“Seems if everybody wants to be captain, on this bit of a ship that isn’t big enough for one real one! Captain Hurry, Captain Barlow, Captain Blank, Captain Cook – ”
“What do Barlow and Cook know about the water? One said he was a ‘farmer,’ and the other a ‘lawyer’s clerk’ – ”
“But a lawyer’s clerk that’s sailed the ocean, mind you, Gerald. Melvin’s a sailor-lad in reality, and the son of a sailor. You needn’t gibe at Melvin. As for Jim, he’s the smartest boy in the world. He understands everything about engines and machinery, and – Why, he can take a sewing-machine to pieces, all to pieces, and put it together as good as new. He did that for mother Martha and Mrs. Smith back home on the mountain, and at San Leon, last summer, he helped Mr. Ford decide on the way the new mine should be worked, just by the books he’d studied. Think of that! And Mr. Ford’s a railroad man himself and is as clever as he can be. He knows mighty well what’s what and he trusts our Jim – ”
“Dorothy, shut up!”
This from Jim, that paragon she had so praised! The effect was a sudden silence and a flush of anger on her own face. If the lad had struck her she couldn’t have been more surprised, nor when Melvin faced about and remarked:
“Better stow this row. If Captain Murray, that I sailed under on the ‘Prince,’ heard it he’d say there’d be serious trouble before we saw land again. If we weren’t too far out he’d put back to port and set every wrangler ashore and ship new hands. It’s awful bad luck to fight at sea, don’t you know?”
Sailors are said to be superstitious and Melvin had caught some of their notions and recalled them now. He had made a longer speech than common and colored a little as he now checked himself. Fortunately he just then caught Mrs. Bruce’s eye and understood from her gestures that dinner was ready to serve. Then from the little locker he had appropriated to his personal use, he produced his bugle and hastily blew “assembly.”
The unexpected sound restored peace on the instant. Dorothy clapped her hands and ran to inform Aunt Betty:
“First call for dinner; and seats not chosen yet!”
All unknown to her two tables had been pulled out from somewhere in the boat’s walls and one end of the long saloon had been made a dining-room. The tables were as neatly spread as if in a stationary house and chairs had been placed beside them on one side, while the cushioned benches which ran along the wall would seat part of the diners.
With his musical signals, Melvin walked the length of the Water Lily and climbed the stairs to cross the “promenade deck,” as the awning-covered roof was always called. As he descended, Aunt Betty called him to the little room off one end the cabin, which was her own private apartment, and questioned him about his bugle.
“Yes, Madam, it’s the one you gave me at Deerhurst, at the end of Dorothy’s house-party. My old one I gave Miss Molly, don’t you know? Because she happened to fancy – on account of her hearing it in the Nova Scotia woods, that time she was lost. It wasn’t worth anything, but she liked it. Yours, Madam, is fine. I often go off for a walk and have a try at it, just to keep my hand in and to remind me of old Yarmouth. Miss Molly begged me to fetch it. She said Miss Dolly would be pleased and I fancy she is.”
Then again conquering his shyness, he offered his arm to the lady and conducted her to dinner. There was no difficulty in seeing what place was meant for her, because of the fine chair that was set before it and the big bunch of late roses at her plate. These were from the Bellvieu garden, and were another of Dolly’s “surprises.”
As Melvin led her to her chair and bowed in leaving her, old Ephraim placed himself behind it and stood ready to serve her as he had always done, wherever she might happen to be.
Then followed a strange thing. Though Mrs. Bruce and Chloe had prepared a fine meal, and the faces of all in the place showed eagerness to enjoy it, not one person moved; but each stood as rigid as possible and as if he or she would so remain for the rest of the day.
Only Dorothy. She had paused between the two tables and was half-crying, half-laughing over the absurd dilemma which had presented itself.
“Why, good people, what’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Calvert, glancing from one to another. But nobody answered; and at this mark of disrespect she colored and stiffened herself majestically in her chair.
CHAPTER IV
MATTERS ARE SETTLED
“Aunt Betty, it’s Captain Hurry, again!” explained Dorothy, close to her aunt’s ear. “He claims that the captain of any boat always has head table. He’s acted so queer even the boys hate to sit near him, and the dinner’s spoiling and – and I wish I’d never seen him!”
“Very likely. Having seen him it would have been better for you to ask advice before you invited him. He was the picture of happiness when he appeared but – we must get rid of him right away. He must be put ashore at once.”
“But, Aunt Betty, I invited him. Invited him, don’t you see? How can a Calvert tell a guest to go home again after that?”
Mrs. Calvert laughed. This was quoting her own precepts against herself, indeed. But she was really disturbed at the way their trip was beginning and felt it was time “to take the helm” herself. So she stood up and quietly announced:
“This is my table. I invite Mrs. Bruce to take the end chair, opposite me. Aurora and Mabel, the wall seats on one side; Dorothy and Elsa, the other side, with Elsa next to me, so that she may be well looked after.
“Captain Hurry, the other table is yours. Arrange it as you choose.”
She reseated herself amid a profound silence; but one glance into her face convinced the old Captain that here was an authority higher than his own. The truth was that he had been unduly elated by Dorothy’s invitation and her sincere admiration for the cleverness he boasted. He fancied that nobody aboard the Water Lily knew anything about “Navigation” except himself and flattered himself that he was very wise in the art. He believed that he ought to assert himself on all occasions and had tried to do so. Now, he suddenly resumed his ordinary, sunshiny manner, and with a grand gesture of welcome motioned the three lads to take seats at the second table.
Engineer Stinson was on the tender and would remain there till the others had finished; and the colored folks would take their meals in the galley after the white folks had been served.
“Well, that ghost is laid!” cried Dorothy, when dinner was over and she had helped Aunt Betty to lie down in her own little cabin. “But Cap’n Jack is so different, afloat and ashore!”
“Dolly, dear, I allowed you to invite whom you wished, but I’m rather surprised by your selections. Why, for instance, the two Blanks?”
“Because I was sorry for them.”
“They’re not objects of pity. They’re quite the reverse and the girl’s manners are rude and disagreeable. Her treatment of Elsa is heartless. Why didn’t you choose your own familiar friends?”
“Elsa! Yes, indeed, Auntie, dear, without her dreaming of it, Elsa changed all my first plans for this house-boat party. I fell in love with her gentle, sad little face the first instant I saw it and I just wanted to see it brighten. She looked as if she’d never had a good time in her life and I wanted that she should have. Then she said it would be ‘A cruise of loving kindness’ and I thought that was beautiful. I just longed to give every poor, unhappy body in the world some pleasure. The Blanks aren’t really poor, I suppose, for their clothes are nice and Aurora has brought so many I don’t see where she’ll keep them. But she seemed poor in one way – like this: If you’d built the Water Lily for me and had had to give it up for debt I shouldn’t have felt nice to some other girl who was going to get it. I thought the least I could do was ask them to come with us and that would be almost the same thing as if they still owned the house-boat themselves. They were glad enough to come, too; and I know – I mean, I hope – they’ll be real nice after we get used to each other. You know we asked Jim because we were sort of sorry for him, too, and because he wouldn’t charge any wages for taking care the engine! Mrs. Bruce and Mabel – well, sorry for them was their reason just the same. You don’t mind, really, do you, Auntie, darling? ’Cause – ”
Dorothy paused and looked anxiously into the beloved face upon the pillow.
Aunt Betty laughed and drew the girl’s own face down to kiss it fondly. Dorothy made just as many mistakes as any other impulsive girl would make, but her impulses were always on the side of generosity and so were readily forgiven.
“How about me, dear? Were you sorry for me, along with the rest?”
Dorothy flushed, then answered frankly:
“Yes, Aunt Betty, I was. You worried so about that horrid ‘business,’ of the Old Folks’ Home and Bellvieu, that I just wanted to take you away from everything you’d ever known and let you have everything new around you. They are all new, aren’t they? The Blanks and Elsa, and the Bruces; yes and Captain Jack, too. Melvin’s always a dear and he seems sort of new now, he’s grown so nice and friendly. I’d rather have had dear Molly, course, but, since I couldn’t, Melvin will do. He’ll be company for Jim – he and Gerald act like two pussy cats jealous of one another. But isn’t it going to be just lovely, living on the Water Lily? I mean, course, after everybody gets used to each other and we get smoothed off on our corners. I guess it’s like the engine in the Pad. Mr. Stinson says it’ll run a great deal better after it’s ‘settled’ and each part gets fitted to its place.
“There! I’ve talked you nearly to sleep, so I’ll go on deck with the girls. It isn’t raining yet, and doesn’t look as if it were going to. Sleep well, dear Aunt Betty, and don’t you dare to worry a single worry while you’re aboard the Lily. Think of it, Auntie! You are my guest now, my really, truly guest of honor! Doesn’t that seem queer? But you’re mistress, too, just the same.”
Well, it did seem as if even this brief stay on the house-boat were doing Mrs. Calvert good, for Dorothy had scarcely slipped away before the lady was asleep. No sound came to her ears but the gentle lapping of the water against the boat’s keel and a low murmur of voices from the narrow deck which ran all around the sides.
When she awoke the craft was in motion and the sun shining far in the west. She was rather surprised at this, having expected the Lily to remain anchored in that safe spot which had been chosen close to shore. However, everything was so calm and beautiful when she stepped out, the smooth gliding along the wooded banks was so beautiful, that she readily forgave anybody who had disobeyed her orders. Indeed, she smilingly assured herself that she was now:
“Nothing and nobody but a guest and must remember the fact and not interfere. Indeed, it will be delightful just to rest and idle for a time.”
Dorothy came to meet her, somewhat afraid to explain:
“I couldn’t help it this time, Aunt Betty. Mr. Stinson says he must leave at midnight and he wants to ‘make’ a little town a few miles further down the shore, where he can catch a train back to city. That will give him time to go on with his work in the morning. Old Cap’n Jack, too, says we’d better get along. The storm passed over, to-day, but he says we’re bound to get it soon or late.”
Mrs. Calvert’s nap had certainly done her good, for she was able now to laugh at her own nervousness and gaily returned:
“It would be strange, indeed, if we didn’t get a storm sometime or other. But how is the man conducting himself now?”
“Why, Aunt Betty, he’s just lovely. Lovely!”
“Doesn’t seem as if that adjective fitted very well, but – Ah! yes. Thank you, my child, I will enjoy sitting in that cosy corner and watching the water. How low down upon it the Water Lily rides.”
Most of this was said to Elsa, who had timidly drawn near and silently motioned to a sheltered spot on the deck and an empty chair that waited there. She had never seen such a wonderful old lady as this; a person who made old age seem even lovelier than youth.
Aunt Betty’s simple gown of lavender suited her fairness well, and she had pinned one of Dorothy’s roses upon her waist. Her still abundant hair of snowy whiteness and the dark eyes, that were yet bright as a girl’s, had a beauty which appealed to the sensitive Elsa’s spirit. A fine color rose in the frail girl’s face as her little attention was so graciously accepted, and from that moment she became Aunt Betty’s devoted slave.
Her shyness lessened so that she dared to flash a look of scorn upon Aurora, who shrugged her shoulder with annoyance at the lady’s appearance on deck and audibly whispered to Mabel Bruce that:
“She didn’t see why an old woman like that had to join a house-boat party. When we had the Water Lily we planned to have nobody but the jolliest ones we knew. We wouldn’t have had my grandmother along, no matter what.”
Mabel looked at the girl with shocked eyes. She had been fascinated by Aurora’s dashing appearance and the stated fact that she had only worn her “commonest things,” which to Mabel’s finery-loving soul seemed really grand. But to hear that aristocratic dame yonder spoken of as an “old woman,” like any ordinary person, was startling.
“Why Aurora – you said I might call you that – ”
“Yes, you may. While we happen to be boatmates and out of the city, you know. At home, I don’t know as Mommer would – would – You see she’s very particular about the girls I know. I shall be in ‘Society’ sometime, when Popper makes money again. But, what were you going to say?”
“I was going to say that maybe you don’t know who that lady is. She is Mrs. Elisabeth Cecil-Somerset-Calvert!”
“Well, what of it? Anybody can tie a lot of names on a string and wear ’em that way. Even Mommer calls herself Mrs. Edward Newcomer-Blank of R.”
“Why ‘of R?’ What does it mean?” asked Mabel, again impressed.
“Doesn’t mean anything, really, as far as I know. But don’t you know a lot of Baltimoreans, or Marylanders, write their names that way? Haven’t you seen it in the papers?”
“No. I never read a paper.”
“You ought. To improve your mind and keep you posted on – on current events. I’m in the current event class at school – I go to the Western High. I was going to the Girls’ Latin, this year, only – only – Hmm. So I have to keep up with the times.”
Aurora settled her silken skirts with a little swagger and again Mabel felt it a privilege to know so exalted a young person, even if their acquaintance was limited to a few weeks of boat life. Then she listened quite humbly while Aurora related some of her social experiences and discussed with a grown-up air her various flirtations.
But after a time she tired of all this, and looked longingly across to the tender, on whose rail Dorothy was now perched, with the three lads clustered about her, and all intently listening to the “yarns” with which Cap’n Jack was entertaining them.
All that worthy’s animation had returned to him. He had eaten the best of dinners in place of the “ship’s biscuit” he had suggested to his small hostess: he was relieved of care – which he had pretended to covet; and the group of youngsters before him listened to his marvellous tales of the sea with perfect faith in his truthfulness.
Some of the tales had a slight foundation in fact; but even these were so embellished by fiction as to be almost incredible. In any case, the shouts of laughter or the cries of horror that rose from his audience so attracted Mabel that, at last, she broke away from Aurora’s tamer recitals, saying:
“I’m getting stiff, sitting in one place so long. I’ll go over to Dolly. She and me have been friends ever since time was. good-bye. Or, will you come, too?”
In her heart, Aurora wished to do so. But hoping to impress her new acquaintance by her magnificence, she had put on a fanciful white silk frock, wholly unfitted for her present trip and, indeed, slyly packed in her trunk without her mother’s knowledge. The deck of the Pad wasn’t as spotless as this of the Lily. Even at that moment small Methuselah was swashing it with a great mop, which dripped more water than it wiped up. His big eyes were fairly bulging from his round black face and, having drawn as near the story-teller as he could, he mopped one spot until Dolly called out:
“That’ll do, Metty, boy! Tackle another board. Mustn’t wear out the deck with your neatness!”
Whereupon old Captain Hurry swung his crutch around and caught the youngster with such suddenness that he pitched head-first into his own big bucket. Freeing himself with a howl, he raised his mop as high as his strength would allow and brought it down upon the captain’s glittering cap.
It was the seaman’s turn to howl and an ill-matched fight would have followed if Jim hadn’t caught the pickaninny away and Dorothy seized the cripple’s headgear before it suffered any great harm. Gently brushing it with her handkerchief she restored it to its owner’s head, with the remark:
“Don’t mind Metty, Cap’n Jack. He means well, every time, only he has a little too hasty a temper. He never heard such wonderful stories before – nor I, either, for that matter. Did you, boys?”
She had believed them wholly, but Jim had begun to doubt; and Melvin was bold enough to say:
“I’ve sailed a good many times between New York and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, but I never saw – I mean, I haven’t happened, don’t you know? I wouldn’t fancy being out alone in a cat-boat and having a devil-fish rise up alongside that way. I – ”
“Young man, do you doubt my word, sir?” demanded the Captain, rising with all the dignity his lameness and the dropping of his crutch would allow.
“Oh! no, sir. I doubt nothing – nothing, sir. The Judge says the world is full of marvels and I fancy, your encounter with that giant squid is one of them. You should have that story published, Captain. You should, don’t you know?”
Melvin’s blue eyes twinkled but the otherwise gravity of his face harmlessly deceived the old seaman and brought back his good temper.
“Reckon I’ll go aloft and make out my log,” he remarked, with an air of importance, and stumped forward to his “bridge” above stairs. These he ascended, as before, by a hand-over-hand climb of the baluster, his crutches dragging behind; and it was this nimbleness of arm which convinced the watchers, far more than his impossible yarns had done, that he had indeed once been a sailor and could ascend the rigging of a ship.
Then soon came supper and again such hearty appetites were brought to it that Mrs. Bruce wondered how so much good food could disappear at one meal. Also, she remembered that the sum of three hundred dollars had a limit, large as it seemed; and while she sat silent in her place she was inwardly computing whether it would possibly furnish board for all these people for six long weeks.
Then she proceeded to “count noses,” and suddenly perceived that after Mr. Stinson’s departure there would be left the “unlucky number” of thirteen souls aboard the Water Lily.
This time the engineer was at table and Jim had taken his place on the tender; but after this, he had assured everybody that the engine did not need such constant attention and could be left to itself during meal-time at least.
However, nobody tarried long at table that night. There was to follow the first arrangement of the “staterooms,” as the canvas-partitioned spaces for each one of the party were called.
“Cute little cubby-holes,” Mabel named them, and promptly selected her own between her mother’s and Aurora’s. Dorothy was next to Aurora and Elsa between her and Mrs. Calvert’s bigger room.
Politely giving Elsa her choice, Dorothy couldn’t help a keen disappointment that it separated herself from Aunt Betty. Then she reflected that she had offered this choice as far back as on the day of their first meeting; and that she would herself serve as shield between Aurora’s haughtiness and Elsa’s timidity.
Those two guests didn’t hit it off at all well. Elsa shivered and shrank before Aurora’s boisterous high spirits and the look of contempt the elder girl bestowed upon her plain attire.
Poor little Elsa had done her best to honor the occasion. She had forced herself to go with her loving father to a department store and had suffered real distress in being fitted at the hands of a kindly, but too outspoken, saleswoman.
The suit selected had been of an ugly blue which brought out all the sallowness of the poor child’s complexion. It had been padded on one shoulder, “’cause she’s crooked in them shoulders,” and had been shortened on one side, “to suit the way she limps.” A hat of the same vicious blue had been purchased, and this trimmed with red roses, “to sort of set her up like.”
Thus attired, Mr. Carruthers had looked with pride upon his motherless darling, and felt himself amply justified in the expense he had incurred. The girl’s own better taste had rebelled and she would rather have worn the old gray frock that was at least modest and unobtrusive; but she saw the pride and tenderness in her father’s eyes and said nothing save fervent thanks.
However, all the varied emotions of the travellers were soon forgotten in the healthy slumber which came to them. The Water Lily glided quietly along, forced onward by the tender where the trio of lads sat long, exchanging experiences and, under cover of the friendly darkness, growing natural and familiar.
But after a time even they grew drowsy and “turned in,” finding their new “bunks” as snug as comfortable. The chug-chug of the small engine chimed in with the snores of the colored folks, in their own quarters beyond the galley and formed a soothing lullaby.
So deeply they slept that none knew how a storm was gathering thick and fast, except the alert engineer, who made all speed possible to reach the shelter of the little cove and wharf where he hoped to tie up; and from whence he could cross the swampy fields to the station and the midnight train for home.
It proved a race of steam and storm, with the latter victor; for at almost boat’s length from the pier there came a blinding flash of lightning and a peal of thunder most terrific. At the same moment a whirlwind shook the Water Lily like a feather, it seemed, and the shrieks of the awaking negroes startled every soul awake.
“’Tis de yend o’ de worl’! ’Tis de Jedgmen’ Day! Rise up, sinnahs, rise to yo’ jedgmen’!”