Caleb West, Master Diver Part 10

"Wall, it was so d.a.m.n sudden. Fust thing I knowed I wuz in the water with th' wind knocked out'er me, an' the next wuz when I come to an'

they bed me in here an' the doctor a-fixin' me up. I'm all right, ye see, only I'm drier'n a lime-kiln. Say, cap,"-he looked over toward the water-bucket, and called to one of the men standing near the door,-"fetch me a dipper."

To call a landsman "cap" around Keyport is to dignify him with a t.i.tle which he probably does not possess, but which you think would please him if he did.

"Let me get you a drink," said the major, rising from the bed with a quick spring indicative of his hearty desire to serve him. He clipped the floating tin in the bucket and brought it to the thirsty man.

Bowles drained the contents to its last drop. "He ain't no preach an'

he ain't no sawbones," he said to himself, as he returned the empty tin to Slocomb with a "Thank ye,-much obleeged."

Somehow the reply satisfied the major far more than the most elaborately prepared speech of thanks which he remembered ever to have received.

Then the two men continued to talk freely with each other, the one act of kindness having broken down the barrier between them. The Pocomokian, completely forgetting himself, told of his home on the Chesapeake, of his acquaintance with Sanford, of his coming up to look after Mrs. Leroy. The major's tone of voice was as natural and commonplace as if he had been conversing with himself alone. "Couldn't leave a woman without protection, you know," to which code of etiquette Bowles bobbed his head in reply; the genuine, unaffected sympathy of the rough man before him seemed to have knocked every fict.i.tious prop from under his own personality.

The quarryman, in turn, talked about the Ledge, and what a rotten season it had been,-nothing but southeasters since work opened; last week the men only got three days' work. It was terrible rough on the boss (the boss was Sanford), paying out wages to the men and getting so little back; but it wasn't the men's fault,-they were standing by day and night, catching the lulls when they came; they'd make it up before the season was over; he and Caleb West had been up all the night before getting ready for the big derricks that Captain Joe was going to set up as soon as they were ready; didn't know what they were going to do now with that Screamer all tore up: a record of danger, unselfishness, loyalty, pluck, hard work, and a sense of duty that was a complete revelation to Slocomb, whose whole life had been one prolonged loaf, and whose ideas of the higher type of man had heretofore been somehow inseparably interwoven with a veranda, a splint-bottomed chair, a palm-leaf fan, and somebody within call to administer to his personal wants.

When Captain Joe returned from an inspection of the sloop's injuries,-strange to say, they were very slight compared to the force of the explosion,-Mrs. Leroy was still talking to Sanford, suggesting comforts for the men, and planning for mosquito nettings to be placed over their cots. The maid, a severe-looking woman in black, who had never relaxed her grasp of the dressing-case, had taken a seat on an empty nail-keg which somebody had brought in, and which she had carefully dusted with her handkerchief before occupying. It was evident from her manner that there was absolutely nothing she could do for anybody.

Captain Joe looked at the party for a moment, noted Mrs. Leroy's traveling costume of blue foulard and dainty bonnet, ran his eye over the maid, glanced at the major, in an alpaca coat, with white waistcoat and necktie and gray slouch hat, and said in his calm, forceful, yet gentle way to Mrs. Leroy, "It was very nice of ye to come an' bring yer friend," pointing to the maid, "an' any o' Mr.

Sanford's folks is allers welcome at any time; but we be a rough lot, an' the men's rough, and ye kin see for yerself we ain't fixed up fur company. They'll be all right in a week or so. Ef ye don't mind now, ma'am, I'm goin' to shet them shetters to keep the sun out o' their eyes an' git th' men quiet,-some on 'em ain't slep' any too much. The tug'll be here to take ye all over to Medford whenever ye're ready; she's been to th' Ledge fur th' men. Mr. Sanford said ye'd be goin'

over soon." He glanced about the room as he spoke, until his eye rested on Sanford. "Ye're goin' 'long, didn't I hear ye say, sir?"

Then addressing Slocomb, whose t.i.tle he tried to remember, "We've done th' best we could, colonel. It ain't like what ye're accustomed to, mebbe,-kind'er ragged place,-but we got th' men handy here where we kin take care on 'em, an' still look after th' work, an' we ain't got no time to lose this season; it's been back'ard, blowin' a gale half the time. There's the tug whistle now, ma'am," turning again to Mrs.

Leroy.

Mrs. Leroy did not answer. She felt the justice of the captain's evident want of confidence in her, and realized at once that all of her best impulses could not save her from being an intrusion at this time. None of her former experience had equipped her for a situation of such gravity as this. With a curious feeling of half contempt for herself, she thought, as she looked around upon the great strong men suffering there silently, how little she had known of what physical pain must be. She had once read to a young blind girl in a hospital, during a winter, and she had sent delicacies for years to a poor man with some affliction of the spine. She remembered that she had been quite satisfied with herself and her work at the time; and so had the pretty nurses in their caps, and the young doctors whom she met, the head surgeon even escorting her to her carriage. But what had she done to prepare herself for a situation like this? Here was the reality of suffering, and yet with all her sympathy she felt within herself a fierce repugnance to it. After all her aspirations, how weak she was, and how heartily she despised herself!

As she turned to leave the building, holding her skirts in her hand to avoid the dirt, the light of the open door was shut out, and eight or ten great strong fellows in rough jackets and boots, headed by Caleb West, just landed by a tug from the Ledge, walked hurriedly into the room, with an air as if they belonged there and knew they had work to do, and at once.

Caleb strode straight to Lacey's bed. His cap was off, his hands were clasped behind his back. He felt his eyes filling, and a great lump rose in his throat as he stood looking down at him. He never could see suffering unmoved.

The young rigger opened his well eye, and the pale cheek flushed scarlet as he saw Caleb's face bending over him.

"Where did it hit ye, sonny?" asked Caleb, bending closer, and slipping one hand into Betty's as he spoke.

Betty pointed to her own cheek. Lacey, she said, was too weak to answer for himself.

"I've been afeard o' that b'iler," Caleb said, turning to one of the men, "ever sence I see it work."

Betty shook her head warningly, holding a finger to her lips. Caleb and the men stopped talking.

"You been here all night, Betty?" whispered Caleb, putting his mouth close to her ear, and one big hand on her rounded shoulder.

Betty nodded her head.

"Ye ought'er be mighty proud o' her, Caleb," said Captain Joe, joining the group, and speaking in a lowered tone. "Ain't many older women 'longsh.o.r.e would'er done any better. I tried ter git 'er to go home with Aunty Bell two hours ago, but she sez she won't."

Caleb's face glowed and his heart gave a quick bound as he listened to Captain Joe's praise of the girl wife that was all his own. His rough hand pressed Betty's shoulder the closer. He had always known that the first great sorrow or anxiety that came into her life would develop all her nature and make a woman of her. Now the men about him would see the strong womanly qualities which had attracted him.

"Lemme take hold now, Betty," said Caleb, still whispering, and stooping over her again. "Ye're nigh beat out, little woman."

He slipped his arm around her slender waist as if to lift her from the chair. Betty caught his fingers and loosened his hand from its hold.

"I'm all right, Caleb. You go home. I'll be 'long in a little while to get supper."

Caleb looked at her curiously. Her tone of voice was new to him. She had never loosened his arm before, not when she was tired and sick.

She had always crept into his lap, and put her pretty white arms around his neck, and tucked her head down on his big beard.

"What's the matter, little one?" he asked anxiously. "Maybe it's hungry ye be?"

"Yes, I guess I'm hungry, Caleb," said Betty wearily.

"I'll go out, Betty, an' git ye some soup or somethin'. I'll be back right away, little woman." He tiptoed past the cot, putting on his cap as he went.

Two of the men followed him with their eyes and smiled. One looked significantly at Lacey and then toward the retreating figure, and shook his head in a knowing way.

Betty had not answered Caleb. She did not even turn her head to follow his movements. She saw only the bruised, pale face before her as she listened to the heavy breathing of the sufferer. She would have dropped from her chair with fatigue and exhaustion but for some new spirit within her which seemed to hold her up, and to keep the fan still in her hand.

When Sanford, after escorting Mrs. Leroy to her home, returned to the improvised hospital, he found the lanterns lighted, and learned that the doctor had dressed the men's wounds, and had reported everybody on the mend, especially Lacey; at Betty's urgent request he had made a careful examination of the young rigger's wounds, and had p.r.o.nounced him positively out of danger. Only then had she left her post and gone to her own cottage with Caleb.

Captain Joe had followed Aunty Bell home for a few hours' rest, and all the watchers had been changed.

There was but one exception. Beside the cot upon which lay the sailor with the dislocated hip sat the major, with hat and coat off, his s.h.i.+rt-cuffs rolled up. He was feeding the sufferer from a bowl of soup which he held in his hand. He seemed to enjoy every phase of his new experience. It might have been that his sympathies were more than usually aroused, or it might have been that the spirit of vagabondage within him, which fitted him for every condition in life, making him equally at home among rich and poor, and equally agreeable to both, had speedily brought him into harmony with the men about him.

Certainly no newly appointed young surgeon in a charity hospital could have been more entirely absorbed in the proper running of the establishment than was Slocomb in the care of these rough men. He had refused point-blank Mrs. Leroy's pressing invitation to spend the night at her house, his refusal causing much astonishment to those who misunderstood his reasons.

"I'm going to take charge here to-night, major," said Sanford, walking toward him, realizing for the first time that he had neglected his friend all day, and with a sudden anxiety as to where he should send him for the night. "Will you go to the hotel and get a room, or will you go to Captain Joe's cottage? You can have my bed. Mrs. Bell will make you very comfortable for the night."

The major turned to Sanford with an expression of profound sympathy in his face, hesitated for a moment, and said firmly, with a slight suggestion of wounded dignity in his manner, and in a voice which was sincerity itself, "By gravy, suh, you wouldn't talk about going to bed if you'd been yere 'most all day, as I have, and seen what these po'

men suffer. My place is yere, suh, an' yere I'm going to stay."

Sanford had to look twice before he could trust his own eyes and ears.

What was the matter with the Pocomokian?

"But, major," he continued in protest, determining finally in his mind that some quixotic whim had taken possession of him, "there isn't a place for you to lie down. You had better get a good night's rest, and come back in the morning. There's nothing you can do here. I'm going to sit up with the men myself to-night."

The major did not even wait for Sanford's reply. He placed the hot soup carefully on the floor, slipped one hand under the wounded man's head that he might swallow more easily, and then raised another spoonful to the sufferer's lips.

CHAPTER VIII

THE "HEAVE HO" OF LONNY BOWLES

The accident to the Screamer had delayed work at the Ledge but a few days. Other men had taken the place of those injured, and renewed efforts had been made by Sanford and Captain Joe to complete to low-water mark the huge concrete disk, forming a bedstone sixty feet in diameter and twelve feet thick, on which the superstructure was to rest. This had been accomplished after three weeks of work, and the men stood in readiness to begin the masonry of the superstructure itself so soon as the four great derricks required in lifting and setting the cut stone of the masonry could be erected. They were only waiting for Mr. Carleton's acceptance of the concrete disk, the first section of the contract. The superintendent's certificate of approval was important, one rule of the Department being that no new section of the work should begin until the preceding section was officially approved.

Carleton, however, declined to give it. His ostensible reason was that the engineer-in-chief was expected daily at Keyport, and should therefore pa.s.s upon the work himself. His real reason was a desire to settle a score with Captain Joe by impeding the progress of the work.

This animosity to Captain Joe had been aroused by an article very flattering to the superintendent, published in the "Medford Journal,"

in which great credit had been given to Carleton for his "heroism and his prompt efficiency in providing a hospital for the wounded men."