Part 2

"Rattlesnake," said Bobby. "She was the Ebenezer, but they changed it. Too bad, when we had a name that just fitted. We're in the navy now, you know. We're all U.S.N.R.F., Class four. The Ebenezer belonged to Jimmy and me, but the Rattlesnake belongs to the U.S. We offered it to them, and they took it so quick it almost took our breath away. She makes thirty miles an hour easy, and a little better if we drive her. You know that I'm a partner of Jimmy's now."

I nodded. Seven years ago he was office boy, just out of college.

"Any clams on this piazza, Adam?" Bobby asked. "I see--"

"Yes," I interrupted, "anybody might. These boots are not invisible. I wish they were. Neither is the clam hoe. Circumstances beyond my control, Bobby,--But what is Jimmy?"

"Jimmy? Oh, Jimmy's lieutenant commander."

"And you are an admiral?"

"Well, no. They offered me that rank, of course, but I thought I'd rather be under Jimmy. I'm a lieutenant. Ogilvie'll be an ensign as soon as he's of age. They don't often give commissions to fellows until they are twenty-one. He's not through college yet."

"Chasing submarines, Bobby? How many periscopes have you shot off?"

Bobby laughed. "That information I am unable to impart, Adam. Undoubtedly it would give comfort to the enemy. But we shall be chasing submarines pretty soon. That is to be our job, so far as we know now. We have a number of chasers under our command. Personally, I'd like to be in patrol work out in the steamer lanes. Our boat is too good for this in-shore work. You know the Smith saw a submarine a week or two ago."

I shook my head. I have no faith in that report. Everybody has been seeing submarines from Eastport to the Gulf.

"We picked up Ogilvie at Newport," Bobby continued. "I knew him, and he'd been doing police duty there, and going through training that he knew as well as his alphabet; nothing that was any mortal use. So I asked for him, and he was transferred. They don't seem to get on very fast at Newport with our fellows. I don't know why. They have more boats than they are using, but most of them are small and slow, and they have been busy with men for the regular navy. I suppose they'll get around to the rest of them in time. We are going to have good big chasers some time soon."

"Ah, Bobby, but when? I could give you some statistics of our navy, but I won't, for I don't believe you'd stay. I have been reading an article packed full of valuable information which ought to be of some comfort to the enemy. It seems that nearly all of our vessels are old or slow or both--or they are in reserve in one form or another, without full crews; and we have no submarine chasers--literally none that would be of any use in chasing. We shall not get any before next January, and then only a beggarly hundred or so. It looks pretty bad, Bobby. We might as well surrender at once."

Bobby smiled. "I know where you got that dope. I saw it too, and I wonder what good the chap thinks he is doing by making out that we have gone to the dogs. He's a knocker. Pay no attention to him, Adam. I have faith that all our navy men aren't fools. There may even be one or two who know almost as much as he does. You ought to conduct a few patriotic meetings. And be a speaker, Adam. You could make glorious speeches. I'd come."

"Flags flying,--to the great advantage of the Bunting Trust,--and 'The Star Spangled Banner' sung several times, and you'd have to stand with your hat off, and take cold in early May, and hear every man in the county who has ever held office give the history of the country, and Washington's Farewell Address, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech delivered by a talented young lady from our high school,--if we had one,--and brass bands, and parades, and me for drum-major, I suppose, Bobby. Buncombe! There wouldn't be an able-bodied man in the glorious assemblage--except the band and the speakers. Humbug and buncombe! True patriotism doesn't go about waving the flag and shouting. Patriotic meetings are essentially for women and children."

Bobby laughed delightedly. "Noble sentiments, Adam. But I wish you would."

I shook my head. "Never," I said. "But I could give you some hints for your submarine chasing. You could put them in as your own ideas too. I promise not to dispute your claims."

"I'm a little shy of your hints, but fire away."

"Well, this is my best. I have others, but they are too obvious. First you would have to set a spindle on Great Ledge, a spindle with a capacious cage at the top. Another one on Sow and Pigs, and one on Hen and Chickens, and on Devil's Bridge. Then, when there were some submarines over here,--Germany says there are none now, and I believe it,--when they came, put a live pig in each of the cages. It's in the nature of baiting the trap, you see. All you'd have to do would be to sit tight, and remove the wrecks. They'd all pile up on those ledges. Germans can't resist the lure of pig."

"That's not a half bad idea, Adam," Bobby said. "Of course it might be necessary to renew the bait or feed the pig, but that would be easy; and pig is pretty high just now. There's a good pun there, but I'll leave it to you.--Jimmy!"

Jimmy was talking to the girl whose name I did not yet know, but he turned at Bobby's hail.

"Jimmy," Bobby said, "Adam's just given me a most valuable hint for trapping submarines. Here it is in all its beauty." And he proceeded to give my idea in more detail than I had done, adding some more ledges which appealed to him as likely spots, Watch Hill Ledge, to the east of Fisher's Island being one, I remember. "You forgot that, Adam. It would be a crackerjack, almost level with the water. In any sea at all, and the tide right, the water opens every little while and shows the rock. It's fearsome."

"Is Adam going to leave all the work of danger," asked Jimmy, "to us?"

"Yes," Bobby cried, "that's what I want to know. Like baiting the traps, you know. It'll be no snap to get the pigs into their cages."

"You can't expect to have all your problems solved for you, Bobby," I said. "You would always have the benefit of my counsel, and giving counsel to you and Jimmy is not without its dangers. Besides," I added, modestly I hope, "I did have something else in mind. In addition to the arduous toil of tilling the soil--"

"Cut that," said Bobby. "As if you didn't always till the soil!"

"In addition to that," I continued with dignity, "I thought of organizing a company to protect some of our most valuable property here. It would be a sort of Home Guard. Submarines, if they escaped the traps and the hawk eyes of the patrol fleet, and the stings of the wasps, might get into the harbor. Then they would surely get aground, possibly on my clam beds, and they would ruin the dispositions of my clams. So I thought of mounting a gun on the point--with Mr. Goodwin's permission--and enrolling all here present in the Clam Beds Protective Company, of which I should be captain."

Old Goodwin applauded the idea at once, but as well as I could judge in the confusion which followed, Jimmy and Bobby and Tom Ellis were not of the same mind.

Finally Tom made himself heard. "What I want to know, Adam," he asked, "is where do we come in? I think I voice a general question."

"I was about to nominate Mr. Goodwin for colonel,--honorary, if he prefers,--and Jimmy for adjutant, and Bobby and Mr. Ogilvie for lieutenants. Those posts would have to be honorary also, unless the navy could be prevailed upon to assign them to that duty. I don't see that there is anything left for you, Tom, but to be the private. It would be a highly honorable office. You would be the only private."

"I say," Tom protested, "I like that! But I have an idea. What about the Susies who sew shirts for soldiers? Aren't you going to give them a chance?"

Eve interrupted at this point. I was glad to have her.

"Oh, yes, he will," she said. "I promise that he will."

"Seems to me that Eve ought to be elected captain," Tom observed. "But perhaps it isn't necessary. She will be anyway." They all laughed at that--all but me and Ogilvie. Eve noticed that. I did not see anything ridiculous about the idea. I am glad to serve under Eve, and everybody knows it.

"I will enroll Cecily," Tom pursued; "but, Adam, make me a sergeant, won't you?" he added in a hoarse whisper. "I want to have some authority over her."

"I'll see about it. I shall have to think it over, and perhaps get some advice." And Tom turned at once to Eve, and whispered, and she smiled and nodded.

"The uniform, Adam?" asked Old Goodwin. "Don't put us to any unnecessary expense."

"I was about to speak of that. I have brought some samples with me." And I held up my boots and my clam hoe.

Old Goodwin smiled. "That is very satisfactory." He looked at Tom. "If anybody prefers a rake for arms, I suppose there would be no objection, Adam?"

I shook my head. Then there were objections from Jimmy and Bobby, on the ground that they would have to buy boots and hoe, and that the boots would be new and not in keeping. But I said that, as their offices were honorary, they would not have to provide themselves with uniforms, and they could go clamming in their naval uniforms if they liked. I should not object.

"Well," said Bobby thoughtfully, "we have boots and slickers and sou'westers. Perhaps they will do. When is the first meeting of our company--at the clam beds, Adam?"

I told him that it was a trifle early for that yet. It would be as soon as I thought it safe for the clams. Then a thought struck me.

"How does it happen," I asked, "that a patrol boat can be coming in here--for all the world like a yacht--and all its officers come ashore, as if they had nothing to do?"

Eve had been silent for some minutes, occupied with her daughter, who stood silent beside her. Tidda had been strangely quiet.

"Yes, Bobby," said Eve, "account for yourself. What are you here for? It is not for nothing."

"Sh! The movements of shipping are not to be reported. But I don't mind telling you, Eve, that we regard this as a base, in a sense. I came because my superior officer ordered it. I don't know his reasons, but I surmise that he hoped that some of you people would be charitable enough to ask us to dinner."

Jimmy grinned, and Old Goodwin smiled, but he said nothing. Jimmy Wales and Bobby are especial favorites of his, and Bobby is his nephew.

"I speak," said Eve, "for Mr. Ogilvie. You can't come, Bobby. You'll have to stay here with Jimmy."

"Oh, I say, Eve!"

"No. You may bring Mr. Ogilvie within sight of the house, and show it to him." She turned to Ogilvie. "You'll come?" she asked, holding out her hand.

Ogilvie seems a nice young chap. He bowed very prettily over Eve's hand, and said something nice, I am sure, for I was watching Eve's face. I can tell always. And Ogilvie smiled, and Eve got up to go, and I got up too, of course, and Jimmy and Bobby and everybody got up one at a time, as if it were a prayer-meeting. It broke up the party to have Eve go. Eve's going is very apt to break up any party.

Bobby came out with us through the interminable series of piazzas.

"I say," he whispered, "who's the new girl, Adam? Do you know?"

I shook my head. "I didn't hear her name, Bobby, and I don't know anything about her. She is attractive."

"M-m. I'll ask Eve."

Eve said that the girl's name was Elizabeth Radnor, but she knew nothing about her, and had never heard of her before. "But," she added, "why don't you ask Jimmy?--or Mr. Ogilvie? He knew her before."

"So he did. Good idea, Eve. I will. But Jimmy ought to be ashamed of himself. He's married, and I might tell Madge. We never know what we might do."

Eve laughed at him. "Did you think you could worry Margaret?"

"I thought perhaps I could worry Jimmy. But he doesn't worry much." We were at the head of the steps. "Well, good-bye, hard heart, spurning the beggar from your door. I hope your conscience will give you no rest."

Eve laughed again, and Tidda piped up a good-bye, and Bobby turned back. And, by the time we had reached the bottom of the steps, Old Goodwin had caught us, and had taken Tidda's hand.

"I thought I'd better come, Adam," he said, "and see about the emplacement for that gun."

So we wandered down to the bank, where the sod breaks off to the sand, and we lingered there, saying nothing and watching the sun get lower. And the day, that had been as warm as summer, grew somewhat chill as the sun sank nearer to the bearded hills, and our daughter was restless and wanted to go home. So we wended along the shore, and Old Goodwin left us, and we went up the steep path that leads to my bluff, and there we found Ogilvie under my pine, standing silent and looking out over the harbor to the west.

Ogilvie was modest and unassuming and pleasant. He spoke when he was spoken to, and sometimes when he was not, but he did not volunteer anything about himself, although he was very ready to answer questions. Eve succeeded in finding out something about him without seeming to try. He went down to Newport about the first of April. Naturally enough, he seemed a little disappointed that the authorities at Newport had not seemed to be ready for him, and that his preparation had been largely a waste of time. He had been four days on a watch boat, guarding Newport harbor, piloting vessels in through the nets, and incidentally, one very thick night, carrying away the mooring buoys of one of the nets; then he had been put on police duty in Newport, running in drunken sailors, or just walking back and forth on his beat, trying to keep awake. Then there had been more drill, and he had been transferred to the Rattlesnake.

Then we talked of books, the theatre, and gardening, in which he had had experience. My heart warmed to him, and we discussed corn and melons and asparagus and peas and beans and squashes and cucumbers and chard and okra and such like for more than an hour. From them we progressed to more intimate things, when suddenly a noise started just outside the window, and he rose with a smile, saying that it was a noise of Jimmy and Bobby singing "Poor Butterfly," and he supposed it meant that he must go. And he thanked us very nicely, and went out into the night. I went with him and asked them in, but they assured me that I was an ungrateful wretch, and they would have nothing to do with me and my invitation.

So they went off down my steep path to the shore, still singing "Poor Butterfly," I suppose, although I am unfamiliar with modern classics. And Eve came out and joined me, and we heard them going along the shore, stumbling over great pebbles, and the poor butterfly fluttering off into the distance. And when we could hear no more of it we went in, and I shut the door as softly as I could, but the sound of its shutting went booming through the house; and I smiled as I blew out the candles, and I was smiling still as Eve took my hand in hers and we mounted the stairs together.

III

Joffre was in Boston on Saturday, the 12th of May. Viviani also was there, and some others, but the marshal, the hero of the Marne, was the attraction. Eve acknowledged as much to me on the evening before the event.

"I do want to see him," she said, "and I suppose you'll think it foolish, but I'm going up. Probably I shall cry when I see him. Adam," she added somewhat wistfully, "you don't want to go, I suppose? Father will take us in his car--the new one."

That about the "new one" was plainly nothing more than bait.

"Why should I want to go," I said, "except to go with you? I always want to do that. And I should be glad to be with your father, but no more in his new one than on our bank at the shore. Not so much. There is much to do here. Why should I want to go, Eve? I don't want to cry."

She laughed. "No reason, Adam, unless it is to stir your imagination."

"My imagination is stirred sufficiently here. You know that I detest crowds, and parades. And I was going to plant again to-morrow."

She sighed softly, and smiled adorably. "Well, Adam, plant then. I knew it would bore you to go. The middle of a crowd watching a parade is no place for you. I should love to have you with me, but I think you had better not come. I don't want _you_ to cry." And she laughed a little, unsteadily.

"I might," I said somewhat gruffly. "It is conceivable. But there is one thing. I hate to speak of it. Your father ought not to go off on these long trips any more without a chauffeur. There may be hard work to do, and he is--not young, Eve. Besides--"

"He is going to take a chauffeur," said Eve, interrupting me hurriedly. "I think it almost breaks his heart to acknowledge it, but he realizes that he ought to. Of course that wouldn't make any difference about your going."

I shook my head. It was no part of my objection that I might be called upon to do some hard work. I had planned to do a good deal of hard work at home.

So Eve set off about eleven the next morning alone with her father and the chauffeur. Old Goodwin was in the driver's seat, and it did not seem likely that the chauffeur would have anything to do. And I stood in my garden clothes, leaning on my hoe, and waved a good-bye to them, feeling half regretful and wholly self-reproachful; and Eve made her father stop, and she called me, and I came running, and she leaned out and kissed me, and she went off smiling. I looked after them, and they had not gone more than a hundred yards or so when they stopped again, and Tom Ellis and Cecily came out of their door and got into the back seat with Eve. And I smiled, and turned, and went back to my garden, thinking that the best of women--and I gave a little start, for it had occurred to me that the chauffeur was a Frenchman. And I wondered if they--but of course they did. Such things do not happen by accident--with Old Goodwin and Eve.

It was cold for the season. It had been cold and wet for three weeks, and my corn was not up, nor my melons that I had put in three weeks before, nor my beans. My experiment with melons has not yet been a failure if it has not been a success this year. I was doubtful about the corn, so I dug up a kernel, and I found it sprouted, and I put it back and covered it. My peas were up, and doing bravely, and the beans were about breaking through, for the earth was cracked all along the rows. And I got out my sections of stout wire fencing, and put them in place along the rows of peas. They take the place of pea-brush, and are much easier to put up and to take down. The fencing is fastened to stout posts, and the posts have pieces of iron, about a foot and a half long, shaped much like a marlin-spike, bolted to them for driving into the ground. I can take my sledgehammer and drive the posts, and get a row of peas wired in a tenth the time needed to set brush, and the fencing is much less expensive, in the long run. My fences have done service for thirteen years already, and they are perfectly good.

So I fussed around among the peas, and planted more corn and more beans, and more melons, and a row of chard, and two rows of okra, and some other things. I often think that the place for tall green okra is the flower garden. The blossoms are beautiful, delicate things, more beautiful than most of the hollyhocks. And now and then I stopped my planting--a man has to rest his back--and I leaned on my hoe or my rake or whatever I happened to have in my hand, and I thought my thoughts. They were many, and they were not, at such moments, of my planting.

The harbor was almost empty still. There was but one fisherman's boat and two motor boats, little fellows, not suited to patrolling. And the sky was gray, and getting darker, and the winter gulls flying across, and wheeling and screaming harshly. Occasionally a gull beat across my garden, flying low and screaming his harsh note. I watched them, and envied them until I saw a fish-hawk sailing high up among the clouds. Then I envied him: his calmness and serenity, and his powers of wing and eye, seeing the swimming fish from that height, and perfectly secure. Then, naturally enough, I thought of aeroplanes, sailing and circling like the great hawk, and seeing their prey as surely as he. I never had the slightest wish to go up in an aeroplane. The hawk seems secure in his sailing, the aeroplane does not, and I may envy the hawk while shrinking unaccountably from the aeroplane. But if they can see the submarine from up there, and can pounce upon it as surely as the hawk strikes his fish--well, if we had a plague of submarines, it would be a comfort to see a hawk now and then. And I thought of Jimmy Wales and Bobby Leverett and Ogilvie searching the waters for that which was not.

Jimmy has put in here every few days. It is hard to see why, but we have seen a good deal of Ogilvie and Bobby, and Bobby has seen more or less of Elizabeth Radnor. She is still rather a mystery to me, a girl that Mrs. Goodwin chanced upon somewhere, and took a great fancy to. That is not strange, that Miss Radnor should have been fancied, but it is strange that Mrs. Goodwin should have taken the fancy, and that she should have asked her here for an indefinite stay. Mrs. Goodwin did not use to fancy obscure teachers of athletics or gymnastics or dancing in girls' schools, and Miss Radnor is or was something of the kind. She may be giving lessons in dancing to Mrs. Goodwin for all I know--or to Bobby. It is not of much consequence. If Bobby should really come upon submarines, it would be of little consequence to him.

Thinking upon submarines, there came into my head the account that I had just seen in the London "Times" of the capture of a submarine by a trawler. As I recollect it, the trawler was going about her business in the North Sea--a business not unconnected with submarines--when suddenly a submarine began to emerge from the deep just ahead. The trawler put on all the speed she had time for, and rammed the submarine amidships, sliding up on its body half her length, so that the captain found himself well-nigh stranded near the periscope. Whereupon he called for an axe, and smashed that periscope into scrap iron and fragments of glass. The trawler then slid off, and the submarine opened, and the crew poured forth upon her deck and forthwith surrendered, and the trawler towed them into an English port. Thinking upon this, I laughed aloud to the gulls and the hawk. I had refrained from going to Boston to have my imagination stirred by looking at a parade and listening to the bands!

To stir my imagination! I had but to picture to myself the destroyer fight in the Channel on the night of April 20, two English destroyers, Swift and Broke, against six German destroyers, in the darkness of a black night; a five-minute battle, but those five minutes crowded full. Ramming, torpedoing, repelling boarders, fighting with pistols and cutlases and bayonets, responding to a treacherous call to save--it was all worthy of the times of Drake. Stir my imagination! I found myself starting forward and brandishing the hoe, my breath coming fast, and my eyes, I have no doubt, flashing fire. I laughed again. It was raining. It had been raining, I suppose, for five minutes at least, and I had not known it. I gathered up my tools, put them in the shed, and went into the house to change my clothes, and to consume my pint of milk, while my daughter, opposite me, consumed hers--and some other things besides.