keep working on your swimming,” David added more kindly, “and I’ll let you in on something.”
“You will?” broke in Sally.
“If and when I need any help,” her brother finished firmly.
Disappointed, Sally was about to retort when thunder cracked close by. Southwesterly, beyond Grindstone Point, sea and sky already seemed to meet in a mighty silver rainfall. “It’ll be a ripsnorter,” Sally told herself, exulting. “I have a feeling. . . .”
David, too, was studying the sky. “Plenty of time,” he said. He shut off the motor and drifted close to the red-and-black striped buoy off their starboard side.
Intent, Sally leaned forward. The business of hooking and hauling in the trap never failed to excite her. “Let me try, Dave,” she said. She would show him how well a girl could do it.
Seizing the gaff, she made a thrust at the toggle line, and missed. Then, as the dory was about to pass over the line, Sally timed her move deliberately. With one swift stroke of the hook she snared the rope. Triumphant, she dragged the buoy into the dory.
“There!” She looked to her brother for approval.
“Not bad,” David said. Then, bracing himself, he hauled in the wet rope, coil over coil, until the trap came over the side, streaming rockweed and water.
“Oh, good.” Sally eyed the green-blue catch in the trap. “We’ve caught three in this one.”
But David did not need his iron ruler to note that one was a “short,” its main shell under the legal length. Back into the water went the lobster in a dark and shining arc. “Two it is,” he corrected. Cautiously, he took one of the creatures between head and flapping tail. Holding first one waving claw, then the other, he pushed a wooden wedge firmly into the joint. This done, he tossed the shellfish into a bushel basket now filled with the day’s restless catch.
He thrust the other teasingly toward Sally. “How about plugging him for me?”
For a moment Sally hesitated. Then, with a hand not wholly steady, she grasped the second lobster well behind its punishing claws, as David had done. Gingerly, she inserted the plug into one claw, then into the other. When the chore was completed Sally was breathing as hard as if she had been running. Supposing the hideous thing had seized one of her fingers!
As David moved on to the other traps he explained, his voice eager, how a lobster uses his claws as a knife and a fork, one for cutting, one for crushing. Surprised, Sally stared at him. Why, not only did David love lobstering, he even loved these lobsters.
“If they snap off a finger,” she told him tartly, “I can’t see what difference it makes whether they cut it off or crush it off.”
Her brother laughed. “Well, you still have all ten of yours, haven’t you? You did fine. If you could stay out of trouble long enough you might even make a good hauling partner someday.”
“Thanks,” said Sally briefly. But she glowed inside with pride.
Swiftly, David baited the last trap and thrust it into the darkening bay. The motions were growing sure and familiar, but skill had not come overnight. From early boyhood he had gone lobstering out of the cove with his Uncle Charlie.
Then, this summer of his twelfth year, he had done more than that. With a knowledge gained during long hours of helping at Fishermen’s Dock, David had caulked and repaired Uncle Charlie’s old dory. Almost before the last patch of snow had melted from behind the gear sheds, he and Poke had painted her and stenciled high on her side the name, Lobster Boy. Then, his thirty traps and trap heads made ready during the blustering weeks of winter, he was prepared. When the days turned warm and school ended, he, too, ran his own trap line, short though it was, along with Willis Greenlaw and Foggy Dennett and the other lobstermen. With each week that passed David added to his little college fund at the bank. With each day he gained a deeper respect for the sea.
Now, glancing at the sky, he saw that he had delayed too long. In the few brief minutes he had taken to finish running his line the squall had gathered itself and sprung. Whitecaps fled across the bay like rabbits before the weasel wind. And down in the cove he saw the spray leap high against the channel buoys. There was no longer any choice between the town landing and the nearby island.
“It looks like we make a run for Blake’s,” he shouted, and he opened the motor wide.
Sally’s answer was lost in the quick roar. Dodging the tossing buoys, they made a broad arc around the point. Once beyond the shelter of the ledges, the little dory pitched sharply in the tide rip. Now and again the propeller rose out of water, and the motor coughed and hesitated.
“Don’t let her stall,” breathed David, and he felt the perspiration gather on his brow. But the motor beat on, and minutes later they entered the island cove. Throttling back, he ran the dory up onto the shore above the tide line.
Before they had beached and tied her, the rain began. It fell at first in great, cool drops. Then, as they struggled across the slippery ledges, the very heavens seemed to open.
“Hurry up,” gasped David. He caught his sister’s wet hand and half dragged her through the spruces. Past the dim shape of the barn they raced, and down the path where grass slapped wet against their legs. Before them stood the house — foursquare and silver-gray in the rain. With a thrust of his shoulder, David forced open the creaking door. Panting, they pushed it shut behind them.
Here was refuge. For, dark and musty though the old kitchen might be, here they were safe from the sea and the wind.
David groped above the wooden sink for the candle and matches he had used before. This time, he thought, he had been lucky. He would not ignore the thunder-heads again. He would not trust to luck.
“It’s dark in here, isn’t it?” Sally whispered. “Spooky, sort of.”
“It ought to be, with most of the windows shuttered up. Don’t go and get scared now.”
“Who’s scared?” scoffed Sally. But she remained close beside him as a snarl of thunder echoed through the empty house.
David lighted a candle and thrust it into an old bottle. In the dim light poor Sally’s face seemed very pale, her eyes enormous. Maybe he ought to let her in on his discovery, David thought. That would take her mind off the storm, all right. He seized the bottle and held it high. “Come on, Sally. I’m going to show you something.”
Instantly, their shadows leaped into giant shapes against the wall. Sally eyed the murky rooms that yawned beyond the kitchen. “N-no, thanks. It’s so c-cosy in this nice old kitchen.” She settled herself firmly on an overturned nail keg. “Besides, I’m c-cold.”
David set the bottle down. “All right. It’ll keep.” He moved over to the huge fireplace and laid a fire, using the driftwood and paper that he kept ready in the wood box. Often, when it was damp hauling and he was wet and cold, he stopped off at the island and built himself a fire. Occasionally, he knew, the other lobstermen did the same thing. The door was always open.
Sally asked suddenly, “What’ll
