The Delaware ledger., 1883-08-18
The Bar Lighthouse.

The Bar Lighthouse.
Government had, for several years,
been sadly neglecting job of mending
in the case of the Bar Lighthouse
bridge. Here and there boards had be-
gun to spring suspiciously beneath un-
wary footsteps; and then the wind had
begun to tear them Off, and the rain. to
rot and m0ulder them down. What
was every mans business was nobody's,
and no individual was disposed to in.
terfere with the province of that alb
stract millionaire, the United States
Government. To be sure, the keeper of
the Bar Light, jackson Reed, who was
naturally more soliciJous concerning
the holding out of the structure tEal
any one else, had wildly and fruitlessly
patched some of the worst places, off
and on, after a hard ''northeaster, "
when he awoke more keenly to the ex
igencies of the case, and the hopeless
dilatoriness Of his taskmaster. But it
had amounted to very little. Long ne
gltct had made more than mere Iatch-
ing necessary. Now the quarter-mile
bridge leading to the Bar Lighthouse,
if not in an absolutely unsafe condition,
was not calculated to inspire any degree
of confidence in the unaccustomed
crosser at least 1t was not quite so
bad at low tide, or on a mild still day.
There was not much to fear then be-
yond little fall and ducking that
is, if one cleared one Of those ragged
apertures successfully. But on dark
night with the winds bowling over it,
and the ocean laundering beneath it,
1t was the sort of "a bridge that only
disembodied spirit could be supposed
to cross with any degree of nonchaleuce.
The lighthouse itself was only an
ordinary dwelling he use, strongly built.
with tower for the light. 1t stood on
a massive pile of rocks, with little tufts
of coarse vegetation in tn elefts. jack
son Reed, who had an unfortunate love
and longing for garden spot, had
actually wheeled enough earth over
from the mainland Sor a little patch a
few yards square, ami when he was not
engaged in fruitless struggle with the
broken bridge he was engaged in a
fruittess struggle with his garden. A
pottering old man was jackson Reed,
lacking in nervous force and quickness
of intellect but he had never let the
light go'out, and the only thing that is
absolutely required of lighthouse
keeper is to keep the light, burning fol
the sailors who steer by 1t. ~
The wonder was that his wife Sarah
should have been his wife. She was 9
person not of different mould merely
but of different kind not of differ
ent species, but of different genus
Nervous and alert, what her husband
accepted in patient silence she received
, with shrill remonstrance and question
ing. Her husband patched the. bridge
crawling over its long reach on his oil
5 knees she rallied, as she watched him
at the neglect of the government. ii
uncomplainingly brushed the sand fror
. his little puny struggling plants, an
0 she set her thin face against the win
: that cast it there.
k In both, the religious element @
e cast of mind was strongly predominant
s but jackson Reed simply looked out o
nature and into his own soul, and too
~ in as plain incontrovertible facts th
"a broken bridge, the tossing sea, his lit
n wind swept, sand strewn garden patel
NJ and God in heaven. Neither prove
d the other or nullified the other the
,r were simply there. But Sarah Rec,
n looking out on the frail, unsafe bridt
which connected them with the mai
!, land, and the wicked, senseless s.
a which had swallowed up her father al
q brother whom she had idolized, al
o. the poor struggling plants trying to Ii
= under the bleak winds, had seen in the
10 so many evidences of neither Gods 10
40 and mercy or his existence. She was
rheumatic old woman now,
,e most helpless, in fact, unable to st
he without the help of her husband. A
ad she sat, day in and day out, at o
40 of the sea windows of her sitti
10 room, knitting, and holding her {
or FAINT old heart persistently against
pricks.
The minister at Rye, a Jealous you
are man, with an innocent confidence
ra- his powers of holy argument, had visi
sen her repeatedly, with the view of impr
the ing her state of mind. She had joil
rs the church over which he presided
ide her youth indeed. it was the chu
is nearest to the lighthouse, and that '
three miles distant. The minister