Uncle William | Page 3

blue eyes with a little frown. "They're a terrible bother," he said, squinting through them and readjusting them. "But I don't dare resk it without. I got hold of the pepper-box last time. Thought it was the salt--same shape. The chowder /was/ hot." He chuckled. "I can see a boat a mile off," he said, lifting the basket of clams to the sink, "but a pepper-box two feet's beyond me." He stood at the sink, rubbing the clams with slow, thoughtful fingers. His big head, outlined against the window, was not unlike the line of sea-coast that stretched below, far as the eye could see, rough and jagged. Tufts of hair framed his shining baldness and tufts of beard embraced the chin, losing themselves in the vast expanse of neckerchief knotted, sailor fashion, about his throat.
Over the clams and the potatoes and the steaming kettles he hovered with a kind of slow patience,--in a smaller man it would have been fussiness,--and when the fragrant chowder was done he dipped it out with careful hand. The light had lessened, and the little room, in spite of its ruddy glow, was growing dark. Uncle William glanced toward the window. Across the harbor a single star had come out. "Time to set my light," he said. He lighted a ship's lantern and placed it carefully in the window.
The artist watched him with amused eyes. "You waste a lot of oil on the government, Uncle William," he said laughingly. "Why don't you apply for a salary?"
Uncle William smiled genially. "Well, I s'pose the guvernment would say the' wa'n't any reel need for a light here. And I don't s'pose the' is, /myself/--not any /reel/ need. But it's a comfort. The boys like to see it, comin' in at night. They've sailed by it a good many year now, and I reckon they'd miss it. It's cur'us how you do miss a thing that's a comfort--more'n you do one 't you reely /need/ sometimes." He lighted the lamp swinging, ship fashion, from a beam above, and surveyed the table. He drew up his chair. "Well, it's ready," he said, "such as it is."
"That's all airs, Uncle William," said the young man, drawing up. "You know it's fit for a king."
"Yes, it's good," said the old man, beaming on him. "I've thought a good many times there wa'n't anything in the world that tasted better than chowder--real good clam chowder." His mouth opened to take in a spoonful, and his ponderous jaws worked slowly. There was nothing gross in the action, but it might have been ambrosia. He had pushed the big spectacles up on his head for comfort, and they made an iron- gray bridge from tuft to tuft, framing the ruddy face.
"There was a man up here to Arichat one summer," he said, chewing slowly, "that e't my chowder. And he was sort o' possessed to have me go back home with him."
The artist smiled. "Just to make chowder for him?"
The old man nodded. "Sounds cur'us, don't it? But that was what he wanted. He was a big hotel keeper and he sort o' got the idea that if he could have chowder like that it would be a big thing for the hotel. He offered me a good deal o' money if I'd go with him--said he'd give me five hunderd a year and keep." The old man chuckled. "I told him I wouldn't go for a thousand--not for two thousand," he said emphatically. "Why, I don't s'pose there's money enough in New York to tempt me to live there.
"Have you been there?"
"Yes, I've been there a good many times. We've put in for repairs and one thing and another, and I sailed a couple of years between there and Liverpool once. It's a terrible shet-in place," he said suddenly.
"I believe you're right," admitted the young man. He had lighted his pipe and was leaning back, watching the smoke. "You /do/ feel shut in --sometimes. But there are a lot of nice people shut in with you."
"That's what I meant," he said, quickly. "I can't stan' so many folks."
"You're not much crowded here." The young man lifted his head. Down below they could hear the surf beating. The wind had risen. It rushed against the little house whirlingly.
The old man listened a minute. "I shall have to go down and reef her down," he said thoughtfully. "It's goin' to blow."
"I should say it /is/ blowing," said the young man.
"Not yet," returned Uncle William. "You'll hear it blow afore mornin' if you stay awake to listen--though it won't sound so loud up the shore where you be. This is the place for it. A good stiff blow and nobody on either side of you--for half a mile." A kind of mellow enthusiasm held the