ground by setting the steam winch in the middle of the place selected and pulling in the plow and harrow, so that the patch resembled a huge wheel with furrows for spokes. Henry ran the winch and Jack dragged back the implements after each inpull.
Stone was stung by a scorpion and was incapacitated for many days. McCobb filled his room and the shelves in the living-room with golden ornaments and statues arid vases and bowls which he made in his shop. Henry often helped him work.
In those years Henry's voice broke into sudden bass notes and returned two octaves to its childhood pitch until it finally settled in a rich baritone.
Jack taught him to sing parts. Stone forbade the ballads about women. They made brand-new furniture for the house and they developed Rower gardens inside the stockade.
Henry grew rapidly--too rapidly, for awhile--so that his towering back and spreading shoulders were gaunt and thin. But when he began to fill that frame with sinew it became apparent he would be a majestic man. His boyhood handsomeness took on some of his father's sculptured aquilinity.
They found where the lemurs lived--in the thick, forest--on the other side of the mountain. They found sapphires in a rusty escarpment of one of the lesser hills.
Henry made a dozen maps of the island and it was he who became fatigued with the familiar terms, The Island , The Mountain, and The Lake.
He changed them to Stone Island, McCobb Mountain and Jack's Lake.
To him, all the years were divided into happy and fascinating days. The world was his. He was having the romance of a Robinson Crusoe with the equipment that might have been provided by a Jules Verne. He was the modern man and the dawn man.
No better life could have been arranged for a boy. None more exciting, none more healthful, none mbre adventuresome. '
Then, in 1915, a strange cloud passed over them.
It began with the change of the monsoons. This time they blew almost with hurricane violence, but steadily. Day and night the stormracked trees bent and sang. The surf turned the color of canvas and toiled mightily over the reefs beyond the end of Stone Island.
Henry read and studied in his farher's dog-eared library.
He counted the hours of the storm and waited patiently for it to abate. There was nothing else to do.
But, after the seventy-fifth hour, the rain ceased falling and the wind continued.
The vegetation shook itself dry. The sea piled up prodigiously, so that its smash upon the shore could be heard above the gale. The skies cleared a little and illumination came with the hours of dawn.
Henry grew restive. He went finally to his father and shouted that he was going for a walk. His father bade him be careful, and he left.
He went along the more exposed land arm of the bay. He forced his way against the wind-which penetrated even the undergrowth.
He came out on a rocky headland where the sea broke. It moved in lofty, sullen billows. They bent forward, stumbling on their green bases, and wrecked themselves upon the rocks, changing into foam and hurling ragged spray into the wind. The spent waves were sucked back. New waves came.
That spectacle Henry watched with mature composure.
He had an inward desire to throw out his arms and shout back at the surf with all his power, but he controlled it and stood still, watching the unreasoning fury of the sea before and below him.
In a few moments he was drenched with spray. He tossed back his hair and grinned a personal taunt at the water. He felt exalted. He felt strong.
He stayed for an hour, watching the tumult. Then he was joined by McCobb, who picked his way carefully over the slippery headland and shouted something in his ear which could not be understood and which was vaguely explained by signs.
McCobb, too, felt the majesty of the sight. McCobb at heart was an artist. His northland exterior hid a multitude of appreciations and sensitivities.
They were like two men listening to a great
Stone was stung by a scorpion and was incapacitated for many days. McCobb filled his room and the shelves in the living-room with golden ornaments and statues arid vases and bowls which he made in his shop. Henry often helped him work.
In those years Henry's voice broke into sudden bass notes and returned two octaves to its childhood pitch until it finally settled in a rich baritone.
Jack taught him to sing parts. Stone forbade the ballads about women. They made brand-new furniture for the house and they developed Rower gardens inside the stockade.
Henry grew rapidly--too rapidly, for awhile--so that his towering back and spreading shoulders were gaunt and thin. But when he began to fill that frame with sinew it became apparent he would be a majestic man. His boyhood handsomeness took on some of his father's sculptured aquilinity.
They found where the lemurs lived--in the thick, forest--on the other side of the mountain. They found sapphires in a rusty escarpment of one of the lesser hills.
Henry made a dozen maps of the island and it was he who became fatigued with the familiar terms, The Island , The Mountain, and The Lake.
He changed them to Stone Island, McCobb Mountain and Jack's Lake.
To him, all the years were divided into happy and fascinating days. The world was his. He was having the romance of a Robinson Crusoe with the equipment that might have been provided by a Jules Verne. He was the modern man and the dawn man.
No better life could have been arranged for a boy. None more exciting, none more healthful, none mbre adventuresome. '
Then, in 1915, a strange cloud passed over them.
It began with the change of the monsoons. This time they blew almost with hurricane violence, but steadily. Day and night the stormracked trees bent and sang. The surf turned the color of canvas and toiled mightily over the reefs beyond the end of Stone Island.
Henry read and studied in his farher's dog-eared library.
He counted the hours of the storm and waited patiently for it to abate. There was nothing else to do.
But, after the seventy-fifth hour, the rain ceased falling and the wind continued.
The vegetation shook itself dry. The sea piled up prodigiously, so that its smash upon the shore could be heard above the gale. The skies cleared a little and illumination came with the hours of dawn.
Henry grew restive. He went finally to his father and shouted that he was going for a walk. His father bade him be careful, and he left.
He went along the more exposed land arm of the bay. He forced his way against the wind-which penetrated even the undergrowth.
He came out on a rocky headland where the sea broke. It moved in lofty, sullen billows. They bent forward, stumbling on their green bases, and wrecked themselves upon the rocks, changing into foam and hurling ragged spray into the wind. The spent waves were sucked back. New waves came.
That spectacle Henry watched with mature composure.
He had an inward desire to throw out his arms and shout back at the surf with all his power, but he controlled it and stood still, watching the unreasoning fury of the sea before and below him.
In a few moments he was drenched with spray. He tossed back his hair and grinned a personal taunt at the water. He felt exalted. He felt strong.
He stayed for an hour, watching the tumult. Then he was joined by McCobb, who picked his way carefully over the slippery headland and shouted something in his ear which could not be understood and which was vaguely explained by signs.
McCobb, too, felt the majesty of the sight. McCobb at heart was an artist. His northland exterior hid a multitude of appreciations and sensitivities.
They were like two men listening to a great
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