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"You're as mum as the oldest inhabitant of a deaf and dumb asylum," was the lightkeeper's comment. "And ugly as a bull in fly time. What ails you?" "Nothing." "Humph! better take somethin' for it, seems to me. Little 'Stomach Balm, hey? No? Well, GO to bed! Your room's enough sight better'n your company just now." The helper's ill nature was in evidence again at breakfast time.
The young man's first move, after recovery, was to make sure that the door between the kitchen and the hall leading to the lightkeeper's bedroom was shut. It was, fortunately. The young lady watched him in silence, though her eyes were shining. "Good morning, Mr. Brown," she observed, gravely. The assistant murmured a good morning, from force of habit.
"Get out, you brute!" ordered Brown. Job did not get out. Instead he yelped again and capered with the grace of a cow. His feet and legs seemed to have grown out of proportion to the rest of him; they were enormous. Down the length of his yellow back were three raw furrows which the nails of the box cover had scraped as he climbed from under them. "Nice dog!" coaxed the lightkeeper's helper.
But 'twas that there gal stayin' at Cap'n Abe's. Ye had her out with ye, eh?" "Miss Grayling? Certainly." "She's some gal, even if she is city bred," was the lightkeeper's enthusiastic observation. "An' quick! My soul! Ye'd ought to seen her kick off her skirt an' shoes an' dive after ye! I swanny, she was a sight!" "I should think she would have been!" gasped Miss Louder with some scorn.
I can guess what's troublin' you; it's young Brown. You've told him you're a woman-hater, haven't you?" "Yes, I have." "Humph! Is he one, too?" The lightkeeper's mouth was twisted with a violent emotion. He remembered his view of that afternoon's swimming lesson. "He said he was," he snarled. "He pretends he is." Mrs. Bascom smiled. "I want to know," she said. "Umph!
"Don't you call me that!" "Bascom " The inventor was thoroughly frightened, and his voice rose almost to a shout. The lightkeeper's wrath vanished at the sound of the name. If any native of Eastboro, if the depot master on the other side of the track, should hear him addressed as "Bascom," the fat would be in the fire for good and all.
Set where you be." The nightshirt was one of the lightkeeper's own, and, although Seth was a good-sized man, it fitted the castaway almost too tightly for comfort. However, it was dry and warm and, by leaving a button or two unfastened at the neck, answered the purpose well enough.
Yet, although the conversation in the substitute assistant's room was not again referred to by either, it had the effect of making the oddly assorted pair a bit closer in their companionship. The mutual trust was strengthened by the lightkeeper's half confidence and Brown's sympathetic reception of it.
Apparently the stranger was willing to risk it, for in a few moments he appeared, dressed in the Atkins Sunday suit of blue cloth, and with Seth's pet carpet slippers on his feet. "Hello!" was the lightkeeper's greeting. "How you feelin'? better?" "Tip top, thank you. Where do you wash, when it's necessary?" "Basin right there in the sink. Soap in the becket over top of it.
My grandfather was king in the service to his finger-tips. All should go in his way, from the principal lightkeeper's coat to the assistant's fender, from the gravel in the garden-walks to the bad smell in the kitchen, or the oil-spots on the store-room floor.
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