IT seemed the middle of the night, though it was really only three o'clock in the morning, when little Davy Crocker was wakened by a sudden stamping of feet on the stoop below his window, and by a voice calling out that a ship was ashore off the Point, and that Captain Si, Davy's uncle, must turn out and help with the life-boat.

Davy was a "landlubber," as his cousin Sam Coffin was wont to assert whenever he wanted to tease him. He had lived all his short life at Townsend Harbor, up among the New Hampshire hills, and until this visit to his aunt at Nantucket, had never seen the sea. All the more the sea had for him a great interest and fascination, as it has for everybody to whom it has not from long familiarity become a matter of course.

Conversation in Nantucket is apt to possess a nautical and, so to speak, salty flavor. Davy, since his arrival, had heard so much about ships which had foundered, or gone to pieces on rocks, or burned up, or sprung leaks and had to be pumped out, that his mind was full of images of disaster, and he quite longed to realize some of them. To see a shipwreck had become his great ambition. He was not particular as to whether the ship should burn or founder or go ashore, any of these would do, only he wanted all the sailors to be saved.

Once he had gone with his cousins to the South Shore on the little puffing railroad which connects Nantucket town with Siasconsett, and of which all the people of the island are so justly proud; and there on the beach, amid the surf-rollers which look so soft and white and are so cruelly strong, he had seen a great piece of a ship. Nearly the whole of the bow end it appeared to be. It was much higher than Davy's head, and seemed to him immense and formidable; yet this enormous thing the sea had taken into its grasp and tossed to and fro like a plaything and at last flung upon the sand as if it were a toy of which it had grown weary. It gave Davy an idea of the great power of the water, and it was after seeing this that he began to long to witness a shipwreck. And now there was one, and the very sound of the word was enough to make him rub open his sleepy eyes and jump out of bed in a hurry!

But when he had groped his way to the window and pulled up the rattling paper shade, behold! there was nothing to be seen! The morning was intensely dark. A wild wind was blowing great dashes of rain on the glass, and the house shook and trembled as the blasts struck it.

Davy heard his uncle on the stairs, and hurried to the door. "Mayn't I go to the shipwreck with you, Uncle Si?" he called out.

"Go to what? Go back to bed, my boy, that's the place for you. There'll be shipwreck enough in the morning to satisfy all of us, I reckon."

Davy dared not disobey. He stumbled back to bed, making up his mind to lie awake and listen to the wind till it was light, and then go to see the shipwreck "anyhow." But it is hard to keep such resolutions when you are only ten years old. The next thing he knew he was rousing in amazement to find the room full of brilliant sunlight. The rain was over, though the wind still thundered furiously, and through the noise it made, the sea could be heard thundering louder still.

Davy jumped out of bed, dressed as fast as he could, and hurried downstairs. The house seemed strangely empty; Aunt Patty was not in the kitchen, nor was cousin Myra in the pantry skimming milk, as was usual at this hour of the day. Davy searched for them in woodshed, garden, and barn. At last he spied them on the "walk" at the top of the house, and ran upstairs to join them.

Do any of you know what a "walk" is? I suppose not, unless you have happened to live in a whaling-town. Many houses in Nantucket have them. They are railed platforms, built on the peak of the roof between the chimneys, and are used as observatories from which to watch what is going on at sea. There the wives and sweethearts of the whalers used to go in the old days, and stand and sweep the ocean with spy-glasses, in hopes of seeing the ships coming in from their long cruises each with the signals set which told if the voyage had been lucky or no, and how many barrels of oil and blubber she was bringing home. Then they used to watch the "camels," great hulls used as floats to lighten the vessels, go out and help the heavy-laden ship over the bar. And when that was done and every rope and spar conned and studied by the experienced eyes on the roofs, it was time to hurry down, hang on the welcoming pot, trim the fire and don the best gown, so as to make a bright home-coming for the long-absent husband or son.

Aunt Patty had a spy-glass at her eyes when Davy gained the roof. She was looking at the wrecked ship, which was plainly in view, beyond the little sandy down which separated the house from the sea. There she lay, a poor broken thing, stuck fast on one of the long reaches of sandy shoal which stretch about the island and make the navigation of its narrow and uncertain channels so difficult and sometimes so dangerous. The heavy seas dashed over the half-sunken vessel every minute; between her and the shore two lifeboats were coming in under closely-reefed sails.

"Oh, do let me look through the glass!" urged Davy. When he was permitted to do so he uttered an exclamation of surprise, so wonderfully near did it make everything seem to be.

"Why, I can see their faces!" he cried. "There's Uncle Si! There's Sam! And there's a very wet man! I guess he's one of the shipwrecked sailors! Hurrah!" and Davy capered up and down.

"You unfeeling boy!" cried Myra, "give me the glass—you'll let it fall. He's right, mother, father and Sam are coming ashore as fast as they can sail, and they'll be wanting their breakfasts, of course. I'd better go down and mix the corn bread." She took one more look through the glass, announced that the other boat had some more of the shipwrecked men on board, she guessed, and that Abner Folger was steering; then she ran down the ladder, followed by her mother, and Davy was left to watch the boats in.

When he too went down, the kitchen was full of good smells of boiling coffee and frying eggs, and his uncle and Sam and the "very wet man" were just entering the door together. The wet man, it appeared, was the captain of the wrecked vessel; the rest of the crew had been taken home by other people.

The captain was a long, brown, sinewy Maine man. He was soaked with sea-water and looked haggard and worn, as a man well might who had just spent such a terrible night; but he had kind, melancholy eyes, and a nice face, Davy thought. The first thing to be done was to get him into dry clothes, and Uncle Si carried him up to Davy's room for this purpose. Davy followed them. He felt as if he could never see enough of this, his first shipwrecked sailor.

When the captain had been made comfortable in Uncle Silas's flannel shirt and spare pea-jacket and a pair of Sam's trousers, he hung his own clothes up to dry, and they all went down to breakfast. Aunt Patty had done her best. She was very sorry for the poor man who had lost his ship, and she even brought out a tumbler of her best grape jelly by way of a further treat; but the captain, though he ate ravenously, as was natural to a man who had fasted so long, did not seem to notice what he was eating, and thus disappointed kind Aunt Patty. She comforted herself by thinking what she could get for dinner which he would like. Uncle Si and Sam were almost as hungry as the Maine captain, so not much was said till breakfast was over, and then they all jumped up and hurried out, for there was a deal to be done. Davy felt very dull after they had gone. He had never heard of such a thing as "reaction," but that was what he was suffering from. The excitement of the morning had died out like a fire which has no more fuel to feed it, and he could not think of anything that he wanted to do. He hung listlessly round, watching Aunt Patty's brisk operations about the kitchen, and at last he thought he would go upstairs and see if the captain's clothes were beginning to dry. Wet as they were, they seemed on the whole the most interesting things in the house.

The clothes were not nearly dry, but on the floor, just below where the rough pea-jacket hung, lay a little shining object. It attracted Davy's attention, and he stooped and picked it up.

It was a tiny bottle full of some sort of perfume, and set in a socket of plated filagree shaped like a caster, with a filagree handle. The bottle had a piece of white kid tied over its cork with a bit of blue ribbon. It was not a thing to tempt a boy's fancy, but Davy saw that it was pretty, and the idea came into his head that he should like to carry it home, to his little sister Bella. Bella was fond of perfumes, and the bottle had cologne in it, as Davy could smell without taking out the cork. He was sure that Bella would like it.

Davy had been brought up to be honest. I am sure that he did not mean to steal the cologne-bottle. The idea of stealing never entered his mind, and it would have shocked him had it done so. He was an imaginative little fellow, and the tiny waif seemed to him like a shell or a pebble, something coming out of the sea, which any one was at liberty to pick up and keep. He did not say to himself that it probably belonged to the captain, who might have a value for it, he did not think about the captain at all, he only thought of Bella. So after looking at the pretty toy for a while, he put it carefully away in the drawer where he kept his things, pushing it far back, and drawing a pair of stockings in front of it, so that it might be hidden. He did not want anybody to meddle with the bottle; it was his now, or rather it was Bella's. Then he went up to the walk once more, and was so interested in watching the wreck and the boats, which, as the wind moderated, came and went between her and the shore, picking up the barrels and casks which were floated out of her hold, that he soon forgot all about the matter.

It was nearly dark before the two captains and Sam came back to eat the meal which had been ready for them since the middle of the afternoon. Aunt Patty had taken off her pots and saucepans more than once and put them on again, to suit the long delay; but nothing was spoiled and everything tasted good, which showed how cleverly she had managed. The Maine captain—whose name it appeared was Joy—seemed more cheerful than in the morning, and more inclined to talk. But after supper, when he had gone upstairs and put on his own clothes, which Aunt Patty had kept before the fire nearly all day and had pressed with hot irons so that they looked almost as good as ever, his melancholy seemed to come on again. He sat and puffed at his pipe till Aunt Patty began to ask questions about the wreck. Captain Joy, it appeared, was part owner of the ship, whose name was the "Sarah Jane."

"She was called after my wife's sister," he told them, "and my little girl to home has the same name, 'Sarah Jane.' She is about the age of that boy there, or a mite older maybe,"—nodding toward Davy. "She wanted to come with me this vy'age, but her mother wouldn't hear of it, and I'm mighty thankful she wouldn't, as things have turned out. No child could have stood the exposure of such a night as we had and come out alive; and Sarah Jane, though she's as spry as a cricket and always on the go, isn't over strong."

The captain took a long pull at his pipe and looked dreamily into the fire.

"I asked her, just as I was coming off, what I should bring her," he went on, "and she had a wish all fixed and ready. I never knew such a child for knowing her own mind. She's always sure what she wants, Sarah Jane is. The thing she wanted was a cologne-bottle, she said, and it must be just so, shaped like one of them pepper and vinegar what d' you call em's, that they put on hotel tables. She was very pertikeler about the kind. She drew me a picter of it on her slate, so 's to have no mistake, and I promised her if New York could furnish it she should have that identical article, and she was mighty pleased."

Nobody noticed that at the mention of the cologne-bottle, Davy gave a guilty jump, and shrank back into the shadow of Uncle Si's broad shoulders. Oh, if he could only put it back into the pocket of the pea-jacket! But how could he when the captain had the jacket on?

"I was kind of fearful that there wouldn't be any bottles of that pertikeler shape that Sarah Jane had in her mind," continued Captain Joy, "but the town seemed to be chock-full of 'em. The very first shop I come to, there they stood in the window, rows of 'em, and I just went in and bought one for Sarah Jane before I did anything else, and when I'd got it safely stowed away in the locker, I felt kind of easy in my mind. We come down with a load of coal, but I hadn't more 'n a quarter cargo to take back, mostly groceries for the stores up to Bucksport and Ellsworth,—and it's lucky it was no more, as things have happened. The schooner was pretty old and being so light in ballast, I jedged it safest, when the blow come on so hard from the nor'-east, to run it under the lee of Cape Cod and ride it out there if we could. But we hadn't been anchored more 'n three hours—just about nine o'clock it was—when the men came to tell me that we was taking in water terrible fast. I suppose the ship had kind of strained her seams open in the gale. It want no use trying to pump her out in such a storm, and if we didn't want to go down at our anchorage, there wasn't anything for it but to cut her loose and drive across the Haven in hopes of going aground on the sand before she sank. I can tell you if ever a man prayed, I prayed then, when I thought every minute she'd founder in deep water before we struck the shoal. And just as she was settling I heard the sand grate under the keel, and you may believe I was thankful, though it meant the loss of pretty much all I've got in the world. I shouted to the men to get to the rigging in the mainmast, for I knew she'd go to pieces pretty soon, and there wasn't no way of signalling for help till daylight, and I gave one dive for the cabin, got the papers out of the locker, and Sarah Jane's cologne-bottle, buttoned them up inside my pea-coat, and just got back again in time to see the foremast go over the side and the sea make a clean sweep of the decks. The mainmast stayed, and we lashed ourselves, and managed to hold on till sunrise, when we see you a-coming out to us, and glad we were.

"Every now and then in the night, when the water was washing over us, I put my fingers inside my coat and made sure that Sarah Jane's bottle was there, and wasn't broken. I didn't want the child to be disappointed, you see. It was safe when we come ashore, I'm certain of that, but—" The captain paused.

"Now don't say it got broken after all!" cried Myra sympathetically.

"No, it wasn't broken, but it's just as bad," said Captain Joy. "Either I dropped it getting out of the boat and trod it down in the sand, or else some one has took it. It's gone, any way, and do you know, it's a foolish thing to say, but I feel nigh as bad about that there little dud as wasn't worth more 'n fifty cents, as I do about the loss of the hull cargo, on account of Sarah Jane."

There was a pause as he ceased. Aunt Patty and Myra were too sorry for the captain to feel like speaking at once. Suddenly into the silence there fell the sound of a sob. Everybody started, and Uncle Si caught Davy's arm and pulled him into the firelight where his face could be seen.

"Why, what are you crying for, little 'un?" asked Uncle Si. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was the captain's," said Davy, in a tear-choked voice.

"Didn't know what was the captain's? Now, Davy Crocker, 'twasn't ever you who took that bottle?" cried Aunt Patty.

"I found it on the floor," sobbed Davy. "I thought it was washed ashore from the shipwreck. I didn't suppose it belonged to anybody, and I wanted it for Bella. Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Why, then it ain't lost after all," cried Captain Joy, brightening up. "Well, how pleased Sarah Jane will be! Don't cry any more, my lad. I can see how it was, and that you didn't think it was stealing to take anything that had been in the sea."

Aunt Patty and Myra, however, still were deeply shocked, and could not look as lightly at Davy's offence as did the captain. Davy crept upstairs, brought down the cologne-bottle and slid it into Captain Joy's hand; then he crept away and sat in a dark corner behind the rest, but his conscience followed him, and Myra's reproachful look.

"Oh, Davy!" she whispered, "I never thought you'd be so mean as to take anything from a shipwrecked sailor!" This was Davy's punishment, and rankled in his mind long after everybody else had forgotten the matter, after the sands had swallowed up all that was left of the "Sarah Jane," and after the captain had returned to Bucksport and made the real Sarah Jane happy by the gift of the bottle she had wished for so much. It rankles occasionally to this day, though he is now a stout lad of fifteen. That he, he of all boys, should have done such a thing to a man just saved from the sea! He consoles himself by resolving to be particularly kind to shipwrecked sailors all the rest of his life; but unluckily, the "Sarah Jane" is, so far, his sole experience of a wreck, and the only sailor he has as yet had any chance to do anything for is Captain Joy, and what he did for him we all know. One does not always have the opportunity to make up for a blunder or a fault, and I am afraid Davy may live his life out and never again have the good luck to show his good intentions by not picking up and hiding a Shipwrecked Cologne-Bottle!