To the average humane person the loss of a pet, whether through thievery or death itself, brings a very real sorrow for a time. How much worse it must be for one who lives alone, a recluse on an island of sand in the sea, to suffer the loss of his only living companion, something to come at his beck and call, something that seems indeed to reciprocate its master's affection!
It is true that Shrimp was only a fowl—a Dominick rooster at that. Probably, from the standpoint of intelligence, a creature very low in the scale. But its association in this case had developed the qualities of the bird. The years of companionship had brought man and rooster to an intimate understanding of each other.
When Captain Ichabod stepped from his shack, his pocket bulging with corn for his favorite, and saw the rooster showing afar off against the snow-white sand where he was industriously scratching, and whistled a summoning call, Shrimp would come racing toward him at top speed, with wings beating a rhythm to his hurrying legs. Then would the rooster greedily pick the grain of corn from his master's horny palm, clucking the while guttural notes of gratitude. And at such moments Ichabod's heart would grow warm with pleasure in the realization that it was within his power thus to make one of God's creatures happy.
When Doctor Hudson came to the door of the shack, where the bereft old fisherman sat, shaken with sorrow over his loss, he tenderly smoothed the Captain's wrinkled brow. He asked to know the cause of this sudden misery.
Ichabod, with a boylike gesture, brushed away the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. Then he straightened himself, and met the physician's kindly gaze squarely.
"Thar ain't no call for explanations when a feller's feelin's are teched. Doc, do ye know o' some lonely codger that needs a good housekeeper?"
The earnest question came in such startling contrast to the old man's manner of a moment before, when he was shaken with sobs, that the Doctor was hard put to it to restrain a burst of laughter. But by a great effort he limited his expression of amusement to a broad smile as he replied:
"Yes, I know one—an old retired fisherman by the name of Jones, Captain Ichabod Jones. He's a man who has weathered many of the storms of life. Now, as his bark is getting nearer to the last port, he needs to be less alone." A note of very sincere sympathy had crept into the physician's voice. "He should no longer be troubled with the cares of looking after his own home. But, I suppose, there's no use mentioning this to the man himself."
"Yo'r in the right church, Doc," replied the fisherman, "but ye are approachin' the wrong pew. Ichabod Jones has proved himself this day. I did 'low that I was gettin' sort o' decrepit like, but this mornin' proved to me that I ain't as near all in as me and my friends thought. Didn't I tote a human woman nigh onto a quarter of a mile without a-hurtin' me a mite? No, sir, Doctor, I am the man that wants the job. Them scoundrels that I saved has stole all that I had in the world to come home to and now I'm ready to quit this island o' mine and go an' dust out an' cook vituals for some crabbid old customer that is meaner than me. The more he'd quarrel the more it 'ould suit fer it 'ould take my mind off of this woman business that took place here to-day, and then I might larn to forgit the rooster."
"Jones, I believe you're crazy!" The Doctor exclaimed half angrily. Then he added, with a grin: "I guess I'd better give you a sedative to quiet those overwrought ............