"Why does your father go away so early? Does he do that every day?" I asked, getting Ike Barry's catalog and opening it on the veranda table.
"Yes, about. You see, several years ago he had an accident. A shark charged him just as he was coming up, tired, to rest a moment. I saw the shark just in time, dived and ripped him open with my knife but he got Daddy's knee in his mouth, anyhow. It was so stiff he couldn't swim much and he wouldn't let me go down alone. So we added to the store and got more goods. Then Daddy persuaded all the sponge men to fish for sharks and porpoise, and shoot 'gators, the hides and skins being worth so much more now. Then, instead of selling them green, he started a place away up the country in the woods, where he tans and then sells the leather. Then he buys sponges and sells them, too. That's what keeps him so busy. I will show you some of the leather down in the warehouse when we're through. I'll go and get the list of goods Daddy and I made out last night."
I was puzzled indeed. This child was frankness itself. She, very likely, talked and thought in the same terms as her father, from long and constant companionship. There was no evidence of anything to conceal. I felt sure he was not smuggling or in contraband trade. As I walked about the veranda, waiting for her, I noticed for the first time what appeared to be a very old and battered wreck, barely visible, lying behind the coral reef that protected the little harbor.
"You have had a wreck here, I see?" I observed enquiringly, as she returned with the list.
"Oh, yes. That's been there longer than I can remember. We have some awful hurricanes at times coming in from the Gulf, and as they come up so quickly the spongers get caught once in a while," she replied, taking a chair opposite me at the table, ready to read her list. "That's why we need such fast boats—to race for shelter. My boat, the Titian, is very swift. I can even pass the Sprite, Daddy's big, new boat. You see, he gave me the Titian when he got the Sprite. The Sprite is much bigger, but I can beat it," she chatted, laughingly recalling the fun they had racing.
I started at the first page of Ike's catalog, and ended up at the last. The little thing gave me a long order, I was afraid too much, amounting to more than they would be able to pay. But I was mistaken. When through she asked me to tell her how much it was. It took me a long time to total it for it was new to me. I told her it was over four thousand dollars, watching for a big surprise.
Not so. She staggered me. She got pen and ink and made out the check Canby had signed and gave it to me, also shipping directions; when I looked at the check it was on one of the very large banks in downtown New York.
But my hardest work was to come. I wanted a peep in the warehouse, that interested Bulow and Company so much, and was afraid she would forget her promise to show me the sharkskin leather. But she didn't. She got a key from the store and as we walked down the wharf she talked of the North, and how she longed to go to school, every time coming back to the fact that she hated to leave Daddy.
Once in the warehouse, I discovered it was much larger than it appeared from outside. What I saw amazed me. Sharkskins, tanned as white as snow and soft as fine kid, were piled, with various sizes together, higher than my head; porpoise, as thick as elephant's hide, were stacked to the cross beams. Tanned alligator hides, arranged also in sizes, filled half the warehouse. There must have been tens of thousands of dollars' worth. Keenly delighted at her father's achievements, she told me about each kind and for what purpose they were used.
In one corner were a lot of tanned sharkskins individually rolled and bound securely with sisal cords. They seemed extra heavy as they laid there in a big pile. I passed my hand over them. Evidently they were wrapping something very heavy, ingots of lead or copper.