The Secret of Saturday Cove

by Barbee Oliver Carleton

  Poke’s dark eyes glowed with regard. He looked as if he would like to buff David warmly on the shoulder. But still he said nothing. David thought he was a coward or a liar. There was nothing to say.

  They had reached The Sandwich Shoppe. Bidding the group good night, Willis and the Dennetts turned in for a mug-up of hot coffee. “Good haulin’, pal!” called Foggy, and the door slammed cheerfully behind them.

  David glanced up at the sky. It was a wonderful night! He was one of them again! But the world would not be right side up until he had settled something with Poke.

  Side by side, a little behind the others, the two boys walked together down Main Street. The parking lot was just ahead. There were too many things to say, thought David, and no time to say them.

  He glanced at Poke. In the bright moonlight the strain of the past few hours showed plainly on the other boy’s face. Painfully, David thought of the way he had left Poke tonight before the squall, in anger and without understanding. In spite of that, Poke had come out into the storm with the idea of helping him. David’s heart was filled with pride in his friend.

  “Poke?” David said.

  The tall boy said nothing, waiting.

  “I need a full-time partner, Poke. How about it? Will you come hauling with me?”

  Poke thought for a moment. Then he turned and looked gravely at his friend. “When do we start?”

  David drew a deep breath. “Tomorrow, bright and early,” he said.

  “Not tomorrow.” Poke shook his head. “Because tomorrow you and Sally and I are going to unearth the Blake treasure — if there is one. How about the day after tomorrow?”

  “It’s a deal!” cried David.

  The two boys gripped hands there under the quiet elms on Main Street.

  Chapter

  10

  TWO KINDS OF TREASURE

  IT was a day fashioned for a king. A brilliant blue day, so pure of air that Tub Island, set like a green jewel in the sparkling cove, seemed a stone’s throw away.

  The morning sun had not yet burned the dew off the grass by the gear shed when David and Sally and Poke arrived at Fishermen’s Dock. Now they had only to refuel the outboard and load the dory and then, at last, be on their way to Jonathan’s hiding place.

  In high good humor David was kneeling on the stern seat, pouring fuel into the motor.

  “Are you two sure you didn’t dream up all this about a tunnel?” he asked. “Because you didn’t need to, you know. Having Poke go partners with me is a plenty good excuse for a picnic.”

  Poke held the dory steady against the float. “You will have to see for yourself,” he said calmly.

  David laughed. “You bet I will.” But there was a note of excitement in his voice that acted like a match to Sally’s smouldering impatience.

  “Oh, please, hurry up! We want to explore that whole tunnel before the tide comes in.” Sally was seated on the edge of the float, dangling her brown legs in the cold water of the harbor.

  Her brother screwed the cap back onto the fuel can. “Tide’s high around eleven. That gives us ’most three hours.”

  “We may not need three hours,” said Poke hopefully.

  A cheerful voice interrupted him, and down the ramp came Mira Piper in a swirl of bright skirts. She had a large bakery box tucked under one arm.

  “Now, don’t look worried, because I shan’t hold you up one minute.” When she laughed her eyes crinkled up and she suddenly looked quite pretty.

  “You’re not holding us up, Miss Piper,” said Poke loyally.

  “Not ‘Miss Piper,’ please, Poke. After all we have been through together — barrels of rose fertilizer, musty old records, lost buttons, rescues at sea — I think you three should just call me Aunt Mira.”

  Lost buttons! David had forgotten the old pewter button missing from the historical collection.

  “I’ve brought something for your picnic,” she went on. She gave Poke a special smile as she handed him the box. “A dozen chocolate cream puffs.”

  The children’s response was wholeheartedly noisy, but it seemed to please her, for she looked at them with fondness. “Just one more thing. Don’t be too disappointed if you shouldn’t find any treasure. You already have one, you know.” Her quick gesture indicated either the cove or the beautiful day ahead of them, or perhaps both. Then she turned to leave just as Uncle Charlie trotted down the ramp.

  Behind him, somewhat timidly, came Mrs. McNeill, then Roddie, his face a blank, and finally Mr. McNeill who seemed, for him, a little subdued.

  “Gorry-mighty, what a pretty day,” bellowed Uncle Charlie to anyone concerned.

  Aunt Mira smiled and started to answer. Instead, she remained silent, staring dumbly at an ornament which Roddie’s mother wore around her neck. David followed her gaze.

  It was a button on a silver chain. A very old pewter button, once sewn to the homespun coat of a minuteman. It had been lovingly polished and Mrs. McNeill wore it with pride.

  Noting Aunt Mira’s interest, she said, “It’s lovely, isn’t it? My son found it for me.” She smiled shyly around at the group. “It’s quite rare, you know. A Revolutionary War button.”

  There was a moment of painful silence. Roddie had gone very pale underneath his tan.

  Then Aunt Mira rose nobly to the occasion. “It’s the most interesting button that I have ever seen,” she said in her clear voice. “You must value it very highly, especially since your son gave it to you.” Then with a cordial nod, she mounted the ramp and disappeared beyond the dock.

  David released his breath. Thoughtfully, he stored the picnic hamper underneath the bow seat. Poke just as thoughtfully added the spade and crowbar to the gear at the bottom of the dory. Sally clambered aboard with a flash lantern of Mr. Blake’s and the box of cream puffs.

  Uncle Charlie shouted, “Where you young’uns off to now?”

  “A picnic,” said Sally with a quick glance at Roddie.

  Uncle Charlie chuckled. “A spade-and-crowbar picnic, if you ask me. Favorite sport ’round Sat’d’y Cove since Jonah was knee-high to a flounder,” he told the McNeills.

  “Maybe it won’t be much longer.” David shot an affectionate smile at the old man.

  “Mebbe not,” roared Uncle Charlie. He untied his old punt which was moored alongside the Lobster Boy. Then, to David’s surprise, he said, “Come on, Rod.”

  Mrs. McNeill said quietly to Uncle Charlie, “First, let me thank you for taking Roddie out hauling with you. He needs any information you can give him. He must pay for his new boat with what he makes lobstering.”

  “And if you know what’s good for you, Roddie,” his father said heavily, “you’ll do it in record time.”

  Roddie remained silent, but Mrs. McNeill shook her head. “No, Thomas. Roddie is going to learn this business thoroughly, without short cuts. In fact, I am wondering if Mr. Blake will act as a paid tutor to Roddie in his spare time, and teach him the things he needs to know in order to be safe on the water.”

  “Agreed! It’s a deal,” bugled Uncle Charlie. “ ’Course I might give him some pointers on a few things besides how to haul,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Only I’ll throw them in free.” He turned to Roddie. “Into the punt with you, Rod, and mind you step into the middle of her. When we git back in from haulin’, I’ll show you what to do about torn potheads and broken laths. After last night we’ll have a plenty of ’em.”

  As Roddie crossed the float he pulled something from his pocket and handed it to David. “I picked this up in the cove a while back. It was floating on a batch of rockweed,” he said awkwardly.

  It was Jonathan’s chart, water-stained but in fair condition. Now that they had no need of it, it would make a fine souvenir for Sally.

  Roddie gave David a long look and said, “Thanks. Thanks for everything.”

  Thank you for saving my life, said Roddie’s look. And for not giving me away about the button.

  David nodded and put the chart into his pocket.
r />   Then, carefully, Roddie rowed the punt out into the harbor with Uncle Charlie seated on the stern seat, puffing away at his pipe.

  As Mr. McNeill turned to leave he said to David, “Roddie’s mother and I don’t know how to thank you for what you did last night. But we’ll find a way to do so, soon.”

  And Mrs. McNeill touched David’s sleeve in a kind of apology. “Roddie did a terrible thing, and we can never really make it right to you. But he has learned his lesson.” Then she smiled at David in spite of the quick tears in her eyes. “Someday, perhaps, you two can be friends.”

  Then the McNeills mounted the ramp and were gone.

  “And that,” said Poke softly, “is that.”

  David took his place at the outboard and Poke pushed the dory away from the float. The strip of water widened behind them and the sea gulls wheeled overhead, and Sally sang with great heart:

  “Cape Cod cats they have no tails,

  Heave away! Heave away—!

  They lost them all in sou’east gales,

  We are bound for Califor-ni-ay!”

  David and Poke came in for the chorus. “Heave away, my bully, bully boys,” they sang to the steady beat of the motor. “We’re bound for Califor-ni-ay!”

  Speedily, David hauled several of his traps set close to the ledges off Grindstone Point. Soon there were enough lobsters in the picnic kettle to satisfy the grandest appetites. Then he turned the bow of the Lobster Boy toward Tub Island.

  “About that button business,” Poke said suddenly. “I think Aunt Mira was great not to tell the McNeills that Roddie took the button. They have enough to live down, as it is.”

  “I think so, too,” Sally nodded earnestly. “Even if Roddie does get away with it.”

  David was thoughtful. “I don’t think Roddie wants to get away with it. There was a look on his face, back there. I bet he’ll try to make it up to Miss — to Aunt Mira, somehow.”

  “Perhaps there is hope for Roddie, after all,” mused Poke. “Uncle Charlie seems to think so.”

  David chuckled. “Uncle Charlie will teach Roddie McNeill a whole lot more than just hauling.” Unconsciously he straightened his shoulders. He felt, all at once, rid of a burden that he had carried since first meeting Roddie here in the cove.

  Straight ahead lay Tub Island, comfortable and familiar. But today it was also mysterious, a secret waiting to be shared.

  At their approach the long-necked cormorants rose screaming from the ledges. Swiftly, the great birds circled in the sunlight and flapped away toward The Graves.

  David nosed the dory at low throttle into The Bite. He threaded a course among the boulders that cluttered the little cove. Then, carefully and without speaking, they entered the tunnel.

  As they moved inward on the dark water, David looked wonderingly at the knife-sharp ledge, at the newly-fallen boulders on either side of the opening. So this dim passage had always been here, and no one ever had known of it. No one except Jonathan and his father, long years ago before the tunnel was blocked.

  His voice echoed when he spoke. “I think I see what happened. Some storm recently rolled aside the boulders that sealed off this tunnel. And it must have been another storm that caused a cave-in and sealed it up in the first place, so that no one ever knew it was here.”

  “The very storm,” said Poke with certainty, “that struck the cove the night of the British raid.”

  Sally’s voice was hushed. “So that’s why Jonathan and his father couldn’t get their treasure again. There was a cave-in that night . . . .”

  They glanced behind them at the rocks that still partly blocked the entrance. Beyond, the water sparkled in the sun, but within the tunnel it was somber, forbidding.

  David pulled the motor onto the stern board. For some distance they poled up the channel in silence.

  Then Poke said, “They must have hoped that the tides and storms would open the tunnel again, sooner or later. Possibly, they even tried to pry their way in. They waited all their lives, in a way, for the storm that didn’t come in time for them.”

  “And they kept their hiding place secret while they waited,” David pointed out. “And then Jonathan died before he told anyone.”

  The dory grated suddenly on the bottom of the channel. First ashore, Poke tied a line to the boat and payed it out as they moved up the tunnel. Just beyond the tide mark, he knotted it to an oak root that thrust out of the earth.

  “Just in case we find — something, and forget to move the boat,” he said.

  David smiled his approval. Poke was a true seaman.

  The three walked on deep into the tunnel, David leading the way with the flash lantern. At first the creek bed was smooth and level, but soon it became rocky and more inclined. Now and then they ducked their heads to avoid a low-hanging rock section of roof.

  Once, in the murky gloom, Sally felt again last night’s quick panic. She glanced back at the dry channel, half expecting to see the tide slowly rising around her feet.

  Up ahead, David lifted the lantern high into the air and peered around. “Where shall we start to dig?”

  They considered the tunnel, its rocky floor and walls, the network of roots and stone that formed its roof.

  Poke shook his head. “There’s no place to dig here.”

  “It’s farther up. I know it,” Sally declared. “I feel it in my bones.”

  “That’s reason enough,” said Poke. “Lead on, Dave.”

  Sally followed the boys. Almost, it seemed to her that she could see a boy in homespun, poling his skiff on a long-forgotten tide deep into this hideaway. She could almost hear the phantom whisper of his oar in the water.

  Young Jonathan, his tawny hair tied back in the fashion of the day, would look tired. He had rowed hard across the bar in a rising wind, and beyond the brave, pale circle of his lantern, other dangers waited.

  Sally said dreamily, “He must have hurried. He must have been worrying something awful about his family.”

  “Who must?”

  “Jonathan. With the British in his house he would have hurried back to Blake’s just as soon as he could. He’d have watched the house, maybe from behind the barn, till the British left.”

  “He had another reason for hurrying, too,” David reminded them. “There was a bad storm coming up. Maybe he didn’t even stop to bury the things. Maybe he thought that this tunnel was enough of a hiding place.”

  Now it was Poke’s turn to carry the lantern. He considered the tunnel thoughtfully. “I know what he would have done. He would have put the things up high where they would be safe from the water.”

  David’s eyes, too, roamed the walls. “Maybe on a ledge or something. Then he would have hurried back home. And except for the cave-in, he could have gotten the stuff again in the morning as easy as rolling off a greased log.”

  “That’s it,” said Poke softly. “Look for a ledge.”

  They followed the moving ray of the torch into the twisting passageway ahead.

  “It’s growing steeper,” David whispered.

  “What are we whispering for?” whispered Sally.

  “Sh,” said Poke. “Look here!”

  Bent low, they followed him around a bend and came abruptly into a deep and well-like cave worn almost circular by some ancient whirlpool. They straightened their backs and looked around them in awe. The roof arched high above their heads, lost in darkness. The lantern threw towering shadows headlong across the smooth walls. It was like walking unexpectedly into a cathedral.

  “You see?” Poke whispered, excited. “This is a big pothole. Some underground waterfall wore it away long before Jonathan’s time, perhaps when Tub Island was still part of the mainland.”

  But the history of this strange place did not interest David now. He shook his head, bitterly disappointed. “This is the end of the tunnel. These walls are ’most as smooth as an aggie. There’s no place here to hide anything.”

  “Yes, there is,” Sally told him firmly. “Jonathan left it h
ere, somewhere high up. I have a feeling . . . .”

  They scanned the walls above their heads. Then David mounted a tiny ledge. “Hand me the lantern, Poke,” he said tersely. He took the light and shone it into an ancient crevice.

  After a long moment he turned and slid back down. An odd smile of triumph played about his face.

  “It’s there, all right,” he told them unevenly. “Take a look.”

  Poke boosted Sally up. With eyes as round as saucers she gazed upon a huge iron kettle wedged into a fault in the solid rock. Its lid was rusted tight. But it rested as securely in its hiding place as when Jonathan had covered it and left it there close to two centuries before.

  Then it was Poke’s turn. He stared at the kettle, tried without success to move it, and finally slid down. “Jonathan could never have lifted it up here, filled. He must have emptied it, put the kettle up, then filled it again piece by piece.”

  In a frenzy of curiosity, David leaped onto the ledge and tugged. “It won’t budge,” he said, panting.

  “I’ll get the crowbar,” Poke called, bearing away the light.

  As they waited in the heavy darkness, David lighted matches from the supply in his pocket.

  “Except for you, Sally,” he told his sister generously, “we might have turned back before we reached this cave. Sometimes I think you have second sight.”

  Sally shivered with excitement. “Sometimes I think so, too.” She glanced over her shoulder. But the brave boy, Jonathan, had disappeared into the long shadows behind them. Instead, in the welcome light of the lantern, Poke returned with the crowbar.

  For a time the boys took turns prying. They worked until the perspiration ran down their faces and their muscles turned to water. At last, breathless and panting, they looked at each other.

  “It won’t budge.”

  “It’s part of the rock. We’ll never get it out.”

  In a taut voice Sally asked, “Can’t you just pry off the lid?”

  David leaped again onto the ledge with the crowbar. For a few tense moments he wrestled with the lid. The harsh grating of iron against iron filled the cavern.