Sitting down on the edge of the porch, his back against a crude upright, he motioned to Kit to do likewise.
“Why are you always hanging around this place?” he asked curiously, lifting a handful of sand to let it slide through his open fingers. “I have seen you any number of times, although I doubt if you ever did see me.”
“No,” admitted Kit. “I never did see you. I didn’t think anyone ever came here, much less lived here.” Kit was deliberately ignoring Andrew’s question. He had no intention of sharing with another his plan to unearth the Cove’s mystery.
Andrew gave a superior little laugh. “That is rather a good one, you know. Because, at least in the past, this region has been pretty well populated. It’s the sand that does it. Hides everything. My footprints. Yours. Sooner or later even this shack. There’ve been at different times more persons a-roaming around here than you’d see herring in the Mashpee run.”
At Kit’s incredulous expression Andrew shrugged his shoulders. “So you don’t believe me. Very well. Just take a look inside.” With a careless wave of his hand, he indicated the partly opened door. “All that stuff you see there was picked up by me within a hundred yards of here, and there’s a thousand times as much will never be uncovered.”
Kit rose and entered the shack. There was little actual furnishing within, but Kit hardly saw the low cot with its rumpled blanket, the table with a dish or two on it, the chair, the cupboard, the lantern hung on a wooden peg. His whole attention was fixed on a great heap of objects of every description piled in one corner and, on several wooden shelves, a number of smaller items arranged with some degree of order.
Arrowheads, spearpoints, knives, bits of pottery, wampum shell, a tommyhawk — these first caught Kit’s eye. But there were other than Indian relics. Strange, salt-crusted coins were side by side with rusted cooking utensils and implements whose use he did not know. Huge bleached bones and a swordfish spear leaned against one wall. A length of chain with enormous links, a bit of frayed hawser, a scrap of sailcloth, a compass, a grappling iron ——
“You see,” said Andrew, “this was where the Mashpees as well as other tribes held their pow-wows, and after them ’twas a try-yard for whalers. Before that — well, anyhow, d’ye wonder I claim it’s had its share of occupants?”
Kit pricked up his ears at the word “try-yard.” If whalers had once used the Cove — and before his very eyes was proof a-plenty that they had — then the waters of the Cove must have been reasonably safe at one time and whatever had pinned the warning word “danger” to it must have come afterwards. Was this a clue of a sort?
Suddenly, quite without any deliberate intention of doing so, and much as he had done in the case of both Skipper Barney and Aunt Thany, Kit blurted out to Andrew the question forever hovering on the tip of his tongue. “Why do you suppose folks call this ‘Danger Cove’?”
Andrew sifted half-a-dozen handfuls of sand before he spoke. Then he drew up his lanky knees to his chin, folded his long arms about them and, instead of looking at Kit, stared at the very blue sky. “I’ve a theory about that,” he said gravely. “I’ll give it to you for what it is worth. I believe it is because the water in the Cove is more than six feet deep and if a fellow jumped overboard and couldn’t swim, he’d drown for sure.”
Kit knew when he was being laughed at. Why was everyone in league against him when he put a perfectly simple and natural question? There was Skipper Barney filling him up with tall stories, Aunt Thany being ridiculous with pirates and ghosts, and now Andrew giving him a downright silly reply. Didn’t they know such treatment strengthened his determination to find out the answer for himself? There had to be an answer. Names of places didn’t just happen.
“I have to go,” said Kit.
Andrew didn’t get up. “Glad you came,” he said pleasantly. “Come again.”
Kit, when he had gone, looked back. Andrew, still sifting sand, was gazing thoughtfully after him.
“What I do need is that boat,” said Kit to himself, as he made the long tramp back to town and supper. “I need it more than ever.” With a boat he could visit the Cove with less chance of being seen by Andrew, since the waters of the Cove were not visible from his shack. Yet he knew it was bound to be many a long week before he would have enough money to buy one and who knew what Andrew, with his poking around, was up to? There was just one thing to do, and that was to earn more money as quickly as possible.
The news which his great-aunt had for him when he reached home was, under the circumstances, highly gratifying.
Aunt Thany, as her friends said of her, “got around.” In spite of her nearly eighty years, she went regularly to the post-office, to Crocker’s General Store, to mid-week and Sunday church services, and to the monthly Singing School concerts at the Academy. Almost daily she was in and out of some one of the pleasant little homes of the workmen and of the large, square, more pretentious houses of the paymaster, the superintendent, and the owners. As a result she frequently picked up scraps of information about the town’s one industry almost as soon as the informers dropped them.
Tonight, over quahog chowder, fried ham, and beach plum conserve, she had a great deal to tell Kit.
“It seems, Christopher, that Mr. Jarves is going to put up a new building with another furnace and ten pots. Seems they have more orders than they can handle. Seems they could double the weekly melt and still not turn out all the glassware there’s a call for. Meanwhile the shops are going on two shifts, with Fridays and Saturdays, along with Sundays, off. And there’s to be plenty of overtime. Had you heard of all this?”
Kit shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not a thing.”
But he was so elated he could hardly finish the meal. If what Aunt Thany said was true — why it meant both overtime and extra time! Overtime in which to earn more money, and extra time in which to look around for a boat. Not certain just what his great-aunt would think of buying a boat, he tried to conceal his delight, but some of it must have been evident.
“’Twill affect you, I expect,” said Aunt Thany shortly. “You’ll have more week-end to fritter away.”
Kit could hardly wait to get down to the factory and find out if the rumors were true. Perhaps, after all, they were nothing but talk. When morning came he bolted his breakfast, dashed out without remembering his lunch and had to go back for it, but reached the Glass Works several minutes before the whistle.
Much to his surprise, the Polly, not regularly scheduled for another trip until the first part of the coming week, was at the wharf. The tide was nearing the turn, and Skipper Barney, one eye on the Creek, was standing on the wharf’s edge talking to Deming Jarves. Kit could not hear what he was saying, but the instant he was seen by the owner of the Glass Works, Mr Jarves beckoned to him, and Kit heard him say, “Will he do, Skipper?”
Skipper Barney nodded, jumped aboard the Polly, and began unfurling the mainsail.
“You are Christopher Freeman,” said Mr. Jarves pleasantly, and Kit recalled how the proprietor was said to know the names of all his workmen, of their children, and how those children were doing in school. “You have a new job this morning. Ten gross of diamond thumbprint goblets must reach Boston today. The Skipper’s short a hand. I’ll see that your job — you’re a wood-drier, aren’t you? — is filled, and your great-aunt told you won’t be back until tomorrow. Good trip, Skipper. Much obliged, Christopher, for helping us out.”
Long
