At the Black Rocks

  XI.

  _AT SHIPTON AGAIN._

  "Nothing for me?"

  "Nothing."

  "Sure?"

  "Well--"

  The postmistress, in response to Dave Fletcher's anxious inquiry, lookedagain at a package of letters she had been handling.

  "Oh yes, here is something! I didn't see it the first time. Begpardon."

  "All right. I wasn't really expecting anything, but it is so long sinceI have had a letter that I was kind of hungry for one."

  Dave took his letter from the postmistress and walked away.

  "Postmarked Shipton!" said Dave, looking at the envelope. "Don't seemto know the address. Let's break that and see what it says."

  He glanced down at the name with which the letter closed.

  "James Tolman; what does he want?" wondered Dave. He then returned tothe first line and began to read:--

  "DEAR DAVID,--I have not forgotten that you were in my Sunday-schoolclass when in Shipton, and I felt that I knew you well enough to ask youto take this into consideration, whether you wouldn't like to come andbe my clerk. I am in the ship-chandlery business, and have two clerks.One of them is going away, and may leave me for good. I have promisedto keep his place open for him three months. At the end of that time hemay come back. Now, if I ask you to come for three months, I know--"

  Dave crumpled the letter in his hand, thrust it into his pocket, andspringing into his waggon, cried, "Get up there, Jimmy! Don't know thatyou and I will be travelling this road together much longer. Get upthere!"

  "Jimmy" was urged at an unusual rate over the road, and pricked up hisears in astonishment as his master cried, "Faster, faster!"

  "There, mother!" said Dave, when he entered the Fletcher kitchen; "justwhat I wanted has happened."

  "What is that?" replied Mrs. Fletcher.

  "Read this, mother, and you will see."

  "For three months, Dave, and perhaps no longer, it means."

  "Oh, well, it will be a stepping-stone to something, if I have to leaveit. Just get started in Shipton and I can go it."

  "But you haven't read about the pay, Dave."

  "Well, mother, the fact is I like the place--I mean Shipton. I love tobe near the salt water and where I can see the ships--"

  "And the lighthouse--"

  "Yes."

  "And May Tolman," sang out a voice from the adjoining sitting-room, andAnnie Fletcher appeared at the kitchen door, asking, "How is it, Dave?"

  Dave felt it to be the wisest course to keep still and blush.

  In a few days he was ready to start for Shipton. He called one eveningto see some of his old acquaintances, and the next day started forShipton.

  On arriving he reported for duty at the shop of "James Tolman,Ship-chandler." He was now eighteen, and he felt that active life wasbeginning in earnest. The shop was an old one, and before JamesTolman's business days it had been kept by his father. It was packedwith all kinds of goods available for ship-furnishings. As one openedthe door a scent of tar issued, strong enough to make the mostthorough-going old salt say, "This seems like home." There were coilsof rope of every size ranged on either side of the passage-way. Therewere capstans and anchors and blocks and ring-bolts. There were allkinds of shining tin and copper ware for the cook's galley. There werecompasses, and ship-lanterns, and speaking-trumpets, and sheath-knives,and suits of oiled clothing, and slouching "tarpaulins." On stormydays, when Dave from the back windows could see that the waves in theriver had stuck in their crests saucy feathers of foam, it seemed to himas if he heard the coils of rope creak in the store and the suits ofsailors' clothing rustle; and what wonder if some old salt had waddledforward in one of those stiff suits, and, seizing a trumpet, cried inringing tones to the pots and kettles hanging from the brown, dustybeams, "Furl your top-sails." It was a pleasure to Dave when an oldShipton sea-captain might heave in sight on stormy days, and, enteringthe shop, take a seat by the crackling fire and tell of gales round CapeHorn or in the Bay of Biscay.

  "I believe I am cut out for this business," said Dave.

  His former Shipton acquaintances were glad to see him back. Dick Prayfor six months had been in town, a clerk in his cousin's shop. He nowcame to bring his congratulations to Dave.

  "Glad to see you, Dave," he said.

  "Thanks, Dick. How is business?"

  "Oh, booming! booming!"

  All business that Dick's magnificent abilities came in contact witheither had "boomed," or was "booming," or would "boom" very soon. Notame word was fit to describe Dick's business ventures.

  And the boy who came shyly, timidly after Dick was--Bart Trafton.

  "You well, Bartie?" asked Dave.

  "Oh, better!"

  "Why?"

  "Because you've got back," said the caller, with snapping eyes.

  "That's encouraging. And granny, is she well?"

  "Oh yes, when--"

  He did not finish. If he had completed his sentence, he would have said"when father isn't at home."

  The same day two other people were in the shop whom Dave had metpreviously, though he did not recognize them at once. There stoodbefore the counter a rather tall man, wearing a tall hat and closelymuffled about the face, for the day was one of cold blasts of storm.

  "I want a good ship's lantern," said the customer.

  "Yes, sir," replied Dave, ranging before the man an array of lanterngoods.

  "You have come to be clerk?" asked the man.

  Dave looked up more carefully, and saw that the man wore spectacles.

  "Yes, sir," replied Dave.

  The man inquired the price of the lanterns, selected one, and went out.

  "Halloo! he has given me twopence too much!" exclaimed Dave.

  "That doesn't matter," said a man who was watching through a window inthe door the storm driving without.

  "Oh yes, it does," murmured Dave.--"Johnny!" he called aloud to ayounger clerk in the counting-room, "just look after things a momentwhile I go out."

  Johnny came out into the shop, and Dave seized his cap and ran after thecustomer. The latter was a fast walker, and was hurrying round a cornerof the street when Dave overtook him.

  "See here, sir! A mistake in the change. I counted it, and you gave metoo much."

  "Oh--ah! Thank you! I see you don't know me."

  The man slipped down a scarf wrapped about his face, took off hisspectacles, and there was--somebody, but Dave could not say who.

  "Not so rough up here as down at the bar--in a schooner, say."

  "O--Squire Sylvester!"

  "That's it. I think I was too rough with you that day, for I found outafterward you had nothing to do with it."

  "Oh, well, sir--I--"

  "I just wanted to say that, and am glad you think enough of anotherman's property, though only two-pence, to chase after him and give it tohim."

  Then the tall man tramped on.

  "It shows," thought Dave, "that he hasn't forgotten what happened sometime ago, and I suppose he had been wanting to say what he got off tome. I don't harbour it against you, Squire Sylvester. When a man'sproperty has been run off with, it would be a wonder if he didn't saysomething."

  When Dave returned to the store the man at the door still stood there,looking out through the little window.

  "I think I know that chap's face," thought Dave, "but I really can't saywho it is."

  The man was disposed to talk. "Did you catch the squire?" he asked.

  "Oh yes."

  "Did he take the twopence?"

  "Oh yes."

  "Catch him not take it! The squire would hold on to a halfpenny till itcankered if he could possibly git along without spendin' it. I don'tbelieve in worryin' yourself about sich people."

  "Twopence didn't seem much, but then it wasn't mine."

  "I see you don't mean to be rich?"

  "I mean to be honest."

  "And die poor?"


  "That doesn't follow."

  "Oh, it does 'em good--these rich fellers--to lose a little now andthen."

  "But they ought not to lose it if we have it and it is theirs."

  "Oh, you are too honest. Say, I see you don't know me."

  "Well, yes, I ought to know your face."

  "I've let my whiskers grow. I didn't have any the last time you saw me.Cut all these off," said the man, lifting a big beard, "and it wouldmake a big difference. Don't you remember Timothy Waters, at thelighthouse?"

  "Why, yes. You Timothy?"

  "Yes."

  "And are you at the light now?"

  "Just the same."

  "How is Mr. Tolman?"

  "Holdin' on. Oh, he likes it! You must come and see us."

  Having given this invitation, Timothy left the store. Dave watched himas he moved down the street, turning at last into a little lane leadingdown to the wharves. Then he thought of Timothy rowing his dory downthe river, tossing on the uneasy tide, battling his way forward until hehalted at the foot of a great gray-stone tower in the sea. Looking upat the doorway of the tower, Dave saw the keeper's familiar face.