"I see," observed Tobias, grinning privately.
"Uncle Henry is all wrapped up in a new invention. He wants to be where it is quiet. The goodness knows it"s quiet enough at Clay Head."
"I cal"late. Come over to the light, Ralphie, and have a mess of Heppy"s fishb.a.l.l.s."
"Well, I might drive you home just as well as not," the young fellow agreed, smiling.
"You"re a re"l bright boy, Ralphie, even if you can"t appreciate Lorny Nicholet."
"Now, stop that, Tobias Ba.s.sett!" exclaimed his young friend, exasperated, "or I"ll surely overturn you in the ditch," and he threw in his clutch with a vicious jerk as the engine began to purr.
CHAPTER VII
A NEWCOMER
Tobias postponed the telling of the wonderful news to Miss Heppy until after supper and after Ralph Endicott had wheeled away from the Twin Rocks Light in his car. She had crowded down the question until then; but it finally came out with a pop.
"Who did Uncle Jethro leave his money to, Tobias?" she demanded, as he turned away from closing the door.
"To me an" you, Heppy-pretty near every last cent of it."
"Now, stop your funnin"!"
"Ain"t funning. It is the truth," her brother said. "Six thousand dollars, nearabout. And if you"d seen Icivilly Potts"s face!" he chuckled.
"For love"s sake!" gasped Miss Heppy. "It can"t be!"
"It _can_ be, for it _is_."
"Why, Tobias, we"re rich!"
"I cal"late."
"I-I never would have believed it!" exclaimed his sister, and sinking into her chair she threw her ap.r.o.n over her head and began to sob aloud.
"Oh, sugar! what you cryin" for?" Tobias demanded. ""Cause Icivilly and them others didn"t get Uncle Jethro"s money? Have some sense, do! This ain"t no time for weeping. Just think of what you can do with three thousand dollars."
"You just said six thousand!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Heppy, hastily reappearing above the hem of her ap.r.o.n. "Where"s half of it gone?"
"Oh, you"re to get half and me half. What you going to do with your three thousand, Heppy?"
"Just what you will do with yours, Tobias Ba.s.sett!" she exclaimed. "Put it into the Clinkerport Bank to our joint account. We got "most two thousand there now. We"ll have eight thousand against the time when we can"t work no more and will need it."
"Oh, sugar!" muttered her brother. "I might ha" knowed it. Your idea of a pleasure spree always was going to the bank to make another ten dollar deposit."
"Now, Tobias," she said with gravity, "don"t you let no foolish, spendthrift idees get a holt on your mind. I won"t hear to "em. You never would have had a penny in the bank if it hadn"t been for me."
"That"s the truth," sighed Tobias. "You got me so that every time a quarter comes my way the dove of peace on it screams for mercy. Yessir!
I"m getting to be a reg"lar miser, "long o" you, Heppy."
The lightkeeper and his sister fully understood and appreciated each other"s virtues. That Tobias was generous to a fault and that Hephzibah"s saving disposition had long since warded him from financial wreck, they both were well aware. Tobias publicly scorned, however, to acknowledge this latter fact.
"I certainly shall hate to see you turn the key on every dollar of that money, Heppy," he complained, preparing to mount to the lamp to see that all was right up there. "We ain"t never cut a dash in our lives. I certainly should like to make a splurge for once."
"You"d fly right in the face of Providence if I wasn"t here to hold you back," declared his sister. "Experience can"t teach you nothing."
"Oh, sugar! I know I"ve always spent my paycheck like ducks and drakes," he chuckled. "Wal, leave it to you, Heppy, and Uncle Jethro"s money won"t get much exercise, for a fact."
When he came down from the lamp he announced a change in the weather.
The wind began to whine around the tall staff and rain squalls drifted across the sullenly heaving sea outside the Twin Rocks. The night dissolved into a windy and tumultuous morning, and the fishing fleet remained inside the capes.
Tobias went aloft after breakfast to clean and fill the lamp before taking his usual morning nap. To the eastward rode a dun-colored object that at first could scarcely be made out, even by his keen eyes.
"It"s a craft of some kind-sure is!" he muttered. "But whether it"s turned bottom up, or is one o" them there motor-boats, decked over for"ard and without no mast-Hi! There"s a mast of a kind, and with a pennant to it, or something. Mebbe "tis the feller"s shirt."
That the motor craft was in some trouble the lightkeeper was confident.
The heavy seas buffeted it without mercy. He saw that the master of the craft could not keep steerageway upon it.
"He"ll be swamped, first thing he knows," muttered the anxious lightkeeper. "Yep! he"s put up some kind of a flag for help. But, sugar! n.o.body won"t see him from inside the harbor-an" there ain"t another livin" craft upon the sea."
Tobias hurried down from the lamp gallery. The cove between the light and the Clay Head was empty of all craft so early in the season. In fact, the only boats in sight were his own sloop, still high and dry upon the sands at the base of the lighthouse, and the heavy dory from which he trolled for rock-fish as he chanced to have time on the outer edge of the reefs.
He flung a word to Heppy, and she ran out and helped him launch the dory.
"You have a care, Tobias," she cried after him as he settled the oars between the thole-pins. "Remember you ain"t so young as you used to be."
"Oh, sugar!" he returned, "I ain"t likely to forget it as long as your tongue can wag, Heppy."
The heaving gray waves roared over the rocks in great bursts of foam.
The tiny, sheltered bight between the reefs had offered a more or less quiet launching for the dory, but the lightkeeper was soon in the midst of flying spume, his craft tossed and buffeted by the broken water that eddied off the points of the reef.
He drove clear of this in a few moments and pushed out to sea. Rising on a "seventh wave"-a particularly big one-Tobias glanced over his shoulder. The wallowing motor-boat was still right side up. There seemed to be but one person in it. The pennant whipped from the short staff in the stern where the figure of the man was likewise to be distinguished.
"She"s broken down complete," muttered the old lightkeeper, "and he"s keeping her head to it with an oar."
He settled himself for the long and arduous pull before him. In his youth he had many times managed a dory-sometimes laden with fish from the trawl-lines-in a worse sea than this. Tough in fibre as the ash oar he drove, was Tobias Ba.s.sett. He did not overlook the possible peril in this trip to the unmanageable motor-boat, but he had taken just such chances often and again.
Spoondrift, dashed from the caps of the waves, drenched him. When he turned his head now and again to make sure of his course, this spray spat viciously in his face. Little whirlwinds swooped down upon the sea and turned certain areas of it into boiling cauldrons of yellow foam.
"Looks like a caliker cat in a fit," was Tobias"s comment on one occasion.
But these squalls were for the most part ignored by the lightkeeper.
They were unpleasant visitations, but he knew the dory could weather them.