The Topeka state journal., 1902-01-18

ing. 1t cleared bit then instead of
blowing uo worse. but it was all we
could do, we'll as we knew the place, to
work him out of that and send him
along up to Boston, knowing more
about the coast lights than he had Wnen
he started from Newfoundland HOW
he ever got in there and missed all
| those lodges is funny enough, but how
he came to anchor at the time he did
just in one spot where he would swing
clear of them all is stranger yet, sir
Jack turned back again now, around the
corner of the old light, where we cou1d
stand out OF the wind and watch the
moonlight simmer on the troubled
surface of the little harbor, the dull, red
glow of the beacon on the breakwater
end, and the white rage of the surf that
hammered and swept it and beloved
hOarSely
Yen remember what I said about it
being next to impossible to get safely in
the harbor now that the breakwater is
in a, bad blow, / mean. Yen see how it
was before the breakwater. No more than
but a straight shot in for him that could
hit it. One night some years back back there
to Boston with a ship load of mixed lum-
Der and he, got caught in a bad storm
make Boston harbor and he tried to lie to-
but the storm was too bad for him. The
ship began to strain and the water that
broke over her loosened the deck load and
shifted it a bit, and he soon saw that If
he tried to ride it out he would go to
pieces. There was nothing to do but run
before it and he decided he would beach
her down here and he and the crew
would take their chances of getting ashore
astraddle of the bundle of lathes or some
other way like that A pretty poor chance
as we meH-pf the coast patrol know from
the many a lumber wreck We've seen. So
the land somewhere south of Minots, 50
as to escape the Lodges Never a bit did
never been south of Boston light in his
life and if he did know. it wouldn't help
dead of winter and that thick with snow
and frost that you could see nothing till
you hit it. The big seas jumped around
them and now and then one of them came
aboard and ripped up the deck load lit
they couldn't see the land they were run
ming for, but they knew they must be near
it and expected to see the breakers show
up at any minute and then feel her strike
and be shot over the bow into the boil
laths. They watched for this every min
ute, and then the waves right around
bIed up together the way it is when seas
cross because they strike land. And then
were so astonished, for there, swinging
other schooner. Well, you may believe
they were not long in rounding to and
We're there in the morning when the tide
went out, safe in the little basin inside
Yes, sir. 1 mean to say that the skip
per of that lumber boat, not knowing the
coast down here at ALL not able to see the
length of his ship by reason of the snow
and frost of winter gale, had hit the
one harbor between Minot's and Plym-
outh, and a mighty narrow entrance at
that, the one space of a few rods wide in
a distance of 20 miles that would save his
ship. Not only that but he landed there
at the top of the tide and brought her
to in the one little pool at the south side,
where she would be afioat- at low tide.
the same as he would have done if he had
come in knowing the place well on a fine
day in summer.
Now. sir, maybe ye'l1 be calling it
blind chance that does a thing like that.
let alone the other things I told We
about, but the men that walk the beach
the year round in all kinds of weather,
that see the ships come and go and the
strange things the does year in and
year out. we know better. Yes, the world
is full of miracles. as ye was saying, and
each one of these things have told about
is one of them. No less but the greatest
one to me is always the way the shift
of the wind in II hours can change what
it was last night to what it is tonight
/ recalled the terrible blind tumult of
the gale of the previous midnight. [
looked forth the white wonder and
calm of this one and 1 knew in my heart
that he was right.