Poor Man's Rock

ter of S

out on the rim of the Cove. He stood a second on the cliffy north wall to look down on the quiet harbor. It was bare of craft, save that upon the beach t

yards, coming to a square house built, like its neighbor, of stout logs with a high-pitched roof, a patch of ragged grass in front, and a picket-fenced area at the back in which stood apple trees an

of many years' labor bestowed to make it what it was. Even from a distance it bore a homelike a

hin screen of maple and alder. From the grass-bordered walk of beach gravel half a dozen step

he narrow mouth of the Cove. As she looked she drew one hand wearily across her forehead, tucking back a vagrant st

lly," he s

a gesture that warned silence,-and by that time MacRae had come up the steps to her side and seized both her h

"Aren't you glad to see Johnny

e. Oh, Johnny MacRae, I wish you'd come sooner. Your father's a s

"Well, I'll go in and see him. Maybe it

isturb him just now, anyway. He has fallen into a doze

whispered, "as bad a

rybody has been having it. Old Bill

d had a

irl n

left medicine and directions; he can't come again

ry old and worn rug on the floor, a few pieces of heavy furniture, and bare,

nt in its volume, now barely audible, again rising to a labored harshness. He listened, a look of dismayed concern gathering on

to the bedroom door, looked in. After a minute of silent watching he drew

he muttered. "Why, his hair is nearly white

ng downhill for months. Too much work. Too much worry also, I think-out there around the Rock ev

he thought with a constricted feeling in his throat of how frail and old his father had grown, the slow-smiling, slow-speaking man who had been father and mother and chum to him since he was an urchin in knee breeches. He recalled him at their parting on a Van

p at the gi

, Dolly?" he said. "Have you

I am tired, of course. It isn't a very cheerful home-coming, is it, Jack?

ter of his shoes on the floor recall

do something,

wn with the flu. There's only one chance and I've taken that. I wrote a message to Doctor Laidlaw-you remember he used to come here every summer t

ae nodded. "Laidlaw will cer

e him the stuff Doctor Harper left. He said it depended mostly on

er palms out

come?" she as

carrier to Folly Bay. I borrowed

she said. "I'll get

MacRae followed her into the kitc

e same and still suffer such grievous change. There was an air of forlornness about the house which hurt him. The place had run down, as the sands of his father

the grace. And though she had met him as if it had been only yesterday they parted, still there was a difference which somehow eluded him. He could feel it, but it was not to be defined. It struck him for th

same trait, uncommon in a girl. She could sit on the cliffs or lie with him in a rowboat lifting and falling in the Gulf swell, staring at the sea and the sky and the wheeling gulls, dreaming and keeping her dreams shyly to herself,-as he did. They did not always need words for understanding. And so they did not talk

ood forth in his uniform, the R.A.F. uniform with the two black wings joined to a circle on his

lly, with no light of recognition for either his son or Dolly Ferrara. And there was a peculiar tinge to the old man's lips that chilled young MacRae, the mark of the Spanish flu i

racked by spasms of coughing. Then the reaction came and the sick man slept,-not a health

of hours. Again he and Dolly Ferrara tiptoed out to the room where the fire glowed on the hearth. MacRae sat thinking. Dusk

he said at last. "

followed home. On top of the cliff he stopped to look down on Squitty Cove. In a camp or two ashore the supper fires of the rowboat

the power trollers

all. No place to lay him only a

for years, and the old instinctive sense of direction, of location, had not deserted him. In a little while he came out abreast of C

reluctantly, driven by his father's great need, uneasily conscious that Donald MacRae, had he been cognizant, would have forbidden harshly t

he name voluntarily, let his catch of salmon rot on the beach before he would sell to a Gower cannery boat,-and had enjoined upon his s

ise him. Neither I nor any of mine shall ever truck and traffic with him an

er clan now than he did before the war. MacRae had gone overseas with the Seventh Battalion. His company commander had been Horace Gower's son. Certain aspects of that young man had not heightened MacRae's estee

e, prideful recognition light up those gray-blue eyes again, even if briefly. He had come six thousand miles to cheer the old man with a sight of his son

conds till the piano ceased its sync

erself opened

wer here?"

come in?" she as

ere standing and sitting about. One or two were in khaki-officers. There seemed to be an abrupt cessation of chatter and laughing at his entrance. It did not occur to him at once that these people might be avidly curious about a strange young man in the uniform of the Flying Corps. He apprehended that

man, a very young man, in evening clothes, holding a l

her father. She turned. Her quick eyes had pick

id. "Captain-"

," he s

cRae wishes

e introduced, to be shaken by the hand, to have Gower pl

our house at the Cove. You have a very fast and able cruiser. Would you care to put her a

st glimpse of MacRae's face, the pink-patched eye, the

w if she were here. But I sent her to Nanaimo an ho

said. "Thank y

nswer. He turned to go. Betty Gow

there anything any of us could d

shook h

skilled medical aid would help him at this stage. He

lost his bored air. "Hang it, it isn't very sporting, is it, t

ady stare in which a smoldering fire glowed. He bestowed a scrutiny while one might count five

rn how to put on a gas mask,"

back until he reached the cliff. He did not care if they thought him rude, ill-bred. Then, as he reached the cliff, the joyous jazz broke out ag

room, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his cupped palms. He had been sitting like that for two hours. The fir log

footsteps on the porch. He did not move until a voic

yourself, Jo

d his head to see his father's friend and his own, Doctor Laidlaw, physician and fisherman

MacRa

asked. "That wire worried me.

answered evenly. "