Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-07-13
CHAPTER ".


 Brave Eric IverSon and a comrade had been absent six days upon the sea, searching for the lost man and his son, and the people of Redwood town began to wonder If they, too, had not gone down to rise no more. But the two men had taken water and provisions with them, and many who knew of Eric's tender heart said 1t would be long ere they returned could he bring no tidings to the sorrowing woman and her children up there on the drowning head. No storm had come; only soft and steady wind rolling the shining swells forever outward. Day and night it blew, and incoming schooners had to make long tacks to right and left that they might enter the little harbor.
 Over the hut upon the cliff the hours of dread and sharp expectancy had passed, and now the gloom that comes of settled, certain death seemed creep ing on. The mother, torn with grief and apprehension through the first days, could do nothing. She seemed to live day and night there at the edge of the precipice, with her hungry eyes searching the wide, moclzing reaches of the sea.
 But now she began to work and wash again, moving about much like one in saddening dream. Little Gale, though her eyes would sometimes fill with tears, played with Lannie and Gabe under the trees, happily forgetful of the dark shadow of sorrow that lay upon the place. But Carl and Jimmy felt the cloud of sad ness about them, and much of the time were silent. The elder boy began helping his mother as Paul had done, and Jimmy kept the children from the precipice and watched the azure circle of the horizon for Eric's sail. It seemed to the poor mother that the rescuers would never return, and the blighted look grew in her face, and her eyes looked sunlzen and anxious as she lifted them hour by hour to the wide world of water.
 Other mothers, touched by pity, came to help the drunkard's broken family, bringing food and clothing, and as the time passed the village babbled with dark prophecies of shipwreck for Eric, and conjecture as to the fatal phases of this strange race for life upon the sea. The men at Eric's wharf where he had been foreman of the lumber loaders so long looked many times each day towards the west, | thinking of their absent leader, and wives and mothers standing at the gates or in the doorways of the cottages upon the heights about the bay thought often of the lonely family over on the head, and turned their eyes earnestly towards the far horizon line.
 On the seventh day the wind shifted and lulled, and just before sunset the mother came wearily down the patE and stood looking out upon the shining flood. Her heart seemed numb witt longing. When would she wake iron this dreadful dream?
 The children were playing down or the sand below, and suddenly Carl gave a shout of joy; the mother looked up and there, seeming not three miles away, was Eric's boatl She gazed trembling from head to foot. Yes, i was surely Eric's boat, battered ant with the sails patched and torn Breathlessly she hurried down and came among the children, where, whispering and clinging to each others hands, the! waited at the waters edge.
 Just when the sun was sinking Eric' yacht swept through the mouth of th' little bay. The children held thei breath, and the mother strained he pale face outward. She did not see tn men waving their hats up at tn wharves, nor the wives and mother watching from the yards and doorway about the bay. The boat was all ther was in the world to her. How slowl, 1t camel Was Trave and her lame bo. there? That was Eric's face, and ther was his brave companion. What othe object was that lying on litter in tn bow? The woman shook as with al ague, but even while she trembled an' questioned the boat rounded on tn glassy field and swept up to the land ing by the head, and Eric, battere' and worn, leaped out and made 1t fast But the woman did not see him; sh