they borrowed a kicker from one of the summer colonists and set out for home just before noon. skippy was too overwhelmed to speak until long after they left the beach and tully sat tragic and silent at the wheel.
“we might’s well look agin,” he murmured brokenly, as he headed the boat toward the channel. “just so’s to be makin’ sure.”
“might’s well,” skippy echoed. then: “gee, do you think maybe he was blowin’ the siren?”
“that he must o’ done. he must o’ been blowin’ it like mad.”
they spent half the afternoon chugging up and down the channel and passed several craft, government and otherwise, which had heard the warning that the inland beach guards had passed along. finally they decided to return home and with bowed heads found their way out of the treacherous waters.
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“sure if the coast guards ain’t found him, we won’t—not if we be stayin’ there all night,” said tully mournfully. “kid, don’t ye be jumpin’ on me, now. if ye knew what i been through since ... since.... i been blowin’ a siren in distress five hun’erd times, so i have, and five hun’erd times, i been in that davy jones callin’ me lungs out for help an’ no help come! i’ve sunk with her too—oh shiverin’ swordfish ... kid, i ain’t nothin’ but a plain....”
“don’t say it, big joe,” said skippy, moved to the depths of his soul with pity. “gee, don’t i know! you wouldn’t have done it a-purpose.”
“no. ’tis right ye be there.” tully looked beaten.
they chugged on up the river and seemed to pass everyone they knew. inspector jones and his men bobbed by in the trim harbor launch waving a cheery greeting to skippy and eyeing tully with obvious suspicion.
skippy was grateful for the silent inlet and the warm throaty bark that mugs gave as he scrambled aboard the barge. he looked at the dog, winced a little at his faithful canine eyes and took him up in his arms. he couldn’t do to mugs what they had done to that unknown man on the davy jones.
164
he sprawled in a rickety arm chair on deck while the sun sank slowly in the west. the whole horizon was a blaze of scarlet, then gold, then purple and at last it faded into leaden colored clouds. big joe was calling him in to supper.
skippy looked down in the crook of his arm at the sleeping dog. supper? he didn’t want any—he never wanted to eat while that man on the davy jones lay in watson’s channel. he couldn’t do it to mugs.
tully got tired of waiting and came out on deck. after one glance at skippy’s tragic face he got his hat, pulled it down over his head and left the barge while the boy watched him go with a constricted feeling in his throat. and though he wanted with all his heart to call big joe back, he knew that he could never again sit opposite him at the table with a dead man between them.
dusk settled over the inlet and through the shadows came mrs. duffy. her cheery smile was conspicuous by its absence just then and her cheeks looked tear-stained and haggard. skippy forgot the dead man in the davy jones—he was all concern for this kindly neighbor who had helped nurse him back to health.
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hadn’t skippy heard? mrs. duffy sobbed a little, then bravely smiled through her tears. she had to be strong and brave—other wives and mothers in the basin were getting used to the experience of seeing their menfolk taken in by the long arm of the law. and now mr. duffy had been added to that number.
what had he done? no more than other river folk had done before him. but it was forbidden by the law and there you were. and the excuse that they had to live and eat carried no weight in the courts of the land. neither did the courts care that a rich and unscrupulous josiah flint had lured these men into his vicious employ at starvation wages only to leave them unwanted and ostracized from honest employment upon his untimely death. and mr. josephus duffy, obeying that primal law of the survival of the fittest, was to be jailed for five years because he stole when employment was denied him. five years of punishment for bringing food home to his family!
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skippy’s young heart was bursting with sympathy. wrapped up in his own and his father’s concerns he had been vaguely conscious of his neighbors, the duffys of the dinky o. cross. squatters like himself, he had been aware that they came and went, but that was all. now they became suddenly real and vivid to him—the duffys, father and mother, and their two children, minus the father now.
“and wouldn’t skinner give him nothin’ at the central havin’ two kids like you got?” he asked sympathetically.
“skinner’d push men in prison before he’d help ’em get a decent job,” the good woman said with a jerk of her head. “he said he’s goin’ to clean all us scum out of this basin—ain’t you heard?”
yes, skippy had heard only too well. he leaned over and timidly touched the woman’s work-worn hands, pledging his slim, manly self as an aid and comfort to herself and her two unfortunate children. in gratitude, she hugged the boy to her breast and hurried back to the dinky o. cross to put her young ones to bed.
skippy cherished that embrace; it was the only maternal affection he had ever known. his eyes shone into the darkness with the joy of it and he hugged mugs still closer in his arms and spent some time in reflecting on why he was so happy when he was so sad.
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josiah flint and marty skinner rose up before his eyes. he was beginning to realize what sorrow they had brought to the river people—his people! a fellow feels things like that when he’s going on thirteen.
thirteen! skippy looked up into the starlit sky and blinked. mugs’ even breathing was like the whisper of the breeze blowing about his head. and he went to sleep planning how he could save the menfolk of the basin from future prison life. he would see that the boys went to school as he himself had wanted to do so badly and he would see that they got decent, honest wages so that they could live as other people did in houses with pretty gardens....
tully found him still asleep when he came back at midnight.
