He took his pipe from his mouth, in order that his mind should not be distracted. Then he pushed his cap back, and dropped an oar.
"Freddie, is that you?" he asked. "Sure I thought you was comin" up to the shack, and I"ve bin waitin" for you."
"We are on our way up there now. You are not going out, are you?"
pleaded Freda.
"No, Freddie," (he always called her Freddie), "I"ll come right in. I was only goin" acrost to get a few little things; but they can wait."
Cora now had a chance to see this quaint old fellow. He was Irish, with many fine humorous wrinkles about his eyes and mouth. He seemed to breathe through his pipe, so constantly did he inhale it, and just how he kept his sailor"s blouse so clean, and his worn clothes so neat, was a trick he had learned in his younger days in the navy.
"Isn"t this a fine day?" he commented, with a nod to Cora.
"Simply perfect," she answered, seeing there was no need for a formal introduction. "I have been telling Freda how surprised I was at the beauty of this place."
"Surprised, is it? Sure, there ain"t another spot this side of Cape Cod with as many fine points to it. I wouldn"t leave this little bay for a berth on any ocean liner."
"My friend, Cora Kimball, is from Chelton, Uncle Denny. Do you know where that is?" asked Freda.
"Chelton? Chelton? Sure, I do. I went through there once in a parade wagon. We were out with the G. A. R. and I guess the parade got lost, for I remember at Chelton we had to put up for the night in an old church they were using for a fire house. But we had a fine time," and he chuckled at the recollection. "And next day we finished up without the need of a wagon. It was like camp days to scatter ourselves about the big ramshackle place."
"Oh, yes, that"s out in the East End," Cora said. "We have quite an up-to-date fire house in Chelton Center."
"Well, that was good enough for me," he a.s.serted. "But come along and I"ll show you my shack. Freddie will be surprised at my new decorations."
Up the little board walk to a path through the woods the three tramped.
Denny Shane was popular with young folks; even the mischievous boys who would occasionally untie his boat before a storm had no reason to fear his wrath, for such pranks were quickly forgotten.
"And the mother, Freddie?" he asked. "How"s she gettin" on?"
"Well, she worries a good deal," the girl replied. "But I keep telling her it must come right in time."
"Sure it will. The rascals that would do wrong to a widder couldn"t prosper. "Taint lucky. But they"re foxy. Did you hear anything new?"
"Yes, but not much that is substantial. My friend and I want to see you to find out all that you may know about it. Perhaps there is some clue we have been overlooking, that you could give us."
"Well, you"re welcome to all I know. But here we are. No need to unlock my door," he said as he saw Cora smile at his unceremonious entrance to the shack. "Them that has nothin" has nothin" to fear."
A surprising little place, indeed, the girls were shown into. Neat and orderly, yet convenient and practical, was Denny Shane"s home. There was a stove and a mantel, a table, two chairs and a long bench. Pieces of rag carpet indicated the most favored spots--those to be lived on.
"And now, Freddie," began Denny, drawing out two chairs, "what do you think of my housekeeping?"
"Why, you are just as comfortable and neat as possible," she replied.
"But I notice one thing has not lost its place--your red oar."
"No--indeed!" he said almost solemnly. "That oar will stay with me while Denny Shane has eyes to see it. It has a story, Freddie, and I often promised to tell it to you. This is as good a time as another."
He put his pipe down, brought a big chair up to the window, opened a back door to allow the salt air to sweep in; then, while Cora looked with quickening interest at the old red oar, that hung over the fireplace, Denny shook his head reflectively and started with his story.
"That oar," he said, "seems like a link between me and Leonard Lewis--your grandpa, Freddie. And, too, it is a reminder of the night when I nearly went over the other sea, and would have, but for Leonard Lewis and his strong red oar."
A light flashed into the old eyes. Plainly the recollections brought up by his story were sacred. He left his chair and went over to the mantel, climbed up on a box and touched the oar that had sagged a little from its position.
"The wind rocks this shanty so," he explained, "the oar thinks it"s out on the waves again, I guess. I don"t like to spoil it with nails or strings."
"It looks very artistic," Cora declared; "but how curious that an oar should be painted red."
"Yes, there was only one pair of them, that I know of. One went with the wreck, and this one Len Lewis held on to. Now I"ll tell you about it."
Again he seated himself and this time started off briskly with the tale.
"It was a raw January night--in fact, it seemed as if it had been night all day for all the chance the sun had to get out. A howling wind whistled and fairly shrieked at everything that didn"t fly fast enough to suit it. Len and me had been puttin" in a lot of time together at his house, just chinnin"--there wasn"t much else to do but to keep warm. Well, along about five o"clock, we heard a rocket! The wind died away for a minute or so, and we dashed out to the beach to get the lay of that distress signal. Talk about big city fires!" he digressed. "A fire on land ain"t what it is on sea. It always seems like as if death has a double power with the fire and the deep and nothing but the sky above to fan the flame.
"We soon saw the smoke. It was from a point just over the turn, where the clouds dip down and touch the waves. A little tail of smoke crawled up and hung black and dirty, not gettin" any bigger nor spreadin" much. When we sighted her, we went to work in the way men of the sea have of working together and never sayin" a word. Up the beach we chased, and dragged out the boat we called our "Lifer." It was a good, strong fishin" boat, and we kept her ready in the rough weather.
""Wait!" yelled Len to me, just as I was pushin" off. "I"ve got a lucky pair of oars. They"re bigger and heavier than ours, and I"ll toss "em in. We might need "em."
"Little I thought of the need we would have! And I always laughed at Len"s idea of luck--and me an Irishman, too."
"Mother always said grandfather was queer about such things," Freda remarked. "I remember we had an old jug that he found on one of his birthdays. He would never allow that jug to be thrown out; he said it meant a jug full of good luck."
"And it, of course, was an empty jug," Cora said, with a smile.
"Perhaps that is, after all, the luckiest kind."
Denny chuckled over that remark, and added he had not much use for jugs of any kind.
"But I"m gettin" away from my yarn," he said, presently. "We took the big thick oars and pulled out against the wind. By this time the hail was comin" down in chunks that would cut the face off you. Sometimes there are a lot of stragglers around here, but when we need a man, of course, there is not one in sight. But we rowed away and somehow managed to get close to the wreck. It was a little steamer, not much bigger than a tug, and it was burning faster than the smoke told us.
""You throw the rope and I"ll stick to the oars!" shouted Len, his voice sounding like a wheeze in the wind. There were three men on the steamer and they were just about tuckered out. They were clingin" to the rail, their hands blisterin" from the flames that were sweepin" up close to them even as they touched the water"s edge.
"It"s an awful thing to see sufferin" like that," he put in. "I won"t ever forget how those fellows tumbled into our boat. They just rolled in like dead men. But my rope got caught in the rudder of the steamer, and I tugged and tugged, but it looked as if we would have to let her burn off before we could free ourselves. Just when I decided to make a big haul at it I came near my end. I stood up, gave the rope a yank, and with that--rip! She let go! And I went with it over into the water!"
"Goodness!" Cora exclaimed. "It was bad enough to have to rescue the other men, but for you to go into that roaring ocean!"
"It was bad, Miss," agreed the narrator. "And the feel of that water as I struck it! It was like a bath of sword-points. Well, that"s where the oar comes in! Bless the bit of wood it was cut from, it sure was a good, strong stick.
"When I flopped into the water, like a fish dumped out of a net, your grandpop, Freddie, took nary a chance at reachin" me with the rope. He dropped the regular oars and took one of the pair he called lucky.
""Here," he yelled, "grab to that!"
"I can see the red flash now as it nearly hit me on the head, but though I did make a stab at it the water was that cold and the ice so thick on me hands that I couldn"t hold on.
"It"s pretty bad to be floppin" around like that, I can tell you. But Len kept shoutin" and when one of the other fellows got enough breath to stand up with, he took a hand at the rescuin".
"It was him who dropped the mate to that oar overboard. Mad! I could hear Len yell through the thick of it all. But he held the last red oar.
"With the effort to keep up me blood heated some, and the next time I saw the flash of red I grabbed it good an" proper. It took three of them to haul me up, but I clung to the red oar and that"s how I"m here this minute. Likewise, it"s why the oar is here with me."
There was a long pause. The girls had been thrilled with the simple recital, so void of anything like conceit in the part that Denny himself had played in the work of rescue.