Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-07-04

times you have sent her a post office order
for $50. That's a nice little portion over
yonder. Take my word for it. she has
found another fellow more to her liking"
Lars Larsen had picked up a stout oar.
Ned, he said, slowly, you are my part
her and my friend You think you are say
ing kindly. You judge my sweetheart by
the girls you have met and loved for a
week. l won't have it."
He swung the oar menacingly. But his
comrades hand went up in protest.
Il didn't mean it, old man. / was only
joking-just to see how you would take it.
Well, will run over to the telegraph office
and see if anything Is reported And the
big waterman fastened away from a dam
gerous proximity to the stalwart Swede.
CHAPTER II.
Old Captain Bodegaarde was the salt
water clerk for the great firm of Wester-
man & jerks, ship brokers. He knew his
business from the ground up, and had
such a persuasive tongue that he could
take business away from any other water
clerk in the Narrows. He had for an Of
flee eighteen-foot Whitehall boat. stanch
as whaleboat. and the two best oarsmen
to be had for love or money-Lars Larsen
and Ned Backstay.
1t must be remembered that now and
then deep-water craft, from the ends of
the earth. would suddenly appear off Sandy
Hook, their holds filed with rich cargoes-
ships coming uneonsigned to any particu-
lar house and rich prizes for the water
clerk who got the master to give him the
business. Then there would be a battle of
the oars down the lower bay, and the first
boat would be the winner nine times out
of ten. The telegraph office had to be
watched, as a cat watches mouse hole
for first news of these occasional prizes.
No child's play, this life. yet it had lis
destinations. Long intervals of idleness,
and then sudden burst of strenuous life
which would make up for the long stretches
of calm.
Sometimes in winter. when the fogs
We're so thick you could cut them with
knife, Ned and Lars met with real peril
and suffering. 1t Is no joke to row against
the mill-race tides which sweep through the
Narrows on cold winter nights, when the
hands are numb with cold, and the wind Is
tossing the spume of a chop sea across
the body, where it freezes as 1t TAILS. But
what's the odds? There are the contrasts
of bright summer days when the sun rises
before breakfast and sets long after sun
down as the saying is, and the bands on
the ocean steamships lying at anchor off
quarantine play lively airs, and the soul
feels full Of song.
Al the worst YOU could turn into clean
bed when tho long days work was ended;
you could have home ot your own anu
live like a Christian if you would
Home! All, there was the bitterness or IT,
Here was Lars Larsen, with money in the
bank, and little cottage up at Rosebank
all picked out. There was picture IN MS
blouse and another in his heart-the heart
picture of a naXen-haired blue-eyed, ador-
able woman, and sometimes some naxen-
haired children, waiting at the gate Tor the
tired boatman to come home to his supper.
But what are pictures when the reality is
missing? He might just as well be at his
old seafaring trade again, which he had re-
nounced when pretty Christina Andersen of
Christiansand, Sweden, promised to be his
wife, if he would go to the United States
and make a home for her.
"You go, Lars, my life,' she said. over
there they say, you can pick up money In
the streets / will wait for you and work
for father. When you are ready, con-
slider that my duty to him is done.
The girl never spoke ill of old Hans An
dersen, the miser, whose galley slave she
was. Nobody knew the prtvations she en-
dured Even Lars Larsen. her lover, did
not know all, else he would have snatched
her away and fought the beginning of the
battle of the immigrant with her by his
side.
But now he had been in this country five
years A year ago he sent her fifty dollars
and babe her come to him. Six months
later receiving no reply, he sent another
note for the same amount. and month
ago he had again sent money to Christina.
And for the third time no reply. Her let
tiers to him-they were few and far apart
at best-had ceased from the arrival of the
first remittance. He could not understand
it. He was slow of mind. Suspicion against
Hans Andersen had not yet entered it.
CHAPTER III.
ST don't care, Ned. Another fifty is going
over there. 1t may be good money after
bad. but II what you think is true" and
Lars Larsen smiled with grim and bitter
humor. ''she will be needing money for a
cradle and some baby clothes by this time"
Ned Backstay seized the horny hand of
his comrade and shook it heartily. swearing
big oaths, and declaring that Lars Larsen