Free Teetoncey and Ben O'Neal by Theodore Taylor Page A

after she hit?" I'd seen a half dozen ships that rammed a sandbar head-on and then went sideways when the seas caught them. They never stayed head on.
    "All right," he said. "If we don't find them here we take the X and move it forty feet in this direction or forty feet in that direction."
    It was very hard to beat Kilbie.
    We then began to gather equipment. Frank stole some line from his papa and made three buoys out of gallon glass jugs that had good stoppers in them. He also took an old boat hook and hacksawed the prong off, leaving the metal tip so we'd have something to probe with. There is a different feel when you hit soggy wood underwater than when you hit metal. Frank then found a long, thin pole and remounted the altered boat hook.
    I worked on the
Me and the John O'Neal.
I unstepped the mast and made sure all the oakum caulking in the seams was secure; checked the oar pins and rounded up all the spare line I could find; checked my anchor. Kilbie's plan was to buoy the chests and then come back on the next low tide, raise them up and then float them ashore under some barrels. Kilbie seemed to have learned something about salvage already.
    Teetoncey asked what she could do. "You're in charge of the food," I said. I couldn't think of any other assignment for her. We'd have to be on the beach by midmorning, eat something, and then be ready to row out to Heron Head about one o'clock.
    Meanwhile, as time hastened on, I kept checking the barometer. The weather was pretty stable that second week of January, just as the almanac had predicted. I bet I read that almanac fifty-times between Old Christmas and January 15, a Sunday.
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January, 1899—1st to 3rd. Storm period generally. Storms out of southwest move across southland. 4th to 7th—Cold spell. Storms clear in North Atlantic states. Light snow in Rockies to Kansas-Nebraska. Showers on Pacific coast. Some snow on south plateau to west Texas. 8th to 11th—Unsettled time. Showers along the Gulf coast up through Maryland. Mostly fair in California. 11th to 15 th—Stormy from Pacific states to Great Lakes but generally fair and mild in mid-Atlantic states. 16th to 19th—Heavy snow New England states but mild in mid-Atlantic states...
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    Mid-Atlantic was us. I did not know how the rest of the country was faring but it was sure fine along the Hatteras Banks, almost like May weather. Whoever does the forecasting for the almanac is an expert.
    I think it is true that a maternal instinct exists because Mama asked me several times, when she caught me studying the almanac or checking the barometer, if something was going on. On the 15th, she said, "Ben, I do deceive that you an' Tee are goin behind my back. I feel it an' I smell it." There was no way to smell what we were doing, even with her big nose, but feeling was possible.
    I went so far as saying, "Mama, we're working on something that's going to give you a life of ease. By Groundhog Day, you'll have a crank washing machine right in this kitchen."
    Mama said frankly, "I'd a sight rather have you in high school in Manteo," and then went on about her business, but worriedly, I think.
    That same nice night Tee and I went out on the porch and looked at the moon just after it rose. While I knew a lot about the moon I did not know enough to judge when it was absolutely chock o' block full. But it looked like that last sliver was already in place. If so, that would mean another million gallons of water would drain off Heron Head Shoal on the morrow.
    Tee laughed when I addressed the moon: "Suck every drop off that sandbar."
    She was impressed with my knowledge of the moon, courtesy Reuben, that it took seven days to go from first quarter to full; two weeks to shrink from full to new; that
perigee
was when it was closest to the earth and
apogee
made it far out. But there is much about the moon that none of us know.
    There were seven hundred bushels of stars out that night and aside from admiring them I