Chapter X: The Lumber Schooner

Breakfast next morning was hardly begun when “Blount’s boy”--his name was Ulysses Simpson Grant Blount, but no one but his parents ever called him by it--came to the dining-room door with a note for Bradley. It was from Captain Titcomb, and read as follows:

“DEAR BRAD:

“There’s a three-master, loaded with lumber, piled up on the
Boneyard. Come on down quick. Looks as if here was the chance the
Titcomb-Nickerson Wrecking Syndicate had been praying for.”

“Yours truly,
E. D. TITCOMB.”

The junior partner in the “Syndicate” let Miss Prissy’s clam fritters go by default and hurried down to the Traveler’s Rest, where he found the Captain waiting for him. A few hours later the officers and crew of the _Lizzie_ were gazing over that vessel’s rail at the tumbling froth that covered the Boneyard shoal and at the hapless lumber schooner trembling in its midst, a dismal, lonesome sight.

She had struck almost bow on, but the strong tide had swung her stern over until she lay broadside to the shoal. She had heeled but little and her deck load of pine boards was, for the most part, still lashed in place. The main and mizzen masts were gone, but the lower part of her foremast still stood, and the great waves, striking against her stern, sent the light spray flying lengthwise almost as high as its top. The broken cordage streamed out in the wind, and a swinging block creaked and whined. On the rail by the after house they could read her name; she was the _Ruth Ginn_, of Bangor.

“The P’int life savin’ crew got the men about one o’clock this mornin’,” remarked Captain Titcomb. “Skipper tried to anchor to ride out the gale, then got scared and tried to make an offin’, got her into irons and the tide did the rest. Her masts went jest after they took off the men. What do you think of her? Total loss, ain’t she?”

Bradley hesitated. “Well,” he said, “I should say she was, so far as being any use as a schooner is concerned. That lumber, though, is a different matter; the weather would have a good deal to do with that, I should say.”

“The weather’s goin’ to clear, if I’m any jedge,” observed his companion. “What do you say, Barney?”

“Looks like fairin’ off to me,” replied Mr. Small. “Wind’s cantin’ round to the west’ard. However, I ain’t no weather prophet. You want to ask Peleg Myrick if you’re after weather news; he seems to have a special tip from heaven on gales and calms.”

“That’s so,” mused the skipper. “Peleg does seem to have a sort of connection that way. Maybe the angels keep him interested in weather so’s they won’t have to listen to him pumpin’ the concertina all the time. That and Skeezicks’ howlin’ is enough to make a ghost grit its teeth. I cal’late he’s at the P’int by this time, and we’ll hunt him up pretty soon and git a prophecy from headquarters. But, anyhow,” he added, “I agree with you, Brad, that the schooner’s gone to pot. The lumber might be saved. I’ll go further’n that, I’ll say that we could save a good-sized chunk of it, wind and weather permittin’, if we got the chance. And I’m goin’ to work mighty hard to git the chance. Let’s run up into the cove and go ashore.”

The _Lizzie_ sailed away from the wreck that, with one screaming seagull balancing himself on the broken foremast, looked more sad and lonely than ever, and anchored in the little harbor in the lee of the Point. Two or three catboats were moored there, and among them was one that the Captain recognized.

“Hello!” he exclaimed. “There’s Obed Nickerson’s boat. I guess that settles it; some part of her’s insured, anyway.”

They walked through the soft white sand and coarse beach grass up to the life-saving station. The lookout, in the observatory on the roof, rapped on the window of his cage and waved a hand to them as they reached the plank walk leading to the door.

Inside, seated around the table of the living room, they found Captain Knowles, commander of the station; Obed Nickerson, the Orham agent of the underwriters; the skipper of the _Ruth Ginn_ and two or three others. The skipper, a sunburned, gray-haired man, with a worried look on his lean face, was telling for Mr. Nickerson’s benefit the story of how his vessel came to be in her hopeless plight. To a landsman it would have been an interesting yarn, but the present company had heard too many similar experiences to find anything novel in it.

“So you figure her a total loss, do you, Cap’n?” asked Mr. Nickerson, making a few notes in his memorandum book.

“Well, there she is! You can see for yourself,” was the answer. “Her sticks gone, and hard and fast on the Boneyard--if she ain’t a total loss, I don’t know what you call her.”

“Insured, is she, Obed?” asked Captain Titcomb.

“Cargo is; schooner ain’t,” replied the underwriters’ agent.

Captain Ezra signalled to Bradley, and they went out on the porch.

“Brad,” whispered the Captain, “they can’t call her anything _but_ a total loss. The underwriters’ll pay the insurance on that lumber and then dicker with somebody to save what they can of it. You and me want to be that somebody. Hello! here’s Peleg!”

The versatile Mr. Myrick had tramped over from his hermitage, and now, with Skeezicks shivering at his heels, was deep in conversation with Barney Small.

“Peleg says we’re goin’ to have clear weather for quite a spell,” remarked Barney. “Let’s see; when did you say you had the next storm scheduled, Peleg?”

“Wall,” drawled the weather prophet, looking becomingly important; “nigh’s I can figger, Cap’n Ez, she’ll fair off by afternoon and stay clear for more’n a fortni’t. We ain’t due to have another reel genuwine blow for more’n a month. _I_ knew last night’s gale was comin’. I _told_ Cap’n Knowles so; says I, ‘I don’t care what the Gov’ment folks says, it’s goin’ to blow,’ says I, ‘like time, and them that’s afloat wants to stand by,’ I says. Now----”

“That’s right, Peleg,” broke in the Captain. “I’ll back you against the Weather Bureau eight days in the week and twice on Sunday. How’s clams these days?”

“Clams,” replied Mr. Myrick, “is scurcer’n all git out. I don’t know why unless ’twas the turrible hard winter. I was afraid of it last fall. ’Course I knew the hard winter was comin’ and I told folks so. Oh! that reminds me! What’s this I hear ’bout Sam Hammond’s spendin’ more’n four dollars for cigars last time he was home? Do you cal’late that’s so?”

They left Barney to relieve Mr. Myrick’s anxiety concerning the cigars and walked down to the beach. On the way Captain Titcomb said:

“Brad, we’ve _got_ to git this lumber job. It’s the kind of job we can do with the _Lizzie_, and, figgerin’ on a commission basis, it’ll give us pretty nigh money and start enough to warrant our havin’ a new schooner built, one with power and strong enough to handle the real big things. Wait here by the dory till Obed comes out; I’m layin’ for him.”

“Cap’n Ez, do you really take any stock in Peleg’s weather talk?”

“Why, I don’t know but I do. Everybody along this shore does. He hits it right full as often as the Gov’ment folks, and, in my jedgment, consider’ble further ahead. I’ll give in that it sounds foolish to think a bow-legged sandpeep with a sprained brain like Peleg’s can know about the Lord Almighty’s gales and such, but sometimes I think that about ha’f of Peleg’s loft was to let, so’s to speak, and the weather jest sort of moved in. Now most people ain’t got more’n a tenth of the space in their noddles to give to that bus’ness, and so Brother Myrick has the advantage of ’em.”

Bradley laughed. Personally he believed little in the hermit’s value as a prophet, although he knew that the Captain’s faith was shared by almost everybody in Orham.

“You give up only half of Peleg’s brain to the weather,” he said. “What do you think fills the rest of it?”

“Clams, other folks’ bus’ness and that everlastin’ concertina,” was the quick reply. “That ha’f must be as lively as a sailor’s dance hall and as full of Bedlam as the monkey cage in the circus. Here comes Obed. Now, then!”

Mr. Nickerson, accompanied by one of the village boys, was on his way to the catboat, but the Captain interfered.

“What in the nation are you goin’ home in that clam shell for, Obed?” he asked. “Come on aboard the _Lizzie_ with us. Brad and Barney and I will land you at the wharf afore that cat of yours is out of shoal water. Let Dan there take your boat home, and you come with us. I’ve got a cigar I want you to take out some fire insurance on.”

So, after some persuasion, the underwriters’ agent consented to make his homeward trip in the schooner. The cigars were lighted, Barney Small took the wheel and the Captain, Bradley and Mr. Nickerson made themselves comfortable in the little cabin. Then the conversation was judiciously piloted toward wrecks, and the wreck of the _Ruth Ginn_ in particular. Obed admitted that the full insurance would undoubtedly be paid on the cargo, although, of course, the official “three man survey” must come first. Bradley asked what would be done after that.

“Oh!” answered the agent; “then I guess I’ll send word to the Boston Salvage Company and make a deal with them to git out what they can of the lumber.”

“Yes,” observed Captain Titcomb, “and they’ll charge you seventy-five per cent. of the value. What’s the matter with Brad and me doin’ it?”

“_You?_ What with--this tub?”

“Yup, this tub. If you’ve got a loose tooth a string and a door’ll snake it out as quick as the dentist will, and you don’t have to pay for silver-plated pinchers and a gilt name-plate. Come now, tell you what I’ll do: Brad and me’ll git that lumber out for sixty per cent. on what we save.”

“How you goin’ to do it? You haven’t got a towboat, nor even power in your own schooner.”

“Don’t need ’em. You couldn’t start that wreck with a towboat without yankin’ the bottom out of her. The only way to fetch her off the shoals is with anchors and cables, and you know it. We can do that as well as any Boston comp’ny that ever was. Give us a chance, Obed. You ought to encourage home talent, as Bill Samuels said to the school teacher that found fault with him ’cause he told his boy to spell cat with a K. What do you say?”

Obed had a good deal to say, and no decision was reached that forenoon. Next day the survey was made, and that evening the Captain spent at the home of Mr. Nickerson. It was after eleven o’clock when he returned to his room at the Traveller’s Rest, where Bradley was waiting.

“Well?” said Bradley, anxiously.

“Well!” exclaimed his partner, tossing his cap on a chair and wiping the perspiration from his hot forehead; “well, Brad, I’ve used up jaw power enough to pretty nigh work that wreck off, but the job’s ours at fifty per cent. of the value of the lumber we save. There’s nigh on to six thousand dollars’ worth aboard and, if Peleg’s forecastin’ works haven’t got indigestion, we ought to clean up close to every stick of it. Brad, shake!”

And they shook hands. The opportunity they had been waiting for was theirs at last.

The partners talked for another hour before they separated. Three extra hands, at least--so the Captain figured--would be needed on the _Lizzie_. Bradley was in favor of hiring more than three, arguing that every day counted, because one severe storm would break up the stranded schooner, and, therefore, speed in accomplishing the work was the first consideration. But Captain Titcomb believed that three was sufficient.

“Peleg says no gale for a month and I’m bettin’ on that weather plant in his skull,” he argued. “And, say! I b’lieve I’ll hire Peleg himself for one. He’s a good worker, and he’ll work cheap. I’ll git Bill Taylor for another. He lives at the P’int most of the year, and he’s a wrecker in a small way himself. You’d better go over to Harniss to-morrer and see if you can’t git one of the Bearse boys. That’ll make the three. Good night, Brad. Keep a stiff upper lip. We’ve got the chance; now it’s up to us to win the cup or run her under--one or t’other.”

So the next forenoon Bradley took the train to Harniss, where he found Alvin, oldest of the Bearse “boys,” a gray-headed, leather-faced youngster of fifty-five, and engaged him for the sum of three dollars a day and his keep. He was to report on board at half-past seven the following morning. Then, having accomplished his share of the hiring, the junior partner returned to Orham to inspect the _Lizzie_ with nervous care and to listen to the remarks of a dozen or more disinterested acquaintances who, having heard of the contract, had come down to the wharf to prophesy and offer advice.

The prophecies were mostly of the Jeremiah brand. It was the general opinion that the wrecking schooner was too small for the work and that Captain Titcomb “ought to have known it.” Captain Jabez Bailey summed up professional opinion as follows:

“It ’pears to me, Brad,” he observed, “speakin’ as man to man, that you fellers have bit off more’n you can chaw. It’s what you might expect of Ez Titcomb, though. Nobody else would think of buckin’ against the Boston Salvage Company with a two-masted soup ladle like that, and with no power in her. All I can say is that, for your sake, Brad, I _hope_ you’ll make a dollar or two, but I’m ’fraid that, as I said a minute ago, you’ve bit off more’n you can chaw. Speakin’ of chawin’, Bluey, lend me your plug, won’t you? I left mine to home.”

After this and similar applications of the cold water treatment, it was a relief to get back to the big house on the hill and to receive the enthusiastic congratulations of the “old maids.” There was no doubt of success in their minds, and when Miss Busteed called to learn further particulars and to offer condolences, she got, as Miss Prissy said afterwards, “as good as she sent.”

“Of course,” concluded Melissa, after repeating, with her own embellishments, all the discouraging remarks of the townspeople concerning the lumber contract; “of course, I don’t agree with everything that’s said; not by no means, I don’t. But folks do talk about Ez Titcomb; you know they do, Prissy. Sarah Emma Gage was sayin’ this very mornin’, says she, ‘Melissy,’ says she, ‘I s’pose Prissy and Tempy know what they’re about, but I’m free to confess I’m glad it ain’t my boy that’s in partners with Ez Titcomb,’ says she.”

“Humph!” snapped Miss Tempy, “I guess she ain’t any gladder than Cap’n Titcomb is on _that_ subject. If he couldn’t git anybody better’n Ben Gage I cal’late he’d shet up shop!”

“Yes, I know,” went on Melissa, “but Sarah Emma is a great talker. ’nother thing she said that was foolish--perfectly foolish--and I told her so. She brought up how Cap’n Ez used to call here at your house and how he didn’t come no more. Said ’twas a shame. ’But then,’ she says, ‘’tain’t any more’n he’s done to ha’f a dozen other women that he’s kept comp’ny with.’”

Both the sisters reddened and Miss Prissy exclaimed, indignantly, “Sarah Emma Gage better mind her own affairs. She’s the wust gossip in town--pretty nigh the wust, anyway.” The last as a delicate substitute for “present company excepted.”

“Oh! of course I laffed at her for sayin’ that!” went on the caller. “I says to her, ’Sarah Emma,’ says I, ’Prissy and Tempy have lived single too long and are too old to think of gittin’ married at their time of life. That would be _too_ ridic’lous!’ I says.”

Miss Tempy’s sensitive lip trembled a little, but her sister came serenely to the rescue.

“Yes, we’re gittin’ old, Melissy,” she observed, sweetly, “that’s a fact. I can remember when I was a little tot in school and you was wearin’ long gowns and puttin’ your hair up, how I wished I was as old as you. And now folks would hardly notice any diff’rence between us, fur’s looks go. What? You must be goin’. Oh, don’t hurry! Well, let me git your things. How this bonnet of yours does wear, Melissy! You’ve had it much as six seasons, and it’s only when you git close to it that it looks the least mite frayed. Good-by. Call again, won’t you? There!” as the owner of the highly flattered bonnet flounced down to the gate, “I guess she can put that in her pipe and smoke it. Don’t feel bad, Tempy. Melissy Busteed’s like a dose of old-fashioned medicine; she always leaves a bad taste behind her.”

Bradley called on Gus that evening. He had been so busy with Captain Titcomb, planning and working for the new contract, that he had seen her but once, and then only for a moment, since the night of the ball. But now, full of hope and the triumph of having secured the chance he had longed for, he looked forward to telling her the good news and receiving her congratulations.

The windows of the Baker “best parlor” were lighted up--a most unusual occurrence--and he vaguely wondered if they had “company” and who it might be.

Gus herself opened the door in response to his knock.

“Why, hello!” she said. “I wandered if you had forgotten me entirely, Mr. Contractor, now that you really are a business man and the talk of the town.”

“Then you knew?” he exclaimed in surprise.

“Why, of course I knew! I haven’t heard anything else all day. And, to make it certain, Melissa called on grandmother this afternoon, just after she had been at your house.”

Bradley smiled ruefully. “You must have heard an encouraging yarn from her,” he said. “Have you got company?”

“Oh! only a friend of ours that you know. Come right into the parlor.”

He walked across the threshold of that sacred apartment to find Sam Hammond seated in the haircloth rocker and looking very much at home. Neither of the young men appeared particularly happy at meeting the other, but, truth to tell, Hammond was the more self-possessed.

“Hello, Brad!” he said, easily. “I’ve heard nothing but you and Cap’n Ez since breakfast. I’m glad for you; it’s a nice little job, if you can carry it out.”

The contract had seemed anything but a little one to Bradley, and this nonchalant way of referring to it took him down a bit. Hammond continued in the same condescending way.

“I don’t believe I should know how to handle a job like that,” he observed, “without power or towboats, or things of that sort. It would be like working with your hands tied. Our people have everything to do with, and they’d have that lumber off in no time. Did I ever tell you how we raised the _Margrave_ for the Barclay Line folks, Gus? _That_ was a job there was some fun in! She was a big iron steamer that ran on the ledge at the mouth of Boston harbor and went down. We got the contract right in the face of the Salvage Company in their own town.”

He went on to tell of the raising of the great steamer; how the divers, of which he was one, worked for days and weeks in the iron hull, building a second bottom of wood above the splintered keel plates; how, when this was done, they caulked the wooden bottom, pumped out the water above it, and floated the vessel into the dry dock. There were adventures with a shark that came in through the hole and “went wild” when it couldn’t find the way out; a narrow escape from death because of a twisted air-pipe, and much more, all well told.

Gus listened with her eyes shining. Bradley listened and his own little three thousand dollar contract shrunk and shrunk until, from a wonder that was to be accomplished in the face of great odds, it became a trifle hardly worth doing at all. Sam spoke of the Metropolitan Wrecking Company as “we,” and Bradley forgot that the speaker was, after all, only a hired diver at five or six dollars a day.

“Oh!” exclaimed Gus, when the tale was finished, “what splendid things men do, and how fine it must be to do them!”

“Yes,” laughed Hammond. “We got eighty thousand dollars for raising the _Margrave_. Worth fighting for; hey, Brad? How would you and Cap’n Ez look tackling a job like that? New York’s the place; a young fellow has chances there.”

Sam did most of the talking. Gus listened and Bradley brooded. Perhaps, he thought, he had made a mistake in leaving the big city; perhaps, after all, he was destined to become nothing but the “’longshoreman” Gus had intimated might be his fate. Captain Titcomb didn’t think so, but he might be mistaken. He grew more downcast every minute.

“I tell you, honest, Brad,” said Sam, with apparent earnestness, “I don’t see how you and the Cap’n are going to make much out of this business or get to be anything more than just anchor-draggers. Speaking as a man with some experience in wrecking, your chances against the big chaps, like our crowd, look small to me. You _may_ win out, but----” He shook his head doubtfully.

Gus, at Hammond’s request, seated herself before the squeaky old parlor organ and played while she and Sam sang. Bradley, who didn’t sing, sat on the sofa and watched them gloomily. All day he had been in that excited nervous state where criticism or encouragement affected his spirits as the weather does a barometer. The doleful prophecies at the wharf--although at another time he would have laughed at them--had depressed him in spite of himself. The whole-hearted joy and confidence of the “old maids” had cheered him up again, but now he was realizing that, after all, it was Gus’s encouragement and congratulation that he wanted, and she had not congratulated him.

At length he rose to go, giving as an excuse the fact of his being tired and having to be up early next morning. Gus apologized to Sam and accompanied him to the door. She came out on the step; it was a beautiful night, clear and calm, with every star shining.

Bradley put on his hat. “Well, good night,” he said, shortly.

But Gus laid her hand on his coatsleeve.

“Oh, Brad!” she exclaimed in an eager whisper, “I’m _so_ glad you’ve got your chance at last! It’s splendid! Every one thinks so.”

Bradley smiled rather bitterly. “Not every one, I guess,” he said. “Some people think it doesn’t amount to much, and I don’t know but they’re right.”

Gus shook her head impatiently. “Don’t talk that way, Brad!” she cried. “I said every one thinks it’s splendid, and so they do! They may not say so, but that’s because they’re envious.”

“Humph! Does that include Sam?”

“Of _course_ it does! Couldn’t you see? He envies you and that is why he talks so big about New York. And he knows you’re going to succeed, too. Oh, Brad! you ought not to speak of ‘not amounting to much,’ now, when your opportunity is here. You ought to be as proud and confident of yourself as I am proud and confident of you.”

She said it in such a burst of enthusiasm that it swept Bradley off his feet. He turned and grasped her by both hands.

“Gus!” he whispered, looking straight into her eyes, “do you believe in me as much as that?”

She did not shun his look. “Yes,” she answered, simply, “I do.”

Goodness knows what might have happened then. Perhaps Gus was afraid to wait and see. At all events, she snatched her hands from his, whispered “good night,” and ran into the house.

Bradley’s discouragement had vanished. Every foot of the walk to the “old maids’” door was arched with a separate rainbow. It had been anything but a bad evening, after all.