Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 16, 2025
Now it was early summer; the night before had been a flat calm. There had been no wreck, or the lifesavers would have told him of it. There would be no excuse for a wreck, anyway. All this, in disjointed fragments, passed through the lightkeeper's mind as he descended the path in frantic bounds and plowed through the ankle-deep white sand of the beach.
"What what " The lightkeeper's wrath was interfering with his utterance. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sputtered incoherently. "Be calm, Atkins," coaxed the assistant. "Don't complicate your diseases by adding heart trouble. Three times today I've caught you peeping at me through the crack of that door. Within fifteen seconds of the last peep I find you snoring. Therefore, I say "
For the next hour or two the lightkeeper's helper moved about his household tasks in a curious frame of mind. He was thoroughly angry or thought he was and very much disturbed. Neighbors of any kind were likely to be a confounded nuisance, but two women! Heavens! And the stout woman was sure to be running in for calls and to borrow things.
Atkins, after one languid glance in his direction, had sprung from the truck and was gazing at him as if he was some apparition, some figure in a nightmare, instead of his blase self. And he, as he looked at the lightkeeper's astounded countenance, dropped the cigar stump from his fingers and stepped backward in alarmed consternation. "You you YOU?" gasped Seth. "YOU!" repeated the stranger.
He pounded on the box, and the earthquake obliged with a renewed series of shocks and shakings. The lightkeeper's assistant smiled in spite of himself. "Who named him Job?" he asked. "Henry G.'s cousin from Boston. He said he seemed to be always sufferin' and fillin' the land with roarin's, like Job in the Bible. So, bein' as he hadn't no name except cuss words, that one stuck.
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. It might be thought there was nothing more calculated to awake men's resentment, and yet his rule was not more thorough than it was beneficent.
His knees shook under him when he stood erect, and he leaned heavily on the lightkeeper's arm. "Steady now," counselled Atkins; "no hurry. Take it easy.
Tapp, were you in a boating accident yesterday?" cried Miss Louder. "I was overboard yes," responded Lawford, but rather blankly, for he was startled by the lightkeeper's statement. "What do you mean, Jonas?" to the lightkeeper. "Didn't Betty Gallup haul me inboard?" "Bet Gallup nawthin'!" exploded Jonas with disgust. "She handled that sloop o' yourn all right. I give her credit for that.
Do you s'pose I'd use the money that belonged to the husband that run off and left me? I ain't that kind of a woman. The money and stocks are at the bank yet, I s'pose; anyhow they're there for all of me." The lightkeeper's mouth opened and stayed open for seconds before he could use it as a talking machine. He could scarcely believe what he had heard.
So in my next letter to him I described you as well as I could, mentioned that you were as good or a better swimmer than he, and asked for particulars. He answered that the only fellow he could think of who fitted your description was 'Russ' Brooks Russell, I suppose of New York; though what Russ Brooks was doing as lightkeeper's assistant at Eastboro Twin-Lights he DIDN'T know.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking