ABNER PEAKE'S OFFER
Days passed. Darry had entirely given up hope of ever hearing from the captain, whose body must have been carried out to sea again, as were several of the crew.
After the shock became less severe, our hero began to take a new interest in the scene around him, and particularly in connection with the life-saving station where his new friend Abner was quartered.
The keeper was a grizzled surfman named Frazer, and a man possessed of some education; he did not awaken the same feelings in the boy as Abner Peake, but at the same time he was evidently inclined to be friendly in his own gruff way.
On the third day after the rescue he called Darry to him as he sat mending a net with which the crew of the station secured enough fish to serve them for an occasional meal.
"Sit down, lad. I want to talk with you a bit," he said.
Darry dropped on a block close by.
He was still filled with the deepest admiration for these men of the coast, and his determination to follow their arduous calling when he grew big enough to take an oar in the surfboat was undiminished.
"Now, tell me about yourself, and where you belong. We are not allowed to keep any rescued sailors more than a certain time. You notice that all the others have gone, save the poor chaps lying under those mounds yonder. Being a boy you've been favored; but the time has come to know what you mean to do. Speak up, lad, and tell me your story?"
Encouraged by his kind voice, Darry told all he knew about himself up to the very moment when he parted from his friend, the captain.
Mr. Frazer seemed interested.
"I feel sorry for you, Darry. It must be hard to feel that you haven't got a friend in the world. My hands are tied in the matter, so I can do nothing; but there's Abner Peake telling me he'd like you to stay with him," he remarked.
"I understood him to say he once had a boy about my age."
"Yes, a likely little chap, but it was about a year back he was lost."
"Was he drowned?" asked Darry, feeling that this was about the way most persons in this coast country must meet their end.
"Yes. The little fellow was a venturesome boy, and tried to cross the bay in a heavy sea. He must have been swept out at the inlet. They found the boat on the beach, three miles above here, but never little Joe. Abner has never gotten over it. To this day he sits and looks out to sea as if he could discover his poor boy coming back to him. I thought for a time the fellow would go out of his mind."
"And he wants me to stay with him?" continued Darry, musingly.
"Yes. Abner has a small house out of the village, where his wife and the two little girls live, while he is over here at the station. Often we want someone to cross over with supplies, and he thinks you might like the job."
Darry drew a long breath.
"I have no home. The only one I ever knew was the poor old Falcon, and her timbers are scattered along the coast for ten miles. I think that if Mr. Peake really wants me to stay with him I shall accept gladly. It is tough to feel like a piece of driftwood all the time," he said.
"I think you are wise in deciding that way. Abner is a kind man, and as for his wife—well, she's got a temper all right, but if you don't rub it the wrong way she can be got on with, I reckon. Anyhow, it would pay you to try it until something else turns up. Maybe you want to ship on another vessel?"
"I think I have had all of the sea I want, after that time. I wake up nights, thinking I'm choking with the salt water, and trying to catch my breath. When I get older and stronger I want to be a life saver like you, sir."
The keeper smiled pleasantly.
It was not often he appeared as a hero in the eyes of even a boy, and, being human, he could not help feeling some satisfaction.
"It's a dangerous calling, Darry; but, after all, no worse than that of a sailor. And while we risk our lives often, it is to try and save others. There's some satisfaction in that. But there sits Abner on that old keel of a wreck; suppose you go and tell him your story, and see what he says."
When the boy joined him Abner Peake looked up, and the solemn expression on his face changed to one of kindliness.
"Set down, lad. Are yuh feelin' all right agin after your rough time?" he asked.
"A little sore in the arms still, but that will pass away soon. Mr. Frazer told me you wanted to hear my story."
"If yuh don't mind tellin' me. I reckoned as how yuh must 'a' had a hard time. Now, I ain't never been away from this here coast, but I feels for boys what's out in the wide world. Still, there's some hope o' them comin' back tuh the nest agin, some day. Now, go on, lad," with a long-drawn sigh.
Again did the homeless Darry start in to narrate his brief career, so far as it was known to him; and the old surfman listened with a tear in his eye, as he told of his abandonment in a foreign port, and the hard time he had getting enough to eat.
Finally it was all told, and Abner Peake laid a hand on his arm, saying:
"Don't say yuh ain't got a home, any more, Darry, if so be yuh'd care to stay at my place. The missus ain't the easiest one in the world tuh get along with, but soon as she sees what a likely chap yuh be I know she'll like yuh, same as I do. Try it awhile, lad, until yuh kin make your mind up. My Joe used tuh make a tidy lot of money trappin' animals in the swamp for ther skins, huntin' turkles like them terrapin they pay sech a big price fur, an' actin' as guide fur the shooters as come down along the coast after ducks and snipe and bay birds. No reason but what you could do the same. Only try and git on the good side of the ole woman, to begin with, lad. She's got a heart, tho' there's some as don't believe it. I know she's still a feelin' bad because Joe was taken from us."
"It was hard to lose him, your only boy," said Darry, consolingly.
The man shook his head dolefully, and bent a wistful look toward the open sea.
"Yes, it was tough; but I reckon he's safe in the harbor long afore now. What say, lad, be yuh of a mind to try it with us?" he continued eagerly.
"I will, and only glad of the chance. It is kind of you to make me the offer, and I only hope I may be able to please your wife. I'll do everything I can to take the place of Joe, although, of course, I couldn't expect to do that altogether," replied Darry.
"Say, yuh make me feel better, already. Seems to me as if I heerd little Joe aspeakin' to me from somewhere. I'm goin' crost the bay to-night, lad. It's my turn for a day off, an' I'll take yuh with me. I reckons his clothes'd just about be the right fit fur yuh."
So it was settled.
Darry felt easy in his mind now, much more so than he had been ever since finding himself adrift on shore, like a vessel without an anchor.
No matter how humble, it would be home to him, for he had no memories to haunt him, and bring about discontent.
There was the village near by, where possibly he might meet boys of his own age; and what Abner had said about the pursuits by which Joe had been accustomed to making odd bits of money appealed to him, for he believed he had something of a love for outdoor sports in his nature, since he had never neglected to take advantage of a chance to use a fishing line, when the brigantine happened to be in one of the world ports to which business called her.
But above all he gloried in the fact that occasionally he would have the opportunity to visit the station on the outer beach, where those hardy men patrolled every night, and stood ready to go to the assistance of any imperilled mariners.
After supper he accompanied Abner to the little landing where a stout rowboat was fastened.
Into this they dropped, and Darry immediately seized upon the oars, to the secret amusement and satisfaction of the life saver, who was quite willing to let him display his ability in this important line.
"Yuh sure pull a good, strong stroke, lad," he declared, after they had been upon the bay for some time, Darry taking his bearings from a bright star that had appeared in the east.
"He taught me," replied the boy, and, perhaps unconsciously, his voice quavered as he spoke, for he could not even think of the captain without emotion.
"All the better. A feller ain't no use 'round this section less he kin row a boat with the best. And if so be yuh 'spect to jine with us some day, the more yuh larn about this same thing the better for yuh. Joe, he was a reg'lar water duck—but he was too darin' and he tried the game onct too often. Beware o' that inlet, lad. The tide sweeps outen it like a mill race sometimes, an' the best man couldn't hold his own agin it. It's ben a mystery to me always how it happened. Nobody ever knowed, only that we found the boat two days arter on the beach, three miles up. When yuh git tired say so, an' I'll spell yuh."
After a long time they drew near the other shore. Here lights had been seen, and Darry discovered quite a collection of houses, for the most part cabins such as are so common in the south, especially along the coast of North Carolina.
Abner insisted upon taking the oars now; and as he knew just where it was most desirable to land the boy no longer objected.
Sitting there in the stern he watched the scene unfold as they approached the mainland, though the new moon gave very little light.
Sounds as of boys at play, together with the barking of dogs, and even the gabble of a goose, awoke in his breast new emotions such as he had never experienced before; for he was about to be introduced to a home, no matter of what character, where he would after that belong.
The boat was brought up against a landing, and both went ashore.
"In the mornin' I'll get yuh to help carry the groceries to the boat, so I kin ferry 'em acrost. Jest now I'm pinin' to get to the shack, 'cause I ain't ben home these two weeks, yuh see. This way, Darry, lad. My cabin ain't jest in the village; but when I come home I ginerally stop in at the butcher's an' take some meat along. Git out, yuh yaller critter!" this to a dog that had come barking toward them as though recognizing the fact that a stranger had come to town.
"Hyar, Peake, don't yer hit my dorg!" shouted a half-grown boy, slouching around a corner as though he had just come out of a drinking resort there.
"Keep him home, then, Jim Dilks, er else teach the critter to behave. He tackled me onct and I had to kick him over a fence to save my shins from his teeth. Some day that hound'll get a call all right, yuh hear me, Jim?" declared Abner.
Jim leered at him, and then looked at the boy.
"Reckon it'll be a bad day for the feller that hurts me dorg, see? Who yer got trailin' 'long with yer, Peake? Say, be he the critter as kim ashore? Sooner he skips outen this the better. We ain't got jobs enough now fur them as growed up round hyar."
"No danger of you worrin' 'bout jobs, Jim Dilks. Work an' you never got on well. Mind your own business, now. This lad can look out for hisself. He's goin' to live with me. Come on, Darry, don't notice the loafer," concluded the life saver; and he and the boy passed on. Darry was destined to see a great deal more of Jim Dilks, as we shall presently learn.