Chapter XII: The Anchor of the Liberty

Bradley would have proclaimed his happiness through a speaking trumpet, but Gus begged that the engagement be kept secret for a while. “Please let me feel a little surer of myself first,” she pleaded, and Bradley agreed, as he would have agreed to climb Bunker Hill Monument on the outside if she had asked him to.

He “carried on so,” as Miss Tempy expressed it, during the sail home that evening, that that lady was a trifle alarmed and asked her sister, as they were getting ready for bed, if she thought there could be anything in what Captain Titcomb had said about the jug.

“Land sakes! no!” was the indignant answer. “If Bradley’d took to drinkin’ I guess we’d have found it out afore this. Do you wonder the boy feels happy? I could have stood on my head, myself, when I saw that lumber vessel come off the shoal this afternoon.”

One more question Miss Tempy asked, after the light was put out.

“Prissy,” she whispered; “Cap’n Titcomb seemed more like himself--with us, I mean--than I’ve seen him for three years. Almost like he used to be. Do you s’pose that means anything?”

“I don’t know. Go to sleep.”

The tug arrived the next forenoon and the hull of the _Ruth Ginn_ was towed up into Orham harbor. There she was anchored, where the getting out of the rest of her cargo would be a comparatively easy task.

They worked with might and main and, at the end of a month, the job was done. The last joist was laid upon the wharf. Obed Nickerson expressed himself as surprised and highly pleased.

“You fellers have done mighty well,” he said. “I felt kind of shaky when I let you have the contract, but I shan’t feel so again. If you had a bigger vessel, with an engine in her, I b’lieve you could handle ’most anything that’s likely to run up on this coast.”

Their share of the cargo’s value amounted to twenty-nine hundred dollars, and, all expenses deducted, the profit to the partners was over two thousand.

“Not so mean for two greenhorns in a floatin’ soup ladle,” crowed the Captain. “Brad, how’s the Jeremiahs these days? Ain’t anybody said ‘I told you so,’ yit, have they?”

The underwriters’ agent was their friend now and, inside of another fortnight, he had put a job in their way that brought them in four hundred dollars more. She was a coasting schooner that had grounded off the Point, and her skipper had contemplated telegraphing to the Salvage Company, but, thanks to Obed’s recommendation, the chance was given--for a much lower price, of course--to the _Lizzie’s_ owners. The vessel laid easy, with only her bows on the sand, and the anchors and cables got her clear in three days.

Then they went anchor-dragging again, and met with considerable success. The skipper of the coaster that the partners had worked off the shoal, as just described, said to a friend of his, who commanded a four-master, “There are a couple of fellers down to Orham that are smart wreckers as ever I saw. They snaked me off the edge of the Razorback in next to no time, and didn’t charge ha’f the vessel was worth, neither.” And the captain of the four-master was by this reminded that he had lost a good anchor and thirty fathoms of chain on the Orham rips only three months before. He wrote to Captain Titcomb, giving the “ranges” as near as he could remember them, and the partners agreed to undertake the job of recovering the lost “mudhook.” They found it, after a while, but, oddly enough, their drag line picked up four other anchors, of various sizes and values, before the right one was finally hauled on board.

All this was profitable, as well as good advertising, and the _Lizzie’s_ owners were doing well. But they were ambitious and yearned for the day when they might undertake bigger things. Captain Titcomb was for ordering a new and larger wrecking schooner immediately.

“What’s the use of waitin’, Brad?” he argued. “We’ve got enough on hand to pay part of what a decent schooner’s worth. Let’s go in debt for the rest.”

But Bradley, more conservative, counselled waiting a little longer. “No use saddling ourselves with a big debt to start with,” he said. “‘Dead horse’ is the meanest animal to pay for that I know of.”

“You remind me of Uncle Elihu Bassett, that the old man--dad, I mean--used to tell about,” said the Captain. “Uncle Elihu was a great feller for bein’ economical. The only thing he spent much money for was rum, and his argument was that rum was a cuss anyhow, and the more old chaps like him bought the less there was to tempt the younger generation. Well, the said generation didn’t stand much show ’longside of him, that’s a fact.

“Dad used to say he’d never forgit Uncle Elihu settin’ in the tavern that was over at Harniss in those days, and swearin’ a blue streak because he hadn’t been able to git down from his house to town-meetin’ the week afore.

“’Consarn it!’ says Elihu; ‘I was dyin’ to git to that meetin’ to raise my voice ag’in’ appropriatin’ that money to fix the town’s highways. Wust extravagance _ever_ I see, that is! I’d a-been there,’ says he, ‘only the mud in our road was so deep I couldn’t drive through it.’”

And, although the Captain agreed to wait a little longer before ordering the new vessel, he announced that he was going to keep his eyes open, and perhaps he’d strike a bargain some day or other.

In August Miss Prissy threw the household into consternation by coming down with the grip. She had insisted on going to church in the rain because Mr. Langworthy’s nephew from Providence was going to preach that Sunday, and she came home with wet feet. A chill followed, Dr. Palmer was called in and the housekeeper and business manager, in spite of her protestations, was put to bed. And in bed she stayed for some time.

Miss Tempy, without her sister was, as the Captain would have described it, “as uneasy as a fish out of water.” She insisted on acting as nurse and house-keeper both. Bradley, prompted by the doctor, hinted at hiring a servant, but was incontinently snubbed.

“I guess _not_!” exclaimed Miss Tempy. “I don’t want any hired girls traipsin’ ’round _this_ house! I’ve heard enough from other folks who do have ’em. Mrs. Thankful Brier was tellin’ me only a few Sundays ago, at meetin’, that her daughter Jane up to Melrose wrote her that she’d had three girls in less’n a fortni’t, and the last one put the dog crackers, or biscuits, or whatever they be, on the supper table ’cause she thought they was cookies. The idea! No, I don’t want any girls!”

“Then you must let some of the housework go. It’s too much for you; you’ll be sick, yourself.”

“Let the housework _go_! I guess not! Bradley Nickerson, we Allens may be poorer than we used to be, but we’re not shif’less.”

So, as if to prove this assertion, she relentlessly scrubbed the floor of the big dining-room next day and was very pale and tired when Bradley came in to supper. And then followed the first disagreement between the young man and the sisters since that dreadful first day at school.

Bradley put his foot down and declared that a servant should be hired. Miss Tempy put hers down even harder and vowed she shouldn’t. It ended by a scene in the sickroom.

“Bradley,” said Miss Prissy, weak but unconquerable, “’fore I’d let you spend your money to hire a girl in this house, I’ll git right out of this bed and do the work myself. If it’s the last act, I will! Tempy, you let things slide till I’m better. Now mind!”

But letting things slide was not an Allen trait, as Bradley had been told. Very much troubled he went to Gus for advice.

“Brad,” said that young lady, after a few moment’s thought; “I think I know just the one for you. I believe Clara Hopkins would come if I asked her.”

“Clara Hopkins! Why, Gus! she isn’t a servant.”

“Of course she isn’t! She wouldn’t think of coming as a servant. But, you know, since her mother went away to Fall River to stay with Clara’s brother--his wife has the typhoid fever--it has been terribly lonesome for the poor girl there at home. She told me, the other day, that she _couldn’t_ stay alone much longer; she thought she should shut up the house and board somewhere. Now, I believe she would come and live with the old maids. Of course you mustn’t hint at paying her wages, but she could help about the house, and she is jolly and good tempered and a splendid nurse. I’ll ask her, if you want me to.”

“She’d be just the right one. But, Gus, it won’t work. Miss Prissy or Miss Tempy wouldn’t have her come there to help, any more than they would a hired girl.”

“They don’t need to know that she comes for that, at all. Oh, Brad! if you were only a little less straight up and down, and just a little more like--well, like Cap’n Titcomb. Don’t you see? You must make the old maids think that they’re doing Clara a favor; not that she’s doing them one. _I_ could arrange it, I’m sure; but you’re so dreadfully transparent.”

Bradley was aware of the transparency and it was with no great hope of success that he threw out the first hint concerning Miss Hopkins. To his surprise the hint was well received. The sisters liked Clara and she had told Miss Tempy, only the week before, how lonely she was.

“Poor thing!” sighed the younger sister. “If Prissy was well, I’d have her come right up here and make us a visit. I’d be glad to have her come and spend the day with us, anyhow.”

This was unexpected good luck. Clara, duly “coached” by Gus, came to spend the day. She made herself so thoroughly at home, was so pleasant in the sickroom, and helped in so many ways without seeming to try, that the old maids were delighted.

“I declare, Clara!” said Miss Tempy; “I’ve jest enjoyed havin’ you here. You shan’t go back to that poky, shut-up house to-night. We’ve got a spare room and you can stay here jest as well as not.” When the sisters were alone, she said: “Prissy, I never enjoyed doin’ a charitable act more’n I have makin’ that poor, lonesome girl happy to-day. It pays to act like a Christian, don’t it?”

And after that, of course, it was easy. Clara stayed on from day to day. She became a part of the household, and, gradually, lifted the burden from Miss Tempy’s shoulders. It was pleasant to be able to sit by the bedside and read aloud from _The Fireside Comforter_, knowing the while that the housework was being done and well done. And Clara liked “pepper tea,” or said she did. Here, indeed, was a kindred spirit.

One night--Peleg had prophesied it for a week before--a heavy northeast gale broke the monotony of summer weather. It very nearly brought disaster with it. The great six-masted coal barge _Liberty_, recently built, with her twin sister, the _Freedom_, by Cook and Son, the “coal kings” of Boston, came within a hair’s breadth of running bodily upon the Boneyard shoal. She was running into the Sound, under sail, with a tug following her, and the wind and tide caught her, as they had caught many another vessel. The skipper, suddenly realizing his danger, ran to the windlass, loosened the dog and pin, and let the mammoth anchor go over with a run. Then he leaped to the compressor, to clamp the chain; but the tide was too much for him. The chain flew over the “wildcat” with a howl, and, before he could stop it, anchor and one hundred and twenty fathoms of chain were stretched out on the bottom.

Lucky for the _Liberty_ and her owners--she had cost ninety thousand dollars to build, and carried over five thousand tons of coal--the skipper of the stout, sea-going tug saw the danger, ran up astern of the helpless barge, and got a line aboard in time to check her headway and hold her nose off the shoal.

“Well, Brad,” said Captain Titcomb, when the news reached Orham; “land knows I ain’t prayin’ for other folks to lose money, but _what_ a job she’d have made for somebody--say for us, hey? There’s from thirteen to twenty thousand in gittin’ a whale like her afloat.”

“Yes,” replied his partner, “but twenty tons of brand-new anchor and chain are worth eight hundred, at least, and half of that will go to whoever picks ’em up. We want that anchor-dragging job, sure.”

But it wasn’t so easy to get, and so they found. Their success in the wrecking venture had bred would-be rivals. Before that day was over, Seth Wingate and two or three of his friends had offered, by wire, to locate and “buoy” the lost ironwork for the sum of three hundred dollars. Then the Salvage Company was to send down a tug and bring it to the surface. It was a great disappointment to the partners.

It is one thing, however, to agree to perform and another to do. Seth had not had much experience in anchor-dragging, and although his catboat and two or three dories scraped the bottom for three days, they failed to hook the object they were after. The skipper of the _Liberty_ came to Orham and put up at the Traveller’s Rest. That night Captain Titcomb and Bradley called at his room.

“Cap’n Gould,” said Captain Ezra, “does it make any diff’rence to you who finds that anchor and chain of yours?”

“Not a continental! All I want is to have somebody find it.”

“You folks haven’t contracted with Wingate and his crowd then?”

“No, they offered to find and buoy for so much, and we let ’em try; that’s all.”

“All right. Now, you tell me, as nigh as you remember, jest where the _Liberty_ was when you hove anchor.”

So Captain Gould told them. The Setuckit light was about so and so; the Razorback lightship off here; and the rest of it.

“Here’s where we lee-bow brother Seth, I cal’late,” whispered Captain Titcomb as they left the room. “Pesky idiots! they never asked a question; jest went bull-headed draggin’ the edge of the Boneyard. If Gould’s right that anchor’s a ha’f mile to the no’theast.”

And, sure enough, there it was. The drag line from the _Lizzie’s_ dories caught on one of the great flukes before the following forenoon was over. The way-line was sent down, the messenger followed, and, clamped securely, the prize was “buoyed” before dinner time.

“What you doin’, Seth?” hailed the Captain, in a provokingly cheerful voice, as they passed the Wingate catboat. “Seinin’ porgies? We’ve jest buoyed a big mudhook off here. Might be the _Liberty’s_; you can’t tell.”

The Captain was for going to Boston at once and claiming the three hundred, but Bradley had been thinking.

“Why shouldn’t we do the rest of the job?” he asked. “That anchor, as it lies, is ours. We found it; we buoyed it. Why should we give it up to the Salvage people? We didn’t make any deal with them.”

Captain Titcomb fairly whooped with delight. “Bully for you, Brad!” he crowed. “Sartin sure! why should we? We can’t even take our Bible oath that it’s Gould’s iron we’ve found.”

They planned and argued until two o’clock. Then Bradley rushed up to the house, swallowed a hasty lunch, threw a nightshirt and toothbrush into his grip and caught the three o’clock train for Boston. He did not even stop to tell Gus of his departure, and trouble came of that omission later on.

At nine o’clock next day he leaned across the mahogany rail in the office of Cook and Son and asked an important young gentleman, with a pen behind his ear, if Mr. Cook, Senior, was in.

“No,” replied the important young man, looking condescendingly at his sunburned questioner; “but I am.”

Bradley ventured to hint that he was aware of his informant’s distinguished presence, but that he wished to see Mr. Cook, Senior.

“What did you want to see him for?” queried the human pen-rack. Bradley did not care to make his business known, so the young man went back to his desk. In an hour he again leaned across the rail to inform the visitor that the manager was in.

“I want to see Mr. Cook,” replied Bradley.

He waited. The forenoon passed. People came in by dozens, were admitted to inner offices and went away again. Beyond again asking what Bradley’s business might be, and receiving no satisfactory answer, the gentleman at the desk did not trouble himself further. At exactly twelve he stepped into another room, returned with his hair artistically curled on his forehead, covered it with a straw hat surrounded by a beautiful white and blue band, and went out--presumably to lunch.

Bradley was hungry, but persistency was one of his virtues, and he sat still. An hour later, a stout man with side whiskers and a protruding chin came out of one of the inner offices.

“Are you Mr. Cook?” asked Bradley.

The stout man looked him over and admitted, shortly, that he was.

“My name is Nickerson. I’m from Orham. I came to see you about that anchor and chain that the _Liberty_ lost; I think, perhaps, I’ve found it.”

“You do, hey? Have you buoyed it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. The Salvage Company will send a tug, and, if it’s our anchor, and you _did_ find it, we’ll forward you a check for three hundred dollars. Anything more? I’m going to lunch.”

“Yes, sir. The anchor and chain, as they lie on the bottom, are ours. My partner and I are wreckers, and we think we ought to have the job of raising them.”

“You do, hey? Well, the Salvage people do my wrecking jobs, and they’ll do this one. Good-day.”

“Mr. Cook, if a tug is sent to Orham to take up your anchor, and if they touch _our_ anchor--the one we’ve buoyed--we shall sue you for damages.”

The coal king looked at him in complete astonishment.

“Well! I like your nerve!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t you say it was my anchor you’d found?”

“I said I thought it might be yours. But we’ve found it, whatever it is, and it’s ours until you prove property. Then, when you do prove it, we’ll be ready to arrange for salvage charges.”

“How do I know you can raise anything, even a rowboat’s anchor?”

“All we ask is the chance to prove it.”

“What’ll you charge?”

“Five hundred dollars.”

“I’ll see you further. The Salvage people won’t charge more than that.”

“They couldn’t do it any better than we can.”

“Well, sir, you can have three hundred if you’ve got it buoyed, just as I said. That’s all you’ll get, and a tug will be there day after to-morrow. Take it or leave it. Now you can go to Orham, or the devil, just as you like. You can’t bluff _me_, young man.”

The great Mr. Cook went to lunch then, and Bradley, too, left the office. The young gentleman with the striped hat band, who had returned in time to hear the latter part of the interview, grinned pityingly.

That evening, when the train came in, the Captain was on the Orham station platform to meet his partner. He listened with interest to the story that the latter had to tell.

“Say!” he exclaimed. “You stood up in your boots like a little man, Brad. But ain’t you afraid we’re kind of bitin’ off our nose to spite our face? Cook and Son’s a big concern, and Titcomb and Nickerson ain’t quite in the king row yit, you know.”

The fact is the Captain’s old respect for owners had not entirely disappeared. He stood a trifle in awe of men whose payroll contained the names of twenty skippers.

“No, sir!” replied Bradley, with determination. “We’re right, and he’ll have to come to our terms or let his anchor stay where it is till doomsday.”

He felt rather well satisfied with himself, on the whole, and more like his own master than ever before. He continued to feel that way until, after supper, he called upon Gus, and then the cool manner in which that young lady received him reduced his self-esteem considerably.

“Why, what’s the matter?” he asked, in despair, after being snubbed and answered in monosyllables for ten minutes. “Aren’t you interested in what I did?”

“Oh! I don’t know. Why should I be? You’re not particularly interested in me; that’s plain.”

“Not interested in you? Why, my dear girl! I----”

“Bradley Nickerson, why didn’t you tell me you were going to Boston? Anyone would think that was the least you could do.”

“Why--why, Gus! I didn’t have but a minute! I should have missed the train!”

“Suppose you had, there’s another in the morning.”

“Yes, but then the business would----”

“The business! I’m sick of the business! You don’t think or speak of anything _but_ the business. Why don’t you think of me, or what I’m interested in, occasionally?”

She had heretofore listened to his plans and schemes so patiently, and had helped him with so many suggestions, that this sudden change upset him completely.

“Why, Gus!” he faltered. “I’m awfully sorry. I thought you’d understand.”

“Yes, you thought I’d understand; and so you went away without a word and left me to find out from Miss Tempy that you’d gone. How did you know that it would please me to have you go? How did you know that I didn’t wish to spend the evening somewhere? You didn’t know, and you were so selfish that you didn’t care. You neglect me more and more all the time.”

It was unreasonable, of course, but there was just enough truth in it to cause Bradley’s conscience to prick him sorely. He had become more and more interested in his work, and his talk had been principally confined to that subject, but he certainly had not meant to be neglectful. He did what the man must do in such cases; he apologized, confessed that it was all his fault, and humbly begged forgiveness, with all sorts of promises for the future.

After it was all over and they had made up, Gus said:

“Brad, I _am_ interested in your success and in your plans, but you mustn’t let them fill all your mind. I told you that day at the Point that I wasn’t sure of myself and that, as grandma says, I must be handled with care. I’m trying hard to please you, dear. Don’t forget to try your hardest to please me, even in little things.”

Later she said, casually, “I had a letter from Sam to-day. They’ve made him superintendent of a crew that are at work on a big steamer.”

Now it wasn’t pleasant to learn that his fiancée received letters from another man, especially Sam Hammond, but Bradley was wise enough to feel that this was not the time to raise objections.

“Oh! I shan’t answer it, of course,” said Gus, as if she had read his thought--as no doubt she had--“but he does have such good times in New York: theatres, and concerts and everything. Orham is such a deadly dull place for everybody but the summer people. I do so want to go somewhere or do something for amusement.”

Altogether, that evening was not the most assuring or satisfying one of Bradley’s life.

* * * * *

And in a few days, as the senior member of the firm of Cook and Son had predicted, the tug came to raise the barge’s anchor. She belonged to the Salvage Company and her skipper had been directed by his owners to stop on the way to New York and do this little job. She found the _Lizzie_ lying to close by the buoy.

“Is that the _Liberty’s_ anchor you’ve got buoyed there?” shouted the captain of the towboat.

“Don’t know,” answered Captain Titcomb, cheerfully. “It’s one we picked up draggin’. Might be the _Liberty’s_, p’raps.”

“Well, I’ve got orders to get it up.”

“Guess not. That’s our buoy and our anchor, fur’s anybody but the fish knows. We’ll fetch it up when we’re ready. Don’t need any help.”

“Oh, look here! What’s the use of talkin’? That’s the _Liberty’s_ iron, all right. Let me get at it; you’ll get your price for buoyin’ it.”

“You touch that buoy or those lines and you’ll git into trouble. Keep your hands off our property unless you want to pay for your fun.”

The skipper of the tug knew he had no means of proving that the buoyed anchor was the one he was sent for. He fumed and argued the whole forenoon; the partners were cheerful but firm. At last the angry towboatman went up to Orham to telephone for instructions. He came back swearing mad.

“What did they say?” asked Captain Titcomb, calmly.

“Told me to take it up if I was sure ’twas the _Liberty’s_. How in thunder do I know whose ’tis?”

All night long the _Lizzie_ stayed by the buoy, and the tug rocked close beside her. In the morning the skipper of the latter vessel hailed again.

“How long are you goin’ to keep this up?” he asked.

“Oh! ’twouldn’t be polite to go away and leave you, you bein’ out of town comp’ny,” was the unmoved answer. “We’re takin’ watch and watch ’board here. How do _you_ work it?”

“Aw, go to thunder!” was the disgusted reply.

For a few hours longer the towboat and wrecking schooner lay side by side, while their crews exchanged compliments.

“Hi!” shouted Barney Small, pointing to the jet of steam from the tug’s escape pipe; “your teakittle’s leakin’. Want to borrer our sodderin’ iron?”

The mate of the little steamer made answer by requesting Barney to lend him his face “to fight a dog with.”

At noon the tug’s skipper made another trip to the telephone, this time using that at the life-saving station. He stated the situation to his owners without frills. The work at New York could not longer be kept waiting, and he was told to start for that port.

“Ain’t goin’ to leave us, are you?” hailed Captain Titcomb, as the tug began to move.

“Oh! don’t you fellers git the big head too bad,” was the answer. “I’ve got somethin’ better to do than roost down here. But there’ll be other callers; don’t forgit that. You little two-for-a-cent beachcombers can’t beat the Boston Salvage Company so easy.”

“Chuck us a tintype of yourself to remember you by,” yelled Bill Taylor.

“Tell your sister not to worry about me,” shouted Alvin Bearse. “I’ll write pretty soon.”

And Peleg, prompted by Mr. Small, brought out his concertina and played “Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye,” with agonizing pathos.

Captain Ezra sent a final hail after the snorting towboat.

“You tell Mr. Cook,” he shouted, “that the longer he lets that chain lay where ’tis the worse it’ll sand. In a month it’ll be covered in so you can’t git up more’n ha’f of it. Tell him to wire us when he gits ready to pay our price. And say!” he added; “don’t forgit to tell him to prepay the message.”