The draw, to accommodate the channel of the river, has been placed near the southern end, while at either end of it on the main bridge are gates that swing to for the protection of teams when the draw itself is open. The house also stretches its length along the main bridge toward its southern end.
From the day when the ice goes out of the river to the day when it locks it in again it is David Starr's home, and David is Larry Starr's brother. David's wife has been dead these many years; all his children are married and settled; and David, not wishing, as he says, “to be beholden to ony of 'em,” minds the South Shrewsbury draw. For nine months or thereabouts he stays on the bridge, and then, while the river is ice-bound, retreats to a little house on the main-land, living quite by himself all the while.
And this is the place to which Larry has come with Courage and Sylvia, and lonely old David is glad enough to see them, particularly as Larry proposes to pay a snug little sum weekly, by way of board.
What they will do when cold weather sets in Larry has not yet decided; he fully expects, however, to send Courage to school somewhere in the city, if it take half his savings to do it; but for Larry himself, alas! the darkness is settling down more and more surely. Meantime, Courage and Sylvia do all in their power to cheer him, and everybody, Larry included, tries hard not to think of the on-coming blindness. As for Larry's cabin-boy, Dick, he could not, unfortunately, be included in this new plan, but Courage, at Larry's dictation, wrote him a most promising sort of a reference, and one which succeeded in obtaining him just as promising a situation. And there was one other important matter attended to before they all took final leave of Dick and the dear old lighter. Larry painted out her name from the bow with the blackest of black paint. He would sell his boat if he must, but the Courage Masterson, never!
But while I have been telling you all this, Courage and Sylvia, their crabbing concluded, have tied their boat to the shore, and with a well-filled basket swinging between them, are coming down the bridge. Over against the house Larry sits in the sunshine, smoking his pipe, that is now more of a comfort than ever, and with Bruce at his feet. He hears the children and knows their tread almost the instant they set foot on the roadway, his good old ears seeming kindly bent on doing double service.
“Any luck?” he calls out, as soon as he reckons them within speaking distance.
“Yes, twelve big ones,” answers Sylvia; “but Lor'! Ise don' know nuffin 'bout how to cook things what's alive to start with.”
“David'll tell you how to manage,” laughs Larry, and just then a carriage, crossing over the bridge, comes close upon them. Courage instinctively glances over her shoulder, and straightway dropping her end of the basket, cries out, with what little remaining breath surprise has left her, “Why, Miss Julia!”
“Why, Courage, dear, where did you come from?” and instantly the phaeton is brought to a standstill, and Courage bounds into it, and then there is the report of a kiss loud enough to have started any save the most discriminating of ponies on the wildest of gallops.