Cyn. (trying to control herself). No, no, you’re not! You are jest as kind as you can be! It’s your kindness that’s upset me. I’m awful nervous to-night and tired! I don’t want to go, Cap’n Berry. I ain’t lettin’ folks know it. I ain’t tellin’ Hepsy Sawyer and the rest of them but what I’m tickled to pieces over it.
Ber. Good idee! What Mis’ Sawyer don’t know won’t hurt her, but what she does know keeps pressing on her brain until she has to let it out or die from concussion. (Glances about the room.) You don’t feel that there is any way you can stay here?
Cyn. No, there isn’t. I have thought of everything, but there is no way. (Ber. walks to the fireplace and stands warming his hands and looking thoughtfully into the fire.) I love my little home, Cap’n Berry. I was born here in this house. Mother died here and father and me lived a long time here together. After father was too old to go fishing he still had his pension, and with what I could get to do we managed to pull along, and after he died I managed to get along by myself though it wasn’t quite so easy. Father called this the Anchorage, and I never supposed I would have to leave it. I’ve worked hard to stay, and it doesn’t seem right for me to have to go.
Ber. You really mean that you don’t think it is right for you to have to go?
Cyn. That’s the way it seems. Father left the home to me and intended I should live here, and it doesn’t seem right to have to leave.
Ber. Then I shouldn’t leave. I should stay right here.
Cyn. (astonished). Good land, Cap’n, what do you mean?
Ber. Jest what I say! ’Tisn’t a good idee to do a thing you think it ain’t right to do.
Cyn. But land sakes, Cap’n, how could I stay here? I can’t live on empty air, can I?
Ber. Well, no, not exactly that. I’ll tell you, though I don’t know as I’ll be very good at finding the right words to tell you jest what I mean. You say you think it is right for you to stay here. Now if you really think and believe that, why—stay! You say this is your home and a way has always been provided for you to live here. Miss Cynthy, you have faith in something. All of us have! We all have a Beacon light we’re steering our course by. Well, jest as long as it’s been fair weather an’ you had your Beacon plain in sight you sailed along all serene, but jest the minute the fog shut in you lost your grip on the steering gear. Miss Cynthy, I reckon the Keeper of the Beacon expects you to believe that He is there and the Beacon is shining jest as bright as ever, and when the fog lifts the rays will be all the brighter to guide you in the right course.