Part 20

Twelve months went by, with ever-increasing fame for the girl keeper of Lime Rock Light who had become one of the features of the vicinity, to meet and talk with whom many a tourist lengthened a stay in Newport, and Ida enjoyed meeting them and showing them her light and her home and her boat and her dog and all her other treasures, while in return they told her many interesting things about the great world beyond the beams of her light.

Up in the tower one day--it was in the autumn of 1867--she was looking out over the bay, fearing trouble for some vessel, as a furious storm was raging, and the wind was blowing snow in such white sheets that few captains could make their way among the rocks of the harbor without difficulty, while any one foolish enough to set out in a rowboat would find it impossible to reach the shore.

Out flashed the rays of the beacon-light, and far off on the tempestuous waves Ida saw what seemed to be two men in a boat with a load of sheep. The wind was howling, and borne on its shrieking Ida fancied she could hear the moans of the men and the frightened beasts.

One quick look at her light, to make sure that it was all right to leave, then down ran the life-saver to her self-appointed work. Never was there such a gale blowing in Narragansett Bay, and in the smaller bay white-capped waves and gusts of wind and rain added to biting, stinging cold made it almost impossible even for sturdy Ida to struggle out from the boat-house, to launch her rowboat on the stormy sea. But she never gave in to any obstacles, and soon her little boat could be seen making slow headway across the bay, in the direction of the drifting men and their cargo of sheep.

Now the wind drove her back, now it blew her small craft to one side and the other, but steadily, though slowly, she gained on herself, and at last she reached the men, who could make no headway in the teeth of such a gale, and were simply drifting and watching Ida's acts with incredulous wonder. A young girl--come to rescue them in such a storm as this! Quickly she helped them to climb into her boat, and took up her oars. One man protested. "But the sheep," he said.

"Leave them to me!" commanded Ida, sternly, rowing as fast as she could, her dark hair streaming over her shoulders and her cheeks rose-red from the stinging cold of the air. Neither man ventured another word. Reaching the rocky coast of the island, Ida sprang out after them, pointed out the kitchen door, and said:

"Stay in there and get warm till I come back."

"But--" began one.

Ida was already out of hearing, and the men whose lives had been saved did as they had been told, and in the warm kitchen awaited the coming of their rescuer. In an hour there were footsteps outside, the door opened, and a glowing girl stepped in out of the bitter gale, stamping her almost frozen feet and holding out her benumbed hands to the glowing fire.

"Well, they are all safe on land," she said. "I think they had better be left in the boat-house overnight. The wind is in the right quarter for a clear day to-morrow; then you can put out again."

There was no reply. A girl like this keeper of the Lime Rock Light left no room for pretty compliments, but made a man feel that if she could do such deeds with simple courage, what could he not do with such a spirit as hers! No one ever paid Ida Lewis higher praise than these two rough men when, on leaving, they each gripped her hand and the spokesman said:

"Whenever I see your light shining, I'll put up a prayer for its keeper, and thanking you for what you did for us, ma'am--if my little one's a girl, she will be Ida Lewis!"

Up spoke his comrade: "My daughter's twelve year old come September next, and I hope she'll be your kind. It'd make a new kind of a world to have such!"

While such praise did not turn Ida's very level head, or make her vain, it gave her a deep satisfaction and a tremendous sense of responsibility in her beloved occupation.

Two years went by, and Ida Lewis was a name which commanded respect throughout Rhode Island because of her work for the government, and there was scarcely a day when she did not direct some wandering boatman or give valuable aid to a distressed seafarer, but from the day she brought the men and their load of sheep to shore it was a year before there was any need of such aid as she had given them. Then on a day never to be forgotten by those to whose rescue she went, she saw two of the soldiers who were stationed at Fort Adams rowing toward the fort from Newport. A young lad was at the oars, and he showed that he was not in any way experienced as a boatman. A sudden squall overtook the small boat in mid-bay, and, as Ida Lewis looked at it, it capsized. At the moment Ida happened to be without hat or coat, or even shoes. Rushing to the boat-house, she took her staunch friend to the shore, and launched out in the wild squall under an inky-black sky; and she had to row against a wind that drove her back time after time. Finally she reached the wreck, only to find the boy had gone under. The soldiers were clinging to the bobbing keel of the boat, and Ida grasped them with a firm, practised hand, while at the same time managing to keep her own boat near enough so that when a wave washed them together she was able to help the exhausted soldiers to climb into it. They were unable to speak, and one of them was so exhausted that she feared she could not get him to land in time to resuscitate him.

With wind-blown hair, and eyes dark with determination, she rowed as she had never rowed before, and at last her boat touched the rocky home ledge. Out she jumped, and in less time than it takes to tell it, she had the men before her fire, wrapped in blankets. One of them was unconscious for such a long time that his rescuer was wondering what was best to do--to take the risk of leaving him and row to the mainland for a doctor, or to take the risk of doing for him with her own inexperienced hands. Just then his blue eyes opened, and after a drink of stimulant he slowly revived, and at last was able to talk coherently. The storm was still raging and the men remained on the lighthouse ledge with the girl rescuer, for whom they showed open admiration; then, when the clouds lifted and the moon shone wanly through the rift, they took their own boat and rowed off to the fort. But they were staunch friends of Ida Lewis from that day, and she enjoyed many a chat with them, and had more than one pleasant afternoon on the mainland with them when they were off duty.

At another time she was out in her boat in a bad storm, when through the dense darkness she heard cries of, "Help! help!" and, rowing in the direction from which the cries came, she found three men in the water clinging to the keel of an overturned boat. With her usual promptness in an emergency, she dragged them all into her boat and took them to shore. Another day, from the lighthouse tower, she saw the slender figure of a man clinging to a spindle which was a mile and a half from the lighthouse. In a very short time he would be too exhausted to hold on any longer. She must hurry, hurry! With flying feet she made her boat ready; with firm strokes she rowed out to the spindle, rescued the man and bore him safely to shore.

At this time Ida Lewis was so well known as being always on hand in any emergency that it was taken as a matter of course to have her appear out of the sky, as one's preserver, and the man, though extremely grateful, did not seem as astonished as he might have otherwise been to be saved from such a death by a young girl who apparently dropped from the skies just to rescue him.

In all of these experiences, when she was able to save men's lives at the risk of her own, and was successful by reason of her quick wit and self-forgetful courage, despite the grave chances she took, she never had a single fright about her own safety, but simply flew across the bay at any time of day or night at the sight of a speck on the water which to her trained eye was a human being in danger.

Winter's hand had laid its glittering mantle of ice on Baker's Bay, and on a glorious sunlit morning Ida was ready to start to Newport to make some necessary purchases. When she was just about to push her boat off the rocks she looked over the bay with the intent, piercing glance for which she was famous among fisher-folk, who declared she could "see out of the back of her head," and caught a glimpse of uniforms, of struggling figures in that part of the bay which was so shallow as to be always frozen in mid-winter, and which the soldiers all knew to be dangerous to cross. But there were two of them, waving their arms in frantic appeal for help, as they tried to keep from going under in the icy water of the bay.

There was not a moment to lose. Ida put out from shore, rowed swiftly to a point as near the drowning and freezing men as was possible, then with her oars broke the ice sufficiently to make a channel for her boat. As she came near to them she found that the insecure ice, melted by the strong sun, had given way under them, while they were evidently trying to take a short cut to Fort Adams from Newport.

It was hard work and quick work for Ida's experienced hands to get them into the life-boat; and so nearly frozen were they that she was obliged to rest on her oars, at the same time rubbing their numb limbs as well as she could. Then she rowed for shore faster than she had ever rowed but once before, and, as she told afterward:

"I flew for restoratives and hot water, and worked so hard and so fast, rubbing them and heating them, that it was not long before they came to life again and were sitting up in front of the fire, apologizing for their folly, and promising that they would never again give me such a piece of work to do, or cross the bay in winter at a point where they knew it was a risk." She added, naively: "They were as penitent as naughty children, so I took advantage of it and gave them a lecture on things soldiers ought not to do, among them drinking whisky--even with the good excuse of being cold--and showing them quite plainly that this scare they had had came from that bad habit. They seemed very sorry, and when they got up to go, they saluted me as if I were their captain. Then off they went to the fort."

Several days later she received a letter of thanks from the officers at Fort Adams, and a gold watch from the men she had rescued "in grateful appreciation of a woman's heroism."

On through the long years Ida Lewis, with hair growing slowly a little grayer, and with arms a little less equal to the burden of rowing a heavy boat through fierce winter gales, was faithful to her duties as keeper of the light, now never spoken of as the Lime Rock Light, but always as the Ida Lewis Light; and, although she was always averse to notoriety, yet she was forced to accept the penalty of her brave deeds, and welcome the thousands of tourists who now swarmed daily over the promontory and insisted on a personal talk with the keeper of the light. Had it not been for Mrs. Lewis, both aged and feeble, but able to meet and show the visitors over the island, Ida would have had no privacy at all and no time for her work.

Although she always disliked praise or publicity, yet she accepted official recognition of her faithful work with real appreciation, and it was touching to see her joy when one day she received a letter bearing the signature of the Secretary of the Treasury, notifying her that the gold life-saving medal had been awarded to her--and stating that she was the only woman in America upon whom the honor had been conferred! At a later date she also received three silver medals: gifts from the State of Rhode Island, and from the Humane Society of Massachusetts, and also from the New York Life-Saving Association. All these recognitions of her achievements Ida Lewis received with shining eyes and wonder that such praise should have come to her for the simple performance of her duty. "Any one would rescue a drowning man, of course," she said. "I just happen to be where I see them first!"

But although she was so modest, and although so many honors were heaped upon her, none ever meant to her what the first expression of public appreciation meant, shown by the citizens of Rhode Island.

An invitation had been sent to her, asking her to be present at the Custom-House at Newport on a certain day in 1869. She accepted the invitation, and went at the appointed hour without much thought about the matter. When she reached the Custom-House, to her surprise a committee of prominent Newport residents met her and escorted her to a seat on the platform, from which she looked down on a vast audience, all staring with evident curiosity at the slight, dark-haired woman in whose honor the throng had come together. There were speeches so filled with praise of her deeds that Ida Lewis would have liked to fly from the sight of the applauding crowd; but instead must sit and listen. The speeches at an end, there was a moment's pause; then she found herself on her feet, amid a chorus of cheers, being presented with a magnificent new life-boat, the Rescue, a gift from the citizens of Newport as a slight recognition of her acts of bravery.