"You'll do nothing of the kind," his father said rebukingly, while his mother smiled at the boy's impetuosity, "we won't go until after lunch, that is—if you can wait so long!"
"All right, but isn't it bully!" and, unable to contain himself, Eric launched into a panegyric of the Life-Saving Service, most of the history of which he knew by heart.
The lad's excitement increased tenfold when, that afternoon, they approached the little cottage of the old keeper. It was right on the seashore in an outlying suburb looking out over the peaceful stretch of Lake St. Clair.
"Mr. Icchia," said the old inspector, after greetings had been exchanged, "my boy here is going to join one of the lake stations and, to give him an idea of what the service can do, I want you to tell him the story of that night off Chocolay Island."
"It's a deal like beatin' a big drum," began the old keeper in a quavering voice, "to bid an ol' fellow like me tell of his own doin's!"
"But you're not doing it to show off," Mr. Swift said, "I wouldn't ask you to do that. It's because I know you think a good deal of the Service that I wanted my boy to meet you, and to hear a real story of life-saving told by one of the men who was in it."
"It wasn't so much at that—" the old man began. But the lighthouse inspector interrupted.
"Spin the yarn, Icchia," he said, "it's a poor trick to make a lot of excuses! Besides, it spoils the story."
Now the old keeper had a firm belief in his own value as a story-teller and it piqued his pride to have it thought that he was spoiling a good yarn, so without further preamble he began.
"I don' know what the world is comin' to," he said, after he had filled his pipe and lit it, "but there's no sech winters to-day as there was in my young days. I kin remember, when I wasn't no older'n that bub there, there was more snow in one winter 'n we have in five, now; an' Lake Huron was always friz up. Life-savin' was a lot harder in them days, ye'd better believe me, an' not only in the winter but all year round."