"You can always trust me to find a good home for Nellie, Uncle Rube," I answered. "I've forty like her now, and one more won't sink the ship. But you know that better than I can tell you." And suddenly it flashed over me that Uncle Rube's unexpected visit to our Children's Home must had have some relation to the curly head on his shoulder. The tear fell on his tanned cheek, and he looked away and coughed. But he said nothing.
"What was the old island that Nellie was talking about?" I broke in to relieve the situation. "It sounded as if you had been playing Robinson Crusoe some time," I added, "and have spun her yarns that you won't tell me." For the hope that here might be something which would fill in the time during which it was plain that Jack Frost intended to keep me prisoner in this bookless cabin, suddenly dawned upon me.
"Island?" he smiled, after a brief pause. "Island? Oh! that was forty years ago, when us lost t' old Manxman on t' Red Island Shoals." And the wanderlust of Uncle Rube's British blood, stirred by this leap back over the passing years, made him once more a bouncing, devil-may-care sailor lad. The sign of tears had vanished from his cheeks as he rose, and, gently laying the little figure in her old corner on the settle, leisurely lit his pipe. Like that of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Feather-top it seemed to send renewed youth through his veins with every puff he drew. Knowing that he was trying to think, and fearing to distract his mind, I again kept a discreet silence. At last, just as if he saw the scene again, his eyes closed and his splendid shock of long white hair was once more thrown back into its accustomed place in the rocking-chair.
"It wasn't a fair deal, Doctor. Not a fair deal. We was sailors in those days, just as much as them is in they old tin kettles that rattles up and down t' Straits now, for all they big size and they gold braid. T' Manxman wouldn't have come by her end as she did if stout arms and good seamen could 'a' saved her. Murdered she was, Doctor, murdered by this same Jack Frost what's trying to blow us out o' house and home right now. But don't you have no uneasiness, Doctor, I've got him beat this time, and she'll not drag. No, sir, not till I do"—and a fierce spirit gleamed out through his eyes.
We had often wondered why Uncle Rube, the genial, gentle, hospitable old man that the coast knew him to be, had come to put down his anchors in this wild and almost desolate gorge. Here was a possible explanation. The loss of his only lad must have been from this very Manxman, and by some strange twist of mentality the father had determined to plant himself just as near the scene and circumstance as human strength permitted, end there, single-handed if need be, fight out the battle of life, with the daily sense of flaunting the enemy that had robbed him of his joy in life—his one and only child. For with Chestertonian paradox this lonely man's passion was children.
"No. No, he can't move her, Doctor," he repeated, as if he were reading my thoughts, as I truly believe that he was. For our minds in the North are not crusted like tender feet with horny coverings from the chafe of boots, or as are minds beset with telephones, special deliveries, and editions of the yellow press.
"No, Uncle Rube, you don't think I'd sit here if I wasn't certain of it. You've got him beaten to a frazzle this time."
I was right then, for Uncle Rube "slacked away" as he put it, and took up the thread of his story again without further comment, but not before apologizing for any undue familiarity into which the excitement, of which he was well aware, might have betrayed him.
"Us found t' seals early that year, and panned a voyage of as fine young fat as ever a 'swiler' wished for, but t' weather was dirty from t' day us struck t' patch, as if Jack Frost was determined us shouldn't have 'em. Anyhow, afore we could pick up more'n half what us'd killed, a dozen o' our lads got adrift on t' floe, and though they got aboard another vessel, us thought 'em was lost. While us sailed about looking for 'em, us lost most o' t' pans. So round t' beginning of April t' skipper, in company with a score of other schooners, put her for the Norrard, in hopes of cutting off some of t' old seals in t' swatches. T' slob being very heavy outside, us lay for inside Belle Isle, and carried open water most across t' Straits. Well, sir, t' wind veered round all of a sudden, just as us was abeam of t' Devil's Table, and t' Gulf ice came out of t' Straits fair roaring"—and Uncle Rube took another contemplative puff at his pipe.
"It would have been all right if only t' big field had gone off t' same time before t' wind. But somehow there were a big block held up by t' Islands, and t' western ice just came and hit it clip! It must have been all up with us right there but for t' northeast current, and that took our vessel like a nutshell and whisked her away in t' heavy slob as if to carry her along the Labrador coast. But it proved us was not far enough off t' land, for just about midday t' Red Islands come up like dark specks out o' t' ice—right ahead t' way we was being driven. T' other schooners was caught in t' jam too and drifting with us, little black dots scattered over t' surface of t' ice field like t' currants in slices of sweet white loaf.