Darry the Life Saver | Page 6

in his own gruff way.
On the third day after the rescue he called Darry to him as he sat mending a net with which the crew of the station secured enough fish to serve them for an occasional meal.
"Sit down, lad. I want to talk with you a bit," he said.
Darry dropped on a block close by.
He was still filled with the deepest admiration for these men of the coast, and his determination to follow their arduous calling when he grew big enough to take an oar in the surfboat was undiminished.
"Now, tell me about yourself, and where you belong. We are not allowed to keep any rescued sailors more than a certain time. You notice that all the others have gone, save the poor chaps lying under those mounds yonder. Being a boy you've been favored; but the time has come to know what you mean to do. Speak up, lad, and tell me your story?"
Encouraged by his kind voice, Darry told all he knew about himself up to the very moment when he parted from his friend, the captain.
Mr. Frazer seemed interested.
"I feel sorry for you, Darry. It must be hard to feel that you haven't got a friend in the world. My hands are tied in the matter, so I can do nothing; but there's Abner Peake telling me he'd like you to stay with him," he remarked.
"I understood him to say he once had a boy about my age."
"Yes, a likely little chap, but it was about a year back he was lost."
"Was he drowned?" asked Darry, feeling that this was about the way most persons in this coast country must meet their end.
"Yes. The little fellow was a venturesome boy, and tried to cross the bay in a heavy sea. He must have been swept out at the inlet. They found the boat on the beach, three miles above here, but never little Joe. Abner has never gotten over it. To this day he sits and looks out to sea as if he could discover his poor boy coming back to him. I thought for a time the fellow would go out of his mind."
"And he wants me to stay with him?" continued Darry, musingly.
"Yes. Abner has a small house out of the village, where his wife and the two little girls live, while he is over here at the station. Often we want someone to cross over with supplies, and he thinks you might like the job."
Darry drew a long breath.
"I have no home. The only one I ever knew was the poor old Falcon, and her timbers are scattered along the coast for ten miles. I think that if Mr. Peake really wants me to stay with him I shall accept gladly. It is tough to feel like a piece of driftwood all the time," he said.
"I think you are wise in deciding that way. Abner is a kind man, and as for his wife--well, she's got a temper all right, but if you don't rub it the wrong way she can be got on with, I reckon. Anyhow, it would pay you to try it until something else turns up. Maybe you want to ship on another vessel?"
"I think I have had all of the sea I want, after that time. I wake up nights, thinking I'm choking with the salt water, and trying to catch my breath. When I get older and stronger I want to be a life saver like you, sir."
The keeper smiled pleasantly.
It was not often he appeared as a hero in the eyes of even a boy, and, being human, he could not help feeling some satisfaction.
"It's a dangerous calling, Darry; but, after all, no worse than that of a sailor. And while we risk our lives often, it is to try and save others. There's some satisfaction in that. But there sits Abner on that old keel of a wreck; suppose you go and tell him your story, and see what he says."
When the boy joined him Abner Peake looked up, and the solemn expression on his face changed to one of kindliness.
"Set down, lad. Are yuh feelin' all right agin after your rough time?" he asked.
"A little sore in the arms still, but that will pass away soon. Mr. Frazer told me you wanted to hear my story."
"If yuh don't mind tellin' me. I reckoned as how yuh must 'a' had a hard time. Now, I ain't never been away from this here coast, but I feels for boys what's out in the wide world. Still, there's some hope o' them comin' back tuh the nest agin, some day. Now, go on, lad," with a long-drawn sigh.
Again did the homeless Darry start in to narrate his brief career, so far as it was known to