Part 13 (1/2)

”Yew sure the men will look arter the old fellow well an' not let him over-dew?”

But the whizz of the flight had already begun and the scooter's nose was set toward Twin Coves, her sail skimming swiftly with the ring of the steel against the ice over the s.h.i.+ning surface of the bay.

”Law, yes,” Samuel eased his conscience; ”of course they will. They couldn't hurt him, anyhow. I never seen n.o.body take so kindly ter hardenin' as that air Abe.”

XVIII

SAMUEL'S WELCOME

The sh.o.r.e at Twin Coves was a somewhat lonely spot, owing to stretches of marshland and a sweep of pine wood that reached almost to the edge of the water.

Samuel, however, having indicated that he wished to be landed at the foot of a path through the pines, found himself on the home sh.o.r.e scarcely ten minutes after he had left Bleak Hill--Havens already speeding toward his home some miles to the eastward, the bay seemingly deserted except for his sail, a high wind blowing, and the snow beginning to fall in scattered flakes.

Samuel picked up his grip, trudged through the heavy sand of the narrow beach, and entered the sweet-smelling pine wood. He was stiff with cold after the rough, swift voyage; his feet alone were hot--burning hot with chilblains. Away down in his heart he was uneasy lest some harm should come to Abe and the old man be caught in the approaching storm on the Beach. But, oh, wasn't he glad to be home!

His house was still half a mile away; but he was once more on good, solid, dry land.

”I'll tell Blossy haow that air Abe Rose behaved,” he rea.s.sured himself, when he pictured his wife's astonished and perhaps reproachful greeting, ”an' then she won't wonder that I had ter quit him an' come back.”

He recollected that Angy would be there, and hoped fervently that she might not prove so strenuous a charge as Abraham. Moreover, he hoped that she would not so absorb Blossy's attention as to preclude a wifely ministering to his aching feet and the application of ”St. Jerushy Ile”

to his lame and sore back.

The torture of the feet and back made walking harder, too, than he had believed possible with the prospect of relief so near. As he limped along he was forced to pause every now and again and set down the carpet-bag, sometimes to rub his back, sometimes to seat himself on a stump and nurse for a few moments one of those demon-possessed feet.

Could he have made any progress at all if he had not known that at home, no matter if there was company, there would at least be no Abe Rose to keep him going, to spur him on to unwelcome action, to force him to prove himself out of sheer self-respect the equal, if not the superior, in masculine strength?

Abe had led him that chase over at the Station, Samuel was convinced, ”a-purpose” to punish him for having so soundly berated him when he lay a-bed. That was all the thanks you ever got for doing things for ”some folks.”

Samuel hobbled onward, his brow knit with angry resentment. Did ever a half-mile seem so long, and had he actually been only twenty-three hours from home and Blossy? Oh, oh! his back and his feet! Oh, the weight of that bag! How much he needed sleep! How good it would be to have Blossy tuck him under the covers, and give him a hot lemonade with a stick of ginger in it!

If only he had hold of Abe Rose now to tell him his opinion of him!

Well, he reflected, you have to summer and winter with a person before you can know them. This one December day and night with Abe had been equal to the revelations of a dozen seasons. The next time Samuel tried to do good to anybody more than sixty-five, he'd know it. The next time he was persuaded into leaving his wife for over night, he'd know that, too. Various manuals for the young husband, which he had consulted, to the contrary notwithstanding, the place for a married man was at home.

Samuel sat down on a fallen tree which marked the half-way point between his place and the bay. The last half of the journey would seem shorter, and, at the end, there would be Blossy smiling a welcome, for he never doubted but that Blossy would be glad to see him. She thought a good deal of him, nor had she been especially anxious for that week of separation.

His face smoothed its troubled frowns into a look of s.h.i.+ning antic.i.p.ation--the look that Samuel's face had worn when first he ushered Blossy into his tidy, little home and murmured huskily:

”Mis' Darby, yew're master o' the vessel naow; I'm jest fo'castle hand.”

Forgetting all his aches, his pains, his resentments, Samuel took a peppermint-lozenge out of his pocket, rolled it under his tongue, and walked on. Presently, as he saw the light of the clearing through the trees, he broke into a run,--an old man's trot,--thus proving conclusively that his worry of lumbago and chilblains had been merely a wrongly diagnosed case of homesickness.

He grinned as he pictured Abe's dismay on returning to the Station to find him gone. Still, he reflected, maybe Abe would have a better time alone with the young fellows; he had grown so plagued young himself all of a sudden. Samuel surely need not worry about him.

More and more good-natured grew Samuel's face, until a sociable rabbit, peeping at him from behind a bush, decided to run a race with the old gentleman, and hopped fearlessly out into the open.

”Ah, yew young rascal!” cried Samuel. ”Yew're the feller that eat up all my winter cabbages.”