"Sammy!"
It only needed that to send the boy crawling, on his hands and knees, to start it up afresh, if he could—working, as his father had taught him to work.
The Moth spun around and around, in the trough of the waves.
Martha "knew what she knew," but her hands never left the wheel for an instant. What if the engine could not be made to go? What could she say to Mr. Frank if——? No, there was this comfort, if the worst came to the worst she would be the last to have a chance to say anything, to any of those waiting on the shore....
She heard the steady heart-beat start afresh.... The boy was back in his place. Martha, with new courage, strained her vision to pierce through the curtain of mist and rain, could see nothing, but clung to her wheel.
At length she realized she was steering toward something that she, alone of all the little group, could see—a faint adumbration, showing dark through the pall of enveloping gray.
But now the wind and the water were so high it was impossible to steer straight for the home-shore—she could only make it by slow degrees.
The storm had whipped her thick hair out of its customary coils. It blew about her face and shoulders in long, wet strands, buffeting her, blinding her. She never lifted a hand to save herself the stinging strokes.
Little by little the dark line widened, the way was made plain. Little by little Martha wheedled The Moth shoreward.
"I see somepn'," shouted Francie, at last. "I see our dock!" After an interval: "I see folks on our dock!" Later still: "I see father, 'n' Mr. Ronald, 'n' Ma, 'n'—oh! lots o' folks!"