CHAPTER XIV
THE END OF THE PICNIC
Pearson sat on the pier, swinging his feet. His feelings would have been hard to describe, they were so very mixed up. One moment he was swearing softly at the launch that was dipping gracefully up and down before him, then he grinned and whistled, also softly, a few bars of a rollicking tune.
He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the group up there by that tumbled pile of red and yellow and green. He could hear their voices, but he could not hear what they were saying. By and by, when they had had a little more time, perhaps he would go up there, though what in thunder he would say was more than he knew. Anyway, they were alive. That was something to tell Rose. Rose! How her face had looked when she bade him good-bye. She had known that he had been tough,—thank goodness he had not lied to her!—but he had not gone into details, and when he had had to tell her about that affair at the Port,—well, it was a darned sight worse than anything else he had had to do. And when she kissed him good-bye, she had whispered that she would pray for him. Pray! Pearson laughed a little and kicked at the rocks. Wa’n’t that just like a woman? Pray! What good was it going to do to pray now about a thing that happened seven years ago? But she would pray all right, and like as not she would always feel that her prayers had had something to do with their finding the lost ones alive and safe. Suppose they had died! What good would praying have done then? he wondered.
But Rose would pray just the same, and when he got back to her,—he might have to ride a brake-beam to do it,—she would turn in and work her fingers to the bone to help him get another nest-egg rolled up, and never a word of blame would she say. No; she would spend all her spare breath thanking God that her prayers had been answered.
What a queer thing life was, anyway! Here, seven years ago Cunningham had served him, Pearson, low-down mean, and he had retaliated. The affair was between him and Cunningham, wasn’t it? It would seem so; but look you, seven years afterwards the blow he dealt recoils on—whom? Himself? No, not by a jugful! On Rose; on Rose and his youngsters, the very people of the whole wide world that he loved and wanted most desperately to protect. If it had only been him, he wouldn’t say a word, but—darn it all!
Well, there they were coming down. He rose and turned. It was an awkward situation. Really, it would have been easier to stand up to be shot.
It was Marian and Delbert. Pearson drew a long breath, and, throwing back his shoulders, went to meet them.
Marian was first. She held out her hand, all brown and calloused, and her eyes shone at him from under wet lashes.
“Mr. Pearson,” she said, “papa has explained it all to us, and—well, I guess I am too happy to lay up anything against you to-day.”
Pearson took her hand. He choked a little, but found nothing to say. Then Delbert, the little, slender, nervous, eager lad, stood there, tall as his sister, straight and strong, and his clear eyes were steady and stern.
“Marion is of a pretty forgiving disposition,” and his voice was cold and held scorn. “I think myself—”
But Pearson reached out and gripped the hand the boy had not offered him, and found his voice.
“Young man,” he said, “I am so all-fired glad to see you that I don’t care a red cent what you think!”
Marian laid a gentle hand on her brother’s arm.
“O Delbert,” she said softly, “not to-day, dear, not with papa here to take us all back safe to mamma. Besides,—it isn’t a parallel case, I know,—but suppose Davie had died that day he fell!”
Delbert looked from her face, tremulous with joy, back to Pearson’s, and, remembering that terrible day that he had been in some small measure to blame for, he suddenly understood, understood something of what the man in front of him probably had been suffering.
His face softened, and he returned the pressure of the other’s hand.
“All right!” he said boyishly. “I guess what Marian says goes. You will have to fight it out with Mr. Cunningham about the launch, but come on up to dinner now. Say,” he continued with a wistful eye on the pile of things from the launch, “you got anything to eat in those?—any bread or crackers?”
Up at the wickiup Mr. Hadley sat on a chunk of driftwood and looked over the treasures Esther and Davie showed to him, while Marian and Jennie prepared dinner.
There was a great deal to show. There were the rabbit-skin books and the paper-tree-bark ones and the shell and bone and wooden toys. There were the ropes and baskets.
Davie could not remember his father, but he curled down at his feet and, with an angelic expression on his face, smiled up into his eyes in the sunniest way possible. And every two minutes he would remember some other treasure and, hopping up, would go to fetch it. His father, watching his little limping gait, smiled at Marian, who shook her head sadly. “Too bad, daughter, but I think mamma will be willing to accept him, even if he is a little damaged.”
“We’ll throw off a little on his price,” said Jennie.
Pearson had brought up the lunch from the launch, and the Hawks fell upon it with the greatest enthusiasm. After dinner they began to pack up those things they wished to take with them.
And, of course, before they left the Island they had to show the old canoe that would not need to be finished now, and the tar retort, and High-Tide Pool, and the watermelon-patch, and everything else.
“I’ll bet,” said Delbert, “that this place will be more popular for picnics from the Port than the Rosalies for a while.”
So Marian left her dishes, the kettle and little dishpan, the knives and forks, and even the glass jar on the table. They put everything in neat order and tied the window down, and put the storm doors in place and fastened them, for though they did not expect ever to see the place again, they could not bear to think of the dear little wickiup standing untidy and open to the elements.
They took a last survey from the top of the hill and then went down the path, the smugglers’ old path, to the pier.
They turned out the little burros, but when they called Jackie, he was nowhere to be found. He had wandered off somewhere with the other burros, as he had done sometimes of late. The children, Davie especially, felt badly to go without saying good-bye to Jackie, but Marian explained that he would probably forget them in a little while and would be perfectly happy with the other burros, and perhaps would be happier than if they had stayed and made him carry loads for them once in a while. So Davie smoothed out his face, and curled down at his father’s feet again, quite contented. Nothing ever upset Davie for any great length of time.
So the launch puffed out of the harbor and round the point, and then Smugglers’ was left behind them, and they were crossing the bay past the salt reefs, and now were out of sight of the egg islands, and soon were encountering the big waves that had guarded their prison so long. Jennie laughed, remembering how seasick she had been when they came in. Then San Moros itself passed from their sight, and the life there glided into a closed past.
Already Marian was planning a new and different future.
“Father,” she said, “you say you had to mortgage the home to get the money to come for us. A mortgage is always a hard thing to lift, isn’t it?”
“Apt to be, daughter,” replied Mr. Hadley, “but after seeing what you children did with your bare hands back on that Island, I am not worrying about a little thing like a mortgage. If you don’t like the place, we’ll get your uncle to let us in some way on some of that wild land of his up in the mountains, and you can carve out and build up a place to suit yourselves.”
The steamer at the Port had unloaded her passengers,—those that were to get off there,—and had since been busy taking in a nice little pile of cargo. Her captain wished to go out that night, and they were about ready to start. There were a good many down on the pier, coming and going, and the place was lighted by a few lanterns, leaving great spaces of shadow in between their circles of light.
Mr. Cunningham’s new launch was just in with a picnic party from the Rosalies. They were unloading shawls and baskets and pails of clams.
“I say, Cunningham,” called out one of this party, “is that Beekman’s crowd we passed out there?”
“No,” was the answer; “Beekman will not be in for two days. I had a wire to-day.”
“Well, who in thunder was it, then? We passed a launch out there. If it wasn’t Beekman, who was it?”
“Perhaps it was the two men the captain dropped in the Gulf this morning. He said they would be in in a few days. Perhaps they changed their minds.”
“Not much. This batch had women and children. They were laughing and singing,—mighty fine voices, too. We supposed it was those new cousins of Mrs. Beekman’s from New York.”
“No, not they yet, but there comes a launch now. By Jove, there are women in it too.”
Out of the darkness of the night and the water a launch came swiftly into the broad light of the stream. A moment they showed clear as in daylight to the crowd on the pier, but that was not long enough for any one to recognize those upturned faces before they glided into a shadowy place not far from the other launch.
People watched the new arrival curiously as it discharged its passengers, but they did not come out of the shadow.
Then one man detached himself from the group and advanced into the light in front of Cunningham.
“Well, Cunningham,” he said in a clear voice, “there’s your launch.”
Cunningham stared at him.
“There’s your launch, I say,” repeated the other, thrusting his face forward a little. Still no answer from the bewildered Cunningham, who could not imagine what he was talking about.
The newcomer straightened up and placed his arms akimbo.
“I say,” he repeated again, “that I have brought back your launch. Launch, man, launch! There—is—your—launch!”
From the group in the shadow came a little rippling laugh.
Cunningham started. It was nearly seven long years, but he had not forgotten Marian Hadley’s laugh. He snatched at a lantern, but before he could detach it from its hook, a young fellow beside him, a great stalwart fellow, yelled and began to swing his hat.
“The Hadleys!” he shouted, “the Hadleys!” and threw the hat into the air, but before it could fall he was rushing over, calling Delbert.
Marian, laughing, grasped his arm.
“For Heaven’s sake, Bobbie,” she said, “take us girls up to your mother before they get here with those lanterns.”
Late, very late, that night Delbert sat on the edge of Bobbie’s bed and said to him:—
“Now, look here! what I want to know is, how in creation it could happen that, with that bay fairly teeming with fish and turtles, there could be over six years with never a canoe really inside of it, never one within hailing, or even signaling, distance of the Island, though it must be known among the Indians that there is fresh water and an old banana-patch there.”
“Simplest thing in the world,” said Bobbie, tossing his shoes to one side and peeling off his socks. “All the Indians around these parts know that San Moros is bad medicine for a native. I never thought much about it, but I’ll bet on it now, that it was those same old smugglers. Probably they murdered some Indians there to prevent their going off and telling of the place, or something like that. I never heard of the Island, but I have heard the Indians say numbers of times that people who go in to camp there never come out again. They think the farther shores are inhabited by some style of devil or hobgoblin, and I remember now I have heard them saying that in the last few years they have seen devil fires burning there.”
“Devil fires!” said Delbert helplessly, dropping his hands to his sides. “Devil fires!”
“Your camp-fires, of course,” returned Bobbie; “but if those fellows in the canoes that you tried to go out and intercept,—if they saw you at all,—that would be explanation enough of why they put up their sails and put off as fast as they could.”
To the mother waiting on that far-off mortgaged farm, a message went out that night, the last one sent from the office. It contained eight words, and it was followed by a fat, fat letter the next day, which explained that it in turn was to be followed by a party of six just as soon as certain absolutely necessary sewing could be done.
But, after all, the telegram contained the heart of the matter, the sunshine of the whole wide world and part of that of the next world, all on a piece of yellow paper. At least, Mrs. Hadley thought so when she tore it open and read:—
“All found alive and well on Smugglers’ Island.”
THE END
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
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