“How’s the haulin’?” he shouted, as if a large expanse of water still separated them.
David grinned and raised his voice. “There’s nothing wrong with the hauling, Uncle Charlie. I’ve averaged one and a half to a trap for ‘most a week now.”
“No need to yell,” bellowed the old lobsterman, and he tinkered cheerfully with his hearing aid. “At thirty-six cents a pound, that ain’t hay, is it?”
“I had a good teacher,” David told him generously.
“Shucks, son, you’re a natural-born salt. Which is a sight more’n I can say for that young trouble-maker that just went out.”
Sally was still blazing with indignation. “Did you see what happened?”
Uncle Charlie snorted. “I see the whole thing. That was Roddie McNeill, and somebody ought to paddle him good or else teach him how to act in a boat. Foolin’ around like that, and headin’ out at this hour.”
David frowned. “McNeill? The same Mr. McNeill who bought Grindstone Point from Dad?”
“Ayuh. Same McNeill.” Uncle Charlie knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “They’re putting up a big house down to the point.”
David nodded, bitterly feeling the loss of Blake land. Then Uncle Charlie shouted a fresh bit of news.
“Young Roddie aims to do some haulin’, so they say.”
Sally broke in, “Hauling! Why, that smarty-cat doesn’t know one end of a boat from the other.”
“He’ll learn,” Uncle Charlie said dryly. “Haulin’s hard work, and it’ll mebbe make a man of him,” he added.
David’s heart sank at the prospect of Roddie McNeill hanging around the cove. “Where does he keep his boat and his gear?” he asked.
“Likely over to the yacht club.” Losing interest, Uncle Charlie put his pipe away. He ignored the town clock that rose above the elms on Main Street and squinted up at the sky. “Close to suppertime. I’ll give you young’uns a lift home. But first, step over to the shack a minute. I got something for you.” The old lobster-man was pleased with himself. He was about to play Santa Claus. David knew the signs.
Together, the three crossed the wharf and crunched up the clamshell path to the sheds where the lobstermen kept their gear.
The old man had recently given up lobstering in order to tend his antique shop nearby. “Not that I’m gitting too old to haul,” he told everyone loudly. “I ain’t.” And to prove it, he still maintained his gear shed and hauled a few traps whenever he had a hankering for a lobster stew. This gave him excuse enough for spending his spare time around Fishermen’s Dock with his pipe and his cronies.
Between the rows of traps piled outside to dry, they approached the old shed, as familiar to the children as home. For they had often gone out with Uncle Charlie when he was lobstering full-time, or passed a foggy morning by his little stove, helping him to mend his gear.
Actually their great-uncle, Charlie Blake had long been their favorite relative. It was from him that David had learned most of what he knew about lobstering. And it was Uncle Charlie who had given David the dory that he had reconditioned into the Lobster Boy.
The old man unlocked the door and they entered the sun-pierced gloom of the shed. David sniffed curiously at the smell of fresh paint in the air.
“You handling all the gear you can?” yelled Uncle Charlie.
“Not exactly,” David admitted. “But I can’t line up any more this season.”
“Well, son,” chuckled Uncle Charlie, “you’ve got ’em lined up now, fifteen of ’em. Fresh-painted, too.” There along the top of Uncle Charlie’s bench was a neat row of main buoys — old, but solid and sun-dried. Each had a new coat of red-and-black paint underneath its green tip — David’s colors. And each was marked with David’s number and his initials.
Speechless, the boy looked at Uncle Charlie whose lean face shone with pleasure.
“Shucks. They’s no point in letting this gear just loaf around. You can set these any time you’ve a mind to. Traps outside to go with ’em.”
“Thanks, Uncle Charlie!” David said with all his heart.
“Ayuh,” said the old man, embarrassed. “Here’s a key. You might’s well use the shack, too. They’s room enough for the both of us.”
Before David could answer, Uncle Charlie changed the subject. “How’s the swimming, Sally?”
Sally bit her lip. “I’m — I’m taking lessons at the beach, but . . . .” Her voice trailed away.
Without a word, Uncle Charlie reached up to his top shelf. He handed her a dusty bottle. Inside was a tiny full-rigged ship, complete to the last miniature lifeboat and anchor.
“That’s a present ahead of time for learning to swim. You’ll learn soon,” he promised.
Sally’s eyes grew round and slowly filled with happy tears. Unable to speak, she gave the old man a fierce hug.
“Shucks,” said Uncle Charlie. “Let’s git out of here.”
The afternoon air smelled of wild roses growing behind the sheds and of rockweed on the flats.
“Look,” Sally cried softly. “The island has David’s colors.”
Beyond the point lay Blake’s Island, richly banded in color. It was green-tipped with spruces above the broad band of red where the dying sun tinted the ledges. And below at the waterline shone the wet black of rock-weed. David felt a quick rush of pride. Why, in a way, Blake’s Island, owned as it had been by generations of Blakes, was his own.
Uncle Charlie slapped his trousers. “Gitting towards suppertime. Let’s git goin’.”
The ancient car started up with a hoarse roar, and they jounced away from the docks.
“Speaking of islands,” bellowed Uncle Charlie over the racket of the engine, “I hear tell Mr. McNeill wants to buy one off’n the point. I guess all that money of his is burnin’ a hole in his pocket.”
David felt Sally’s elbow dig sharply into his side. Which island contained the old Blake treasure? Suddenly David was impatient to reach home.
They pounded over the bridge at Goose Creek and roared down the narrow road that led north along the shore.
“How many islands your folks own now, David?” bawled Uncle Charlie.
“Just Blake’s. And Tub Island, of course, since it’s joined to Blake’s by a sand bar.”
“That’s a-plenty,” boomed the old man, “taxes bein’ what they are.”
“You own Blueberry Island and Little Fox, too, don’t you?” asked Sally. “I bet you’d never sell them.”
“Sell ’em tomorrow for a wooden nickel,” chuckled Uncle Charlie. “Sick and tired of payin’ the taxes.”
But he doesn’t mean it, David reassured himself. For, taxes or no taxes, Uncle Charlie was too much of a Yankee trader ever to part with anything without what he called “a good dicker.”
They rounded the bend and came to an explosive halt under the elms that sheltered the Blake house.
“Well, it’s most suppertime,” Uncle Charlie announced. And with a quick wave, he bounced off in a cloud of dust.
Supper