Wednesday, February twenty-sixth.
Yesterday we came home! We left Seward with only a light load aboard. It blew briskly in the bay from the north. Before we reached Caine’s Head there was a splendid, white-crested chop racing along with us. Midway across it was about all the engine could have stood. The propeller is not set at enough depth in our boat and in yesterday’s sea it was most of the time out of water, racing at a furious pace. Then the boat would naturally lose steerage way and we’d swing far out of our course. But it was great sport. Into it we could have made no headway; before it nothing could stop us. And the engine kept right on going!—only as usual it was continually falling apart. On Friday the flywheel came loose six times, the muffler four, and the valve spring fell off and stayed off. Coming back all went well till we were in the roughest sea; then the muffler came loose. Not wanting to stop the engine in that sea I spent half the time on my knees holding the tiller in one hand and the muffler nut with a pair of pliers in the other. Rockwell bailed most of the time. The boat leaks like a sieve.
IMMANENCE
And how fine to get home again! Only an hour and we were again seated at dinner in our warm cabin. Rockwell said it was hard for him to remember whether Mr. Olson or we had just been to Seward. I brought Olson a battery box and batteries as a present. He was much pleased. But particularly his mail pleased him. I saw him soon after our arrival seated with his spectacles on studying his letters. He rarely gets any. This time came a post-card and letter from Rockwell’s mother.
The day passed and evening came. Then appeared entering our cove a cabined gasoline boat. Two young fellows came ashore and we all chatted in Olson’s cabin. One had his wife aboard. They claimed to be hunting a stray boat,—but Olson whispered to me later, dramatically, that they were doubtless out dragging somewhere for a cache of whiskey. Lots of whiskey has been sunk in the bay. Marks were taken at the time to determine its location and now the owners as need arises fish up what they want. It’s just like the buried treasure of the days of piracy. Doubtless there are now many charts extant with the position of liquid treasure marked upon them.
To-day has been again overcast but beautifully mild. It is really a wonderful climate. Rockwell makes the most of these last days. He went this morning to the ridge’s top east of us, and this afternoon high up on the mountain side. He now wants to stay here and become a wild man. There is no question in my mind about his entire willingness, his desire, to be left here when I go.
CHAPTER XI
TWILIGHT
The first of March! If only the dull weather would clear up I could get more done these last days here. Fifteen brand-new canvases hang from my ridge pole waiting for pictures to adorn them. To-day is the only day that work out-of-doors has been quite out of the question. It snows hard. Last Thursday morning Rockwell and I began to take our morning baths in the bay—the snow having become too hard. And now at just seven-fifteen—on cloudy mornings, clothed in sneakers we scamper down the shore and plunge into the waves. Brrrrrrrr! it’s cold, but mighty good. Olson, after predicting for some time a dire end to our morning performances, has at last evinced enough curiosity to drag himself out of bed and come over to see. But he has not yet been early enough to catch us.
The days are lengthening rapidly. It is now after six o’clock in the evening and our lamp’s not lighted!
Last time in Seward Olson bought a lot of odds and ends of molding for picture frames. And now, with my help, all the little things that we have given him are gorgeously framed. On the little picture of himself that I painted he has what he calls a “comoflag” frame; it’s made of different moldings on the four sides. Well, Olson is mighty proud of his pictures. He’s really very fond of us. People in Seward say he talks of us continually. And there it is thought quite remarkable how I have managed with the “crazy” old man. I guess the craziness explains it. I picture with horror having as a constant companion here one of the fine, stalwart, shrewd, honest, wholesome-to-sterility Americans that our country likes to be so proud of.
I told Olson of Kathleen’s amusement over the brusque ending of his letter, “Answer this if you feel like it—and if you don’t it’s all the same to me.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s the way it is here in Alaska; if anyone don’t like the way a man does he can go to Hell!”
I’ve heard an amusing story about Olson and his goats at a little Seward exposition at which they were shown. They put his two goats into narrow packing boxes that their dirt might not fall onto the floor of the building. Olson arrived and seeing the plight of his pets flew into a rage. He lifted them out, hurled the packing boxes out of the door into the street, and denounced the fair-committee for their abuse of animals. And although the whole place tumbled about the old man’s ears, he won, and saw his goats given an honorable amount of freedom in a special enclosure—curtained off, “admission to see the goats ten cents,”—which notice Olson promptly disregarded, letting everyone in—and a big crowd at that—free.