The Secret of Saturday Cove. Barbee Oliver Carleton

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      “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!” СКАЧАТЬ