But now, months afterward, another ship is on the ways. Indomitable, undaunted, the builders rose above disaster and set to work again. New tools were fashioned from steel and iron and wood,—saws, chisels, sledges, planes and hammers—in fact, everything except the baffling augurs. Resolute, unbeaten hands toiled anew, and this time the humble craft was not to be given a luckless name.
Superstition was rife. All save Andrew Mott saw ill-omen in the name “Doraine.” Steadfastly he maintained that as the Doraine had brought them safely to the island, guided by a divine Providence, a Doraine could be trusted to take them as miraculously away. And as for changing the name of his prattling ward, he fairly roared his objection; though an uncommonly mild man for a sailor, he uttered such blasphemous things to a group of well-meaning women that even Sheriff Soapy Shay was aghast.
After the dreary period that followed the disaster, there came a sharp awakening as from a dream filled with horrors. Something lying dormant in the com-mon breast had stirred. It was the unbeaten spirit that would not die. These men and women lifted up their heads and beheld the star of hope undimmed. In a flash, the aspect changed.
“We must start all over again,” was the cry that awoke them, and from that time on there was no such word as fail in the lexicon of Trigger Island.
Slowly, laboriously out of the ashes rose a new hull, a stauncher one than its ill-fated predecessor. The year wasted in the building of the first ship was lamented but not mourned. Cheerfulness, even optimism, prevailed throughout the village. No man, no woman lifted the voice of complaint. Resignation took the form of stoicism. A sort of dogged taciturnity was measurably relieved by the never-failing spirit of camaraderie. There was even a touch of bravado in the attitude of these people toward each other,—as of courage kept up by scoffing. Even Death, on his sombre visits, was regarded with a strange derision by those who continued to spin. They had cheated him not once but many times, and they mocked him in their souls.
“I'm not afraid of Death,” was Buck Chizler's contribution. “I've just discovered that Death is the rottenest coward in the world. He either waits till you get too blamed old to fight, or else he jumps on you when you ain't looking, or when you're so weak from sickness you don't care what happens. I used to be afraid of Death. And why? Because I wasn't onto the old bum; Why, look at what he does. He jumps onto weeny little babies and feeble old women and—and horses. Now, I'm onto him, and I ain't got any use for a cheap sport,—not me.”
The little community had taken to religion. As is invariably the case, adversity seeks surcease in some form of piety. Men who had not entered a church since the days of their childhood, men who had scoffed at the sentimentality of religion, now found consolation in the thing they had once despised. They were abashed and bewildered at first, as one after another they fell into the habit of attending services. They were surprised to find something that they needed, something that made life simpler and gentler for them, something uplifting.
“We're a queer mess of Puritans,” reflected Randolph Fitts. “You know that parrot of old Bob Carr's? Well, he took it out and wrung its neck last night,—after all the time, and trouble, and patience he spent in giving her a swell private education. There never was a bird that could swear so copiously as that bird of Bob's. He taught her every thing she knew. He worked day and night to provide her with an up-to-date vocabulary. He used to lie awake nights thinking up new words for old Polly to conquer. Now he says the blamed old rip was deceiving him all the time. She began springing expletives on him that he'd never heard of before in all his forty years before the mast. She first began using them a couple of months ago when he undertook to reform her. He started in to teach her to say 'good gracious' and 'goodness me' and 'hoity-toity' and all such stuff, and she cursed so loud and so long that he had to throw a bucket of water on her.
“Every time he came home from church, that redheaded harridan would open up on him with such a string of vituperation that he had to hold his ears so's not to forget himself and backslide. Well, it got so that Bob couldn't live with her any longer. She simply wouldn't puritanize. The nearest he ever got her to saying 'good' was when she said it with only one 'o,' and then as prefix to 'dammit.' So he decided the only way to reform her was to murder her. She managed to nip a piece out of his hand while he was doing it, however, and he's had the hump all day because he fell from grace and said something he'd oughtn't to. Yes, sir; we're a queer mess of Puritans. Look at us. Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Jews, infidels, Theosophists,—even Christian Scientists,—all rolled up into one big bundle labeled: 'Handle with Prayer.' We know nearly all the Ten Commandments by heart, and the Beatitudes flow from us in torrents. My wife was saying only the other night that if Sheriff Shay didn't arrest that bird for using profane language, she'd start a petition to have—Hello, Soapy! I didn't know you were present.”
“What was she going to do?” demanded the Sheriff of Trigger Island.