Part 10 (2/2)
”But lots of fine folks come in the summer time,” said Dud.
”And there's a church!” exclaimed Brother Bart, who had caught a pa.s.sing glimpse of a cross-crowned spire. ”Thank G.o.d we'll not be beyond the light and truth entirely! You're to take us to Ma.s.s every Sunday, my good man; and we are to give you a dollar for the trouble of it, to say nothing of the blessing upon your own soul. Were you ever at Ma.s.s?”
”Never,” answered Captain Jeb.
”Ah, G.o.d help you, poor man!” said Brother Bart. ”Sure we never know our own blessings till we talk with them that's left in the darkness. But it's not too late for the grace of Heaven to reach you yet. Never been to Ma.s.s!
Well, well, well!” Brother Bart shook his head, and, as if unable to cope with such hopeless religious dearth, relapsed into silence.
”Is it much further to Killykinick?” asked Dan, who, with s.h.i.+ning eyes had been taking in all this novel experience. ”Looks like we're heading out to nowhere.”
The ”Sary Ann,” with the wind full in her sail, seemed bearing off into sunlit distance, where sky and sea met. There was a faint, shadowy line to the left; and just beyond, a dim pencil point pierced the cloudless blue.
”That's a lighthouse, isn't it?” asked Jim, who had a sailor's eye.
”Yes,” growled Captain Jeb, his leathery face darkening. ”Why they wanted to set up that consarned thing just across from Killykinick, I don't know.
Hedn't we been showing a light thar for nigh onto fifty years? But some of these know-alls come along and said it wasn't the right kind; it oughter blink. And they made the old captain pull down the light that he had been burning steady and true, and the Government sot up that thar newfangled thing a flas.h.i.+ng by clockwork on Numbskull n.o.b. It did make the old man hot, sure. 'Shet the window, mate,' he said to me when he was dying and wanted air badly. 'I can't go off in peace with that devilish thing of Numbskull n.o.b a winking at me.' Duck Agin, all hands! 'Sary Ann' swings around here. Thar's Killykinick to starboard!”
And all hands ”ducked” as rope and canvas rattled under Captain Jeb's guiding hand; and the ”Sary Ann” swept from her dancing course to the boundless blue towards the shadowy line and dim pencil point now growing into graceful lighthouse and rocky sh.o.r.e. Numbskull n.o.b, jutting up from a hidden reef, over which a line of white-capped breakers was booming thunderously, seemed to justify the presence of the modern light that warned off closer approach to the island; for the stretch of water that lay between was a treacherous shoal where many a good s.h.i.+p had stranded in years gone by, when Killykinick was only a jagged ledge of rock where the sea birds nested and man had no place. But things had changed now. A rude but st.u.r.dy breakwater made a miniature harbor in which several small boats floated at their moorings; a whitewashed wharf jutted out into the waves; the stretch of rocky sh.o.r.e beyond had been roughly terraced into easy approach.
”Easy now, boys,--easy!” warned Brother Bart anxiously, as the ”Sary Ann”
grated against her home pier, and Captain Jeroboam proceeded to make fast.
”Don't be leaping off till you know the way.”
But Brother Bart might have called to the das.h.i.+ng waves. This Killykinick was very different from the desert they had expected; and, with shouts of delight from Jim, Dud and Dan, even little Freddy sprang ash.o.r.e. Shrubs and trees of strange growth nodded and waved amid the rocks; here and there in sheltered crannies were beds of blooming flowers; and in the lee of a towering rock that kept off the fury of storm and wind stood the very queerest house the young explorers had ever seen.
XI.--AT KILLYKINICK.
It was a s.h.i.+p,--a s.h.i.+p with its keel settled deep in the sand, and held immovable against wind and storm by a rudely built foundation wall of broken rock. The sunlight blinked cheerfully from the dozen portholes; the jutting prow bore the weather-worn figurehead of the ”Lady Jane,”--minus a nose and arm, it is true, but holding her post bravely still. Stout canvas, that could be pegged down or lifted into breezy shelter, roofed the deck, from which arose the ”lookout,” a sort of light tower built around a mast that upheld a big s.h.i.+p lantern; while the Stars and Stripes floated in glory over all.
For a moment the four young travellers stared breathless at this remarkable edifice, while Freddy eagerly explained:
”It's my Great-uncle Joe's s.h.i.+p that was wrecked here on Killykinick. He had sailed in her for years and loved her, and he didn't want to leave her to fall to pieces on the rocks; and so he got a lot of men, with chains and ropes and things, and moved her up here and made her into a house.”
And a first-cla.s.s house the ”Lady Jane” made, as all the boys agreed when they proceeded to investigate Great-uncle Joe's legacy. True, there was a lack of modern conveniences. The sea lapping the sands to the right was the only bath-room, but what finer one could a boy ask? There was neither dining room nor kitchen; only the ”galley,” as Captain Jeb, who came up shortly to do the honors of this establishment, explained to his guests.
The ”galley” was a queer little narrow place in the stern, lined with pots and pans and dishes scoured to a s.h.i.+ne, and presided over by another old man more crooked and leathery-visaged than Captain Jeb, and who seemed too deep in the concoction of some savory mixture simmering on his charcoal stove to give look or word to the newcomers who crowded around him.
”That is Neb,” said his brother, in brief introduction. ”He don't hev much to say, but you mustn't mind that. It ain't been altogether clear weather in his upper deck since he s.h.i.+pped with a durned pirate of a captain that laid his head open with a marline spike; but for a cook, he can't be beat by any steward afloat or ash.o.r.e. Jest you wait till he doses out that clam-chowder he's making now!”
Then there was the long, low cabin that stretched the full length of the ”Lady Jane,” and that--with its four cosy bunks made up s.h.i.+pshape, its big table, its swinging lamp, its soft bulging chairs (for Great-uncle Joe had been a man of solid weight as well as worth)--was just the place for boys to disport themselves in without fear of doing damage. All about were most interesting things for curious young eyes to see and busy fingers to handle: telescope, compa.s.s, speaking trumpet, log and lead and line that had done duty in many a distant sea; spears, bows and arrowheads traded for on savage islands; Chinese ivories and lacquered boxes from j.a.pan. A white bearskin and walrus tusk told of an early venture into the frozen North, when bold men were first drawn to its darkness and mystery; while the Buddha from an Eastern temple, squatting shut-eyed on a shelf, roused good old Brother Bart into holy horror.
”I never thought to be under the same roof with a haythen idol. Put it away, my man,--put it out of sight while I'm in yer house; for I can't stand the looks of it. I'll be after smas.h.i.+ng it into bits if ye lave it under me eyes.”
And his indignation was appeased only by the sight of the Captain's room, which had been respectfully a.s.signed to the ”Padre,” as Captain Jeb persisted in calling his older guest.
Here Great-uncle Joe had treasures rare indeed in the good Brother's eye: a wonderful crucifix of ivory and ebony; the silver altar lamp of an old Spanish monastery; a Madonna in dull tints that still bore traces of a master hand; a rosary, whose well-worn beads made Brother Bart's pious heart warm.
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