The Tides of Barnegat

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

"No, Cobden,"—that was another peculiarity of the captain's,—every man went by his last name, and he had begun with Archie to show the men he meant it. "No, that little posy is mine for to-day. Come along, you rosebud; I'm goin' to show you the biggest boat you ever saw, and a gun on wheels; and I've got a lot o' shells the men has been pickin' up for ye. Oh, but you're goin' to have a beautiful time, lassie!"

The child looked up in the captain's face, and her wee hand tightened around his rough stubs of fingers. Archie then turned to Jane and with Tod's help the three made a tour of the house, the doctor following, inspecting the captain's own room with its desk and papers, the kitchen with all its appointments, the outhouse for wood and coal, the staircase leading to the sleeping-rooms above, and at the very top the small ladder leading to the cupola on the roof, where the lookout kept watch on clear days for incoming steamers. On their return Mulligan spread a white oil-cloth on the pine table and put out a china plate filled with some cake that he had baked the night before, and which Green supplemented by a pitcher of water from the cistern.

Each one did something to please her. Archie handed her the biggest piece of cake on the dish, and Uncle Isaac left the room in a hurry and stumbling upstairs went through his locker and hauled out the head of a wooden doll which he had picked up on the beach in one of his day patrols and which he had been keeping for one of his grand-children—all blighted with the sun and scarred with salt water, but still showing a full set of features, much to Ellen's delight; and Sam Green told her of his own little girl, just her age, who lived up in the village and whom he saw every two weeks, and whose hair was just the color of hers. Meanwhile the doctor chatted with the men, and Jane, with her arm locked in Archie's, so proud and so tender over him, inspected each appointment and comfort of the house with ever-increasing wonder.

And so, with the visit over, the gig was loaded up, and with Ellen waving her hand to the men and kissing her finger-tips in true French style to the captain and Archie, and the crew responding in a hearty cheer, the party drove, past the old House of Refuge, and so on back to Warehold and Yardley.

One August afternoon, some days after this visit, Tod stood in the door of the Station looking out to sea. The glass had been falling all day and a dog-day haze had settled down over the horizon. This, as the afternoon advanced, had become so thick that the captain had ordered out the patrols, and Archie and Green were already tramping the beach—Green to the inlet and Archie to meet the surfmen of the station below. Park, who was cook this week, had gone to the village for supplies, and so the captain and Tod were alone in the house, the others, with the exception of Morgan, who was at his home in the village with a sprained ankle, being at work some distance away on a crosshead over which the life-line was always fired in gun practice.

Suddenly Tod, who was leaning against the jamb of the door speculating over what kind of weather the night would bring, and wondering whether the worst of it would fall in his watch, jerked his neck out of his woollen shirt and strained his eyes in the direction of the beach until they rested upon the figure of a man slowly making his way over the dunes. As he passed the old House of Refuge, some hundreds of yards below, he stopped for a moment as if undecided on his course, looked ahead again at the larger house of the Station, and then, as if reassured, came stumbling on, his gait showing his want of experience in avoiding the holes and tufts of grass cresting the dunes. His movements were so awkward and his walk so unusual in that neighborhood that Tod stepped out on the low porch of the Station to get a better view of him.

From the man's dress, and from his manner of looking about him, as if feeling his way, Tod concluded that he was a stranger and had tramped the beach for the first time. At the sight of the surfman the man left the dune, struck the boat path, and walked straight toward the porch.

"Kind o' foggy, ain't it?"

"Yes," replied Tod, scrutinizing the man's face and figure, particularly his clothes, which were queerly cut and with a foreign air about them. He saw, too, that he was strong and well built, and not over thirty years of age.

"You work here?" continued the stranger, mounting the steps and coming closer, his eyes taking in Tod, the porch, and the view of the sitting-room through the open window.