Dave turned toward it, and there was the old light-keeper, Toby Tolman.
"May I come in?" asked the light-keeper, approaching the gate.
The light-keeper came up the gravelled walk, approached the pile, and said, "How much more of a job have you got?"
"Yes, sir. But how did you know I was here?"
"May, my granddaughter, knew, and she told me. I was at the house, you see. My job for you is to go to the lighthouse and be my assistant. She told me, and I said to myself, ’There’s the man for me!’"
"You don’t mean it! Why, where’s Timothy Waters?"
"Well, he went before he wanted to. Wasn’t just particular in reckoning what belonged to others."
Dave recalled at once the little affair about the two pennies.
"Oh, an old hand, who is just piecing me out at this time when I need help. He leaves day after to-morrow. Now, come! I’m up here trying to look somebody up to be my assistant. Can’t bring it about at once; but if you’ll go and stay a while I think you’ll get the berth, and I don’t know of anybody I’d like better to have."
"And I should like to come, too, and I will, just as soon as I finish this job."
"Maybe the squire would let you off now."
"I’d like to take you back with me to-day."
"And I’d like to go, but I’d better finish up."
"You’re right, on second thought. The squire wouldn’t hesitate a moment, I venture to say; but then people sometimes grant us favours when at the same time they say to themselves, ’I wish they hadn’t asked me.’ You stay and finish your job."
The second day after this the task was completed, the saw going to its place on the nail behind the chopping-block, and the axe finding quarters near by.
"There!" said the squire: "I don’t know that I ever paid for a job with greater satisfaction."
He was handling a roll of bills as he said this, and handed one of these to Dave.
"Oh no. That was a peculiar pile of wood, and it took a peculiar kind of merit to get the better of it. For ordinary wood," said the squire, his eyes blinking, "I should only pay an ordinary price; but this wood was something more than ordinary, and of course the price goes up. When I can do you a favour, you let me know."
That day toward sunset a dory was gently tossing at the foot of the lighthouse on Black Rocks.