by Robb White
"Oh, but this one is beautiful, Mr. Norton. She deserves the prettiest painting I can get."
"You got a new one?"
"Come look." Candy pointed out the window at her boat.
"Boy, that is a beaut! Where'd you get her?"
"Man gave her to me."
"I tell you what Til do. Candy. If you'll take my kids for a sail sometime, Fll put her name on for nothing."
"Oh, golly, would you? I'll take Juney and Sis any time they want to go. I'll take 'em out to the islands, even."
"Whoa! Just in the Bay. All right, you get her hauled out on the beach and I'll fix her up."
"Oh, thanks, Mr. Norton."
"Everybody's happy. Next time Juney comes around here saying, 'Paw, I wanna ride in a boat,' I'll send him down to you, eh?"
Candy raced down to the beach. It didn't take her long to find some driftwood logs to use for rollers. She was careful to pick out ones that wouldn't mar the bottom paint. Then she picked a smooth place on the sand and made sure that there was nothing hidden in the sand—broken glass, cans, or anything like that—to scratch her boat.
Out in the boat she pulled the rudder pins out of the gudgeons and lifted the rudder inboard. She had strength enough to get the steel centerboard out, too, but she waited for help, not wanting to take a chance of dropping it.
When she was all ready to haul out she went up on Front Street, looking for Chuck and Ryan to come back and help her.
They didn't appear, and Candy walked slowly along toward their house, hoping to meet them. Finally she got all the way
there and knocked on the sereen door. When Mrs. Magruder eame, Candy asked her where Chuek and Ryan were.
"Well, doggone it, Candy," Mrs. Magruder said, "that father of theirs has cut off and gone fishing and them with him."
"Fishing?" Candy said.
"Ain't that scandalous? And I wanted Mr. Magruder to beat out the rugs this afternoon. And I turn my back and )'onder he goes, tearin' off for the lake with the boys high tailin' it with him."
Candy thanked her and went back toward the beach. She felt a little sunk as she wondered whom she could get to help her haul out. She had seen Hawk MacNair with a suit of sails going along Front Street, but she didn't want to have to ask him. She thought of Dotty T., but Dotty was sort of useless around boats.
Candy jumped down off the sea wall on the warm sand and as she straightened she saw Tony down the beach. "Hey! Tony!" she yelled, and began to run.
"Hi," he said quietly when she caught up with him.
"You're just the man I need," Candy told him.
"What for?"
She told him about Mr. Norton saying he would paint the name on the boat if she would haul it out.
Tony said slowly, "Do I have to get in the boat?"
"Well," Candy said, and hesitated. "Well, not if you don't want to, but you could help me get the centerboard out. And the boat won't be going. It's just anchored, so there's nothing to be scared of, Tony."
"Nobody understands how I feel," he said. "Every time I put my foot out I think maybe I'm going to fall. I think maybe there's a big hole with jagged sides right in front of me all the time. A deep hole. That's why I don't like to go anywhere that I don't know about."
"Tlie boat's shallow. And if you fell, Tony, you'd only land
"How tall are you?"
He reached out far up above her. Candy laughed. ''Down lower, Tony. You must think I'm a giant."
His hand found her head at last and she stood up straight. 'Tou're not any taller than I am. I thought you were a lot higher than that. And your hair feels dark. Is it?"
'Tes. How did you know?"
"It just feels dark."
"It's black. Like yours."
He took his hand away and felt his own head. "It feels the same. Except yours is smooth."
Candy laughed. "That's because Mother made me wash it last night. It'll be full of salt again tonight, though."
"Mine, too," he said. He turned then, feeling with his cane, and walked straight toward the water. When he reached it, he kept on going, feeling the surface with his cane. "See?" he said. "I'm not scared."
Candy waded out beside him and they reached the boat. She put his cane in the cockpit, and he stood in the water up to his chest, feeling with his hands as far as he could reach along the side of the boat. "Feels like warm glass," he declared.
"It's the varnish. It really is a beautiful boat, Tony."
"How do I get in?"
She helped him in. Together they got the centerboard out of the well and then Candy got the anchor in. With Tony in the boat, she pulled it bow first to the beach.
Candy almost forgot that he was blind as they worked getting the boat up on the beach. After he had felt all the logs so
he would know where they were, and felt all around on the sand, he acted just as though he eould see.
Mr. Norton came down and within an hour he had painted Faraway on the varnished mahogany transom. Tlie letters were graceful and he had shaded the gold so that the name seemed to stand out away from the wood.
After Mr. Norton had gone, Candy asked, ''Can you come back later and help me get her in the water again, Tony? The paint'll be dry in three or four hours."
'1 might as well wait. I haven't got anything to do, have you?"
''No. I tell you what, let's go crabbing. Then we'll cook 'em on the beach and eat 'em."
"I don't know how."
"It's easy. I'll go home and get some bait and tell Mother so they won't wait for me."
Candy came back with a crab net and lines and some chunks of raw meat still on the bones. She had also brought along her mother's big scissors. She didn't worry about Chuck and Ryan as she borrowed their rowboat.
"You're not scared to go out in a rowboat, are you, Tony?"
"I don't guess so."
He sat in the stem and Candy rowed. Everything went all right, and he gradually relaxed and turned loose the gunwales. Then a cruiser went by them, going fast, and Candy swung the boat around so that she was heading into the big wake waves she could see coming. For a few minutes the rowboat felt as though it were riding a roller coaster. Tony's face got a httle white and he held on to both sides with all his strength.
"Is it going to turn over?" he asked.
"No. It'll be smooth again in a minute, Tony."
"I'm pretty scared," he said.
"It's just waves from a boat that went by. There's no wind or anything."
"Are you scared. Candy?"
''Well, then, Vm not either." He turned loose first with one hand and then the other. Then he relaxed a little so that his body swayed with the violent pitching of the boat.
'That's right. Just let your backbone be limp and it feels better."
Tony began to smile at her. ''See? No hands," he said, holding up his arms.
Candy rowed on into smooth water and then anchored over her favorite crabbing ground. She baited Tony's line with a chunk of meat and told him to just throw it, but be sure to hold the other end.
"How'll I know when I catch one?"
"It's sort of hard," Candy admitted. "Fish will bite the meat. But you'll know when it's fish because it will feel like-well, pick, pick, pick. Sort of jerky. But when a crab comes the fish'll go away. And a crab makes a steady pull. He grabs it with his claws and holds on while he eats."
She told him then how to pull up very slowly when he felt a crab, and she would net it when it got near the top.
He lost the first few by hauling up too fast and scaring them, but then he caught one and got the hang of it.
As Candy sat with her line over the side, she felt how w^onderful the day was. The sun was warm on her shoulders and knees, the sky w^as blue and clean. "I wish you could see how pretty it is," she said to him. "There are a couple of little clouds that look just like absorbent cotton. And oer east there's a barge with a long tow and it looks like it's floating about two feet above the water. There're some gulls flying around. One's got a broken leg—
I guess old Hawk Mac-Nair shot him with his .22. And there're some mackerel chasing a school of fry around, and the gulls are chasing the mackerel, and some pelicans are coming along behind to pick up whatever gets left over. I earned a dollar for that doggone doctor today, Tony."
Candy rowed on into smooth water and then anchored over her favorite crabbing ground
''Did you? I haven't earned anything. A man told me that Fd have to buy a hcense if I wanted to sell pencils in Miami any more/'
"Couldn't you get a job, Tony? I mean a real job."
''What kind? I'm so useless nobody wants me fumbling around, Candy."
"Well, I don't know. What do you think you could do?"
"Nothing. I've been blind more'n two years now, so I don't know if I can do any of the things I used to like to do."
"What did you like to do?"
"Will you laugh if I tell you?" he asked.
"Course not."
"I used to like to grow flowers. In our back yard in Texas City I had some beautiful flowers. They got burned up. But I can't do that any more. I'd step all over 'em with mv big feet."
Candy thought for a moment. "Maybe you could grow 'em in rows and have strings or something, so you wouldn't step on 'em."
"Yeah. But nobody's going to pay me to grow flowers. Candy. And that's about all I know how to do. I had some growing where I used to live with Mrs. Tatum. She said they were prettier than Mr. Jenkins'. But the hurricane blew the house down on 'em."
"Hey!" Candy exclaimed. "That's an idea. Maybe Mr. Jenkins would hire you. That's all he does—grows flowers— and he's got a bilHon dollars."
Tony shook his head. "No, he wouldn't. Just suppose I stepped on one of his real rare plants? Gosh. He'd pick me up and throw me away."
Candy didn't answer, but she kept thinking about it as they w^ent on catching crabs and dumping them into the peach basket.
After a while, as though surprised. Candy said, "Well, I declare. Here're a pair of scissors."
'That's good," he said, not interested.
*'I tell you what. Til cut your hair."
Tony stiffened and his faee froze. "No," he said.
"Why not? It's hanging all over the plaee."
He hesitated a little and then said, his voice flat, "It keeps people from seeing my—my eyes."
"Oh, Tony," she said, her heart swelling up. "But your eyes look all right, Tony."
"No, they don't. They couldn't."
"But they do. They look good.''
"Have you seen them?"
"Sure. And they look fine, Tony. Just like anybody's eyes."
He was deeply surprised. "Really? I mean tiuly?''
"Cross my heart and hope to die, Tony."
"I thought—well, I always thought that they didn't look good."
"Well, they do. And you ought to get rid of some of that hair."
"All right," he agreed slowly.
While he went on crabbing. Candy began to cut his hair. When she got through and inspected her work, she laughed. "One thing I can say, you've got a lot less hair, Tony. But maybe it's a good thing you can't see what's left."
She had cut it very short. He ran his hand over it and then really scrubbed his scalp with his fingers. "Feels fine," he declared.
"It isn't too bad. Little rough in spots. But a lot better than it was." She looked at him, his face toward her. "Tony," she said slowly, "you look nice. Really you do. Your eyes look just a httle mist% that's all. But it's sort of attractive."
They had enough crabs by then, so Candy rowed to a deserted part of the beach. Tony helped her gather driftwood and they boiled the crabs until they were bright red. Then, sitting on a log, they ate them, cracking them open with their teeth.
/:>
It was almost dark when they finished, and Tony said, sighing, 'This is the first time I haven't felt hungry for about as long as I can remember. Let's go crabbing again sometime, Candv."
'We will."
But Candy was thinking about more important things then than crabbing. 'Tony, can you come down to the beach tomorrow?"
"Yes. I can't sell pencils until I get a license, so I haven't got very much to do."
"Well, come down tomorrow. In the morning."
CHAPTER
9
That evening, as Candy got ready, she kept remembering how scared she had felt the time before. That made her begin to feel scared now. In the middle of looking for a dress she almost gave up and decided not to go after all. Then she thought of all the trouble she had taken and gritted her teeth.
She had taken a bath, washed her hair, manicured her fingernails, polished her shoes, scrubbed her elbows and knees, and cleaned her teeth. Then she got dressed. She had inspected all of her clothes with care and had, at last, decided that a mist^ blue linen dress was the most suitable. It was very simple, with no frills anywhere, and it was good-looking.
It was almost eight o'clock before she finished. When her mother saw her, she stopped and looked goggle-eyed. ''Gracious, Candy. What's happened? Is it Sunday?"
'Tve just put on a dress, that's all."
Her father stopped adding up things on a machine and looked at her. 'Tou look nice. What's the occasion?"
''Nothing," Candy said. 'Tm just going out for a little while. Good night."
''Good night, darling. Have fun."
"I will," Candy said, but inside she knew that fun was about the last thing she was going to have that night.
She walked down to the beach and, instead of wading out to her boat, she borrowed the Magruders' and left it tied to her mooring.
It was a short sail around the Bay. She anchored close in and pushed the stern around to the beach so that she could jump out without getting her shoes wet.
She felt a little awkward in a dress so, instead of climbing up the sea wall, she walked to the end of it and went up the sloping part.
As she walked along in the moonlit darkness she thought back to the time, which seemed so long ago, when she had been here. This was where Tony had disappeared, leaving his cane stuck in the sand. This was where Dr. Daniels had given her the boat. For a little while Candy stood still, wondering how he was out there on that island. She looked up at the high, dark dome of the sky with bright pinpricks where the stars were and the moon seeming to be much closer than it was. She wondered whether Dr. Daniels was looking at the same sky and she wondered whether whatever was troubling him was going away or getting stronger.
She turned finally and went over to the greenhouse. The glass walls shone softly under the moon and she saw that new panes had replaced those her boat had broken.
Candy took a deep breath and walked on, going toward lights which she could see set far back among some trees.
The bigness of Mr. Jenkins's house didn't help her scared feeling any. If it had been a small white house with friendly yellow light in the windows it would have been better. But this house was an enormous thing, mostly dark, made of great gray blocks of stone. Light came from a few of the windows, but the rest of them seemed to be looking down at her, and she felt creepy as she walked slowly across the lawn and up on a low stone porch.
The front door was as high as her father's house with thick, long black iron hinges. The knocker on it was the size of a
small anchor, and when she lifted it a fraction of an inch and let it drop it made a horrible amount of noise.
She waited and waited, but no one came. Reaching for the knocker again, she saw it slowly moving away from her hand.
The whole door began to open—slowly—swinging inward, so that a growing slice of light came out on the stones, falling on her at last.
The door opened all the way, and from around its end a tall, erect man walked slowly. He was about the biggest man she had ever seen and he was dressed all in black except for his shirt and bow tie, which were white. He walked to the exact center of the opening and looked down at her without bending his head down.
''Good evening, miss," he said. He sounded to Cand
y as though he didn't care whether she answered him or not.
''Good evening,'' she said.
"Yes?"
*'I want to see Mr. Jenkins," Candy said.
"Who shall I say is calling, please?"
"Can-Catherine Pritchard."
"Very well." The man stepped back, shut the door slowly, and left her waiting in the dark.
He opened the door again after a while and made a sort of waving motion for her to follow him. As Candy walked behind him through a huge, high-ceilinged hall, she decided that he walked as though he was trying to make the wheels of his roller skates go around. He didn't lift up his feet and put them down. Instead, he slid them forward almost touching the floor.
The hall had some dark, heavy furniture in it and wasn't very well lighted. It smelled cold and empty, and Candy was a little surprised to find that there wasn't a single flower in sight.
The man stopped at another door, almost as big as the front one, and swung it open. "Miss Catherine Pritchard," he said in a loud voice.
Candy stood in the door and looked at the room. It was about the size of the auditorium at her sehool. From floor to ceihng there were books in shelves except where the windows and doors were. At the far end, which seemed a mile away, there was a fireplace with some andirons standing up taller than she was. Above the fireplace there was a painting of Mr. Jenkins which covered almost the whole wall. In the painting Mr. Jenkins had on the cloth hat with the green visor and a khaki shirt. He was holding a little flower in one hand.
The room was so enormous that Candy didn't see Mr. Jenkins at first, but she found him at last, standing in front of the fireplace.
Candy began to walk toward him down the long room, and at each step her knees shook so hard that she was afraid she would never get to the end of the room.
She made it, though, and stopped about five feet away from Mr. Jenkins. He was holding in his hand what looked like a doirs cup and saucer.
''Good evening, Mr. Jenkins/' she said, and heard her owti voice sounding vv^eak and quavery.
''Good evening." He drank what was in the cup and put the saucer down on a table. Then he leaned forward a little, peering at her. "I have seen you somewhere before, miss," he said.