Lemaire was at breakfast, when, with eyes starting from their sockets, Peter entered the dining-hall (followed by Juan, old Phil, and all the house servants), exclaiming, "O, massa, de buckra calker no dere; he gwine away."
"Gone!" cried Lemaire, leaping from his chair.
"Yes, massa. I go wid de breakfast, de door open, buckra man no dere."
The negroes gave Peterson the name of buckra calker to distinguish him, and on account of his superiority, although there was not a blacker negro on the estate.
Without another word Lemaire ran to a cupola on the house-top, which commanded a view of the sea. The schooner was nowhere to be seen; not a sail was visible in the offing.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
DELIVERED.
Notwithstanding the Perseverance might bring a cargo that must be discharged in Boston or Salem, it was considered a settled fact by all at home, that she would, when arriving on the coast, steer first for Pleasant Cove, and Captain Rhines was expecting her daily. The interest felt there in respect to her coming was not a little increased by the return of Ben (Peterson's oldest son) in the Casco.
Ben brought home considerable money, having been fortunate in a "venture." The first thing he did was to clothe his mother and the three youngest boys, one eleven, one thirteen, and the oldest fifteen; the next, to clapboard the house which, Peterson having lately built it, was still unfinished. While Ben's hands were busy driving the nails, his thoughts were on the stretch respecting the best place from which to watch for the arrival of the Perseverance. He well knew there was no place to compare, in that respect, with the big maple on the heights of Elm Island. To Elm Island he hurried (when he had driven the last nail), and repaired the platform in the top of the tree and the ladder leading to it, both having become somewhat decayed since the boy-days of John Rhines and Charlie Bell. He erected a signal staff on the point of the island, from which to display a white cloth to give notice to the people on the main land when the vessel hove in sight. For the first few days he flattered himself that every vessel sighted was the one so anxiously sought; but there were many fore-and-afters, at that season of the year, making their way to the Bay of Chaleur, Labrador, the Penobscot, or bound from the eastern ports and Nova Scotia, to the westward. At last the poor boy, becoming quite discouraged, said to Lion Ben at the supper table,—
"I believe I shall go home. If I was there I might be earning something. I am spending time to no purpose, and shall wear out my welcome."