SUNRISE
Tuesday, October fifteenth.
Yesterday we left the island. The day was calm though cloudy, and at times it rained. Olson towed us to Caine’s Head. From there we made good time Rockwell rowing like a seasoned oarsman, as indeed he has now a right to be called. We stopped at the camp where we had in August left our broken-down engine, and brought that away with us, as well as some turnips and half a dozen heads of beautiful lettuce grown on that spot.
By night it was raining hard and blowing from the southeast. We spent the evening at the postmaster’s house, playing, I, on the flute to Miss Postmaster’s accompaniment. It went splendidly and until midnight we played Beethoven, Bach, Hayden, Gluck, Tchaikowsky, till it seemed like old times at home. Then Rockwell with his eyes shut in sleep, consumed a piece of apricot pie and a glass of milk, and we came home bringing along two glasses of wild currant preserve. I read my letters over and then went to bed. But the storm raged by that time and I couldn’t sleep for worry about my boat. At last I rose and dressed and went down to the shore. The dory was safely stranded but too low down. So with great toil I worked her higher up the beach beyond high water.
To-day it has rained incessantly. I have bought a few odd supplies and registered for the draft.
Above all to-day the engine has resumed its running and we’ll return to Fox Island under power. I know nothing about an engine but I have eight miles to learn in before the only hazardous part of the voyage begins. To-night Rockwell and I spent the evening at the house of a young man whom we’ve found congenial and who above all is a friend of a young German mechanic for whom I’ve a liking. So the four of us sang the evening through, seated before a great open fire. The house is of logs and stands out of the town on the border of the wilderness. There are spots like this little house and its hospitable hearth that show even the commercial desert of Seward to have its oases. And now we’re in our room. Rockwell is asleep in bed. It is past midnight. I am thinking of dear friends at home, and I bid them affectionately good-night.
Thursday, October seventeenth.
Yesterday in Seward was about as every other day. We spent it between letter-writing in our hotel room and visiting from store to store. It poured rain and blew from the southeast. We spent our evening with the German. We have planned with him to signal back and forth from Seward, particularly to send me the news of peace. If I can distinguish, with glasses a high-powered electric light that he will show from a house on the highest point in the town, then, by means of the Morse code with which I am furnished and which he knows, I’ll receive messages on appointed days.
To-night Rockwell and I went a quarter of a mile down our beach to a point that commands a view up the bay to Seward and lighted a bonfire there. Boehm, the German, was regarding us, we presume, through a telescope. On Sunday night, if it is clear, we are to look for his light. The difficulty will be to distinguish it from others.
We left Seward this morning at 9.45, our dory laden with about one thousand pounds of freight—including ourselves. The little three and one half horse-power motor worked splendidly and carried us to the island in a little over two and a quarter hours. The day was calm, to begin with, with a rising north wind as we crossed from Caine’s Head. On the island we found a visitor. There had been two other men but they were gone to Seward the night before. All had been on Monday forced by the rough sea to turn back from attempting to go around the westward cape. The old fellow who is still here told me to-night that in the twenty years that he had been in Alaska he had never seen such weather. That’s good news. At Seward the mountains are covered with snow to within a few hundred feet of the town’s level. I’m tired. This ends to-day. Incidentally my dates proved to be correct when I reached Seward.