I started after him.
“Isn’t there any light up there?” asked Ruth cravenly, from the bottom rung.
For answer he swung open a pair of double doors, and the glory of the afternoon sunshine streamed in upon us. Gold and bronze the water fell in the long lines of the incoming tide. Deep blue shadows pooled the mirrored surface beneath the boats that were anchored along the shore. The radiance of the bay filled the dark corners of the sail-loft like a blessing.
Caleb Snow bent over an old safe under the eaves and presently lifted out a manuscript in a long envelope.
“I don’t show this to many folks,” he said; “it wouldn’t do.”
“Will you read it to us?”
“Oh, no.” He thrust it into my hands so quickly that I wondered if he were afraid of it, or if it was that he simply could not read.
Ruth and I sat down on the lid of an old sea-chest and carefully examined the document. First there were the usual unintelligible legal clauses, and then the sum of the whole text—that the New Captain bequeathed the proceeds of his entire estate to found a home for stray animals, especially cats.
“Why cats?” I turned to Caleb.
“Well, she allus had ’em,” he explained, “Mattie ‘Charles T. Smith.’ She used to take ’em in when the summer people went away and left ’em on the beach. Wild like, they get, and dangerous. She had him taught to notice ’em. That’s why.”