Augusta Huiell Seaman - The Curious Affair at Heron Shoals (Augusta Huiell Seaman) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

“But why are they over there at the Station?” again demanded Marty, and added, “I suppose there wouldn’t be room for them both here.”

“That’s it, I guess,” acknowledged her grandmother. “Seems this boy’s father knows the Commander of the coast-guards very well and they got permission from Washington to let him use the place this way for the six weeks. I thank my stars the practising’ll be done over there! I could never abide banging away on pianos in this house all day!”

They rose to clear away the dishes and wash them at the sink. And when this was over, they both sat down at the table again, which was cleared except for the big kerosene lamp. Marty got out her school-books for study and Mrs. Greene had before her a large, fat, and gaily decorated mail-order catalogue which she proceeded to thumb over.

“I’ve got to order me some more dish-toweling and pillow-slips,” she murmured apologetically. But Marty knew that incidentally she was also slyly gloating over the provocative illustration of an elaborate oil-burner stove, whose picture in the catalogue resembled an overgrown radio-cabinet. Her grandmother had had her heart set on a heater like this for several years, but had never been able to afford one. It would make all the difference in the world, during the winters, in this big, chilly old house.

“Maybe she’ll be able to afford one now,” thought Marty, as she wrestled with her algebra. “If she gets enough money for that, I oughtn’t to mind all the bother this business is going to be!”

There was little more said between them that evening. Marty had a very heavy schedule of school-work to finish and the old clock on the mantel was striking nine when she finally put her books away, yawned, stretched, and announced that she thought she’d better go to bed early, as she’d been out late the night before. Mrs. Greene was already nodding, half-asleep over her catalogue. Marty went over to tease the equally sleepy parrot a bit, before departing upstairs.

“Wake up, Thusy!” she laughed, poking at his gaudy plumage. He tried to nip her finger and screeched crossly,

“Go away!—Go away!—I’ll never tell—I’ll never tell!—I’ll—”

“Where’d he ever get that expression, Nana? ‘I’ll never tell!’ He doesn’t say it much, but it always makes me wonder who taught it to him.” Mrs. Greene’s back was turned. She was busy banking the kitchen fire for the night.

“I dunno!” she said. “You better hurry on up to bed.” Marty kissed her good-night, but as she ascended to her room above, she thought, “Nana certainly does act queer about that parrot, sometimes! I wonder what the secret is about him!”

Snuggling down, later, between the rather chilly sheets, she found it impossible to drop off to sleep at once, as was her usual custom. The excitement and upset of the evening’s revelations kept her eyes wide open and her thoughts racing wildly, about the strangers that were soon to invade her peaceful home and all that their sojourn might involve.

“I’m certain I’m going to hate that boy!” she mused resentfully. “Little musical prodigies are always pretty awful, I guess—think the whole world revolves around them! I expect this one’s father and teacher’ll just sit around adoring him all the time. Well, it’ll be interesting to watch, anyhow. What a strange six weeks it’s going to be!”

But she little dreamed, as she sank at last to sleep, what an exceedingly curious adventure those six weeks were about to introduce!

MARTY left the school-bus the next afternoon and fairly raced home along the sandy road that led to the Coast-Guard Station. Her home was at a considerable distance from her school, which was in a large town across the Bay. There was a long bridge across the Bay, connecting the little, eight-mile-long Heron Shoals Island with the mainland. On the northern end of this otherwise uninhabited island, there had sprung up within comparatively recent years, the little town of summer cottages called Surf Crest. But beyond the southern limits of this town, the concrete road ended abruptly, and below it stretched only the rolling dunes and beach on the east of the narrow strip, and on the west, the thickly wooded growths of cedar, holly, and pines. Except for the town, two Coast-Guard Stations, the home of Captain Cy and Marty’s own abode constituted almost the only other human habitations on the entire island. As the school-bus did not go below the limits of the town, Marty had about a mile of almost impossible road to negotiate before she reached her own home. She had been very inattentive at school all day, her mind absorbed with the new conditions that were about to take place in her home.

“I’m going to hate him!” she told herself fiercely as she hurried along. “He’ll probably be a little, stuck-up brat!” She had met that sort in her school—children who could do something special—sing or dance or play the piano, always thinking too well of themselves, always coddled and made much of, generally ‘teacher’s pet.’ This one was so much more talented that he’d probably be even worse. “How are we going to stand it—six weeks of it?” she asked herself in despair.

Presently she neared the Coast-Guard Station and hesitated. Should she turn to the right and go straight home through the lane, high-walled with cedars and tall huckleberry bushes, or stop in first at her Uncle Cy’s house? Now that it came to the point, she really dreaded going straight to the house to meet these strangers. Suddenly, strange sounds from the big, white old Station, and the sight of Gwen with her face pressed close to one of its windows, decided her. She turned to her left and approached her red-haired and freckled little cousin, demanding:

“What’s going on, Gwen?” Her nine-year-old cousin simply pointed through the window and said, “Look at that, will you!” Marty looked—and almost collapsed with sudden laughter.

A little, elderly man with wavy, bushy white hair that stood up around his head like a halo, was rushing back and forth between the two grand pianos that now stood side by side in the center of the big empty mess-room, their tops completely off, and looking very dismantled. The man had a tuning implement in his hand and was alternately striking notes and chords on one piano, then on the other, then darting back to tighten some strings on one, then on the other, and muttering all the while to himself in some unintelligible language. Every so often he would lay down the tuning implement and run his hands through his already wildly rumpled hair with a curious motion as if he were trying to tear it out or lift himself up by it.

“He’s tuning the two pianos,” Gwen informed Marty. “He’s having an awful time with them—says they’re in terrible condition. He’s the boy’s music-teacher.”

“How do you know?” demanded Marty.

“Because I went in and asked him. His name is Mr. O-Bear—or something like that. He speaks awful poor English—but he’s very nice! I stayed in there a while, watching him, but then he chased me out—said I asked too many questions, but that I could look in from outside.”

“Where’s the boy?” inquired Marty, almost dreading to be told. She suddenly remembered that she didn’t even know his name.

“He’s out on the beach with his father,” answered Gwen indifferently. “Look at O-Bear now!—he’s tearing his hair again!”

But Marty had temporarily lost interest in the curious little man. She wanted to catch a glimpse of the boy, so she turned away and strolled over the dune toward the wide beach. She hoped she could catch sight of him before being seen herself, so that she might have a chance to study him. “He’ll probably be strutting around,” she thought, “acting as if he owned the whole beach!” But when she reached the top of the dune, there was no one in sight except a tall man clad in fishing togs and high rubber boots, casting a long line into the surf. There was not another soul in sight. Thinking the boy might be wandering around back of the dunes somewhere, she ventured farther toward the surf, coming abreast of an old piece of wreckage that had lain there ever since she could remember. Sometimes, steady high west winds covered it so completely with sand that it was all but invisible. Then a huge northeaster would tear the sand away, leaving it revealed in all its stark, wrecked nakedness—a heavy wooden deck on which several rusty iron capstans still stood like sentinels. It was in this condition at the present moment.