The captain resumed his seat with a half-baffled, weary air.
“Caleb,” he said,—there was a softness now in the tones of his voice that made the diver raise his head,—“you and me hev knowed each other off 'n’ on for nigh on to twenty years. We’ve had it thick and nasty, and we’ve had as clear weather as ever a man sailed in. You’ve tried to do square 'tween man and man, and so far’s I know, ye have, and I don’t believe ye’re goin’ to turn crooked now. From the time this child used to come down to the dock, when I fust come to work here, and talk to me 'tween school hours, and Aunty Bell would take her in to dinner, down to the time she got hoodooed by that smooth face and lyin’ tongue,—damn him! I’ll spile t’other side for him, some day, wus than the Screamer did,—from that time, I say, this ’ere little gal ain’t been nothin’ but a bird fillin’ everything full of singin’ from the time she got up till she went to bed agin. I ask ye now, man to man, if that ain’t so?”
Caleb nodded his head.
“During all that time there ain’t been a soul up and down this road, man, woman, nor child, that she wouldn’t help if she could,—and there’s a blame’ sight of ’em she did help, as you an’ I know: sick child’en, sittin’ up with ’em nights; an’ makin’ bonnets for folks as couldn’t git ’em no other way, without payin’ for 'em; and doin’ all she could to make this place happier for her bein’ in it. Since she’s been yer wife, there ain’t been a tidier nor nicer place along the shore road than yours, and there ain’t been a happier little woman nor home nowheres. Is that so, or not?”
Again Caleb nodded his head.
“While all this is a-goin’ on, here comes that little skunk, Bill Lacey, with a tongue like ’n ile-can, and every time she says she’s lonely or tired—and she’s had plenty of it, you bein’ away—he up’s with his can and squirts it into ’er ear about her bein’ tied to an old man, and how if she’d married him he wouldn’t ’a’ lef her a minute”—
Caleb looked up inquiringly, an ugly gleam in his eyes.
“Oh, I ketched him at it one day in my kitchen, and I tol’ him then I’d break his head, and I wish to God I had, now! Purty soon comes the time with the Screamer, and his face gets stove in. What does Betty do? Leave them men to git 'long best way they could,—like some o’ the folks round here that was just as well able to 'ford the time,—or did she stand by and ketch a line and make fast? I’ll tell ye what she done, ’cause I was there, and you warn’t. Fust one come ashore was Billy; he looked like he’d fallen off a topgall’nt mast and struck the deck with his face. Lonny Bowles come next; he warn’t so bad mashed up. What did Betty do? Pick out the easiest one? No, she jes’ anchored right 'longside that boy, and hung on, and never had ’er clo’es off for nigh on to forty-eight hours. If he’s walkin’ round now he owes it to her. Is that so, or not?”
“It’s true, cap’n,” said Caleb, his eyes fastened on the captain’s face. The lids were heavy now; only his will held back the tears.
“For three weeks this went on, she a-settin like a little rabbit with her paws up starin’ at him, her eyes gettin’ bigger all the time, an’ he lyin’, coiled up like a snake, lookin’ up into her face until he’d hoodooed her and got her clean off her centre. Now there’s one thing I’m a-goin’ to ask ye, an’ before I ask ye, an’ before ye answer it, I’m a-goin’ to ask ye another: when the Three Sisters come ashore on Deadman Shoal las’ winter in that sou’easter, ’cause the light warn’t lit, an’ all o’ them men was drownded, whose fault was it?”