Explore "The Woman-Haters" by Joseph C. Lincoln on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Once before, during his years of service as keeper of Eastboro Twin-Lights, had Seth seen such a sight as that which now caused him to make his dash for the shore. Once before, after the terrible storm of 1905, when the great steamer Bay Queen went down with all on board, the exact spot of her sinking unknown even to this day. Then the whole ocean side of the Cape, from Race Point to Orham, was strewn with ghastly relics. But the Bay Queen met her fate in the winter season, amid a gale such as even the oldest residents could not remember. Now it was early summer; the night before had been a flat calm. There had been no wreck, or the lifesavers would have told him of it. There would be no excuse for a wreck, anyway.
All this, in disjointed fragments, passed through the lightkeeper's mind as he descended the path in frantic bounds and plowed through the ankle-deep white sand of the beach. As he approached the recumbent figure he yelled a panted "Hi, there! " He did not expect the hail to be answered or even noticed. Therefore, he was pleasantly disappointed when the figure rolled over, raised itself on one elbow, looked at him in a dazed sort of way and replied cheerfully but faintly, "Hello!"