The widely scattered driftwood, along the miles of curving sandy shore, suggests many reflections to the imaginative mind. Trees that have been washed from their footholds on the margins of distant forests—logs, slabs, and wasted material of many kinds, incident to man’s destruction in the wilderness—broken and lost timbers from piers, bridges and wrecks—are among the spoils of winds and seas that are relentless.
Nature is as regardless as she is beneficent, and her storms and her sunshine do not discriminate.
Some lonely dweller on the coast may have builded too near the abodes of the water gods, and, in their anger they may have reached out long arms to his humble home, and flung the fruits of his toil among the mysteries of the deep. Some unfortunate bark may have lost its battle with the tempest, and given its sails and timbers to the waves.
When the vagrant breezes found them, they may have wandered for many months on the wide expanse. They may have floated in on the crests of the singing ground swells—touched strange shores and left them—drifted lazily in summer calms, and offered brief respites to tired wings far out on the undulating waters. They may have been buffeted by savage seas under angry skies, and battered among the ice fields by the winter gales.
Like frail and feeble souls, unable to master their course, the lost and worn timbers have been the sport of the varying winds and the playthings of chance. They have at last found refuge and quiet on the desolate sands. Living forces have thrown them aside and gone on.
Sometimes a name, a few letters on a plank, or a frayed piece of canvas, will offer a clue to its origin, and tell a belated story of misfortune somewhere out on the trackless deep.
Outside, on one of the boards used in the construction of the rude little hut, we deciphered the name “Pauline Mahaffy.” It had evidently come from the hull of some proud craft that had once ridden nobly through the white-caps, and dashed the foam and spray before her. Alas, to what a prosaic end had her destiny led her! Immured in a deep ravine, her last sad relic—her honored name—was a part of a disreputable shanty, and her last friend had left it to fade into oblivion.
Even unto his solitude had femininity, in a modified form, pursued poor Looney. Sipes, unpoetic and irreverent, found much joy in the name. He chuckled in his glee, and mingled his mockery with his quaint philosophy.
“Oh, Lord, if only that funny lookin’ female I told ye about, that was huntin’ the Doc, could see this! She’d spend a few seconds on the Doc, an’ the rest of ’er life trackin’ Pauline. She wouldn’t know nothin’ about names on ships, an’ she’d think the Mahaffy woman ’ad snared ’im an’ took ’im away, an’ ’e was that fond of ’er that ’e put ’er name on ’is shanty.
“Mebbe she landed on ’im ’ere, an’ ’e lit out up the ravine. Them that live in this world can make all the trouble fer themselves they want, an’ they don’t need the help o’ nobody else, an’ I’ll bet the Doc thought so too, an’ scooted. ‘Pauline Mahaffy!’ Gosh what a name! Wouldn’t that blow yer hat off? He ought to ’a’ hunted fer a board that ’ad ‘Idler’ or sumpen like that on it that wouldn’t never make no trouble. Most o’ the pleasure boats that gits wrecked is named ‘The Idler.’ They’r mostly run by lubbers, an’ ’e wouldn’t have no trouble findin’ one if ’e wanted a nice name to put on that old dog house. ‘Idler’ ’ud just mean that ’e wasn’t workin’, an’ you bet ’e ain’t, but ‘Pauline Mahaffy’ don’t sound good to me. I seen the old cuss less’n a week ago, an’ ’e must ’ave another coop som’eres else. This ravine ’ud be a good place to set some bear traps ’round in. There’s no knowin’ wot they might ketch.”