Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/200

 "Go ahead, Fogger," Garth commanded; "and do please make it like a story."

"Well," Jim said, "''T was the night before Christmas,' but, unlike the gentleman of that poem, the keeper of a certain light was not asleep. He was very wide awake, and so was his wife. His son slept, however, and knew nothing of the excitement until the next day."

"I always did think it wasn't fair of you, not to wake me up," Garth broke in.

"Who said anything about you?" Jim demanded. "This is a story. The lightkeeper's son was very small and not so hale and hearty as you are. It would have upset his Christmas, and he couldn't have seen a thing, anyhow. As I was about to remark, it was the second day of a real storm. Half the lighthouse was sheathed in ice; the landing groaned and broke under it. Great waves came surging across the rock, and spray smothered up against the heavy storm-windows. The wind was blowing a whole gale, and would have blown any one off the tower, if he'd been foolish enough to go out on the gallery. The green water on the Reef leaped higher than the rocks, and white foam flew far above that. The night came down as black as a pitch caldron, and the sound of raging