第30章 CHAPTER VIII NEIGHBORS AND WASPS(1)

And now affairs at the lights settled down into a daily routine in which the lightkeeper and his helper each played his appointed part.

All mysteries now being solved, and the trust between them mutual and without reserve, they no longer were on their guard in each other's presence, but talked freely on all sorts of topics, and expressed their mutual dislike of woman with frequency and point.

No regular assistant was appointed or seemed likely to be, for the summer, at least. Seth and his friend, the superintendent, held another lengthy conversation over the wire, and, while Brown's uncertain status remained the same, there was a tacit understanding that, by the first of September, if the young man was sufficiently "broken in," the position vacated by Ezra Payne should be his--if he still wanted it.

"You may change your mind by that time," observed Seth. "This ain't no place for a chap with your trainin', and I know it. It does well enough for an old derelict like me, with nobody to care a hang whether he lives or dies, but you're different. And even for me the lonesomeness of it drives me 'most crazy sometimes. I've noticed you've been havin' blue streaks more often than when you first came.

I cal'late that by fall you'll be headin' somewheres else, Mr. 'John Brown,'" with significant emphasis upon the name.

Brown stoutly denied being "bluer" than usual, and his superior did not press the point. Seth busied himself in his spare time with the work on the Daisy M. and with his occasional trips behind Joshua to the village. Brown might have made some of these trips, but he did not care to. Solitude and seclusion he still desired, and there were more of these than anything else at the Twin-Lights.

The lightkeeper experimented with no more dogs, but he had evidently not forgotten the lifesaving man's warning concerning possible thieves, for he purchased a big spring-lock in Eastboro and attached it to the door of the boathouse on the little wharf. The lock was, at first, a good deal more of a nuisance than an advantage, for the key was always being forgotten or mislaid, and, on one occasion, the door blew shut with Atkins inside the building, and he pounded and shrieked for ten minutes before his helper heard him and descended to the rescue.

June crawled by, and July came. Crawled is the proper word, for John Brown had never known days so long or weeks so unending as those of that early summer. The monotony was almost never broken, and he began to find it deadly. He invented new duties about the lights and added swimming and walks up and down the beach to his limited list of recreations.

The swimming he especially enjoyed. The cove made a fine bathing place, and the boathouse was his dressing room, though the fragrance of the ancient fish nets stored within it was not that of attar of roses. A cheap bathing suit was one of the luxuries Atkins had bought for him, by request, in Eastboro. Seth bought the suit under protest, for he scoffed openly at his helper's daily bath.

"I should think," the lightkeeper declared over and over again, "that you'd had salt water soak enough to last you for one spell; a feller that come as nigh drownin' as you done!"

Seth did not care for swimming; the washtub every Saturday night furnished him with baths sufficient.

He was particular to warn his helper against the tide in the inlet:

"The cove's all right," he said, "but you want to look out and not try to swim in the crick where it's narrow, or in that deep hole by the end of the wharf, where the lobster car's moored. When the tide's comin' in or it's dead high water, the current's strong there. On the ebb it'll snake you out into the breakers sure as I'm settin' here tellin' you. The cove's all right and good and safe; but keep away from the narrer part of the crick."

Swimming was good fun, and walking, on pleasant days, was an aid in shaking off depression; but, in spite of his denials and his attempts at appearing contented, the substitute assistant realized that he was far from that happy condition. He did not want to meet people, least of all people of his own station in life--his former station. Atkins was a fine chap, in his way; but . . . Brown was lonely . . . and when one is lonely, one thinks of what might have been, and, perhaps, regrets. Regrets, unavailing regrets, are the poorest companions possible.

The lightkeeper, too, seemed lonely, which, considering his years of experience in his present situation, was odd. He explained his loneliness one evening by observing that he cal'lated he missed the painting chaps.

"What painting chaps?" asked Brown.

"Oh, them two young fellers that always used to come to the cottage-- what you call the bungalow--across the cove there, the ones I told you about. They was real friendly, sociable young chaps, and I kind of liked to have 'em runnin' in and out. Seems queer to have it July, and they not here to hail me and come over to borrow stuff.

And they was forever settin' around under white sunshades, sloppin' paint onto paper. I most wish they hadn't gone to Europe. I cal'late you'd have liked 'em, too."

"Perhaps," said the helper, doubtfully.

"Oh, you would; no perhaps about it. It don't seem right to see the bungalow all shuttered up and deserted this time of year. You'd have liked to meet them young painters; they was your kind."

"Yes, I know. Perhaps that's why I shouldn't like to meet them."

"Hey? . . . Oh, yes, yes; I see. I never thought of that. But 'tain't likely they'd know you; they hailed from Boston, not New York."

"How did you know I came from New York? I didn't tell you that."

"No, you didn't, that's a fact. But, you said you left the city where you lived and came to Boston, so I sort of guessed New York.

But that's all right; I don't know and I don't care. Names and places you and me might just as well not tell, even to each other.

If we don't tell them, we can answer 'don't know' to questions and tell the truth; hey?"