The Merry Anne 9

The Merry Anne 9

But she hurried on resolutely toward the house, and there was nothing

to do but follow. "Will you take my word for it, Annie,--that you 'll do

best to let him alone?"

 

She shook her head and hurried along.

 

On the steps sat a gloomy figure--Dick, in his Sunday clothes, white

shirt and collar, red necktie, and all. His elbows rested on his knees,

his chin rested on his hands, and the darkness of the great black Lake

was in his soul. He watched the approaching figures without raising his

head; he saw Beveridge lift his hat and turn away toward the bank; he

let Annie come forward alone without speaking to her.

 

She put one foot on the bottom step, and nodded up at him. "Here I am,

Dick. Do you want to sit here or--or walk?"

 

He got up, and came slowly down to the sand.

 

"So this is the way you treat me, Annie?"

 

"I'm not late, am I, Dick? It can't be much after eight."

 

"So you go walking with him, when--when--"

 

"Now, Dick, don't be foolish. Mr. Beveridge came around early, and

wanted me to walk, and--and I told him I couldn't stay away--"

 

She was not quite her usual sprightly self; and the manner of this

speech was not convincing. Dick's reply was a subdued sound that

indicated anything but satisfaction.

 

"I'm mad, Annie,--I know I'm mad--and I don't think you can blame me."

 

"I--I didn't ask you to come before eight, Dick."

 

"Oh, that was it, was it? I suppose you told him to come at seven."

 

"Now, Dick,--please--"

 

But he, not daring to trust his tongue, was angry and helpless before

her. After a moment he turned away and stood looking out toward the

lights of the schooner. Finally he said, in a strange voice, "I see I've

been a fool--I thought you meant some of the things you've said--I ought

to have known better; I ought to have known you were just fooling with

me--you were just a flirt."

 

He did not look around. Even if he had, the night would have concealed

the color in her cheeks. But he heard her say, "I think perhaps--you had

better go, Dick."

 

He hesitated, then turned.

 

"Good night," she said, and ran up the steps.

 

"Say--wait, Annie--"

 

The door closed behind her, and Dick stood alone. He waited, thinking

she might come back, but the house was silent. He stepped back and

looked up at her little balcony with its fringe of flowers, but it was

deserted; no light appeared in the window. At last he turned away, and

tramped out to the _Merry Anne_. The men were aboard, ready for an early

start in the morning; the new mate was settling himself in the cabin.

To Dick, as he stood on the pier and looked down on the trim little

schooner, nothing appeared worth while. He leaped down to the deck, and

thought savagely that he would have made the the same leap if the deck

had not been there, if there had been fourteen feet of green water and a

berth on the scalloped sand below. But there was one good thing--nothing

could rob Dick of his sleep. And in his dreams Annie was always kind.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV--THE CIRCLE MARK

 

[Illustration: 0098]

 

EARLY in the morning they were off. Dick, glum and reckless, took the

wheel; McGlory went up forward and looked after hoisting the jibs and

foresail. The new mate had already succeeded, by an ugly way he had, in

antagonizing most of the men; but their spirits ran high, in spite of

him, as the _Merry Anne_ slipped away from the pier and headed out into

the glory of the sunrise.

 

"Hey, Peenk," called Larsen, "geeve us 'Beelly Brown.'" And Pink, who

needed no urging, roared out promptly the following ballad, with the

whole crew shouting the spoken words:--

 

Oh, Billy Brown he loved a girl,

 

And her name was Mary Rowe, O-ho!

 

She lived way down

 

In that wick-ed town,

 

The town called She-caw-go.

 

(Spoken) WHERE'S THAT?

 

The place where the Clark streets grow.

 

 

"Oh, Mary, will you bunk with me?"

 

"Say, ain't you a little slow, O-ho!

 

'Bout sailin' down

 

To this wicked town

 

To tell me you love me so?"

 

(Spoken) GO 'LONG!

 

She's givin''im the wink, I know.

 

 

Oh, the wind blowed high, an' the wind blowed strong,

 

An' the Gross' Point' reef laid low, O-ho!

 

An' Billy Brown

 

Went down, down, down,

 

To the bottom of the place below.

 

(Spoken) WHERE'S MARY?

 

She's married to a man named Joe.

 

 

"You're makin' noise enough up there," growled McGlory. Pink, with a

rebellious glance, bent over the rope he was coiling and held his peace.

 

As they started, so they sailed during four days--the Captain reckless,

the mate hard and uncommunicative, the men cowed. And at mid-morning on

the fourth day they arrived at Spencer.

 

The Hydrographic Office had at that time worked wonders in charting

these Great Lakes of ours, but it had given no notice to the little

harbor that was tucked snugly away behind False Middle Island, not a

hundred miles from Mackinaw City on the Lake Huron side; merely a speck

of an island with a nameless dent behind it. But old Spencer, a lank,

hatchet-faced Yankee, had found that a small schooner could be worked in

if she headed due west, "with the double sand dune against the three

pines till you get the forked stump ranged with the ruined shanty; meet

this range and hold it till clear of the bar at the north end of the

island; circle around to port; when clear of the bar, hug the inner

shore of the island until the mill can be seen behind the trees; then

run up into the harbor. Plenty of water here."

 

This discovery had resulted in such a curious little mill as can be

found only in the back corners of the country,--a low shed with a flat

roof; one side open to the day; within, an old-fashioned vertical saw;

the whole supplied with power by a rotting, dripping, moss-covered

sluiceway.

 

All about were blackened pine stumps--nothing else for a hundred miles.

And all through the forest was the sand, drifting like snow over roads

and fences, changing the shape of the land in every high wind, blowing

into hair and clothes, and adding, with the tall, endless, gray-green

mullein stalks, the final touch of desolation to a hopeless land. Here

and there, in the clearings, sand-colored farmers and their sand-colored

wives struggled to wring a livelihood from the thankless earth. Other

farmers had drifted helplessly away, leaving houses and barns to blacken

and rot and sink beneath the sand drifts, and leaving, too, rows of

graves under the stumps.

 

Twenty miles down the coast, where a railroad touched, was a feeble

little settlement that was known, on the maps, as Ramsey City.

 

This region had been "cut over" once; it had been burned over more

than once; and yet old Spencer, with his handful of employees and his

deliberate little mill, wore a prosperous look on his inscrutable

Yankee face. There was no inhabited house within ten miles, but he was

apparently contented.

 

McGlory, it seemed, knew the channel; so Dick surrendered the wheel

when they were nearing the island, and stood at his elbow, watching the

landmarks. The mate volunteered no information, but Dick needed none;

he made out the ranges with the eye of a born sailor. But even he was

surprised when the _Merry Anne_ swung around into the landlocked harbor

and glided up to a rude wharf that was piled with lumber. Behind it was

the mill; behind that, at some distance, a comfortable house, nearly

surrounded by other smaller dwellings.

 

"So this is Spencer, eh?" observed Dick.

 

"This is Spencer," McGlory replied.

 

The owner himself was coming down to meet them, reading over a letter

from his friend, Stenzenberger, as he walked. His wife came out of her

kitchen and stood on her steps to see the schooner. Two or three men

in woodman's flannels were lounging about the mill, and these sat up,

renewed their quids from a common plug, and stared.

 

"How are you?" nodded Spencer, pocketing the letter. He caught the line

and threw it over a snubbing post. "This Mr.

 

"Smiley?"