CHAPTER IX
THE AFFAIRS OF BRECK
The day after Frances' adventure on the hilltop found both Jane andFrances stiff in their shoulder muscles. Aside from that, there wereno ill effects from their long and heavy lift. The man they hadrescued was more than hospitably received by Mr. Wing and had beenurged to make the boat his home until he was able to go down the sealadder unassisted. Breck had set his leg with sure skill and thepatient had eaten a hearty breakfast and declared that he was in nopain at all.
After breakfast, the little party had gathered around him to hear hisstory. Out of consideration of his weariness the night before, theyhad unanimously refrained from questioning him. However, Frances hadkept Jane awake well into the night with surmises of her find's looksand personality.
"What do you suppose he would look like, Jane, with a clean face and ashave and his hair combed and decent clothes?" she had asked. "He hassuch a lot of red hair that I bet he is cross as the dickens."
"Child," said Jane with the superior wisdom of one who has lived fortwenty-one years with a wifeless father and a motherless brother, "allmen are cross when they are sick. He is probably quite nice."
Consequently the strange man's discoverer was delightfully surprisedwhen she came down from on deck to hear his story and found him nicelyshaven, with his red hair, which she immediately decided was auburn,brushed till it shone and his dirty white ducks replaced by a gaybathrobe of Jack's.
"I would like to make it awfully interesting," he began with a grin,"I feel that the two girls who carried my hundred and eighty poundsdown that hill should have the reward of having saved a movie hero orthe lost heir--anyone, in fact, except just plain Tim Reynolds, who isdoing nothing more romantic than spending the summer with his familyat Nantucket Island. That is I am supposed to be--the fact is I amproud possessor of a thirty-foot sailboat and, as the result of that,I had the misfortune, or the fortune rather," this with a friendlylittle nod at Frances, "to sail into Old Harbor and climb up that hilland break my leg."
"We are glad you did," announced Mabel genially and then as everybodylaughed at her she added, "Of course, I don't mean I am glad he brokehis leg, you all are so silly. Mr. Reynolds, you know I meant that weare glad you are on board the 'Boojum,' don't you?"
Tim Reynolds nodded reassuringly and begged them not to call him"Mister."
"You must let us take you to Nantucket, Tim," said Mr. Wing.
"I couldn't think of it, sir, you have been far too good already."
"But we are going to Nantucket anyway. All of us want to see'Sconset," put in Frances.
"There is nothing I would like better, if you are really going thereand I won't be too much of a care. And, now that I have accepted,don't you suppose it would be a good idea to get a message to my fondparents to the effect that their son is still inhaling and exhaling atregular intervals?"
Ellen said in her quiet way, "I have just been looking at the chartand Vinal Haven is only a short distance from here. Why can't Mabeland Charlie and Jack and I take the tender and go to Vinal Haven andsend a telegram to the fond parents? I know that they have laid acable to Nantucket from Martha's Vineyard. We could be back in timefor lunch."
"Isn't that a good idea?" asked Jack proudly.
"It is if you four can remember what you are going for," teased hissister. "Mr. Wing, will it leave you too stranded if I get Breck torow me over to Hurricane Island in the dinghy? I am wild to know whythere are so many deserted houses there. So far, I haven't seen a signof life."
"Would you mind very much rowing round the island I stumbled over andsee if my boat is still there? I put over the two anchors; she oughtto hold," Tim said to Breck.
"And what are you going to do about getting her home?" Frances askedTim, coming over to sit on the companion steps as the others wentabove.
"We've decided enough for one day. Let's worry about that tomorrow.Why don't you tell me how you and Jane happen to be such quickthinkers and how you happened to have enough grit to get me down thatlong hill?"
There was a great noise and bustle on deck, as was always the casewhen Mabel was about to do anything. Soon the sound of the tender'smotor was heard and its wash licked against the "Boojum's" sleek blacksides. Jane peered down the hatch with intent to ask Frances to comealong with Breck and herself, but on seeing the pleasant conversationthat was beginning, she decided not to interrupt it.
"Let's go over to Hurricane Island first and come back by the islandof adventure to see if Tim Reynolds' boat is there," suggested Breck,as he pulled the dinghy along with sure strokes.
Watching him, Jane thought how very well he did whatever he set hishand to do. This was their first moment alone since the startlingdisclosure Breck had made about himself the day before. Not that ithad come as a very great surprise to Jane, because she had always feltthat he was some one other than a deck hand and she might have knownthat he would have been among the first to offer himself to servehumanity.
As he rowed, he watched her and, seeing her thoughtful expression,suddenly asked her, "Jane, what are you wondering about?"
"About Breck," she said frankly.
"What do you want to know about him?" he asked, smiling at her utterfrankness.
"Whatever he wants to tell me."
"That is a large order, because do you know, Jane, I want to tell youeverything good or bad that has ever happened to me. I've wanted totell you several things for some time, but I felt that I had no rightto burden you with my affairs."
"Breck, you know I've wanted to know about you but felt that I had noright to pry into those same affairs. Do you remember that night atGloucester, when you got those two telegrams? I saw you frown at oneand grin at the other. It was all I could do to keep from asking whathad happened, 'specially about the one you didn't seem to like," sheconfessed.
"The one I liked was from a friend of mine in New York. I left a lotof stories with him and asked him to get the stuff decently copied andsend some of them around to different magazines for me. The telegramtold me that the Saturday Evening Post had accepted a story and wantedto see more. That tickled me mightily, because it is the first luck Ihave had with a big magazine. The other was from my sister, assuringme that my father was as mad at me as ever."
"I wondered why you didn't write, Breck, you are always so keenlyinterested in people's actions and reactions. I am awfully glad thePost took the story. Will you tell me why your father is mad at you,too?"
"To begin with, we have always disagreed from the time he sent me to anorfolk-jacket-and-buster-brown-collar-country-school-for-rich-little-boysand I wanted to wear a jersey and go to a public school in town. Notthat I didn't love the country, because the part of my life I rememberwith most pleasure is the summers I spent on my uncle's ranch in thewest." Breck's sunburned face took on the sad look that was sodistressing to Jane. He continued, "A surprising thing happened. Bothof us agreed on my going to Harvard and finally on my going intomedicine. Everything was all right for two years and a half, when, atChristmas vacation, I decided to spend my holidays with some friendsin New York instead of taking the trip across the continent to spendthe time with my family in California."
"But surely, just the failure to be with him at Christmas was notenough to cause a real breach," Jane broke in.
"No, but what happened next was," Breck went on. "My two friends andI had ridiculously large allowances. One night, we thought it would befun to go slumming and see how the other half lived. For their sakes,I hope they have forgotten. For my part, I don't believe I ever shall.The wretchedness, the sick misery of those people! At any rate, aftermy trip, I became fired with a great desire to do something for thosepeople and wrote home to Father that I intended to hang out my shinglein the east side and, of course, practice for nothing. It neverentered my head that Father wouldn't abet me in such a work. He isvery, very rich indeed and I thought that he would not only continuemy allowance but probably give me large donations from time to time sothat I might be able even to have
an infirmary in connection with myoffice. My dream was short lived. When I got back to college, I founda curt note saying that my plan was ridiculous and that my allowancewould be stopped immediately and that he would decline to foot thebill for my tuition with any such career in view. I wrote him in replythat I intended to do as I had written him before. He made good histhreat and I stayed on at college for a few months, doing thatsupposedly romantic thing, 'working my way through' mostly by sellingshort things to small magazines. It is something that no one should beallowed to do too, let me tell you. Why there aren't more cases ofbrain fag among the students that attempt it, I don't see. Then thingsgot so rotten on the other side that I couldn't stand not being in it.So at last I got over with a bunch of my older friends with a Frenchambulance unit."
Dismissing the part he played in the war as rapidly as possible, hehurried on to tell of what took place at his return.
"When you came back from overseas, didn't his attitude change towardyou a bit?" Jane asked anxiously.
"Oh, of course, I suppose he was proud of me in a way. They gave ahuge ball and my sister made me meet all her blase friends. Afterbeing so close to the realities, all their little affectations andvanities grated on me terribly. At any rate, after a very melodramaticscene in which my father offered to forget my silliness at Harvard andtake me in as a junior partner in his tremendous exporting business, Isaw that it wasn't any use arguing, so I just told them good-bye andcame to New York and got a job as reporter for one of the papers.Don't let me bore you to death, will you, Jane? Everybody likes totalk about himself, I suppose, and it means an awful lot to me to beable to talk to somebody. I am not whining around for sympathy, youknow that, don't you?" he said quickly. "And I don't mean to run downmy family, they are all right in their way. We just don't hit it off."
"I know," Jane said, "some people seem to get born in the wrongfamilies and some families just seem to have the wrong children. Buthow did you happen to come on the 'Boojum'?"
"I thought that, if I got outdoors, I would be able to write betterstuff. You see, after I had been writing regular newspaper things allday, I needed to get out and do something else at night besidessitting in my room and writing at stories. Out on the coast at home, Ihad always had a boat of some sort or other and I was crazy about thewater. So I thought that I could make enough money to see me throughthe summer, get a chance to do some writing and put in an enjoyablehealthy summer if I signed on as deck hand on some yacht. 'Boojum'happened to be the one. So far, it is the best thing that has happenedto me."
"Wasn't it awful hard pretending that you were just a plain deckhand? When we talked about things you knew about, didn't you want tobutt in?"
"It was harder than I dreamed it would be. I thought that you girlswould be like my sister's friends and, knowing how rich Mr. Wing was,I thought that he would run his yacht just as most of the soundyachtsmen do, as though it was some fragile little boat that couldn'tstand an all day sail, or rather that he couldn't. When I found outwhat a peach of a bunch you all were and I realized what my positionwas, I admit I used to get pretty gloomy."
"What a shame, Breck, when all of us wanted to be nice to you, butwere afraid to be because we couldn't bear to have you think we werethe patronizing sort."
"It wasn't really bad," Breck hastened to assure seeing the distressedlook she gave him. "You see, when you girls began to get so keen aboutsailing the ship, it left me very little work to do on deck, so I hadlots of time to put in on my writing."
"Is it hard living in such close quarters in the galley with thatfunny little Dutch steward?"
"It is rather interesting. He has been everywhere and has splendidtales to tell. Do you remember at Plymouth when you said that youwould like to arrange the orchestration of his snores? That is theonly real objection I have to him. He is the best-hearted littlefellow in the world, so I suppose we ought to be ready to forgive himhis only vice."
"He is a marvelous cook, don't you think? But look here, Breck, youare just rowing anywhere, we'll never get to the island unless we stoptalking," said Jane coming to the realization that for about half anhour they had been aimlessly drifting along, Breck occasionallydipping the copper tipped oars in the water from habit.
As they drew nearer the island they saw that a huge crane hung outover the water and that there was the remains of quite a large dock.Several dories and a small catboat were moored in the little harbor. Agreat many lobster pots were slung up on the rocks that shelved abovethe beach.
"It can't be entirely deserted or I don't suppose they would have leftthese perfectly good boats. And where there are lobsters there must besome lobsterers," said Jane, a little disappointed that it wasn'treally a deserted island.
"Let's carry it a little farther and hope that if the presence of thelobster pots can prove that there are lobsterers, then the presence ofthe lobsterers might prove some lobsters," said Breck, rememberingthat Mabel had asked him to try and see if he couldn't find some forher.
The water near shore was so clear that they could see the pebblesgleaming at least ten feet below the surface.
"I wish we had one of those glass bottom boats that the natives rowthe tourists around in at some of the South Sea Islands," Breck said.
"There still doesn't seem to be any sign of natives on this island torow us around in even an oak bottomed boat. Shall we just snoop aboutand hunt for some one or shall we stand here and yell till some onematerializes?" Jane asked as she stepped out on the beach.
At the sound of her voice, there was a slight movement on one of thebig slabs of granite and a boy of about sixteen, dressed in a grayflannel shirt and faded dungarees, stood up.