Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/315

Rh "Then you'll be a sea-captain, Fogger!" said Garth.

"A sort of sea-captain, yes," Jim said; "but not exactly the kind you mean."

"Won't it be fun," Garth said. "When you're on the destroyer and you come in, Mudder and I will signal to you,—and Joan will, too,—semaphore and wig-wag and everything. And you can answer us! Oh, think of our own destroyer talking to us!"

"It would be fun, wouldn't it!" said Jim. "But unfortunately you and Mudder won't be at the Light any more then; so we can't do it."

"Not—be at the Light?" faltered Garth. "What—do you mean?" His eyes were imploring; all the joyousness had gone from them.

"You didn't think, did you, Pem, that you and Mudder could stay here alone?" Jim said. "You couldn't, you know. But I sha'n't be called until the autumn. Then Cap'n 'Bijah will keep the Light, and you and Mudder will go to live in—in town, perhaps with Uncle Brob. Ah, Pem, don't! Why, you poor old chap!"

Garth clung to him desperately, struggling to keep back the tears that finally overwhelmed him. He wept, broken-hearted, his face buried