Part 12 (1/2)
Abe flung himself back on his hard couch, drew the thick, gray blanket over him, and straightway fell into a deep, childlike slumber from which he was aroused by the rough but hearty inquiry:
”Say, Cap, like to have some oyster-stew and a cup of coffee?”
Abe sat up, rubbing his eyes, wondering since when they had begun to serve oyster-stew for breakfast on the Beach; then he realized that he had not overslept, and that it was not morning.
The clock was striking twelve, the midnight patrol was just going out, and the returning ”runners” were bidding him partake of the food they had just prepared to cheer them after their cold tramp along the surf.
The old man whiffed the smell of the coffee, tempted, yet withheld by the thought of Angy's horror, and the horror of the twenty-nine sisters.
”Cap'n Abe”--Clarence Havens, No. 5, with a big iron spoon in his hand and a blue gingham ap.r.o.n tied around his bronzed neck, put him on his mettle, however--”Cap'n Abe, I tell yew, we wouldn't have waked no other fellow of your age out of a sound sleep. Cap'n Darby, he could snooze till doomsday; but we knowed you wouldn't want to miss no fun a-going.”
”Cap'n Sam'l does show his years,” Abe admitted. ”Much obliged fer yew a-wakin' me up, boys,” as he drew on his boots. ”I was dreamin' I was hungry. Law, I wish I had a dollar apiece fer all the eyester-stews I've et on this here table 'twixt sunset an' sunrise.”
Under the stimulus of the unaccustomed repast, Abe expanded and began to tell yarns of the old days on the Beach--the good old days. His cheeks grew red, his eyes sparkled. He smoked and leaned back from the table, and ate and drank, smoked and ate again.
”A week amongst yew boys,” he a.s.serted gaily, ”is a-goin' tew be the makin' of me. Haow Sam'l kin waste so much time in sleep, I can't understand.”
”I don't think he is asleep,” said No. 3. ”When I was up-stairs jest now fer my slippers, I heard him kind o' sniffin' inter his piller.”
The laugh which followed brought the keeper out of the office in his carpet slippers, a patchwork quilt over his shoulders. His quick eyes took in the scene--the lamp sputtering above the table, the empty dishes, the two members of the crew sleepily jocular, with their blue flannel elbows spread over the board, the old man's rumpled bed, and his brilliant cheeks and bright eyes.
”Boys, you shouldn't have woke up Cap'n Rose,” he said reprovingly. ”I'm afraid, sir,” turning to Abraham, ”that you find our manners pretty rough after your life among the old ladies.”
Abe dropped his eyes in confusion. Was he never to be rid of those ap.r.o.n-strings:
”Well, there's worse things than good women,” proceeded the captain. ”I wish we had a few over here.” He sighed with the quiet, dull manner of the men who have lived long on the Beach. ”Since they made the rule that the men must eat and sleep in the station, it's been pretty lonely.
That's why there's so many young fellows in the Service nowadays; married men with families won't take the job.”
”Them empty cottages out thar,” admitted Abe, pointing to the window, ”does look kind o' lonesome a-goin' ter rack an' ruin. Why, the winter I was over here, every man had his wife an' young 'uns on the Beach, 'cept me an' Sam'l.”
Again the keeper sighed, and drew his coverlid closer. ”Now, it's just men, men, nothing but men. Not a petticoat in five miles; and I tell you, sometimes we get mad looking at one another, don't we, boys?”
The two young men had sobered, and their faces also had taken on that look engendered by a life of dull routine among sand-hills at the edge of a lonely sea, with seldom the sound of a woman's voice in their ears or the prattle of little children.
”For two months last winter n.o.body came near us,” said Havens, ”and we couldn't get off ourselves, either, half the time. The bay broke up into porridge-ice after that big storm around New Year's; yew dasn't risk a scooter on it or a cat-boat. Feels to me,” he added, as he rose to his feet, ”as if it was blowin' up a genuwine old nor'-easter again.”
The other man helped him clear the table. ”I'm goin' to get married in June,” he said suddenly, ”and give up this here blamed Service.”
”A wife,” p.r.o.nounced Abe, carrying his own dishes into the kitchen, ”is dretful handy, onct yew git used to her.”
The keeper went into the office with a somewhat hurried ”Good-night,”
and soon Abe found himself alone again, the light in the kitchen beyond, no sound in the room save that of the booming of the surf, the rattling of the windows, and now and again the fall of a clinker in the stove.
The old man was surprised to find that he could not fall back into that blissful slumber again. Not sleeping, he had to think. He thought and thought,--sober night thoughts,--while the oysters ”laid like a log in his stummick” and the coffee seemed to stir his brain to greater activity.
”Suppose,” said the intoxicated brain, ”another big storm should swoop down upon you and the bay should break up, and you and Samuel should be imprisoned on the beach for two or three months with a handful of men-folks!”
”Moo! Moo!” roared the breakers on the sh.o.r.e. ”Serve you right for finding fault with the sisters!”