The application of the simile not being immediately apparent,—few of Nickles’ similes ever were,—nobody answered. Lacey stole a look at Nickles and then at Caleb, to see if the shot had been meant for him, and meeting the diver’s unconscious clear blue eyes, looked seaward again.
Lonny Bowles, a big derrickman from Noank quarries, in a red shirt, discolored on the back with a pink Y where his suspenders had crossed, now moved nearer and joined in the discussion.
“She kin h’ist any two on ’em, an’ never wet ’er deck combin’s. I seen these Cape Ann sloops afore, when we wuz buildin’ Stonin’ton breakwater. Ye wouldn’t believe they had it in ’em till ye see ’em work. Her b’iler’s all right.”
“Don’t you like the sloop, Caleb?” said Sanford, who had been listening. “Don’t you think she’ll do her work?” he continued, moving a rebellious leg of the rubber dress to sit the closer.
“Well, of course, sir, I ain’t knowed ’er long ’nough to swear by yit. She’s fittin’ for loadin’ ’em on land, maybe, but she may have some trouble gittin’ rid of ’em at the Ledge. Her b’iler looks kind o’ weak to me,” and the master diver bent over the pan, stirring the boiling cement with his sheath-knife, the rubber suit sprawled out over his knees, the awkward, stiff, empty legs and arms of the dress flopping about as he patched its many leaks. Then he added with a quaint smile, “But if Cap’n Joe says she’s all right, ye can pin to her.”
Sanford moved a little closer to Caleb, holding the pan of cement for him, and watching him at work. He had known him for years as a fearless diver of marvelous pluck and endurance; one capable of working seven consecutive hours under water. When an English bark had run on top of Big Spindle Reef and backed off into one hundred and ten feet of water, the captain and six of the crew were saved, but the captain’s wife, helpless in the cabin, had been drowned. Caleb had gone below, cleared away the broken deck that pinned her down, and had brought her body up in his arms. His helmet was spattered inside with the blood that trickled from his ears, owing to the enormous pressure of the sea. This had been not a twelvemonth since.
The constant facing of dangers had made of the diver a quiet, reticent man. There was, too, a gentleness and restful patience about him that always appealed to Sanford, and next to Captain Joe he was the one man on the working force whom he trusted most. Of late his pale blue eyes had shone with a softer light, as if he were perpetually hugging some happiness to himself. Those who knew him best said that all this happy gentleness had come with the girl wife. Since he had entered Sanford’s employment he had married a second and a younger wife,—a mere child, the men said, young enough to be his daughter, too young for a man of forty-five.
And yet Caleb was not an old man, if the possession of vigor and energy meant anything. His cheeks had the rosy hue of perfect health, and his step was lighter and more agile than that of many men half his years. Only his beard was gray. Yet he was called by his shipmates old, for in the hard working world in which he lived none but the earlier years of a man’s life counted as youth.
His cabin, a small, two-story affair, bought with the money he had saved during his fifteen years on the Lightship and after his first wife’s death, lay a short distance up the shore above that of Captain Joe, and in plain sight of the Screamer.
When Caleb rose to wash his hands, he caught sight of a blue apron tossing on its distant porch. Bill Lacey saw the apron too, and had answered it a moment later with a little wave of his own. Caleb did not notice Billy’s signal, but Captain Joe did, and a peculiar look filled his eye that the men did not often see. In his confusion Lacey flushed scarlet, and upset the pan of cement.