"Oh, sugar! I s’pose not. If the wind shifts she may come ashore." "She’ll be smashed up." "Mebbe not past mending," said Tobias, trying to be comforting. "Anyhow, you be glad, young feller, that ye got out of it as slick as ye did." "I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful," groaned Degger, caressing his bruised foot. "But motor-boats don’t grow on bushes." "Never thought they did. Or I should try if one o’ them bushes would grow in Heppy’s garden," chuckled the lightkeeper. It was a long and hard pull to make the lighthouse landing. It was near noon, and Tobias had rowed steadily for four hours, when the dory grounded upon the sands with the surf roaring over the reefs between which he had skilfully steered. "Wal, we made it, didn’t we?" sighed the lightkeeper, with a measure of sarcasm quite lost upon Mr. Degger. "One spell I didn’t know as we would—you bein’ crippled and helpless like you be." "I am a thousand times obliged to you, Skipper," said Degger, quite warmly, as he cautiously stood on one foot like a sandhill crane. "I don’t know how to thank you." "No, I see ye don’t," observed Tobias. "But ne’er mind. I got an attic full of ’thank-yous.’ Don’t try to give me no more. Come up to the light and have dinner. I smell fish chowder, and I do think my Sister Heppy can make fish chowder ’bout right." Conway Degger evidently agreed with the lightkeeper regarding Miss Heppy’s cooking. After Tobias had aided the cripple to hop up the strand and to the light, and had introduced him to Miss Heppy, Degger proceeded to make himself quite at home. Miss Heppy plodded up the spiral stairway to the lamp room after dinner to consult with her brother. "He wants I should take him to board for a spell," she said. "He seems a civil spoken sort of boy. I s’pose we could put him in the spare room, now that you’ve finally got new winder-sashes for it." "Wal, I s’pose you could." "He wants to stay till his foot gets better. It’s as black as your hat. I been bandaging it." "Did he want a bandage put on his pocketbook, too?" "Now, Tobias! He’s going to pay me four dollars." "For the bandage?" "A week. For his board." "That’s mighty good——" "Why——" "For _him_," finished the lightkeeper. "But it’s your business, Heppy, not mine. Seein’s we are only going to have ’bout eight thousand dollars in the bank, I presume you’d better take boarders to help out." "Now, Tobias Bassett! it behooves us to make money while we may. We ain’t gettin’ any younger." "I agree with you," said her brother. "And I don’t believe we’ll be wickedly overburdened with all the money you make out of this Degger feller." For Tobias had judged fairly accurately that young man’s idiosyncrasies. There was nothing of the spendthrift about Mr. Conway Degger. CHAPTER VIII PHILOSOPHY AND OTHER THINGS