The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 10, 1904, Page 7

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. HE envisble achievement in his sight was a gunwale load snatched from a loppy sea; he had never heard of a pirate or a clown or a motorman. From the Deginning he was committed to the toll of the sea, for he was a New- foundiander of the upper shore—the child of a gray, solemn waste place; s land of artificlal graveyards. The lean rocks to which the cottages of Ragged Harbor cling like barnacles Ne, a thin, jagged strip, between a wilderness of scrawny shrubs and the sea’s fretful expanse. It chanced that Joe was the issue of a springtime ar- rengement—such as the gulls make— ch, happily, had endured to the co g of & parson of passage four vears later. He had been brought forth ke the young of the seal and the bear, and he was nurtured into } ihood—into brown, lithe, gth—no more for love e labor of his hands. Ob- then, he was committed to disclosed to him—this e sea's enmity—while he was a afore of hard-tack sack- g, months stant from his heritage homespun clothes. w I cotches mor fish 'n Job I grows up,” he boasted wld, who had fished out labor. “I "low I Sammy chuckled. v,” the child pursued ste. e'n you done, U hes mc b'y,” the old man cried In a g They be moare Is t' my Manuel's books they be ¥ the—the ut Head, waiting from a thicken- this vantage Uncle staff over the land, to comprehend the , doubtfully. It was g. 8o he crept to to watch the black jerously out of the mist nd froth over the lower do be hungry for lives this sighed. e boy screamed. “Iss from the abyss, quiv- be ngry this day.” ard, as in wrath; then boldly he faced the sea, bearding it t with clinched hands and dilated nos- Uncle Sammy woan't cotch me!” the boy c t let un cotch me!” t cotched me,” Sammy said, peered seaward; and for ugh the mist were the t Jet un cotch me!” the boy He stumbled, in blind amy, and took his he sobbed. “I woan't!” the Myste “Skipper Jo, n whispered, “you be one o or folk that can’t ’bide the say tle Skipper,” he said, crooking his arm about the lad's waist, “never care. Iss, sure—you be one o’ they the say cotches—like your faw- ther—ise, sure.” Thereafter Jo knew the sea for his enemy. h woan't woan't. * * * I It hence, to his tenth year, when all ngs were suddenly revealed, he won- i concerning many things; and among his perplexities was this: 1 the tide go? Where did the bide wuntil they ran back e tickle to cover again the bottom? sald Uncle hape o' curious things say. Sheer off from they. The tide do goa in a hoale Sammy. doned that theory months e puzzled, until, one day, 1 Ezekiel idled together, slipped, at the turn of the under the laden flake, where s are deep and cold, into fading sunshine of the open harbor. Her shad. wriggled to the dull, green depths where the starfish and sea eggs lay; and the wary dories darted, flash- ing, imto the security of the black waters beyond. She tugged at her painter like a dog at the leash—swing- ing fretfully, reaching, clacking with a petulant ripple; it was as though she panted to join the waters in the race through the tickle to the wide, free open. Now, the sea was here restrained from treacherous violence by encircling rocks; so, with rocking and ripple and amorous glitter, Jo was lured to a con- templation of the mystery that lay be- yond the placid harbor. “Now, b'y,” Jo eald, knows!™ “Iss, b'y?” little Ezekiel from the bow. he a punt tide, fron the th abruptly, “I answered " \ “I "low he heaps hisself up; an’ "twill be like climbin’ a hill t' paddle t' the top.” “Iss, b'y?" Ezekiel was patiently sure of Jo's wisdom. “The tide—he do.” “They be nar a hill t' the say,” Eze- kiel cried with scorn. “You be oan'y a lad,” Jo persisted. 1 'low heaps hisself up.” “Where do he?” “T’other side o' the Grapplin' Hook grounds, where he've no bottom.” “ITis barbarous far.” Ezekiel regret- fully glanced at the little schooner he had made. He had just rigged the jib with pains; he wanted to try the craft out in the light wind. “"Tis not so far as the sun’s hoals.” “Huh! 'Tis not so handy as Tailors Nose.” Jo stirred himself. “Be your caplin spread, b'y?” “Iss.” “Be un all spread, b'y?" “Iss,” plaintively. “Us’ll goa. Cast off!"” Ezekiel hesitated. “Be your caplin spread?”’ he demanded. Then, stern as a prophet, “God’'ll damn yo t' everlast- in’ fire 'n you lie.” “You be cursin’ God, Ezekiel Sevior Jo exclaimed. “God’'ll damn you. 'Tis marked down this minute—iss, sure.” ‘With impatience, “Us’ll goa. Cast off!" Ezekiel loosed the painter and sprang the rowing seat, and Jo bent his ength to the scull oar and sent the clear of a jutting rock. Now, in rts the tide has a clutch; the water gripped the boat and drew her ift and sly as a thief'’s hand. grip was fast; had the young h—that now spent {itself in guiding to escape wreck on the Pan- cake »een turned to flat resistance, it would have wasted itself in vain. But to the children’s sight the sea was fair to they were swept on, singing: “Lookit!” Ezekiel exclaimed, point- ing to the shore. He was scared to a whisper. “*"Tis Bob,” Jo said. “Hark!” Bob, a frowsy old dog with the name of a fish thief, was In the shadow of a flake, howling madly and pawing the shingle. “’Tis the sign o’ death!” Jo gripped the gunwale. The dog howled for the third time; then he slunk off down the road with his clog between his legs. “Josiah Butts—'tis he, surel” exclaimed. “Noa; "tis—" ‘tis Josiah. He've handy to five yards too much t’ the spread o’ his mains’l” # “*Tis Uncle Job Luff, b'y,” Jo sald, knowingly. “'I heered un curse God last even.” Ezekiel started. “What did un say, b'y?” he insinuated. “I heered un say—" Jo came to & full stop. “Hugh!” he went on cun- ningly. “Think o' all the cursin’ you ever heered.” “Noa!" Ezekiel sald, quickly. 'tis a sin t' think o’ cursin’.” Jo grinned. Then, sadly, Ezekiel “‘Sure he said: “*Tis Uncle Job—iss, sure. Poor Aunt "Melia Ann!" Ezekiel mused. “I 'low Job,” he agreed at last. ten paddle to his punt.” Jo spread the sail, stretched himself in the stern, with his feet on the gun- wales and a lazy hand on the scull oar, and began to sing. The sun was dropping swiftly, puff- ing himself up in his precipitate de- scent to the ragged black clouds that were mounting the sky, taking on a deepening, glowing crimson, the color of flame in dense smoke. The woolly clouds in the east were flushed pink, mottled like a salmon’s belly—a borrow- ed glory that, anon, fled, leaving a melancholy tint behind. Soon the whole heaven, from the crest of the black hills, far in the unknown inland, to the black horizon in the mysterious ex- panse beyond the Grappling Hook fish- ing grounds, was aglow; splashes of pink and gray and blue, thin streaks of pale green, heaps of smoky black and of gold, glowing, and of purple and violets and flery red. The coast, high and rugged, with a low line of frothy white, and a crest of stunted spruce sloping to the edge of the precipice was changed from dull green and duller gray to blood-red and purple and black; but this glorious mantle was soon lifted. In the white line there was one black space, the harbor mouth, whence the tickle led to the basin; and that space was like a rat hole. On either side, from the tip of Mad Mull to the limit of vision In the south, the coast rocks were like a wall, sheer, massive, scowling, with here and there, at the base, great shattered masses, over which the sea frothed. The boat was headed for the sun; it was slipping over a gentle lop in a light wind. “Rede me a riddle,” sald Ezekiel. The demand startled Jo. The great descending night oppressed him; and he had been thinking of the tide, now & cold, frowning mystery. He eased the ““He’ve a rot- P ITTLE P WALV CARE 'tis Uncle \ « sheet and scanned the sea ahead. The sea was flat; there was no hill to be seen. He sighed, and said in a dis- tracted way: As I went up t' London Bridge 1 met me brother Jan; I cut off his head an’ sucked his blood, An' let his body stan’, “Jewberry,” said Ezekiel, with lack of interest. “Uh-huh,” said Jo. Then, bethinking himself, “Oh!” As I went up t' London Bridge 1 saw a mighty wonder. Twenty pots a-bilin’, An’ no fire under. It was a new riddle in Ragged Har- bor. “Who guve it you, b'y?" Ezekiel cried. “Granny Sevior,” sald Jo. “Iss, sure; when I took her some trouts. She do say she heered un when she were a maid. 'Tis a brook bubblin’.” Ezekiel marveled. From the body of fog that lurked be- hind Mad Mull, there dammed In its course from the north, a thick, gray mass overflowed and settled to the sur- face of the sea. A cloud, high lying, at- tenuated, impenetrable, rounded the point and crept seaward with the de- viated current of the wind, its outmost parts swerving to the south, advancing slowly, implacably. “They be nar a hill t' the say, b'y,” Ezeklel sald, impatiently. He glanced apprehensively shoreward. It had come to Jo that the abode of the tide was hidden of design—an in- finite, terrible mystery. In the con- sciousness of presumption he quaked; but he gripped the scull oar tighter and held the boat on her course for the sun. “They be nar a hiil ‘tween here an’ the sun,” Ezeklel plainted. They were sailing over the Grappling Hook grounds, and as far as sight car- ried the graying sea was flat. “Us’'ll goa hoame now, Jo,” Ezeklel pleaded. *“’'Twill be barbarous hard t' find the goaats in the dark.” “They do be a hill further out,” sald Jo. “Keep a lookout, b'y.” A rift in the clouds disclosed the sun as it sank—as it went out like a candle in a sudden draft. The arm of fog closed In on the boat; the shoreward cloud crept past the harbor and reach- ed for Gull’s Nest Point, a mile to the south, the last distinguishable land- mark. The boys were silent for a long time. Ezekiel watched a whale at play to leeward; he wondered concerning his fate if it should mistake the punt for its young, as had happened to Uncle Sammy Arnold long ago, when there were more whales and they were bigger, much bigger, as Uncle Sammy had sald. Jo was sunk In the bitter- ness of realizing failure; he saw noth- ing but a surface of water that was flat—flat as the splitting table. ““Tis past the turn o’ the tide,” sald Jo at last, like a man giving up hope. “Iss, sure!” sald Ezektel, blithely. “Us’ll come about.” “Us’ll come about,” said Jo. The theory had failed. Jo headed the boat for shore. He shaped the course by Gull's Nest Point, measuring the shore from its fading outline to the probable location of the harbor; then he noted the direction of the wind, feeling it with his ear, his cheek and the tip of his nose, fixing it, thus, in his mind. When he looked to Gull's Nest Point again the black mass had vanished. “Job Luff do say,” said Ezeklel, “that the tide bides in a hoale in the say.” “Noa!"” said Jo, sharply. “I 'low,” Ezekiel sald with some det- erence, “he’ve a hoale t’ go to.” “Noa, b'y!” Jo exclaimed, o “I 'low he do,” Ezeklel persisted wi deepening politeness. the fires o’ hell “Iss, sure, b'y,” Ezeklel sald in awe. “The tide 'ud put un out.” “Put un out,” Jo echoed, sagely. The fog thickened. Night came on, an untimely dusk. Fog and night, ccalescing, reduced the circumference of things material to a yet narrowing circle of black water. The feel of the fog was llke the touch of a cold, wet hand In the dark. The night was heavy; it was, to the confusion of sense, fall- ing; it seerned to have been strangely vested with the properties of density and welght; it was, in truth, like a great pall descending, oppressing, stifilng. Ezeklel, cowering in the bow, searched the mist for ghostly dangers— for one, a gigantic lobster, with claws long as a schooner’s spars and eyes like the Shag Rock light. But Jo had no time for terror; he was fighting a fight that was already old, of which the his- tory was tten on the hand on the steering oar—a hand too small to span the butt, but misshapen, black to the knuckles, calloused in the palms, with the blood of cod congealed under the nalls, and festering salt water sores on the wrist. Time for visions of frothing lobsters? Jo had none. He was true son of that shore, and he had the oar and the sheet In his hands. “Thick’s bags,” Jo remarked, alluding to the fog. Ezeklel was silent. Jo was steering by the wind, but the wind veered, scarely perceptible, and the boy @id not perceive the change at all. A crafty enemy! Thus was his childish inexperience turned against him. He had laid his course cunningly for the harbor before Gull’s Nest Point had been wiped out; the course was now to the north by half a mile. With the deviation and rocks of the Three Poor Sisters, whers hig father had struck in a blizzard years ago. The boy planned to take the punt within sound of the surf, then to ship the sail and creep along shore to the harbor. That was the one way; but it was a perilous way, for the surf, being hidden and sound- ing near at hand, had no location. Its noise rises and subsides through long distances; its strength is here, there, elsewhere, everywhere, nowhere; it is elusive, confusing as a great nolse. The surf also has a clutch; a foot be- yond its grasp and it is to be laughed at; an inch within its eager fingers and it is irresistible. The breakers of the rocks of the Three Poor Sisters are like long arms—their reach is great; their strength and depth and leap are great. There was no peril in the choppy sea over which the boat was now pushing; the peril was in the breakers. Watchfulness could evade it, but with every boat's length of progress Jo was plunged In deeper wonder. He was evolving a new theory of the tide, which was a subtle dis- traction. Was the spell of this mys- tery to undo him? Thus Jo, as for Ezeklel, he was afraid of the mon- sters he had conjured up in the mist, so—as his people invariably do iIn dread and danger—he turned to his religion for consolation. He thought deeply of hell. “Is you been good the day, b'y?" Ezeklel asked dreamily. “Noa,” Jo answered, Indifferently. “I 'low I hasn’t spread me caplin quite —quite straight.” The wind was stirring itself in the north. The dusk was thick and clam- my. The sound of the surf had risen to a deep, harsh growl. “Be you 'feared o’ hell?” “Noa,” said Jo. ‘“Lads doan’t gos t' “Huh!” said Jo. “What *ud come o' drift he would meet th_a coast at }30\0 g Momentarily Ezekiel thought hi in the company of the dam: lcoked In n tright 3 through which, his ex taught him, r men found from h be * sald Jo, in ¢ the “Iss, sure!”™ Ezekiel The breake peered long ness ahead. hiss of broken sheet and sprang for ast. They furied the sail and he mast Jo took his place In the shute r pelled the boat by 1 Ezekiel's sight did oarlengths from the b “Be you sure—" “You be not goain’ t Sevior!” Jo exclaimed, above the sound of the s worry me." The boat was advanc the strength In the was sligh They were secure f time, a they were not unused to the predica- ment; but at such other times the oar had been in larger hanc lookout kept by more discern They thought the harbor tickle was ahead, perchance some fath. s to the = h or to the north. The wind had con- fused them utterly; the breakers re not the breakers of the Pillar and the Staff, but of the rocks of the Three Poor Sisters. But they were not per- turbed, so they fell again into thought and long silence; an Jo thought was the old, disqui v “Ezekiel!” Jo's volce was husky, golemn; it had the thrill of triumph in it “Iss, b’y? Does you see the shoare?” “Ezekiel!” Jo was exultant, like an investigator who beholds in wonder the beautiful issue of his research. “Iss?" Jo swung from side to side on the oar with a vigor stimulated by his ex- ultation. “I knows—Iiss, sure, “Where the tickle b “Where the tide goas.” “Where do un goa?” Ezeklel asgked in mournful disappointment. Jo pointed to the wash in the bottom of the boat as it slipped from stem to stern with the risen lop. Now the waters covered the boy's feet and gurgled and hissed under the stern seat; now they swirled to Ezek! boots, sweeping along a chip pro- reach seven Ezekilel s volce Doan't slowly, for the sald he. Does you?™ “"Tig like the tide—'t!s like uns,” Jo whispered. “Aye, by, sure,” sald Ezekiel “I found un out meself,” Jo went on. solemnly. “I ¢'n tell Job Luff now. He thought un were a hoale.” Jo laughed softly. “’Tis noa hoale. 'Tis noa hill *Tis like that.” Ezekiel watched the water ebb and flow. Jo watched the water ebb and flow. Both were in the grip of the mystery—of the great solution which had been ylelded to them of all the world. “When ‘tis ebb In Ragged Harbor,” sald Jo, “’tls the flood in—in other pairts.” The discovery had fascinated their attention. Lookout and headway were forgotten. “Where, b'y?" sald Ezekiel “Pa’tridge P’int,” Jo answered, read- fly. “What you sees from the Look- out in a fine time.” “It do be too handy; it—" “Twillingate, then, I 'low,” said Ja “Where Manuel’s trader comes from. *Tis further'n any place.” Ezekiel turned to resume the lookout. Jo gloated in a long, low chuckle. “Port! Keep un off!” The ring of terror was In the scream. “Port! Port!™ “Aye, b'y,” firmly spoken. Ezekiel rose in the bow and raised his hands as though to push the boat back from a danger. “Port! Port!" “Aye, b'y."” The Rock of the Third Poor Bister took black, towering form Iin the mist, before and overhead. The punt paused on the crest of a declivity of rushing water. The white depths were like an abyss; she was like a man clinging to the fringe of a precipice. It was a time for the strength of men; in that swift pause the strength of a girl's arms was as no strength. “The sea've cotched us:* Jo mut- tered. “The sea—he’ve cotched us!™ The wave ran its course, broke with slow might, fell with a crash and & long, thick hiss. Ezeklel sank to the seat and covered his eyes with his hands, but Jo dropped the oar, and bearded the rock and the wave as he had done In the days when he wore a pinafore of hard-tack sack- ing, and he clinched his hands, and his nostrils quivered. “The sea—he’ve cotched me,” he sald again; and, it was like a quiet admis- sion of defeat at the hands of a long- fought enemy. The returning body of water slipped ke ofl under the boat; it fastened its grip at the turn, lifted the boat, lost it, caught it agaln, swept it with full force onward and dewnward. “Mother!"™ Ezeklel had forgotten his God. He cried for his mother, who was real and nearer. God had been to him like a frowning shape in the mist. How shall we interpret? Where is the poet who shall now sing the sea's song of triumph? Who shall ascribe glory to her for this deed? Thus, In truth, she bears herself in the dark corners of the earth. These children had fol- lowed the lure of her mystery, which is, to the people of bleak coasts, like the variable light in 1se _. a fair finger beckoming. It was as though the sea had smiled at their coming, and had sald to the mist and the wind, “Gather them In.” If there be glory to the sea, it was glory of hidden mercy: indeed, isolatiom and toll are things to escape. Ceopyright by McClure, Phillips & Co.