Chapter 3

There was in the crew of the Lone Cove Coast Guard Station a man named Hosea Hand and called Ho Ha, partly because these were the first letters of his first and last names, partly because of the presence among the crew of another man called Ha Ha. Ha Ha’s name was Harvey Hawley and he was a silent, sorrowful, drooping figure. He resembled a gloomy question mark and not a joyful exclamation point. Ho Ha, however, was merry; Ho Ha was blithe and gay. Ha Ha, in the week of the six-year-old child’s existence at Lone Cove, had hardly done more than eye her with misgiving. But Ho Ha had picked her up a dozen times a day for little journeys down to the surf, back to the station, over to the bay, and up on the dunes. He had her now, pick-a-back, at the end of the little pier that stuck out into the bay shallows. The chugging of the keeper’s launch grew louder every minute.

“Wave to the Cap’n,” Ho Ha urged her. Mermaid answered his smile with a smile of her own. The afternoon sun struck her coppery hair and framed the smile in a halo.

Of a sudden the chug-chugging stopped, the launch came about neatly, and Ho Ha, hastily setting Mermaid down on the pier, caught the rope end Cap’n Smiley tossed him. Then he laid hold of the keeper’s bundles while John Smiley picked up the little girl and carried her to the station.

Spring had not conquered the chill of nightfall yet. The big stove in the long living room of the station gave forth a happy warmth, and the front lids were red. In the kitchen, through which arrivals passed into the living room, Warren Avery, Surfman No. 4, was working, apron-clad, at the task of dinner. It was his week to cook and he thanked God the agony would soon be over. Cake! He had never been able to make cake with confidence since the day when he had put in salt instead of saleratus. The cake had not risen but his fellows had.

“What you trying to do, Avery?” Ha Ha had demanded. “This might have been made by Lot’s wife.”