Part 7

At the foot of the railing of the parapet he placed the box, and from that elevation, leaning his arms on the railing, inspected as closely as he could the fog-signal. This parapet for timorous people was an ugly spot. When the wind blew hard it was not easy to maintain one's footing outside the lantern. One could cling to the railing, which was firm, but it consisted only of an iron bar resting on upright iron rods three feet apart. There was no danger of a fence-break, but the gaps between the iron rods were wide and ugly, and if one should chance to drop on the smooth stone floor and just tip a little--over--toward--the--edge--ugh! One did not like to think of that fall down--down--into the sea--perhaps upon the Black Rocks when the tide was out. Toby Tolman had told Dave that for a long time he did not care to go near the rail about the lantern and stand there a while, as it made him "nervous;' but he had ceased to be a "land-lubber," and could now face, sailor-like in confidence, any quarter of the sea and sky, just clinging to that little rail. Dave had felt pleased with his steadiness of nerve when he found he could look over that rail and then down upon the whirling sea without very much trepidation.

"Shouldn't like to have a dizzy fit when I was looking over," he said. "No danger, though."

He repeated this as he now stood on the box planted at the foot of one of the iron supports of the rail, and continuing to rest his arms on the rail, inspected closely, as already said, the fog-signal. Suddenly his arms slipped, and over the horrible edge of that narrow little railing he found himself going. Sometimes we compress years into moments apparently. We go back, we go forward, we gather it all up into the thought of a very brief now. But oh, how vivid!--like all the electric force in a great mass of cloud concentrated in one dazzling, blinding lightning-stroke. As Dave felt that his body was sliding over that rail, he seemed to realize where he had been in the past. He thought of his parents--his home--Uncle Ferguson at Shipton--how it was that he came to the lighthouse, and then he seemed to realize vividly his situation there in the lighthouse: that he was there as the responsible keeper just then; that the safety of many vessels at sea all relied on the thoroughness of his watch; and yet he was sliding over that rail, going down toward the waves, the rocks--he dared not look toward them! He could see only this one thing between him and death: beneath his hands was an iron support of the railing. There was no other object he could grasp for three feet on each side of him. It is true there was the granite rim of this lantern-deck, so called sometimes, but he could not grasp it. His hands would slide over it. Just that iron stanchion was his hope, and as he was sinking down he convulsively clutched at it, caught it, clung to it--shutting his eyes as if blinded. He dared not look anywhere until he felt that his grasp was sure, and then he somehow worked himself back, up, over the railing, and the whole of his body was on the lantern-deck again. He crawled into the lantern, shut the door, and threw himself on the floor weak as a baby.

"Horrible!" was his one word. There he lay thinking. What if he had gone down into that yawning pit of the sea! When would they have found his body? Horrible! horrible! When he was steady enough he slowly crept down the stairs. He entered the kitchen. It had seemed as if everything threatened to fall when he was in danger of going down into the sea--lantern, watch-room, lighthouse--all into the merciless sea. But here was the kitchen. No change here. It was so quiet, so restful. A lamp burned on the table. The fire murmured in the stove. The clock sang its cheerful little tune of a single note. And there was the old light-keeper's Bible. It still lay open, its pages shining in the lamp-light, and there were the promises of the psalm Dave had already noticed. What did it say? "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."

Dave started. Up on the high lantern-deck had any mighty angel stepped between him and death, lifting him back on the floor of stone? Who could say it was not so? Dave sat down in a chair, and then bowed his head and rested it on the table. Here was God, the kindest, dearest being in the universe, Dave's great Father, from whose arms he had been turning away, trying to avoid them; and now, up on the lofty parapet, they had been held out, restraining him, saving him.

"Oh, I can't go on this way any longer," thought Dave. "And I _won't_, either! If God will only have me--will only--"

He fell on his knees. What he whispered to God he never could recall. He only knew that he felt very sorry that he had been neglecting God--pushing away the arms reached out to him and feeling after him. He murmured something about gratitude, something about forgiveness. Then he was conscious of a surrender, of sliding down--not into a horrible pit from the lighthouse parapet, but into arms tender yet strong, that went about him, that bore him up, that held him. How long he stayed there he knew not. Some time he arose, and went upstairs to see if the lantern were all right. Its light burned steadily, vividly, hopefully. He looked out on the lantern-deck. There was the box still on the floor. With a shudder he took it in and went downstairs again. Then he prayed once more, and said aloud the words, "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." He was so thankful for this night's deliverance, so sorry for his forgetfulness of God in the long past! He rose to read again. He heard a step at last in the passage-way between the fog-signal tower and the lighthouse,--a heavy, echoing step, now in the tank-room, then on the stairway to the kitchen.

Dave sprang up to meet the keeper, and he held the lamp in the shadowy stairway.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Tolman."

"Same to you. Here I am, all right, you see. Glad I went."

"How is May?"

"Better. Yes, thank God, she is better. There was a sudden change, and the doctor has hope. She has been in a pretty hard place, but I think she is out of it."

"Good! That's the way I feel myself."

"What!" The light-keeper looked at Dave for an explanation, but Dave was silent. He could not tell everything at once, or even a little to-night. The keeper went to the table, saying to himself, "He meant May when he said that. Ah!" he thought, "my book is turned round. Guess Dave has been reading this. Good! I thought he would get to it some time."

That was a very peaceful night whose hush was on the great sea, on the surf gently rolling along the bar, and in the lighthouse tower. The deepest peace was in Dave Fletcher's soul.

Dave's stay at the lighthouse was exceedingly brief after this event in his life.

"I am really sorry to have you go," said Toby Tolman the day that Dave left. "I shall miss you. I will take you up to town, as Timothy has come back."

Dave received his pay from Timothy, for whom he had acted as substitute, and then with the keeper left the lighthouse.

The journey to Shipton over, Dave quickly walked to Uncle Ferguson's, and was welcomed warmly.

X.

_THE CHRISTMAS GIFT._

Christmas was approaching--Christmas with its white fields, and its skies that seem to part like the opening of doors in a big blue wall, and from it issue the sweet songs of the Bethlehem angels. Still more acceptable is it when our souls seem to open like doors that fly apart, and out to our neighbour and all souls everywhere go assurances of peace and good-will.

To Dave Fletcher and Dick Pray Christmas meant an end of school-days and a return home.

"You will come and see us 'fore you go," was Bart Trafton's meek request to Dick and Dave when he met them in the street. Dick made the first call, just three days before Christmas. Things did not have a festival appearance in the Trafton home that day. Gran'sir was lying on a lounge not far from the fire, and his cough was shaking him harder than ever. Bart, just before Dick's call, had been down on the shore of the river to see if the last tide had remembered the poor, and deposited any more drift on the beach. He brought back only a puny armful, and this armful he divided between the oven and the fire, the first half to dry and be ready to start up the flames which the other half would be quite sure to put down and almost put out. Granny had been calling at a neighbour's, to borrow timidly a little tea, and met Dick just outside the door of the Trafton home. Such a difference as there was between youth with its ruddy cheeks and bright eyes, between plenty with its cheerful and contented spirit, and poor old Granny Trafton!

"Bartie wanted me to call," said Dick.

"Come in, come in," said granny, hospitably. "We're poor folks, but we're glad to see people."

When Dick went away he said to himself, "'Poor folks,'--they're all that. I wish something could be done for them."

Dave made his call, and he left the house saying, "Something must be done."

The two callers met in the street the day of Dave's call, and the same thought was in their minds.

"Dick, see here. Those Traftons are real poor," said Dave. "I wonder if we couldn't get them a little something for Christmas."

"Dave, that very thought was in my mind, and I wanted to speak of it. Come on. It's done."

Hardly done; but that was Dick's way, and when a soul may be timid and discouraged, that confident, self-assured style in another is very strengthening.

"Let's see. There is no other way than to go right round and ask our friends. I know they will give something, Dick."

"Hold on, hold on, Dave. That is a slow way, Let's make a dash and capture the enemy at once. I will pick out some millionaire--"

Here Dick turned round as if to see which "millionaire" he would select from all of Shipton's wealthy residents.

"Yes," he continued; "I will look after that. Don't you give yourself a moment of uneasiness on that score. I will pick out some rich fellow, tell him what he ought to do, and bag the game on the spot. There!"

Dave laughed. He knew Dick's style thoroughly. At the same time it did give one like Dave, who shrank from begging, new courage to have Dick talk so boldly.

"Let's see, Dick. It is now Monday. We might meet on Wednesday at your cousin's store, and find out how we stand, and send our things to the Traftons on Wednesday afternoon; and Christmas is on Thursday, you know."

"Dave, don't worry about the wherewithal." Here Dick, with a very solemn air of assurance, looked Dave steadily in the eye. "I purpose to bag a millionaire and make him do his duty, Dave Fletcher."

The two friends laughed, shook hands, and separated. Dave listened as he was about turning a corner of the street, for he heard somebody whistling. It was Dick whistling, in a loud, bold, cheery way.

"Well," thought Dave, "I'll make a beginning now. I will speak to Aunt Nancy soon as I get home."

Aunt Nancy was stoning raisins in preparation for a Christmas baking.

"Will I give something to the Traftons? Oh, certainly. I expect a good warm blanket would be just the thing for gran'sir, and I'll give that as my share. _My_ share, remember. Your uncle must give his mite. I tell ye, David," said Aunt Nancy in a whisper, "your uncle has some first-class Baldwins down in the cellar. Just touch him upon those."

"I will, aunt, thank you."

And next, would the home of James Tolman give anything?

"Pies and potatoes; you can count on us for some of both kinds," said Mrs. Tolman.

The next place was the home of the light-keeper, Toby Tolman, when ashore. His wife was dead, and a widowed daughter and her only child, May, lived in his house. He preferred to keep up the home, although personally there but a very little of the time.

"Should we like to give anything? Of course," said the keeper's daughter; "that is what Christmas is for. Only last week I heard father say we could give some wood off our pile, for he calculated we had more than enough to carry us through the winter."

"Don't you let young folks help?" asked a silvery voice, sending at Dave an arch look out of two penetrating black eyes. "You must not think I am an invalid and past helping, if I was so sick last summer. Now I can just go round in the neighbourhood and get together some eatables, I know, and perhaps clothing that might do for Bart."

"That would be splendid," said Dave, stirred deeply by those black eyes, and wishing that in every house visited he was the individual of whom May Tolman would solicit.

When Dave brought these donations into one collection, he found not only the blanket for gran'sir but a shawl for granny. There also were clothes for Bart, and any amount of things for the Christmas dinner.

The next point was how to get them taken up to the Traftons. For the clothing and eatables Dave borrowed Uncle Ferguson's cart, but for the wood only James Tolman's waggon would answer. That procession of two teams, the waggon and the cart, had a Christmas look that would have been recognized anywhere.

"Whoa-a-a!" shouted Dave, as the procession neared the boot and shoe shop kept by Dick's cousin Sam. Dick was behind the counter waiting on a customer. As he saw Dave entering he ran his hand through his hair in a nervous, despairing style, but said nothing until the customer had left.

"There, Dave, it is too bad, but--but--whose are those teams out in the street?"

"Just things I picked up."

"And the wood?"

"Going to the same place."

"That's good. Then I don't feel so bad."

"Well, anything you find, good, you know, for Christmas, why, send it along."

"I shouldn't wonder, though, if--if--it might be too late now; but--you have got something--if--I should be too late--and I do believe I am too late. Sorry. Glad, though, I put you up to it. I knew you would attend to it."

With a triumphant wave of his hand, as if he were permitting Dave to drive off with a donation that Dick Pray had gathered, he accompanied Dave to the door and then retreated to the counter.

"If that isn't Dick Pray all over!" said Dave.

It would be difficult to tell the feelings of joy occasioned in the Trafton home by those gifts.

"Davie," said Bart, "I had a dream last night, and I guess it is a-comin' true. I thought I saw that ladder that Jacob had a look at, you know, when the angels were a-goin' up and down, and comin' down they had bundles in their arms."

Dave entered the house, bringing in bundle after bundle. Bart thought the angels looked somewhat like that.

"Hadn't you better try this shawl?" said Dave to granny, who looked cold and purple. And would gran'sir be willing to be wrapped in the blanket? The thin, worn consumptive responded with a glad smile, and said in a whisper that he hadn't been so comfortable since he was sick. And the wood--how it set that old stove to shaking and laughing and glowing till its front seemed like a jolly face full of sparkling eyes! That is one good result coming from a stove cracked everywhere in front.

Granny told the minister, Mr. Potter, two days after, how all this generosity affected gran'sir.

"Why, sir, it made him just heavenly! He cried and laughed--it was so good to be warm, you know. And he's softened so, sir. I think it begun when Bartie begun to read the Bible to him, and it has been a-keepin' on, sir, a-softenin', sir--don't scold, you know, or be harsh-like. I--I--I--" Here granny buried her face in her apron and cried. "I'm afraid--sir--may be--he won't live--long--he's--softened so--sir--he has."

It was nothing wonderful. Like the warm breath of the spring on the chilled and torpid flowers, arousing them into the activity of bud and blossom time, the thoughtful kindness of God's creatures brought God nigh to gran'sir; brought the breath of his benediction to gran'sir's soul, and gave him a new life.

"God has been so good--he draws me," gran'sir said to granny an early day in January. "It is--like he's callin' me--and--I guess I'll go."

His going was so peaceful that to say when it was would be like marking the spot where the current crosses the line between the river and the ocean; and yet his soul did cross from time, so short and river-like, into the broad and boundless ocean of eternity. People said it would be as well for the comfort of granny and Little Mew, and even better, for gran'sir they declared to be exacting. They did not know how it was. Granny and Little Mew felt that they were the exacting ones, for they wanted gran'sir to stay. Little Mew's soul was clouded by the shadow of a thought that by the death of gran'sir his mission in this world was very much abridged. He was tempted to wonder again for what God had sent a little fellow like him into this world.

XI.

_AT SHIPTON AGAIN._

"Nothing for me?"

"Nothing."

"Sure?"

"Well--"

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

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

"All right. I wasn't really expecting anything, but it is so long since I 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 seem to 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 to the first line and began to read:--

"DEAR DAVID,--I have not forgotten that you were in my Sunday-school class when in Shipton, and I felt that I knew you well enough to ask you to take this into consideration, whether you wouldn't like to come and be 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 promised to keep his place open for him three months. At the end of that time he may 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, and springing into his waggon, cried, "Get up there, Jimmy! Don't know that you and I will be travelling this road together much longer. Get up there!"

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

"There, mother!" said Dave, when he entered the Fletcher kitchen; "just what 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 leave it. 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 to be 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, and Annie 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 evening to see some of his old acquaintances, and the next day started for Shipton.

On arriving he reported for duty at the shop of "James Tolman, Ship-chandler." He was now eighteen, and he felt that active life was beginning in earnest. The shop was an old one, and before James Tolman's business days it had been kept by his father. It was packed with all kinds of goods available for ship-furnishings. As one opened the door a scent of tar issued, strong enough to make the most thorough-going old salt say, "This seems like home." There were coils of rope of every size ranged on either side of the passage-way. There were capstans and anchors and blocks and ring-bolts. There were all kinds of shining tin and copper ware for the cook's galley. There were compasses, and ship-lanterns, and speaking-trumpets, and sheath-knives, and suits of oiled clothing, and slouching "tarpaulins." On stormy days, when Dave from the back windows could see that the waves in the river had stuck in their crests saucy feathers of foam, it seemed to him as if he heard the coils of rope creak in the store and the suits of sailors' clothing rustle; and what wonder if some old salt had waddled forward in one of those stiff suits, and, seizing a trumpet, cried in ringing tones to the pots and kettles hanging from the brown, dusty beams, "Furl your top-sails." It was a pleasure to Dave when an old Shipton sea-captain might heave in sight on stormy days, and, entering the shop, take a seat by the crackling fire and tell of gales round Cape Horn 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 Pray for six months had been in town, a clerk in his cousin's shop. He now came 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 with either had "boomed," or was "booming," or would "boom" very soon. No tame 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 met previously, though he did not recognize them at once. There stood before the counter a rather tall man, wearing a tall hat and closely muffled 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 lantern goods.

"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 in the door the storm driving without.

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

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

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

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

The man slipped down a scarf wrapped about his face, took off his spectacles, 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 out afterward you had nothing to do with it."

"Oh, well, sir--I--"

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

Then the tall man tramped on.

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