“Ha! I guess not. And Crab’s as bad as he looks, which is saying a good deal. He comes of the ‘wreckers.’ Before there was a light here, or life saving stations along this coast, there was folks lived along here that made their livin’ out of poor sailors wrecked out there on the reefs. Some said they used to toll vessels onto the rocks with false lights. Anyhow, Crab’s father, and his gran’ther, was wreckers. He’s assistant lightkeeper; but he oughtn’t to be. I don’t see how Mother Purling can get along with him.”
“She isn’t afraid of him; is she?” queried Ruth.
“She isn’t afraid of anything,” said Heavy, quickly, from the rear seat. “You wait till you see her.”
The buckboard went heavily on toward the lighthouse; but the girls saw that the man stood for a long time–as long as they were in sight, at least–staring after them.
“What do you suppose he looked at Nita so hard for?” whispered Helen in Ruth’s ear. “I thought he was going to speak to her.”
But Ruth had not noticed this, nor did the runaway girl seem to have given the man any particular attention.
CHAPTER XIII
CRAB PROVES TO BE OF THE HARDSHELL VARIETY
They came to the lighthouse. There was only a tiny, whitewashed cottage at the foot of the tall shaft. It seemed a long way to the brass-trimmed and glistening lantern at the top. Ruth wondered how the gaunt old woman who came to the door to welcome them could ever climb those many, many stairs to the narrow gallery at the top of the shaft. She certainly could not suffer as Aunt Alvirah did with her back and bones.
Sokennet Light was just a steady, bright light, sending its gleam far seaward. There was no mechanism for turning, such as marks the revolving lights in so many lighthouses. The simplicity of everything about Sokennet Light was what probably led the department officials to allow Mother Purling to remain after her husband died in harness.