. ”

“ Obedient, she read, and the music of her reading filled the little room with soft delight and Joan's heart with a deep content. Jim, smoking and gazing dreamily at the scattered stars beyond the window, stood up suddenly with an impatient word. The doorway held a bowing figure—Count Stysalski, his flute-case in his hand. He hoped that he was not intruding; he feared that it was somewhat late for a call; such a peaceful scene of enjoyment, he did not wish to disturb it. But since that pleasant afternoon upon the hill he had dreamed of another hour spent in delightful conversation and music. ”

“ She saw the poor frightened boat tossed rudderless in the open sea, harried and driven, wandering desolate through the outer night, a helpless mast swinging across the pitiless stars. She saw the broken hull tossed upon the rocks, battered, splintered, crushed by the Reef. She saw it floating bottom up far from land, with gulls wheeling and shrieking above it.
Joan wondered how she could face Jim, how she could bear to meet Elspeth's eyes. They would never trust her again, and she did not deserve to be trusted. ”

“ The ancient stars blazed on; the sea, almost as ancient, fingered the beach ceaselesly, creeping and falling back, and creeping again. But now, according to Garth's notion, everybody in the world was asleep.
When Joan woke again, she could not think what had happened. For there was no ceiling above her, nothing but flat, empty gray, and her hand, as she put it out, touched rough, cold sand. Garth was sitting up beside her, the end of the rug over his knees. ”

“ Joan blew out the lamp in her room and felt her way back to him. She sat down on the floor beside the bed and took his hand. He wriggled himself to the edge of the bed and lay very close to her, with his cheek against her arm. It was so dark that they could not see one another. The Light shot its steady silver finger straight out toward the horizon, but it seemed only to make the blackness of the room more intense. ”

“ They left the fire smouldering and climbed to the top of the bluff, where Jim lay down to make up for several hours of sleep which he had lost during a foggy night. Elspeth produced a gray sock and began to knit; while Joan lay staring up at the sky between the nodding beach-peas.
"It's rather nice to see grass sometimes, isn't it, Mudder?" said Garth, letting the smooth, wind-washed blades run through his brown fingers. "It's quite different."
"Would you rather live where there is real grass," asked Elspeth, "and fields and trees?" ”

“ Garth demanded, sitting up straight. "There's nothing in the City where you and I went like that."
"What Quimpaug calls the City is a very different place from New York," said Joan. "No other city is like New York. Of course, it is not all Park and River; there are ugly things and crowded streets. But in a winter twilight almost all of it is beautiful."
"Is that where Mudder and I are going to live, when Fogger has to go?" Garth asked.
"Yes," said Joan, "I think so. I wish that I were going to live there this winter." ”

“ Joan said. "How do you take a reef in a scrubbed hammock, and why should you want to shake it out? Why, the Billington gives those ships no peace; she's just like a fussy old hen with a brood of chicks—at them every minute."
"What I don't see," said Garth, "is how they can hoist those answer signals so fast. There are perfect heaps of flags all hanging up in order on the signal-bridge. They have to bend them on—three or four of them—and you'd think it would take longer. They weren't hoisting any when I was on the signal-bridge, so I couldn't see how they do it." ”

“ Garth said; "they stare at you whatever you do. I don’t see why signaling isn’t perfickly all right. That’s one reason why you’re so nice, Joan; you like to do any sort of thing at all."
Joan smiled a little. She wondered to herself if, a few weeks ago, she would have sat upon the deck of a steamer waving her arms at a hatless child, whether any one was looking on or not.
"We’re almost in, anyhow," she said; "we couldn’t have done it much longer."
"Oh, look there, Joan!" cried Garth. "There’s another lighthouse! It’s not nearly as nice as ours." ”

“ The sight of Jim in "shore clothes" was so amazing and unwonted that it called forth much comment during half of breakfast time. A stiff, white collar, making his face look browner than ever, and a gray, pencil-striped suit were things so different from his usual attire as to make him seem quite another person.
"And such shiny shoes!" said Garth. "My town shoes aren't as shiny as that! And such a beautiful speckledy necktie!"
"I don't like to look at him," said Elspeth; "he's much nicer the other way. Why, even his hair is subdued by civilization. ”

“ Joan, rather bewildered, began to draw in the line.
"You're not pulling nearly fast enough," said Garth, flinging himself face down across her lap and tugging at the line below her hands; "he'll get away! He must be a perfick whale! Help me, Joan. Be ready to pounce on him when we get him out!"
The line sang and spattered through the water, and Joan, really awake now, pulled with a will. There was a sudden flop; then Joan, Garth, and a four-pound blackfish were struggling together on the landing, and none of them knew exactly who was which. ”

“ Joan helped Garth upstairs and to bed.
"Please go and look once more out of the window in Fogger's room," he pleaded, as she was about to say good-night. "There's a lantern in the Ailouros always, and they'd have it lighted."
She left him, and going into the dark, empty room at the front of the house, she leaned over Jim's desk and gazed out into the impenetrable blackness. It was a relief to come back from the dark into Garth's little room. The lamp on the bureau made a cheerful aureole of light and threw a great golden circle upon the ceiling. ”

“ As she entered the living-room a tall, tawny-haired, brown-faced person rose from the settle.
"That's my husband," said Mrs. Pemberley with a comprehensive wave of her hand, as she set a blue bake-dish upon the table. "And come and eat these crabs before their ardor cools. Don't you think you'd better light a fire, Jim? It's growing frigid."
"Perhaps I'd better," said Jim, who had gripped Joan's hand with a clasp that made her wince. "We've still some of the Thomas J. left. I'll burn a bit more to-night, as this is a special occasion." ”

“ A FEW days after the picnic on Hy Brasail, Joan and Elspeth were sitting on the bench beside those flower-boxes that Jim called "the informal garden." They were reading to each other by turns and casting an eye occasionally upon Garth, who was engaged in dabbling after bait-crabs among the pools. The book proved so absorbing that they did not see the approach of a very new and much-varnished motorboat until it had gone foul of the dory's moorings, run into the landing, and expired with a final snort against the rocks.
"He oughtn't to be out in a boat alone, if that's the best he can do!" ”

“ But Jim and the little boat were now a fading blur in the fog. "All I got was ‘Good-bye,’" said Garth, "but there was something else."
Very faintly they heard the bell of the unseen lighthouse tolling steadily, remotely, through the thick air.
"You ought to know semaphore, Joan," Garth said after a time. "It’s awfully useful, and it’s fun to do. Sometimes battleships come in—that is, they used to before we went into the war—and it’s exciting to know what they say. I can’t tell what they’re talking about,—they go much too fast,—but Fogger can. ”

“ Why in the world does any one choose to live in it?" muttered Joan, vowing mentally that they would return in a taxicab.
Garth sat on Joan’s lap in the car; there was no other place for him to sit. He was much interested in the shops and the crowds of people and motors outside the car; he did not seem to be hot at all. Perhaps one of the reasons why Joan felt so extremely warm was because she held not only Garth, but also his coat and her own. Peanut shells littered the floor of the car beneath her feet, and the girl next her chewed gum energetically. ”

“ At the bow of the Billington, and apparently suspended in the sky, gigantic black and white figures capered grotesquely, high above the deck.
"It does look funny off here," Steve admitted. "It's the movies. We have 'em every night. It's Charlie Chaplin just now; we get all the old favorites."
"I never saw any in my life,” said Garth, gazing spell-bound at the ridiculous gyrations of Charlie against the stars.
"Really," Elspeth said, "seeing a moving-picture for the first time would be quite amazing enough, without its being cut out of mid-air on the bosom of the sea! ”

“ The Harbor View House, as its advertisement had truthfully stated, was but two minutes' walk from the landing. It stood at the head of a short steep hill and commanded—besides the "Unequalled Prospect of Quimpang Harbor"—an unobstructed view of the dilapidated wharf. Included, also, were piles of reeking lobster-pots and barrels of fish and a fringe of dirty power-boats just come in, whose laboring engines choked and spat viciously through rusty exhaust-pipes. The hotel itself was a barnlike building with a wide echoing piazza where weathered rocking-chairs stood ranged in meek rows. ”

“ At times the ledge of rock along which they crawled dropped away at one side, and they could hear inky water choking and swirling below. Sometimes there was room enough for them to stand upright, but always they were in smothering darkness. At length chinks of light showed about the edge of the great stone which had been rolled against the mouth of the passage. Roger set his shoulder to it and, with a mighty thrust, jarred it from its balance, and it fell thundering. They stepped out upon the beach above Radulgo, under Rangor Head. ”

“ THE elevator-man in the office building remembered Garth and grinned delightedly. Joan had thought him a dismal-looking person when they came in, but the smile greatly changed his tired, uninteresting face.
"Still livin’ on the lighthouse?" he inquired genially. "Wisht I could!" He clanged the elevator door open. "Always does me good, seein’ that feller," he remarked to Joan; "wisht he came oftener."
They were five minutes late, but there was no sign of Dr. Stone.
"You always have to wait ages," said Garth; "so we might as well do something. Let's play The Miraculous Memory-Stretcher." ”

“ The water boiled with the surprising suddenness of bonfire cookery, and Joan withdrew her toasted fingers, balanced the pan on a rock, and triumphantly made the soup. It was the hottest soup that either of them had ever tried to taste, and they were obliged to eat sandwiches and look at the sunset, while it cooled.
"It's nice being out here at such a queer time," said Garth. "I never was before. We always have to go home, because of the Light. ”

“ The steamer proved less erratic than the train, for she plodded steadily and conscientiously down the bay, the winds of the Atlantic growing fresh and more fresh about her broad bows and fluttering her pennants gallantly. Joan clutched her hat and wished that her coat were thicker.
Somewhere on the misty, unknown shore lay Joan's destination—Quimpaug and the Harbor View House. Rather unwillingly she reviewed for the hundredth time the cause of her ill-considered journey. Mr. Robert Sinclair had told her that she was unsympathetic, intolerant, and unimaginative. ”

“ There was but little foothold, and Roger clung with his hands and gripped with his knees, catching now at a stunted gorse bush growing from a crack, now at a crumbling niche in the rock. The gulls, fearful for their nests, swooped shrieking past him, and the grinding roar of the breakers was far below. But at last he stood panting on the sand beside the lady, whose beautiful face was as white as her gown. She caught Roger's arm. ”

“ But above him Joan seemed to see a ghostly cloud of canvas, and beneath his hand, not the rusted iron tiller of the dingy launch, but the wheel of the Bella S. in all her youth and beauty.
Jim, on his way to the landing next day, found his son seated behind the boat-house. Caleb sat beside him, smoking a pipe of strong tobacco. Garth wore a frown and wielded Caleb's jack-knife on a block of wood with perilous zeal.
"What's up, Cap'n Crosstrees?" Jim inquired, putting down an empty oil-can. "What might you be making?"
"The goin's-in of a schooner," said Garth absently. ”

“ I shouldn't wonder if he weighed ten or twenty pounds!" said Garth. "Wait till Fogger sees what a wonderful fisherman you are. I've never caught anything but flounders here, except littler blackfish and chogsets and eels.”
"You did most of the catching, it seems to me," said Joan. "I dare say he would have got away from me."
"It was your line, though," Garth said. "I hope he didn't spoil your dress. We don't ever wear very good clothes out here. You know you're apt to get fish on them all the time, and eel-grass, and all sorts of things." ”