The Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
CAPE PERIL'S JOLLY HERMIT
When the boys woke up the next morning, or rather when they were tumbled out of bed about eight by Hardy and Turner, who had already been up an hour and had developed a voracious appetite for the breakfast waiting in the kitchen, the sea proved a bitter disappointment. As the three guests bounded to a front window to inspect the prospects, it was disgustingly placid without a sign of a whitecap. The gentle waves that washed the beach seemed fearful of displacing a single pebble.
"B'lieve that old ocean is just trying to spite us," concluded Cat. "'Fraid we won't get a good man-sized wave to ride while we're down here."
"Hurry up," shouted Hardy as he left the room. "If you kids don't get down to breakfast in less than a pig's whisper, I'll be riding you good and heavy."
A savory odor of frying fish that penetrated the room from the region below proved even more stimulating than Hardy's threat, and after dashing out for a morning dip of brief duration, the lads scrambled into their scout togs and a few moments later presented three smiling faces and ravenous appetites at the breakfast table.
"Want to go over to Cape Peril, don't you?" asked the host when all were through.
An eager "You bet!" was the unanimous answer.
"Well, you've got a regular picnic before you," declared Hardy.
"Old Buffum's the rarest bird you ever imagined. Been running the light over there for the last ten years, ever since he left the Merchant Marine service. What he doesn't know about ships and sea lore isn't worth knowing. He's got the dots on every vessel that plies up and down this coast and knows where they are every minute of the day or night. Has a chart tacked up on the wall and a lot of pins with the name of a ship tied to each one, and he shifts them all the time he's got an eye open, to indicate the boats' positions at any specified moment. Doesn't get far off either, unless something very unforeseen happens. If you want to complete your education in the water line, ask Bill Buffum. And he's the queerest old duck. Sits there all by himself most of the time, reading sea yarns or watching the ocean. But he has right much company. Everybody who comes this way stops to see him, sometimes as many as three visitors a week, not counting the man who brings his 'vittles' from the fishing settlement over yonder. So far as I know he does his own washing, for I never saw him without that same blue shirt that always looks tolerable clean. Beckon it must be an easy conscience. Now let's go over and chat with him."
There was a noisy chorus of assent.
The lads were ready enough for the experience. Cape Peril had a tang of romance to its very name and to meet an ex-mariner who had scoured the Seven Seas was a treat not to be had every day. "He doesn't mind boys asking him questions, does he?" inquired Legs.
"Tickles him to death. Only trouble is to stop him when he gets wound up. I'll leave you fellows with him for a while, and when I come back and sit a little, I'll hop up and give the signal to go."
Merrily joking and laughing, the four trudged along the sea beach, over the culvert that spanned the depression between the region of Seagulls' Nest and the domain of Cape Peril, and up the mound to the lighthouse. The lads viewed the weatherbeaten exterior with intense interest as Hardy recounted the services it rendered to vessels seeking to shun the dangerous shoals it faced.
Then the four passed through the open door into a bare circular basement. Here Hardy shouted for the keeper.
"I seen you ahoy," called back a hearty voice. "Climb the companion way up amidships. The skipper is within."
Up the ladderlike stair climbed the procession, emerging into a second circular room, evidently the living quarters of the keeper. A couch covered with a rusty crazy quilt, a cupboard, a great stove, a table littered with a rare collection of odds and ends, various chairs and boxes of all sizes, shelves supporting everything imaginable from a mousetrap to a cannonball, maps, charts, and curios from every quarter of the world adorning the curving walls of the room—such were the furnishings of this strange abode of the veteran of the sea.
The "Cap'n," a short, broad man of some sixty years, with a bushy white beard, twinkling bright eyes on either side of a mighty nose, came forward on his bowed legs to welcome his visitors.
"So these is them," said he as Hardy presented the boys before taking his leave. "Glad to see ye, lads," he added, picking up the pipe he had laid aside in order to shake their hands. "If you can't find chairs to accommodate ye, the boxes is soft and springy. Buffum's my name, and Buffum's my nature. You don't find no style hyuh, but what I has you're welcome to it. I know that suits ye, boys. You look like you've got horse sense, and horse sense is what old Bill Buffum swears by. And ye've got good clean smooth faces I see, lads. Keep 'em smooth and clean, and when your thoughts begin to write wrinkles on 'em, let 'em be jolly, happy wrinkles, for your thoughts write on your face so everybody kin read 'em. You can't fool old Mother Nature, lads, and don't try. Horse sense and happiness, lads, them's the words."
He seated himself under six eager eyes, and began to puff vigorously on his pipe.
"Tell me you used to be a sailor," began Legs.
Captain Buffum refilled and relighted his pipe, and putting on his most knowing look, proceeded: "They told you right, lad, they told you right. A sailor I was and, though my old body is tied down in this hyuh lighthouse, my mind is a-sailing the sea right this minute. I was born at sea, and I reckon that first salt spray I took in when I opens my mouth to tell 'em I'd come must 'a give me a taste I couldn't never git over. Then I growed up in a seaport as nigh to the water as where I'm sittin' here. I growed up with the salt air in my lungs, lads."
Captain Buffum nodded his head in the direction of the ocean. "When I fust seed the vessels in the harbor," he continued, "the sea drawed me, and she kept a drawin' me till I was eighteen year old, and then I says to my father, 'I'm a-goin' to sea,' And he says to me, 'Bill, you're a danged fool!' And says I, 'I knows it, but a fool is goin ' to sea.' And I went, boys; I went. The sea had drawed me, same as the magnet does the needle, ever sence I fust seen it, and, when you fall in love with the sea, she's the goldarnest drawin'est sweetheart a felluh can have. She don't let go fer nuthin', and sometimes she takes such a almighty likin' to you she opens up them foamy jaws o' hers and swallows you whole, and keeps you tight till kingdom come in her Davy Jones's locker."
"Where's that?" inquired Legs wonderingly.
"That's a name for the bottom of the sea," explained Cap'n Buffum, with a laugh, and added with a solemn face, "where many a good sailor lies a-moulderin' and many a good ship, too. In the old days, that was the place where I wanted to go when my time came, though I warn't in no blasted hurry, just like you lads ain't. But I thought the wust thing that could happen to a sailorman was to flicker out on dry land, and though I had to use my fists in more'n one skirmish on shore, lads, I kept my weather eye open for to keep a whole skin for Davy Jones's locker when that thar sea-witch took a notion to blow her whistle fer me. Thar were one time, though, lads, when I had that eye shet, and that was when I fit a dooel."
"Gee! have you fought a duel?" exclaimed Jimmy, popping his black eyes in wonder and admiration, while the other two boys leaned forward in rapt attention. "I thought everybody who did that was dead long ago."
"When I say fit a dooel," pursued Cap'n Buffum, blowing, out a cloud of smoke, "I ain't walkin' the chalk line o' truth. I was all primed to fight one day when I was circumwented, lads. I was circumwented. This was the way of it: There was a sailor on The Flying Jenny (she flied on the ocean, lads) 'bout ten years younger than me and the viles', out-cussinest, out-lyines' bluejacket that ever clum a riggin'. One day he said sumpin' about a gal I wouldn't stand for fer nuthin', and I give it back to him hot and heavy, hot and heavy, I did. 'Well, all right,' says he with a string o' oaths that ought to 'a burned a hole plumb through his throat, 'that means a round next time we has shore leave.' 'That's me,' says I, 'fists or pistols?' 'Pistols is a gentleman's weapon,' says he. 'Though I don't see whar you got no such title, 'pistols let it be,' says I.
"I hadn't never heard tell of seconds in them days, so, next shore leave we has, we goes together to a pawnshop and buys a gun apiece, lads, and then we makes for a ole field, nice and quiet, outside the town. 'Now,' says he, 'le's turn back to back and step off fifty paces.' 'I ain't got no eyes in the back of my head,' says I. 'And you don't need none,' says he, mild as a spring mornin'. Then, blister my boots, lads, when I faces round from east to west, that scoundrel he boxed the compass in his tracks and comes back to whar he starts from and he ups and whacks me a murderous thump on the skull with the butt of his pistol, and I falls like a log on the ground, jus' like a log."
The Cap'n paused at this dramatic point to take another draw on his pipe.
The excited Jimmy hastened to ask, "How did you know he hit you with a pistol if you didn't see him?
"How would you know, my mate, ef lightning was to strike you? I laid thar fer two hours limp an' pacified, and when I comes to and pulls my senses together and feels the back o' my head, thar was the criss-cross ridges made by that 'ere pistol butt, and I knowed right off what that devil had done. I hed blood in my eye, lads, and ef I'd 'a ketched that scoundrel then, I'm a-feared thar wouldn't 'a been no pacin'-off dooel, but jes' a plain ev'y-day murder. But I scours the town, and nary a Bill Perkins could I find, and I goes back to the ship and he warn't thar, and the next day he didn't turn up, ner the next, ner nary day till the ship sailed, and then I seed he'd meant to desert f'un the fust."
The "Cap'n" leaned back reflectively.
"Gee! what would you do if you got him now?" asked Cat.
"Listen, lads, listen," continued the old man, after another puff, "I'm goin' to surprise ye. You 'spect me to say I'd reach out and wring his mis'able neck fer him, don't ye? No, no, I wouldn't. I've larned a lot since them times, and the hardest lesson I ever larned was to forgive yo' enemies, but I've learned it. Hatin' don't do yo' disposition no good and it plumb spiles yo' complexion."
A light came into the old mariner's eyes as at the attainment of a great triumph.
"I've done fergiven ev'y critter that done me any wrong on this hyuh globe. When it come to that 'ere varmint, I wrastled with my soul fer forty days right in this hyuh lighthouse, but I done it. I fergive him, an' ef he'd step up right this minute, I might screw up this old mug o' mine, but, blister my boots, I'd stick out my old flipper and I'd say, 'You low-down, ornery, sneakin' cuss, I fergive you that dirty trick you played on me thirty years ago, and, dang you, hyuh's my hand on it. I'd do that, fer I'm tryin' to do my bes' in this hyuh life. I'm tryin' not to think of nothin' but what's good. It's a lonesome life, but I'm doin' my bes', lads. I'm a-lettin' my light shine, and when I gets a little down in the mouth of a night, I says to myself, 'Bill Buffum, you're a fool. Think how happy you're a-makin' them sailormen out on the sea yonder,' and I cheers up immediate.
"I might o' been married, lads, but when I had that sort o' thing a workin' in my head, I hed the same ailment I has now, lads. I war bow-legged, and bowlegs is a powerful drawback to mat'amony. All the gals snickers at ye, lads, and when a gal makes fun o' ye, ye might as well reef yo' sails and drift. Ye see, when I was jes' kneehigh to a hoppergrass them clapper-clawed kids in school said thet when I toddled along my legs makes a O and then they crosses sorter and makes a X, so, dang 'em, they yells 'Ox' after me; 'fer,' says they, 'yo' legs spell it just as good or plainer then McGuffey's Spellin' Book.' Ef you want to be happy, boys, don't let none of yo' limbs take a hold on yo' mind."
At this point, Legs crossed his lower extremities uneasily, much to the merriment of his companions.
"What's the matter, lad?" laughed the jolly seaman. "You ain't got nothin' to worry you. I has to tack, but yo' props is long but straight, and, as long as they're straight, you kin walk away with any of 'em. That's right, lads. Don't do like me. Pick yo' gal an', when you've sighted her with your telescope, bear down the wind with all yo' sails a-bellyin'. An', blister my boots, she'll strike her colors, and she's yourn to have and to hold, ferever and mo'n ever. Amen."
With great solemnity the Cap'n drew on his pipe, and then gazed roguishly around upon his grinning audience.
"But I did go a-co'tin' once," he conceded with a sly wink. "'Twar when I come home after I'd been at sea 'bout five year. I run across one of the gals I'd knowed that knocked me down the companion way the fust time I laid a eye on her."
There was a look of startled surprise from the boys.
"I mean," Cap'n Buffum hastened to explain, with a twinkle in his eye, "I mean she drawed my heart out, lads. She was all cream and ripe peaches. 'Twarn't no gal that weared her clothes neater, an', in all my born days, I never seed finer mitts than she wore."
"What!" interrupted Legs. "The things ketchers wear?"
Cap'n Buffum laughed long and loudly. "Them was the gloves gals wore when I was young, gloves that didn't have no finger ends to 'em, so the womenfolks could show off their shiny rings and grab things good. In them days, they didn't have to take 'em off when they ate their vittles like these hyuh slick, slippery ones the gals wear nowadays."
"What you fellows keep ha-ha-ing about!" demanded Legs, glaring on his two chums, who were indulging in horselaughs. "She might have been on a team. Didn't you see that Ladies' aggregation that came down home last year, with men along to slide bases for 'em? I never did see so many balls muffed nor as many fouls cracked nor—nor—Shut up, will you?"
The last command was evidently not intended for their host, who chuckled once more and continued: "She was this sort of baseball player, lads: she knocked me out and clean over the fence when I set down to talk sweet to her. She didn't say so, but I knowed it war my legs that done it. But time brings changes, lads; time brings almighty changes. She kept on a-knockin' and a-knockin' other felluhs out because one's eyes didn't set right and she didn't like another lad's job. She was so notional and pernickety, fust thing she knowed she was a ole maid landed high and dry in No Man's Land, she was.
"I reckon it war twenty year since I done lost sight of her when hyuh come a letter from her to me, sayin', 'Bill dear, I'm a-dyin' and I can't die easy unless I see you befo' I go.' You could 'a knocked me down with a gull's pin-feather, lads, but 'twarn't nothin' to do but go. So I rigs myself up and takes the train and finds her house, an' when I rings, a solemn-lookin' ole woman opens the do' and shows me upstairs as sadlike as if I was goin' to a buryin', and thar in that room on them pillowshams lay the battered hull of that pretty Mary Ann I had knowed when she was a gal. Says she, sort o' dyin'-calf-like, 'Law, Bill, is that you?' And I takes her hand with one of mine, and with the other I draws out my red bandanna and I weeps regular briny tears, and then I talks ole times to sorter cheer her up till I hed to go.
"But, blister my boots, boys, 'bout the time I looks fer one o' them black framed envy-lopes to tell me Mary Ann had slipped over the horizon on her last voyage, here come a pink letter, lads. 'I didn't die,' she writes, 'an' I ain't got no notion o' dyin' now. Seems like that sweet face o' yonrn jus' snatched me from the grave. I'm up and about an', 'cept fer a leetle tech o' lumbago, I'm sound as a ole kittle. A mustard plaster and you, Bill, will make me the Mary Ann I used to be, I'm shore.' Blister my boots, she sends me 'bout six o' them health bulletins, each one healthier than the one befo', but nary a scratch has I writ. I ain't a-lookin' fer no graveyard ceremony. She wouldn't take me when I was young and she don't git me when I'm old. I'm spliced to the sea that don't never have no lumbago, an', when she hollers and howls and yells and carries on, it's jest to show the spunk she's got in her. I ain't takin' on no cargo at my time o' life. I'm a-sailin' light and easy till I puts in my last port."
Again Cap'n Buffum drew on his pipe, probably to hide a tear that seemed to be forming in the corner of his eye.
"Nothin' ain't goin' to down me, lads," he burst out suddenly. "It's too fine a day. It's a fine day, an' the sea looks like a fishpond, but she's like some folks; they're a-plannin' and a-plottin' their meanest when they looks the mildest. Some days I've seen the sea look jus' like that an', fus' thing you knows, my corns begins to ache and the nex mornin' she's a-skinnin' the cat and a-cuttin' up like she done lost her senses; an' they're a-achin' to-day sorter, an' thar ain't no tellin' what's comin' tomorrow."
"Then maybe we'll get some breakers to ride," said Cat enthusiastically, with the secret hope that the prophetic ache would continue. "But, Cap'n Buffum, tell us about some of your sea experiences. You must have had some hot ones."
"When I fust knowed the sea," proceeded the Cap'n without further urging, "them was times, them was. But I give her up because all the old windjammers was gone an' the old style steamers, an* I didn't have no taste for these new bilers and en-jines they run 'em with these days. An' I'm glad I give it up, lads, befo' them submarines sneakin' round underneath the water and things sailin' overhead had plumb spiled the sea. These hyuh inventors has plumb sp'iled it, and, as fer seamanship these days, 'tain't nothin' in it no longer.
"'Twar many a year ago I read that yarn Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and says I to myself, says I, the Frenchman that wrote that ain't safe aboveboard. Then come along a War of the Worlds, a tale about ships a-flyin' in the air, and I throwed that trash away, and says I, 'That's a danged sight crazier,' but, blister my boots, these hyuh submarines and them airjammers o' Hardy's, they done both come true. But I'll tell you some yarns of what I seen befo' that."
Whereupon, between puffs, Cap'n Buffum kept the audience rigid with interest for two full hours with some of his wildest experiences of the deep. Then followed an excursion to the turret and an explanation of the mechanism of the powerful revolving light. Then back to the room below they went for an inspection of his museum. This done, the host was in the midst of a recital of some of the most disastrous wrecks on the shoals of Cape Peril when Hardy turned up. With the greatest reluctance, the boys were prevailed upon to go, and then only with an understanding that they might come back again at the earliest possible opportunity.