Chapter

7

EBB TIDE FOR DAVID

DISCONSOLATELY, David turned in at the front gate and looked up to see the familiar, ancient Ford parked in the driveway. Of course. Uncle Charlie had come. Now things would somehow straighten out — everything would be all right again. His heart lifted and he hurried into the house.

The old man was seated at the kitchen table with David’s father and mother. Carefully, he set his coffee cup in its saucer and turned to face the boy. Uncle Charlie looked unhappy.

“David,” he began, and his voice filled the room. “I been talking with your folks so’s we can decide what you best do.”

David glanced toward his mother. She seemed disturbed, but her smile was steady. Her look was filled with understanding.

“Stand over by the stove, David, and get warm. You look cold and damp.” His father’s voice, like his mother’s smile, was reassuring.

David stood in front of the kitchen stove, feeling the good warmth at his back like a steadying arm.

Uncle Charlie cleared his throat and began loudly. “The boys over to the dock have been missing some lobsters, Dave.”

“They told me, Uncle Charlie,” said David. He was surprised that his voice did not shake.

“They say any more?”

“Yes.” He met the old man’s eyes steadily. “They asked me not to haul any more.”

Now the explosion would come. Now Uncle Charlie’s tremendous wrath would fall like a hurricane, whirling this nightmare up and away, destroying it for the evil thing it was.

David waited. The old clock on the mantel began to tick with an unbearable zest. TICK-tock, TICK-tock, TICK-tock. Still, Uncle Charlie stared into his coffee cup and said nothing.

Finally he sighed. “Well, Dave. They figure you’re young and mebbe don’t realize what’s what. And you got a good reason, they think, to want some extry cash.” Uncle Charlie slapped his chair in confusion. “Gorry mighty, Dave, they can’t figure out why you haven’t taken a loss yourself!”

“Unless I did it, you mean.”

“Ayuh. That’s about the jist of it.” Uncle Charlie pushed back his chair and stood up. “And another thing. They figure those traps are gitting hauled late in the day after they’re back in. Things are mostly the way they look, you know, and you’re the only one goes out afternoons, Dave. They can’t help wonderin’.”

Then, with a shock, David understood. Uncle Charlie, who should have trusted him, was one of those who wondered.

Mr. Blake met his son’s look steadily. Buck up, he seemed to say. Tell him you didn’t do it. That’s what he wants to hear.

Suddenly David felt himself taller than the old man. He turned back to him and spoke carefully, as he would speak to a child. “Uncle Charlie, I never hauled anybody’s traps but my own and I never will. The men know the reason I haul afternoons is because I work at home in the morning.”

Embarrassed, Uncle Charlie looked away. But there was no mistaking the relief in his voice. “Shooty, Dave,” he boomed, “I know it wa’n’t you. But it’s good to hear you say it, all the same.”

David nodded.

“Now, look. Here’s what you better do. You lay off haulin’ for a while. Then they’ll see it isn’t you and they’ll go after somebody else.”

“Supposing the thief lays off, too?” David’s father asked mildly.

“Well, I s’pose he might, during the peak season while the pickin’s good. But give him time.”

David found himself wondering if Uncle Charlie really believed there was someone else. “I guess maybe it would be easier to quit for a while,” he said, thinking aloud.

“ ’Course it is!” Uncle Charlie shouted. “When you see trouble coming, head the other way. Keep it to wind’ard, that’s what I say. You’ll live longer.”

Why, grown men, even the finest of them, were not always right, David thought with some surprise. Face up to trouble when it came. That was what his father always said, and in this case surely it was the thing to do. He lifted his head.

“I’m going hauling tomorrow, the way I always do. If I quit now the men will always believe I’m the thief. I’m going to keep right on hauling, Uncle Charlie. And if they call in the warden I’ll be glad to take him along.”

“Good for you,” said David’s father quietly, and although his mother was smiling there were proud tears in her eyes.

But Uncle Charlie shook his head as he rose to go. “Thanks for the mug-up,” he said to Mrs. Blake. Then he turned to David. “What are you going to do for bait?”

“I don’t know,” said David honestly.

“If you can’t git bait you can’t keep haulin’, Dave, and mebbe that’ll be just as well. But if you can, then you better forget your chores and haul mornings. Then they can keep an eye on you and they won’t be talking.”

“They don’t have to keep an eye on me, Uncle Charlie, so I’m going out when I always go. But if they think their traps are being hauled late in the day, then I’ll keep a lookout for someone else who goes out late.”

Uncle Charlie sighed. “Well, they can’t legally stop you unless they catch you stealing. But if you keep on haulin’, they ain’t a-going to like it.” He managed a crooked smile by way of farewell and climbed wearily into his old car.

But David did not see him. Instead, he was seeing Roddie McNeill heading out of a cove that glowed red with the sunset.

David’s father put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “What now?”

David turned. “I think I know who is hauling those traps, Dad. Only I need proof.”

His father nodded. “Then go after it, son.”

The following day dawned blue and hot, and the bay was crystal clear. After an early lunch David made ready to leave for town, and Sally followed him around like an anxious puppy. For the first time this summer, she had failed to go to the beach for her swimming lesson. And for once, David noted gratefully, she had not begged to go hauling with him.

“What will you ever do for bait?” she worried.

“I don’t know. I’ll haul today anyway, and maybe I’ll get enough crabs in the traps to tide me over. I don’t know . . . .” David shrugged and headed unsmiling down the path. He sensed that Sally stood at the door and watched him with concern dark in her eyes. She, too, knew that whatever crabs he might haul up would not begin to bait his entire string. With an effort he straightened his shoulders and kept on toward town.

Most of the townspeople seemed not to have heard the ugly rumor that David Blake was a lobster thief, and they greeted him as cordially as ever. But even on that first day there were some who passed him by, silently and with chill faces.

When he reached Fishermen’s Dock a few of the men were already in from hauling and, quietly busy, were carring their catch or putting away their gear. If they noticed David they gave no sign.

He went on down the path to the gear shed and his heart was like a stone. He found himself remembering things that had meant so much — the friendly banter across the water when he passed them coming in, the exchange of news around the gear sheds, Foggy’s special greeting, “Good haulin’, pal!”

All right, David thought with a deep bitterness. His face could be as stony as theirs. He could match their silence with his own. Heavily, he flung open the door of the gear shed and paused, bewildered. The rich, wonderful smell of salt redfish rose strong among the pleasant odors of potwarp and spruce wood. David stared at his bait barrel, filled to the brim. A quick hope rose within him as he wondered which of the lobstermen still believed in his honesty.

Outside, steps crunched on the clamshell path and Poke peered in. His unruly hair was edged by sunlight. A smile lighted his face. “There’s more where that came from,” he said.

David hesitated. “How did you do it, Poke?”

“Simple,” said Poke and he seated himself on the workbench. “I had a little talk with Mira Piper who agreed that lobster bait would make a fine fertilizer for her prize roses. So this morning Uncle Fred drove us to Rockland where we got a barrel of, uh, fertilizer from the bait company. It seems,” added Poke with a wink, “that Uncle Fred is growing interested in roses and has taken to calling on Miss Piper to talk about them.”

“Well, what do you know!” said David, interested.

Poke grinned in answer. “And furthermore, Miss Piper said to tell you that she has taken out what fertilizer she wants. You are to have the rest of it if she may store her barrel in your shed.” And Poke surveyed the full barrel with a fond pride.

David’s eyes began to sting, but laughter, too, crowded into his throat. He shook his head, unable to thank his friend properly. “I’ll settle tomorrow, Poke, when the hotel pays me.”

“That’s all right.” Then Poke hesitated, frowning down at the rough floor. “You asked me to be a partner on the Lobster Boy, but I think you know how I feel about boats.”

David nodded, waiting.

“Well, how about counting me in as a sort of silent partner? You do the hauling and I’ll supply the bait. Then we’ll be in this thing together.”

David’s throat tightened at his friend’s loyalty. The two shook hands on the agreement.

“One other thing. Don’t let the men get you down,” Poke urged. “All we have to do, you know, is find the real thief.” Significantly he tapped the battered field glasses slung over one thin shoulder. “Whenever our friend Roddie McNeill roars away from the yacht club, I intend to be watching.”

“But I never said I thought it was . . . .”

“You didn’t have to,” said the older boy. “Furthermore, I have generously offered to wait on tables at the yacht club dinner each Saturday. Young McNeill will be there, talking, I hope. And young Stokes will be there, too, listening.” Poke winked and was gone.

With new courage David filled his bait can. Now he could keep Blake’s Island and he could continue his savings program. And, by the grace of fortune, he could clear his name of dishonor.

When David went down to the dory carrying his bait can he walked with his head held high. But for all the notice given him by the lobstermen, he might never have been there at all.

That afternoon, and several times in the days to follow, David found himself off Tub Island. But he put the thought of treasure impatiently from his mind. If it had not been for Jonathan’s old chart and the merry chase it had led them, perhaps he would have seen trouble coming in time to prevent it. Certainly, until he had cleared his name, until he had met his obligation to Blake’s Island and to his college fund, he had no time for treasure hunting. It seemed to David that he was growing up, overnight, that he was becoming a man, engaged in a man’s livelihood filled with danger and competition. He thought often enough of Uncle Charlie’s warning, “If you keep on haulin’, they ain’t a-going to like it.”

As the hot, clear days went by, David began to understand what the old man had meant. Everyone was getting a good catch. Prices were high. The traps apparently had not been tampered with of late. But day after day more of the townspeople left him strictly alone. By the end of the following week it seemed to David that Saturday Cove, lobstermen and townspeople together, had shrunk to his own family and the few friends who had stood by him — Poke, Mira Piper, and Poke’s Uncle Fred Kibbe at the Harbor Supply.

“The men are afraid of you,” Poke told him one day as they sat mending trap heads on the doorstep of the shed. “They think that when lobsters get scarce they’ll find their traps hauled again.”

“Do they ever say anything about how I get my bait?” David asked him curiously.

“They make a remark now and then. But that sort of thing doesn’t bother Uncle Fred. Whenever your bait gets low Mira Piper seems to need some more, uh, rose fertilizer.”

David shifted restlessly on the doorstep. What right, after all, did he have to ask Fred Kibbe to befriend him? Soon the lobstermen might decide not to trade at the Supply.

“And Uncle Charlie always sticks up for you, too,” Poke went on. “Lately, though, he hasn’t been around very often.”

Uncle Charlie isn’t happy hanging around the dock any more, David thought, because he’s ashamed. He taught me how to haul. And now that I have a bad record he thinks it’s his fault. “Things are mostly the way they look,” Uncle Charlie had said. And David Blake looked guilty.

“Poke,” said David, suddenly desperate, “haven’t you seen anything yet? With the field glasses, I mean.”

The older boy shook his dark head. “How about you?”

“Whenever I haul,” said David in a tight voice, “I keep one eye on any other boat in sight. There just hasn’t been a thing wrong. No one even goes out of the cove late. Not regularly, anyway.”

“I’ve been watching,” said Poke, “and I’ve been asking questions. If Roddie is the thief, there is nothing to prove it now. He has set a few traps in shoal water off Grindstone Point, and some mornings he goes out early to tend them. But mostly he neglects them.”

“Does he ever bring in more than a dozen pounds or so?”

Poke looked thoughtful. “I see what you mean. No, no more than he could haul from his own traps. The men say,” said Poke, “that Roddie knows very little about hauling and doesn’t bother to learn. They tell him that that boat of his is getting as messy as an osprey’s nest. But they seem to like him, and they don’t question his honesty. Of course,” said Poke, reaching for more twine, “he seems to have a good deal of spending money and he likes to treat. That helps, and it makes him feel like one of them, I suppose.”

One of them, thought David with bitterness. “You don’t ever see him heading out after I come back in? Around sunset or later?”

“From noon on, the Pirate lies off the yacht club as innocent as a lamb. Maybe,” said Poke, “we’re barking up the wrong tree.”

David drew a heavy breath. “I’m beginning to think that getting proof I’m not guilty may take a long time, Poke.”

“We can wait,” said his friend quietly.

And wait they did through days grown short with the increased business of hauling. Twice each week David found a well-filled bait barrel in his shed. And bitter though he still felt at Perce’s refusal to sell him bait, he could smile at the thought that it was Mira Piper, fragrant with the scent of roses, who was helping to supply him with the nose-twisting redfish. Somehow, the thought of Mira Piper and Poke and his Uncle Fred, drawn together on his behalf, made the lonely days more bearable.

One blazing Saturday noon David reached town on his bicycle a little earlier than usual. It was a “dog day,” hot, David knew, even out on the bay. Already thirsty, he turned in at The Sandwich Shoppe near the dock for an orangeade. There in a fronth booth sat Roddie McNeill with Willis Greenlaw and the Dennetts. Seeing him, their conversation faltered. For a long moment David forced himself to meet the cool mockery of Roddie’s stare.

“Hi, lobster boy,” Roddie said softly.

Helpless, his face flaming, David sat down on a stool at the counter. Their dislike was a pillow held over his face, suffocating him. Then he heard Roddie’s short laugh, and moments later they left the shop together, a closely knit and friendly group. Blindly, David reached for his orangeade. Without tasting it he had half emptied his glass when he heard a familiar voice beside him.

“Good morning, David. Aren’t you the lucky one to be going out on the water on a hot day like this.” Cheerfully, Mira Piper took the stool beside David and ordered an orangeade, too.

At once David began to feel better. He wished that he might tell this talkative little woman how grateful he was for what she had done to help him get his bait. “I want to say thank you,” he began slowly.

“Dear me, you must mean for the rose fertilizer.” Mira Piper’s laugh trilled out delightedly. “I haven’t had so much fun in years. I should thank you for letting me keep my fertilizer in your shed.”

“You’re welcome,” said David with some confusion. “How are your roses doing?” he added politely.

“They’re doing quite as well as your lobsters are,” she declared. “Elijah and his Uncle Fred have kept me informed, David. I am very, very happy indeed that I can help a little.”

They sipped their drinks in silence for a moment. Then the little woman turned to study David briefly. She appeared to make up her mind about something. “I have a problem, David, and I should like your opinion,” she said briskly. “Do you remember that day when you came to the Society with Elijah and your sister, Sally?”

David nodded.

“And do you remember the glass case that holds the Revolutionary War relics? It stands in the reading room where you were,” she reminded him.

“Yes, I remember.”

“A button is missing, David, a very rare button.” Her bright eyes searched his. “It is a pewter button from the field dress of a minuteman. My father found it years ago on Blake’s Island and I myself had loaned it to the Society. Very likely it was the property of your ancestor, John Blake.”

David felt the blood rise foolishly into his cheeks. Did Mira Piper imagine that he might have taken the button because it had once belonged to a Blake?

“Somebody,” she went on clearly, “opened the case and took the button. It’s valuable in itself, but as part of the history of Saturday Cove it is priceless. Whoever has taken it must care nothing about the town.”

Roddie. Roddie McNeill had visited the Historical Society that same day. Mira Piper herself had told them so. But what would Roddie want with an old button? David’s thoughts whirled.

“I don’t suppose,” Mira went on, “that you have any idea of what might have become of it?”

David thought. Surely Roddie did not collect such things. And since, as Poke had said, he had plenty of spending money, he would not have stolen it to sell it. No, there was no reason to suppose that Roddie had taken the button, either to keep or to sell. David shook his head.

“No, I haven’t any idea,” he told her honestly.

“I see. Well, we shall just have to keep hoping that it will turn up,” she told him. They finished their drinks companionably enough, but David felt ill at ease. Then, with a nod, Mira Piper was out of the shop and off down the street. Through the window he caught a swift glimpse of her face, friendly as ever, but thoughtful now, and troubled.

Would there never be an end to problems? He would ask Poke and Sally about the missing button, of course. But he knew that their mystification would equal his own.

Feeling hotter than before he had entered, David left the shop. The noon sun beat down upon Fishermen’s Dock and glanced in waves off the cars parked near the warehouse. The chairs in front of the Supply, David noted with relief, were empty. There would be no lowered voices behind his back today.

With the sense of escaping a world that had grown too small, too harsh, David went off to haul, guiding the Lobster Boy steadily out of the harbor. The thwart felt blistering to his touch and the cove glared like copper. David raised his burning face, waiting to feel the first breeze off Grindstone Point. But today the air was still. Lifting the surface of the bay came the long, slow swells that told of storm winds raging somewhere south of them. “There’ll be a good blow by night,” David told himself.

He worked fast in spite of the heat, pausing now and then to dash the chill water over his face and arms and chest. As the afternoon lengthened the air grew more breathless.

A pleasure craft not unlike the Pirate passed close by. “Looks like we’re in for it,” called its skipper cheerfully.

“That ought to cool it off,” David told him, grateful for the man’s friendliness.

But although a few of the lobstermen neared him occasionally, hauling extra hours as they were during the peak season, there was no greeting from them, not the slightest sign of recognition. At the end of that sweltering afternoon, David felt depressed and weary as never before in his life. His affairs seemed to have reached a low ebb, and there was no sign that the tide would ever turn.

After supper he sat with his father on the lawn. Together, they watched the distant thunderheads roil up out of the south. “I feel as if I didn’t have a friend in the world,” David told him.

His father’s calm face gave no hint of the long talks with his wife as David lay asleep after his hours of hauling. “Sometimes good men make bad mistakes,” he said. “It takes character, David, not to become bitter when you are falsely accused.”

David mopped at his damp forehead. “But suppose I never do find out who robbed those traps? Whoever did it has stopped, for the time being, anyway. There just isn’t any way to prove it, now, Dad.”

Mr. Blake polished his glasses. “I thought that might happen.”

“The men think I’m the thief. They’re probably saying I stopped because of their warning.” Despair shook the boy’s voice.

“Fortunately,” said his father clearly, “you haven’t time for self-pity. Just keep on doing the best you can, and things will straighten out in time, son.”

Time, thought David listlessly. Time could mean years and years. The sea, it was true, was as filled with wonder and beauty as it ever had been. But somehow the challenge had gone from it. Whether he did well or poorly seemed to matter less with each passing day.

His thoughts were interrupted when Sally, doing the dishes with her mother, called him to the telephone.

“Hurry up!” she cried. “It’s Poke, and he sounds sort of queer.”

It was Poke’s voice all right, unnaturally tense, and so hurried that David strained to hear. “I’m down at the yacht club waiting on tables,” said Poke. “Can you hear me?”

“Sure,” said David.

“Get on your bike and come down here fast.”

“Tonight? Now?” David broke in, surprised.

“Tonight. Now. Roddie just made a big scene over dessert. It began when someone asked him about his lobster business. Roddie said he had been top man for weeks and had made a pot of money.”

“Top man!” said David in bewilderment. With only eight or ten traps? He listened and his heart began to pound.

“Then Mr. McNeill made a remark about how the successful people stay on top once they get there. He asked Roddie what had happened lately, since he was bringing in only enough lobsters for a couple of tea sandwiches. He meant it as a joke, I think, but Roddie was hot and he said too much. He said that his father knew nothing when it came to lobstering. Roddie claimed he could be top man again any time he liked. Mr. McNeill turned as purple as a grape and told him to prove it if he wanted to keep his fancy boat.”

David whistled.

“Then Roddie shouted, ‘I’ll prove it, right now! I’ll be back before the dance is over, and I’ll have a couple of dozen!’ And he slammed out of here and headed for the float.” Poke paused for breath. “Listen!”

David could hear the mingled sounds of voices and laughter, then the faint beat of a motor.

“Poke,” he cried, “Roddie can’t count on getting a couple of dozen from his own traps, or even half that many!”

“Exactly what I thought,” said Poke. “But nobody here knows that. If you’re waiting at the yacht club for him when he comes in, perhaps you can start a few people thinking . . . .”

Swiftly David made up his mind. “Meet me at the town landing, Poke. Not the yacht club. The town landing!” he repeated clearly before he broke the connection.

Then he turned to Sally. “Tell Dad I’m off for town. And tell him,” he called back over his shoulder, “I think we’ve got us a lobster thief!”

Cutting through the kitchen, David lost no time in getting his bicycle out of the barn. Then, head low and heart racing, he headed for town. It was not until he rattled across the wooden bridge over Goose Creek that he was aware of something behind him.

He threw a quick glance over his shoulder. There was Sally, pigtails flying, pedaling for all she was worth.