Part 9 (1/2)
”We put in a new gla.s.s,” said the keeper.
”During the storm?”
”We haven't got any business to worry about storms, we've only got to keep the light goin',” was the reply. ”If the End o' the World was scheduled to come off in the middle of the night, you can bet it would find the Tillamook Rock Light burnin'! Storm! Takes a sight more than a sixty mile gale an' a ragin' sea to stop a Lighthouse crowd. You know that yourself, or you oughter, with your folks. No, sir! There's no storm ever invented that can crimp the Service. We had that broken gla.s.s out and a new one in place, in just exactly eighteen minutes. It was some job, too! The chaps workin' on the outside had to be lashed on to the platform.”
”Why, because of the wind?”
”Just the wind. That little breeze would have picked up a two-hundred-pound man like a feather.”
”Weren't you scared?”
”No,” said the light-keeper, ”didn't have time to think of it. Cookie was scared, all right.”
”Have you a cook on the rock?” said Eric in surprise, ”I thought you all took turns to cook.”
”The men do, in most o' the lighthouses,” was the reply, ”but Tillamook's so cut off from everything that we've five men on the post. That means quite a bit o' cookin', an' so we have a chef all our own. Didn't you ever hear the story o' Cookie?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: SLIDING DOWN TO WORK.
Lighthouse-builders on cableway from top of cliff to platform beside reef, unapproachable by boats.]
”Never,” said the boy, ”go ahead!”
”Quite a while ago,” the light-keeper began, ”the Service hired a cook for Tillamook. He was a jim-dandy of a cook an' could get good money ash.o.r.e. But he'd been crossed in love, or he'd lost his money, or something, I don't remember what, an' so he wanted to forget his sorrows in isolation.”
”Sort of hermit style?” suggested Eric.
”That's it, exactly. Well, Cookie took the job, an' the tender tried to land him here. Three times the tender came out, an' each trip the sea was kickin' up didoes so that he couldn't land. He got scared right down to his toes an' they couldn't make him get into the boat. But each time he went back to town, after having renigged that way, his friends used to josh the life out of him.
”So, one day, when it was fairly calm, he said he would go. He'd been teased into it. The captain o' the tender chuckled, for he knew there was quite a sea running outside, but they started all right. Sure enough, soon as they rounded the cape, the sea was runnin' a bit. It didn't look so worse from the deck o' the tender, an' Breuger--that was the cook's name--was telling the first officer how the world was going to lose the marvelous cookin' that he alone could do.
”But, as soon as Tillamook Rock come in sight, Cookie's courage began to ooze. He talked less of his cookin' and more o' what he called 'the perils of the sea.' As soon as the tender come close to the rock, he fell silent. The boat was swung out an' Cookie was told to get in. As before, he refused.
”'That's all right,' said the skipper, who had been expectin' him to back out. 'We'll help you. It's a bit hard climbing with the rheumatism.'”
”Did he have rheumatism?” asked the boy, grinning in antic.i.p.ation.
”You couldn't prove he didn't have it!” responded the light-keeper with an answering flicker of a smile. ”The captain turned to a couple of sailors. 'Give him a hand,' he said, 'he needs it.'
”Two husky A.B.'s chucked Breuger into the boat, an' before Cookie realized what was happenin', the boat was in the water an' cast off from the side o' the tender. But he had some sense, after all, for he saw there was no use makin' a fuss then. It was a bad landin' that day, four or five times worse than this afternoon, an' I guess it looked dangerous enough to a landsman to be a bit scarin'. One of the men went up with him, holdin' on to him, so he wouldn't get frightened an' drop, an' in a minute or two he was swung in to the landin'-place.
”There was one of our fellows here who was as funny as a goat, an' we had an awful time to keep him from raggin' Cookie. But we knew that Breuger was goin' to fix our grub for quite a spell and keepin' him in a good humor was a wise move. Anyway, when you're goin' to live in quarters as small as a lighthouse, you can't afford to have any quarrelin'. A funny man's all right, but he needs lots of room.
”So, instead of hazin' him for showin' the white feather so often, I praised Cookie for having made so brave a landin' on such an awful day.
Quick as a wink, his manner changed. He just strutted. He slapped himself on the chest an' boasted of his line of warlike ancestors--seemed to go back to somewhere about the time of Adam. It never once struck him that every one else on the rock had had to make a landin' there, too. He gave himself the airs of bein' the sole hero on Tillamook. There were days when this was a bit tryin', but we forgave him. He could cook. Shades of a sea-gull! How he could cook! We used to threaten to put an extra padlock on the lens, lest he should try to frica.s.see it!”
”Easy there!” protested Eric.
”Well,” said the other, ”you know the big Arctic gull they call the Burgomaster?”
”Yes, I've seen it in winter once or twice.”