Making Over Martha 28

Making Over Martha 28

"There’s some tarpaulin under the seats," she shouted back over her

shoulder, "wrap it about you an’—dry up!"

 

Again there was silence, while the clouds massed themselves into granite

barricades, shutting out the light, and the gale gathered force and fury

with every second. It was impossible, now, to see the farther shore.

The little _Moth_ seemed blindly fluttering in a dense mesh of gray mist

impossible to penetrate.

 

"We’re going every _which way_!" moaned Cora.

 

At the same instant—"The rudder-ropes, Sammy!" shouted Martha.

 

The boy slipped from his place, and, by sense of touch alone, found the

cause of the obstruction, and freed the ropes.

 

_The Moth_ gave a leap forward into the mist.

 

"I’m afraid!" roared Sabina in no uncertain voice.

 

"What you afraid of?" came back from the bow. "Don’t you know, if there

was any danger _I’d get out_!"

 

To the children, accustomed as they were to accept their mother’s word

without question, the statement carried instant reassurance. Sabina

stopped roaring, and Francie only screamed when each new wave broke over

her, threatening to swamp the boat.

 

"Hush, Francie!" called Miss Claire at length in a tense, strained

voice. "You’ll make your mother nervous."

 

Martha, hearing, answered back, "She don’t make me nervous. There’s

nothing to be nervous about. Let her scream, if it makes her happy."

 

Francie stopped screaming.

 

All the while the throbbing of the little engine had been steady,

incessant. But now Martha noticed that, at intervals, it missed a beat.

She waited to see if it would right itself. A minute, and it had ceased

altogether.

 

"Sammy!"

 

It only needed that to send the boy crawling, on his hands and knees, to

start it up afresh, if he could—working, as his father had taught him to

work.

 

_The Moth_ spun around and around, in the trough of the waves.

 

Martha "knew what she knew," but her hands never left the wheel for an

instant. What if the engine could not be made to go? What could she

say to Mr. Frank if——? No, there was this comfort, if the worst came to

the worst _she_ would be the last to have a chance to say anything, to

any of those waiting on the shore....

 

She heard the steady heart-beat start afresh.... The boy was back in his

place. Martha, with new courage, strained her vision to pierce through

the curtain of mist and rain, could see nothing, but clung to her wheel.

 

At length she realized she was steering toward something that she, alone

of all the little group, could see—a faint adumbration, showing dark

through the pall of enveloping gray.

 

But now the wind and the water were so high it was impossible to steer

straight for the home-shore—she could only make it by slow degrees.

 

The storm had whipped her thick hair out of its customary coils. It

blew about her face and shoulders in long, wet strands, buffeting her,

blinding her. She never lifted a hand to save herself the stinging

strokes.

 

Little by little the dark line widened, the way was made plain. Little

by little Martha wheedled _The Moth_ shoreward.

 

"I see somepn’," shouted Francie, at last. "I see our dock!" After an

interval: "I see folks on our dock!" Later still: "I see father, ’n’

Mr. Ronald, ’n’ Ma, ’n’—oh! lots o’ folks!"

 

_The Moth_ fluttered forward. The waves beat her back. She seemed to

submit with meekness, but a second later, seeing her chance, she dodged

neatly, and sped on again, so, at last, gaining the quiet water of the

little bay.

 

Mr. Ronald and Sam Slawson, in silence, made her fast to her moorings.

In silence, Martha gave Claire into her husband’s arms. He wrapped the

shaking little figure about, in warm dry coverings, and carried her

home, as he would a child.

 

The second they were out of sight and hearing, a babel of voices rose,

Ma’s shrill, high treble piping loud above the rest:

 

"When we saw the tempest gatherin’, an’ youse out in it, on the deep,

an’ not a boat could make to get to youse, the fear was in me heart, I

didn’t have a limb to move."

 

A burly form shoved her unceremoniously aside,

 

Joe Harding approached Martha, implanted a sounding kiss on her cheek.

 

"By gum, you’re a cracker-jack, Mrs. Slawson, and no mistake!" he

announced.

 

One by one the little knot of men and women followed suit, Fred

Trenholm, Nancy Lentz, Mr. Peckett—all who, by the wireless telegraph

that, in the country, flashes the news from house to house, had heard of

_The Moth’s_ danger, and had come over to help if they could,

and—couldn’t.

 

Martha looked from one to the other in surprise.

 

"Well, what do you think o’ that!" she managed to articulate through her

chattering teeth, and then could say no more.

 

"Come along home, Martha," urged Sam gently.

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XII*

 

 

At first it seemed as if no one was to be any the worse for the

morning’s adventure.

 

As soon as she had attended to the children, had changed her own cold,

drenched garments for dry, Martha hastened over to the big house.

 

Tyrrell, the butler, informed her that Mrs. Ronald was resting quietly

enough now, but they had been uncommonly anxious about her at the start.

The shock had unnerved her. When her husband carried her in, she was

crying like a baby.

 

"Well, you know where to find me, if, when she wakes, she seems the

least bit ailin’. All you have to do is ring me up, an’ I’ll be over in

the shake of a lamb’s tail."

 

But when the day passed, and there was no summons, when supper was over

and the children, including Cora and Ma, in bed, Martha could stand it

no longer.

 

"I just _got_ to go over, an’ see for myself how the land lays," she

explained to Sam. "I know it’s silly, but I just _got_ to."

 

"All right. Come along," said Sam.

 

Martha shook her head. "No, you don’t. Somebody’s needed here in case,

while I’m between this an’ the big house, the telephone’d ring."

 

Patient Sam acquiesced at once. "Have it your own way. You’ve earned

the right to have notions, and be fidgety if you want to. But no news

is good news, an’ what you’ll make by running over there at this hour of

night, when they said they’d ’phone if anything was needed, I don’t

know."

 

"I’ll sleep better if I see for myself," was all the explanation Martha

could give.

 

It was very dark, outside, once she got beyond the light from the Lodge

windows. In her haste she had forgotten to bring the lantern with her,

but she did not go back for it, because she felt she knew every inch of

the ground, and, moreover, the impulse that drew her forth was so strong

that she could not endure the idea of delay for a moment. She had

discovered a short-cut across the grounds and meant to use it, though

she knew Sam disapproved any trespassing on his adored lawns, hedges,

and shrubberies, and, as a general rule, she respected his wishes. But

now she made straight for the thicket of bushes walling in her

kitchen-garden, meaning to push through it, at the point of least

resistance, strike across the roadway and so slice off a good quarter of

a mile, by bisecting the lawn sweeping up to the big house. Just within

the thicket she stood as if at attention. For the life of her she could

not have said what brought her to a standstill, but also, for the life

of her, she could not go on until she knew what was on the other side of

that wall of bushes.

 

Listening, she could hear nothing but the common-place night-sounds, now

grown familiar to her ears. The stirrings of leaves, when the wind

sighed through them, the surreptitious whirr of wings aloft, up over the

tree-tops, the lowly meanderings of insects among the grass, the soft

pad-pad of tiny, furry feet scampering to safety. But there was still

another sound, an unusual, unfamiliar sound. It came to Martha in a

flash what it was. A fox, caught in one of Sam’s traps.

 

"Oh, you poor devil, you!" she heard herself exclaim.

 

The words were echoed by a human groan, so close at hand, she fairly

started.

 

"Who are you?" Her question rang out sharply.

 

"None of your damned business!" came back in instant answer. "But since

you’re here, curse you! come, and get me out of this —— —— trap."

 

A light flashed, by which Martha made out a man’s figure crouching on

the ground the other side of the hedge. His face was completely hidden,

not alone by the drooping brim of his soft hat, but by a sort of black

mask he wore. Without a moment’s hesitation she forced her way through

the hedge. Now she could see more plainly, she made out that the man was

on his hands and knees. One hand was free—the other, caught in the

fox-trap, was bleeding cruelly. On the ground, within easy reach lay a

pistol, a bundle of fagots, and a bull’s-eye electric torch. The man’s

uninjured left hand was clutching the torch.