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Updated: May 28, 2025
If you care to believe that and, also, that, being neither a sneak or a thief, I sha'n't clear out with the spoons while you're asleep, you might well, you might risk turning in." The lightkeeper did not answer immediately. The pair looked each other straight in the eye. Then Seth yawned and turned toward the bedroom. "I'll risk it," he said, curtly.
The lightkeeper, it appeared, had an auxiliary engine in a catboat which he owned and could let me have a sufficient supply of gasolene to fill the Comfort's tank. When this was done and it took a long time, for Joshua insisted upon helping and he was provokingly slow I returned to the sitting room and asked Mrs. Atwood to call Miss Colton.
On the wharf was a big automobile, surrounded by a gaping crowd of small boys and 'longshore loafers. We drew up beside the landing. Our feminine passenger sprang ashore and ran up the steps, to be seized in her father's arms. Mrs. Colton was there also, babbling hysterically. I watched and listened for a moment. Then I started the engine. "Shove off," I ordered. The lightkeeper was astonished.
The carpenter, however, was one of those who was left on board of the ship, as he also acted in the capacity of assistant lightkeeper, being, besides, a person who was apt to feel discontent and to be averse to changing his quarters, especially to work with the millwrights and joiners at the rock, who often, for hours together, wrought knee-deep, and not unfrequently up to the middle, in water.
"I should think," the lightkeeper declared over and over again, "that you'd had salt water soak enough to last you for one spell; a feller that come as nigh drownin' as you done!" Seth did not care for swimming; the washtub every Saturday night furnished him with baths sufficient.
Joshua, his hoofs swollen by the sticky clay to yellow cannon balls, plodded on, but, in spite of commands and pleadings the lightkeeper possessed no whip and would not have used one if he had he went slower and slower. He was walking now, and limping sadly on the foot where the loose shoe hung by its bent and broken nails. Five miles, six, seven, and the limp was worse than ever.
The lightkeeper believed him to be a wonder of strength and endurance, and never left the lights without cautioning his helper to keep an eye on Joshua, "'cause if anything happened to him I'd have to hunt a mighty long spell to find another that could tech him."
It shows a different reading of human nature, perhaps typical of Scotland and England, that I find in my grandfather's diary the following pregnant entry: "The lightkeepers, agreeing ill, keep one another to their duty." But the Scottish system was not alone founded on this cynical opinion. The dignity and the comfort of the northern lightkeeper were both attended to.
I like this one and here I stay. Yes, I mean it. I stay as your assistant. Come, what do you say? Is it a go?" The lightkeeper rose once more. "I'm goin' on watch," he said with decision. "You turn in. You'll feel better in the mornin'." He started towards the tower. But John Brown sprang from the bench and followed him. "Not until you've answered my question," he declared.
Don't know exactly why I do it, neither. And yet I do, too. Prob'ly you've wondered where I was takin' all that old canvas and stuff. "Excuse me, Atkins. I mind my own business, you know. I ask no questions, and you are under no obligation to tell me anything." "I know, I know." The lightkeeper nodded solemnly. He clasped his knee with his hands and rocked back and forth in his chair.
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