Part 2 (2/2)
At first he could not understand just where he was or how he came in such unfamiliar surroundings; but seeing the kindly face of Abner Peake bending over, he asked a mute question that the other answered with a shake of his head.
The captain's body had not as yet come ash.o.r.e.
CHAPTER III
ABNER PEAKE'S OFFER
Days pa.s.sed. Darry had entirely given up hope of ever hearing from the captain, whose body must have been carried out to sea again, as were several of the crew.
After the shock became less severe, our hero began to take a new interest in the scene around him, and particularly in connection with the life-saving station where his new friend Abner was quartered.
The keeper was a grizzled surfman named Frazer, and a man possessed of some education; he did not awaken the same feelings in the boy as Abner Peake, but at the same time he was evidently inclined to be friendly in his own gruff way.
On the third day after the rescue he called Darry to him as he sat mending a net with which the crew of the station secured enough fish to serve them for an occasional meal.
”Sit down, lad. I want to talk with you a bit,” he said.
Darry dropped on a block close by.
He was still filled with the deepest admiration for these men of the coast, and his determination to follow their arduous calling when he grew big enough to take an oar in the surfboat was undiminished.
”Now, tell me about yourself, and where you belong. We are not allowed to keep any rescued sailors more than a certain time. You notice that all the others have gone, save the poor chaps lying under those mounds yonder. Being a boy you've been favored; but the time has come to know what you mean to do. Speak up, lad, and tell me your story?”
Encouraged by his kind voice, Darry told all he knew about himself up to the very moment when he parted from his friend, the captain.
Mr. Frazer seemed interested.
”I feel sorry for you, Darry. It must be hard to feel that you haven't got a friend in the world. My hands are tied in the matter, so I can do nothing; but there's Abner Peake telling me he'd like you to stay with him,” he remarked.
”I understood him to say he once had a boy about my age.”
”Yes, a likely little chap, but it was about a year back he was lost.”
”Was he drowned?” asked Darry, feeling that this was about the way most persons in this coast country must meet their end.
”Yes. The little fellow was a venturesome boy, and tried to cross the bay in a heavy sea. He must have been swept out at the inlet. They found the boat on the beach, three miles above here, but never little Joe.
Abner has never gotten over it. To this day he sits and looks out to sea as if he could discover his poor boy coming back to him. I thought for a time the fellow would go out of his mind.”
”And he wants me to stay with him?” continued Darry, musingly.
”Yes. Abner has a small house out of the village, where his wife and the two little girls live, while he is over here at the station. Often we want someone to cross over with supplies, and he thinks you might like the job.”
Darry drew a long breath.
”I have no home. The only one I ever knew was the poor old _Falcon_, and her timbers are scattered along the coast for ten miles. I think that if Mr. Peake really wants me to stay with him I shall accept gladly. It is tough to feel like a piece of driftwood all the time,” he said.
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