The skipper didn’t, as Kit had been afraid he would, laugh at the query. He puffed at his pipe in silence for a few moments, then spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “Can’t say I rightly know, Kit. It’s been called that as long as I can remember, and during my life I’ve heard many a reason given, but which was the right one, or if any one of ’em was right, I couldn’t say.”
“Is it really true,” asked Kit earnestly, “that although it’s the only sheltered water for many miles, nobody ever puts into it? That’s what Aunt Thany told me. She said, too, that her mother told her folks shunned it on account of its being haunted by the ghosts of pirates who used to land there.”
This time Skipper Barney did smile as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “I don’t put any stock in ghosts,” he said, “especially in ghosts of pirates. Only in facts I’ve known for myself. Now these be true facts about the Cove. ’Tis true that three separate times craft putting in for shelter were stove in, yet soundings showed deep water with nary a rock. Now my advice would be this. Forget about pirates and ghosts and sech, but if you’re ever sailing anything that draws more’n six inches o’ water, keep well clear o’ Danger Cove. And best of luck to ye, lad, in the Glass Works.”
Kit walked slowly past the row of trim, gray, elmshaded houses which Aunt Thany said Deming Jarves, Huguenot founder and owner of the Glass Works, had had built for his workmen. Skipper Barney was just like everybody else. He believed Danger Cove was well-named, but hadn’t any idea why!
It was not until he had almost reached his aunt’s small white cottage with its peaked roof and picket fence that he remembered his father’s letter with its admonition to apply to the Glass Works superintendent for a job, and at the recollection his heart sank once more.
From now on all his days were to be changed. Those happy days during which he had been free, once the few chores for Aunt Thany were done, to roam at will. He had many favorite spots. The upper and lower lakes, joined by a small waterfall; the hill beyond the upper lake from whose top one could look far over the blue waters of the Bay; and, of course, the dunes and hard sands of the shore of the Bay itself. Oftener and oftener, however, he had been making trips over the marshes and through the pine woods to Danger Cove, drawn there by a strange spell whose power he recognized but could neither understand nor resist.
Always, when at last he stood on the curve of beach, Kit felt as if he had left the rest of the world behind him. Not once had he seen a boat of any kind on the Cove’s dark waters, nor a footprint other than his own on the wet sands. When he turned his glance inland there was nothing in sight but sand dunes and marshes stretching to a fringe of pine trees on the distant horizon.
He had arrived at Aunt Thany’s when the skipper’s parting words seemed to ring again in his ears. “If you’re ever sailing anything that draws more’n six inches of water, keep well clear o’ Danger Cove!”
Suppose he did have a boat of his own and sailed back and forth and back and forth over the Cove water, couldn’t he either prove, at least to his own satisfaction, that what had happened to those three boats had been coincidence or exaggeration, or, if it should happen to his own boat, couldn’t he, by being prepared, discover the cause?
But he had no boat of his own, and no money with which to buy one, unless ——
He stopped short with one hand on the white picket gate. Two dollars a week wasn’t very much, but if he saved it all, and if he worked very hard until he could command three dollars a week ——
For the first time Kit was reconciled to getting a job in the Glass Works.
Chapter II
“THIRD SAND DUNE ON THE RIGHT”
“STRIKES ME,” said Aunt Thany, bustling about the sunny kitchen as she gave Kit the hearty breakfast she insisted he should eat before setting out for the Glass Works, “you must have been plagued with nightmares from the time you went to bed till you got up this morning. Such tossing and turning I never did hear!”
“Reckon I was,” admitted Kit, seeming to recall a jumble of queer dreams in which one moment he was diving from the Polly’s bowsprit into the dark waters of the Cove and the next was racing over the sand dunes in pursuit of a person who looked like Skipper Barney but insisted he was Captain Kidd.
“Well, forget ’em,” said Aunt Thany briskly. “Eat your hominy ’n herring, and hustle down to the Works. The superintendent — he hates latecomers.”
“But I’m not working there yet,” protested Kit. “I don’t even know if he’ll have a place for me!”
Aunt Thany, who was nearer eighty than seventy and wore her hair in long white ringlets which bobbed incessantly with her quick movements, sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the red-checkered tablecloth.
“I reckon he will, Christopher,” she said earnestly. “Folks tell me the Sandwich Glass Works has never been so busy and prosperous as ’tis right now, since Mr. Jarves brought in this new pressed glass. ’Tis being sent all over the world, even a shipment to Queen Victoria. You’d stand a better chance, of course, going in as a ’prentice, but ’tis likely your ma and pa will be sending for you soon. Anyhow, better be off, and show you do get up bright and early. Take this lunch I packed, and, if you’re hired, do just as you’re told.”
Kit drew a deep breath as he went through the gate. After being as free as a seagull since the return of his parents to Boston, he found it a bit disconcerting to be given so many directions all at once, even by such a kindly person as Aunt Thany. And this superintendent he was on his way to apply to for a job didn’t sound very agreeable. In spite of his acceptance last night of this opportunity for earning money with which to buy a boat, right now Kit was beginning to wonder if he really did want a job after all.
The early May morning was soft and sweet and fragrant with mingled odors of honeysuckle, wild roses, salt marshes, and pine woods, all blending into what Aunt Thany called the “good old Cape smell.” Overhead, pushed around by a cool northwest wind, white puffs of cloud billowed in the blue sky. A perfect day, thought Kit ruefully, to spend at Danger Cove!
He was following the advice given him last night by Aunt Thany when he told her what his father had written. “Best see about it right away, Christopher. Your Pa’ll be waiting to hear, and it’s my guess he’s more likely not to send for you, if he knows you’ve carried out his instructions.”
Nearing the factory, Kit saw that the tide was low, with only a trickle of water left in the Creek. Skipper Barney must have sailed around sunrise on his return trip to Boston, and suddenly Kit knew in his heart just how glad he was not to be aboard the sloop.
There was no one, not even Sam or Ben, to be seen outside the building, but from the tall chimneys rose columns of smoke which spoke of huge fires below, and the very instant Kit pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold, he knew that never before had he viewed a scene of such intense activity.
Everywhere men were exceedingly busy. Some walked round and round the huge furnace, throwing in thin strips of dried-out, coffee-colored wood. Others drew measures of chemicals from huge bins which released automatically the correct amounts to be added to mixtures already waiting in great kettles. Here and there sat engravers at their lathes, working on pieces of glass with tiny wheels at such an angle they were quite unable to see what they were doing, yet making exquisite designs by what seemed to Kit mere guesswork. Apart from the rest, seated in a special sort of chair, a man with a tube several feet in length blew through it, creating an oval bubble of molten glass which grew and grew in size until its creator gave an expert twist of his wrist, made a clip with a pair of shears, and turned the bubble into a long-necked bottle.
Kit, fascinated by all that was going on, had completely forgotten his errand, and not until he felt a tap on his arm and heard a voice say, “Looking for somebody, young man?” did he remember it.
“Yes, I am,” he said. “The superintendent.”