Tunis ran to the old man's rescue, but it was the girl who lifted Prudence from out the laundry-basket.
"Drat the thing!" ejaculated Cap'n Ira, fighting off the starched dress. "Feel like I was being smothered by a complete suit of sails. That you, Tunis?"
"Yes, Cap'n Ira. You're all right now. Hold on! Don't let's mess up Aunt Prue's wrapper more than can be helped. 'Vast there!"
"I swan! Don't it beat all what a pickle we get into? We ain't no more fit to be alone, me an' Prue, than a pair o' babies. For the lan's sake, Tunis! Who is that?"
He was staring at the girl, who led forward the trembling old woman, her strong, young arms about the thin shoulders. Prudence was tearful but smiling.
"This is the girl you sent me for," said the captain of the Seamew.
The girl was smiling, too. To the delight of the young man there was no suspicion of fear or shyness in her expression. Her eyes were luminous. Her smile he thought would have ravished the heart of a misogynist.
"I swan!" murmured Cap'n Ira, almost prayerfully.
"Ain't she pretty, Ira?" cried Prudence, almost girlish herself in her new happiness. "Just like Sarah Honey was when she was Ida May's age. And ain't it sweet, her coming to us this way? She's brought her trunk. She's going to stay."
"And I know I shall be happy here, Uncle Ira," said the girl, giving him her hand.
Cap'n Ira's smile was as ecstatic as that of his wife. He looked sidewise at Tunis, a glance of considerable admiration.
"It takes you to do it, Tunis. I couldn't have brought home a nicer lookin' gal myself. I swan!"
"Now, you hesh your foolin', Ira," cried his wife, while the younger man's blush admitted unmistakably his feelings. "Don't you mind him, Ida May. Come into the house, now, and you, too, Tunis. We'll have supper in a jiffy."
"No," said the captain of the Seamew. "I must be getting on. Aunt Lucretia will be expecting me, for, of course, she saw the schooner heading in for the cove. Good night, Ida May." He shook hands with her quietly. "I know you will be happy here, with your own folks."
The girl looked deep into the young man's eyes; nor did she free her hand from his clasp immediately. At one side stood the two old people, both smiling, and not a little knowingly and slyly at each other, while the captain of the Seamew and the girl bade each other good night. Cap'n Ira whispered in his wife's ear:
"Look at that now! How long d'you think we'll be able to keep Ida May with us? I cal'late we'd better build our boundary fence a great sight higher and shut him out o' walkin' across this farm."
But Prudence only struck at him with a gently admonitory hand. Tunis and Ida May had taken down the remainder of the wash and the former carried it into the house before he started on for his own home.
The girl, walking behind the old couple into the homelike kitchen, sensed the warming hospitality of the place. It was just as though she had known all this before, as though, in some past time, she had called the Ball homestead home.
"Lay off your hat and coat, Ida May, on the sitting-room lounge," said Prudence. "We'll have supper before I show you upstairs. Me and Ira sleep down here, but there's a nice, big room up there I've fixed up for you."
"Before you were sure I could come?" the girl asked in some wonder.
"She's got faith enough to move mountains, Prudence has," broke in Cap'n Ira proudly. "At least, I cal'late she's got enough to move this here Wreckers' Head if she set out to." And he chuckled.
"But you believed Ida May would come, too. You said so, Ira," cried his wife.
"I swan! I had to say it to keep up with you," he returned. "Otherwise you'd have sailed fathoms ahead of me. However, if you hadn't come, gal, neither of us could have well said to the other them bitterest of all human words: 'I told you so!'"
"How could you suppose I would not come?" asked the girl gayly. "Who would refuse such a generous offer?"
"I knowed you'd see it that way," said Prudence happily.
"But there might have been circumstances we could not foresee," Cap'n Ira said. "You—you didn't have many friends where you was stopping?"
"No real friends."
"Well, there is a difference, I cal'late. No young man, o' course, like Tunis Latham, for instance?"
"Now, Ira!" admonished Prudence.
But Ida May only laughed.
"Nobody half as nice as Captain Latham," she said with honesty.
"Well, I cal'late he would be hard to beat, even here on the Cape," agreed the inquisitive old man.
He took a pinch of snuff and prepared to enjoy it. Suddenly remembering his wife's nervousness, he shouted in a high key:
"Looker—out—Prue! A-choon!"
"Good—Well, ye did warn me that time, Ira, for a fact. But if I had a cake in the oven 'stead of biscuit, I guess 'twould have fell flat with that shock. I do wish you could take snuff quiet. Look an' see, will you, Ida May, if those biscuits are burning?"
The girl opened the oven door to view briefly the two pans of biscuit.
"They are not even brown yet, Aunt Prue. But soon."
"The creamed fish is done. I hope you like salt fish, Ida May?"
"I adore it!"
"Lucky you do," put in Cap'n Ira. "I can't say that I think it is actually 'adorable.' But then, I ain't been eatin' it as a steady shore diet much more'n sixty-five year."
"Don't you run down your victuals, Ira," said his wife.
"No, I don't cal'late to. But if I may be allowed to express my likes and dislikes, I got to be honest and say that there's victuals I eat that would have suited me better for a steady diet than pollack and potatoes. And now we don't even have the potatoes, 'cause we can't raise 'em no more."
"But you have land. I see a garden," said Ida May briskly.
"Yes, it's land," said Cap'n Ira, in the same pessimistic way. "But it ain't had a coat of shack fish for three years and this spring not much seaweed. Besides that, after the potatoes are planted, who is to hoe 'em and knock the bugs off?"
"Oh!" commented Ida May, with a small shudder.
He grinned broadly.
"There's a whole lot o' work to farming. I'd rather plow the sea than plow the land, and that's no idle jest! Never could see how a man could be downright honest when he says he likes to putter with a garden. Why, it's working in one place all the time. When he looks up from his job, there's the same old reefs and shoals he's been beatin' about for years. No matter how often he shoots the sun, the computation's bound to be just the same. He's there, or thereabout."
"That's the way with most longshoremen, Ida May," said Prudence, sighing. "They make awful poor farmers if they are good seamen. Can't seem to combine the two trades."
"I cal'late that's so," agreed Cap'n Ira, his eyes twinkling. "They'd ought to examine all the babies born on the Cape first off, and them that ain't web-footed ought to be sent to agricultural school 'stead of to the fishing. But that ain't why our potato crop's a failure this year. And as far as I see, talking won't cure many fish, either."
"Can't I help?" asked Ida May in her gentle voice. "You know, I've come here to work. I don't expect to play lady."
"Well, I don't know. It ain't the kind of work you are used to."
"I've been used to work all my life, and all kinds of work," interposed the girl bravely.
"But you seem so eddicated," Prudence said.
"Getting an education did not keep me from learning how to use my hands."
"Well, Sarah Honey was a right good housekeeper," granted Prudence.
At that the girl fell suddenly silent, as she did whenever Sarah Honey's name was mentioned. And yet she knew she must get used to such references to her presumed mother. Prudence frequently recalled incidents which had happened when Sarah Honey visited the Ball house before she was married.
They had supper, a plentiful meal if there was not much variety. Prudence had made a "two-egg cake" and opened a jar of beach-plum preserves to follow the creamed fish and biscuits.
"I must learn to make biscuit as good as these," said Ida May.
"I expect you are more used to riz bread. City folks are. But on the Cape we don't have that much. Our men folks want hot bread at every meal. We pamper 'em," said Prudence.
"I'm pampered 'most to death, that's a fact," grumbled Cap'n Ira.
Ida May briskly cleared the table and washed the dishes. She would not allow Prudence even to wipe them.
"I'm sitting here like a lady, Ira," said the little old woman. "This child will work herself to death if we let her."
"A willin' horse always does get driv' too fast," commented Cap'n Ira.
"A new broom sweeps clean," laughed the girl, rinsing out the dishcloths and hanging them on the line behind the stove.
They went outside in the gloaming and sat in a sheltered nook where they could watch the lights twinkling all along the coast to the southward, the revolving lantern at Lighthouse Point, the steady beacon on Eagle's Head, and now and then the flash of the great one of Monomoy Point so far away. It was peaceful, quiet, assuring, and, the girl thought, heavenly! She thought for a moment of Sellers' restaurant and the little room she had occupied on Hanover Street. This was contentment.
Old Pareta had brought her trunk and bag and carried them up to the big, well-furnished room she was to occupy. By and by Prudence went up with her to see that she was made comfortable there, and to watch her unpack, for the old woman was not without curiosity regarding the "city fashions."
One window of the room looked to the north. Through this Ida May saw the steady beam of a lamp shining from a house down in what seemed to be a depression behind the Head. She asked Prudence what that was.
"That must be a light at 'Latham's Folly,' Tunis' house, you know," said the little old woman, likewise peering through the window. "Shouldn't be surprised if 'twas right in his room. He sleeps this end of the house. Yes, that's what it is."
"So Captain Latham lives just there?" the girl said softly.
"When he's ashore. He and his Aunt Lucretia. They are the only Lathams left of their branch of the family."
Afterward, when Ida May had come upstairs to go to bed, she looked to the northward again. The light was still there. She knelt by the open window in her nightgown and watched the light for a long time. When it finally was extinguished she crept into bed.
She heard the nasal tones of the two old people below, for her door on the stairs was open. She heard, too, the occasional cry of a night fowl and, in the distance, the barking of an uneasy watchdog.
But after all, and in spite of the many, many thoughts which shuttled to and fro in her mind, she did not lie awake for long. It was a clear and sparkling night; there were no foghorns to disturb her dreams with their raucous warnings, and the surf along the beaches below the Head merely scuffed its way up and down the strand with a soothing "Hush! Hush-sh!"
At dawn, however, there came a noise which roused the newcomer to Wreckers' Head. She awoke with a start. Something had clattered upon her window sill, that window looking toward the north. She sat upright in bed to listen. The clatter was repeated. In the dim, gray light she saw several tiny objects bounding into the room.
She scrambled out of the high four-poster and shrugged her feet into slippers. She crept to the window, holding the nightgown close at the neck. She felt one of the tiny objects under the soft sole of her slipper and stooped to secure it. It was a pebble.
More pebbles rattled on the window sill. She stepped forward then with considerable bravery, and looked down. What she saw at first startled her. A tall, misty, gray object stood below the window, something quite ghostly in appearance, something which moved in the dim light.
"Why, what—"
Then the thing stamped and blew a faint whinny. She saw a pale, long face raised and two pointed ears twitching above it.
"A horse!"
A darker figure rose up suddenly from before the strange animal.
"Ida May!"
"Why, Captain Latham!"
"Cat's foot!" exclaimed the captain of the Seamew. "I thought I'd never wake you up without disturbing the old folks. No need to ask you if you rested well."
"Oh, gloriously!" whispered the girl, beaming down upon him, but keeping out of the full range of his vision.
"Sorry I had to wake you, but I'm due at the wharf right now to see that the hands get those clams stowed aboard. We want to get away on the morning tide. I brought Queenie home and thought I'd better tell you."
"Queenie?"
"The Queen of Sheba, you know. I was telling you about Cap'n Ira's old mare."
"Oh, yes! Wait. I'll dress and be right down."
"That's all right," said Tunis. "I'll wait."
She scurried into the clothes she had laid out before going to bed. In five minutes she crept down the stairs into the kitchen and out of the back door. Tunis, holding the sleepy mare by her rope bridle, met her between the kitchen ell and the barn.
"You look as bright as a new penny," he chuckled. "But it's early yet for you to be astir. I'll put Queenie in her stable and show you where the feed is. Aunt Prue will like to have her back. She sets great store by the old mare. She won't be much bother to you, Ida May."
"Nothing will ever be a bother to me here, Captain Latham," said the girl cheerfully.
"That's the way to talk," he said, with satisfaction. "Just you keep on that tack, Ida May, and things will go swimmingly, I've no doubt."
In ten minutes he was briskly on his way to the town. The girl watched him from the back stoop as long as he was to be seen in the morning mist. Then she went back into the house, made a more careful toilet, and when Cap'n Ira came hobbling into the kitchen an hour later breakfast was in preparation on the glowing stove.
"I swan! This is comfort, and no mistake," chuckled the old man, rubbing his chin reflectively. "You're going to be a blessing in this house, Ida May."
"I hope you'll always say so, Uncle Ira," returned the girl, smiling at him.
"I cal'late. Now I'll get washed, but that derned shavin'."
"You sit down in that rocker and I'll shave you," she said briskly. "Oh, I can do it! I shaved my own father when he was sick last—"
She stopped, turned away, and fell silent. It was the first time she had spoken of either of her parents, but Cap'n Ira did not notice her sudden confusion. He prepared for the ordeal, making his own lather and opening the razor.
"I can't strop it, Ida May," he groaned. "That's one of the things that's beyont my powers."
She came to him with a clean towel which she tucked carefully in at the neckband of his shirt. Practically she lathered his face and rubbed the lather into the stubble with brisk hands. He grunted ecstatically, lying back in the chair in solid comfort. He eyed her manipulation of the razor on the strop with approval.
For the first time in many a morning he was shaved neatly and with dispatch. When Prudence came feebly into the room, he hailed her delightedly.
"You've lost your job, old woman!" he cried.
"And ain't there a thing for me to do?" queried Prudence softly, yet smiling.
"Just sit down at the table, auntie," said the girl. "The coffee is made. How long do you want your eggs boiled? The water is bubbling."
"Eggs!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira. "I thought them hens of Prue's had give up layin' altogether."
"I found some stolen nests in the barn," returned Ida May. "They have been playing tricks on you."
It was near noon when Ida May from an upper window saw the Seamew beating out of the cove on her return trip to Boston. She watched the schooner as long as the white sails were visible. But her heart was not wholly with the beautiful schooner. A great content filled her soul. Afterward she bustled about, straightening up the house, her cheerful smile always ready when the old folks spoke. They watched her with such a feeling of thankfulness as they could not openly express.
After dinner she started on the ironing and proved herself to be as capable in that line as in everything else.
"Maybe she's been a shopgirl, Ira," Prudence observed in private to her husband; "but Sarah Honey didn't neglect teaching her how to keep any man's home neat and proper."
"Sh!" admonished Cap'n Ira. "Don't put no such ideas in the gal's head."
"What ideas?" the old woman asked wonderingly.
His eyes twinkled and he rewarded himself with a generous pinch of snuff before repeating his bon mot:
"If you don't tell her she'll make some man a good wife, maybe she won't never know it! Looker out, Prudence! A-choon!"
A house plant brought out into the May sunshine and air expands almost immediately under the rejuvenating influences of improved conditions. Its leaves uncurl; its buds develop; it turns at once and gratefully to the business of growing which has been restricted during its incarceration indoors.
So with Sheila Macklin—she who now proclaimed herself Ida May Bostwick and who was gladly welcomed as such by the old people at the Ball homestead on Wreckers' Head. After the girl's experiences of more than three years since leaving her home town, the surroundings of the house on the headland seemed an estate in paradise.
As for the work which fell to her share, she enjoyed it. She felt that she could not do too much for the old people to repay them for this refuge they had given her. That Cap'n Ira and Prudence had no idea of the terrible predicament in which she had been placed previous to her coming made no difference to the girl's feeling of gratitude toward them. She had been serving a sentence in purgatory, and Tunis Latham's bold plan had opened the door of heaven to her.
The timidity which had so marked her voice and manner when Tunis had first met her soon wore away. With Cap'n Ira and Prudence she was never shy, and when the captain of the Seamew came back again he found such a different girl at the old house on Wreckers' Head that he could scarcely believe she was the Sheila Macklin who had told him her history on the bench on Boston Common.
"I swan, Tunis," hoarsely announced Cap'n Ira, "you done a deed that deserves a monument equal to that over there to Plymouth. Them Pilgrim fathers—to say nothing of the mothers—never done no more beneficial thing than you did in bringing Ida May down here to stay along o' Prudence and me. And I cal'late Prue and me are more thankful to you than the red Indians was to the Pilgrims for coming ashore in Plymouth County and so puttin' the noses of Provincetown people out o' joint."
He chuckled.
"She's as sweet as them rose geraniums of Prue's and just as sightly looking. Did you ever notice how that black hair of hers sort of curls about her ears, and them ears like little, tiny seashells ye pick up 'long shore? Them curls just lays against her neck that pretty! I swan! I don't see how the young fellers kept their hands off her where she come from. Do you?"
"Why, you old Don Juan!" exclaimed Tunis, grinning. "Ain't you ashamed of yourself?"
"Me? Aha! I've come to that point of age and experience, Tunis, where whatever I say about the female sect can't be misconstrued. That's where I have the advantage of you."
"Uh-huh!" agreed Tunis, nodding.
"Now, if you begun raving about that gal's black hair—An' come to think of it, Tunis, her mother, Sarah Honey's hair was near 'bout red. Funny, ain't it?"
"The Bostwicks must have been dark people," said Tunis evenly.
But he remembered in a flash the "fool's gold" which had adorned in rich profusion the head of the girl in the lace department of Hoskin & Marl's.
"Well, the Honeys warn't. None I ever see, leastways," announced Cap'n Ira. "Howsomever, Ida May fits her mother's maiden name in disposition, if ever a gal did. She's pure honey, Tunis; right from the comb! And she takes to everything around the house that handy."
Prudence was equally enthusiastic. And Tunis Latham could see for himself many things which marked the régime of the newcomer at the Ball homestead as one of vast improvement over that past régime of the old couple, who had been forced to manage of late in ways which troubled their orderly souls.
"Catch as catch can," was Cap'n Ball's way of expressing the condition of the household and other affairs before the advent of Ida May. Now matters were already getting to be "shipshape," and no observer could fail to note the increased comfort enjoyed by Cap'n Ira and Prudence.
Nor need Tunis feel anxious, either, regarding the girl's state of mind or body. She was so blithe and cheerful that he could scarcely recall the picture of that girl who had waited upon him in the cheap restaurant on Scollay Square. Here was a transformation indeed!
Nor had Ida May's activities been confined wholly to the house and the old folks' comfort. He noted that the wire fence of the chicken run was handily repaired; that Aunt Prue's few languishing flowers had been weeded; and that one end of the garden was the neater for the use of hoe and rake.
It was too late in the season, of course, for much new growth in the vegetable beds; but the half-hearted attention of John-Ed, junior, had never brought about this metamorphosis, Tunis well knew. He went on to the Latham house, feeling well pleased. Aside from all other considerations, he was glad to know that his Machiavellian plan had brought about these good results.
He did not have much time to spend with Sheila, for the Seamew's freighting business was good. He never remained ashore but one night between trips, and he spent that evening with his Aunt Lucretia, whose enjoyment of his presence in the house was none the less keen because inarticulate.
But when he started off across the fields for the port in the early morning he saw Sheila's rising light, and she was at the back door to greet him when he went past. They stole a little time to be together there, whispering outside the door so as not to awaken Cap'n Ira and Prudence. And Tunis Latham went on to the wharf where the Seamew tied up with a warmth at his heart which he had never experienced before.
That another girl rose betimes on these mornings and waited and watched for him to pass, the young schooner captain never noticed. That Eunez Pareta should be lingering about the edge of Portygee Town as he came down from the Head made small impression on his mind. He never particularly remarked her presence or her smile as being for him alone. It was that Eunez did not count in any of his calculations.
"That girl at Cap'n Ball's place, Tunis," said the Portygee girl. "Does she like it up there?"
"Oh, yes! She's getting on fine," was his careless response.
"And will they keep her?"
"Of course they will keep her." He laughed. "Who wouldn't, if they got the chance?"
"Si?" Eunez commented sibilantly.
Naturally, many people besides Eunez Pareta in and about Big Wreck Cove were interested in the coming of the stranger to Cap'n Ira Ball's. Those housewives who lived on Wreckers' Head and in the vicinity were able more easily to call at the Ball homestead for the express purpose of meeting and becoming acquainted with "Sarah Honey's daughter." And they did so.
"I'd got into the way of thinking," remarked Cap'n Ball dryly, "that most folks—'ceptin' John-Ed and his wife—had got the notion we'd dried up here, Prue and me, and blowed away. Some of 'em ain't never come near in six months. I swan!"
"Now, Ira," admonished his wife, "do have charity."
"Charity? Huh! I'll take a pinch of snuff instead. That's a warnin', Prudence! A-choon!"
Not until the second Sunday after the Seamew had brought Ida May from Boston did Big Wreck Cove folk in general get a "good slant," as they expressed it, at the Balls' visitor. There was an ancient carryall in the barn, and on the Saturday previous little John-Ed was caught and made to clean this vehicle, rub up the green-molded harness, and give the Queen of Sheba more than "a lick and a promise" with the currycomb and brush.
At ten o'clock on Sunday morning Sheila herself backed the gray mare out of her stable and harnessed her into the shafts of the carryall.
"For a city gal, you are the handiest creature!" sighed Prudence, marveling.
The girl only smiled. She was now used to such comments. They did not make her heart flutter as had any reference to her past life at first.
The bell in the steeple of the green-blinded, white-painted church on the farther edge of the port was tinkling tinnily as the girl drove the old mare down the hill, with Cap'n Ira and Prudence in the rear seat of the carriage.
"We ain't felt we could undertake churchgoing for months, Ida May," the old woman said. "And I miss Elder Minnett's sermons."
"So do I," agreed her husband, with his usual caustic turn of speech. "I swan! I can sleep better under the elder's preaching than I can to home."
"If you go to sleep to-day, Ira, I shall step on your foot," warned his wife.
"You'd better take care which one you step on," rejoined Cap'n Ira. "I got a corn on one that jumps like an ulcerated tooth. If you touch that I shall likely surprise you more'n I do when I take snuff."
The Portygees had a chapel devoted to their faith. The carriage passed that on the way to the Congregational Church. A girl, very dark as to features, very red as to lips, and dressed in very gay colors in spite of her destination, was mounting the chapel steps. She halted to stare particularly at the quietly dressed girl driving the gray mare.
"Ain't that Pareta's girl, Ira?" asked Prudence.
"I cal'late."
"What a bold-looking thing she's grown to be! But she's pretty."
"As a piney," agreed Cap'n Ira. "I reckon she sets all these Portygee boys by the ears. I hear tell two of 'em had a knife fight over her in Luiz's fish house some time ago. She'll raise real trouble in the town 'fore she's well and safely married."
"That is awful," murmured the old woman, casting another glance back at the girl and wondering why Eunez Pareta scowled so hatefully after them.
Following service, as usual, there was social intercourse on the steps of the church and at the horse sheds back of it. Particularly did the women gather about Aunt Prudence and Sheila. As for the men, both young and old, the newcomer's city ways and unmistakable beauty gave them much to gossip about. Several of the younger masculine members of Elder Minnett's congregation came almost to blows over the settlement of who should take the fly cloth off Queenie, back her around, and lead her out to the front of the church when the time came to drive back to the Head.
In addition, Cap'n Ira found himself as popular with the young men as he was wont to be in the old days when he was making up his crew at the port for the Susan Gatskill.
"Prudence," he said to his wife, but quite loud enough for the girl to hear as they drove sedately homeward, "I cal'late I shall have to buy me some shot and powder and load up the old gun I put away in the attic, thinking I wouldn't never go hunting no more."
"Goodness gracious gallop!" ejaculated his wife. "What for? I cal'late you won't go hunting at your time of life!"
"I dunno. I may be forced to load it up for protection. But maybe rock salt will do instead of shot," said Cap'n Ira, still with soberness. "A feller has got a right to protect himself and his family."
"Against what, I want to know?"
"I can see the Ball place is about to be overrun with a passel of young sculpins that are going to be more annoying than a dose of snuff in your eye. That's right."
"Why, how you talk!"
"Didn't ye see 'em all standing around as we drove away from the church, casting sheep's eyes? And they're hating each other already like a hen hates dishwater. I swan!"
"For the land's sake!"
"No. For Ida May's sake," chuckled Cap'n Ira. "That's who I've got to defend with a shotgun."
The girl flushed rosily, but she laughed, too.
"You can leave them to me, Uncle Ira. I shall know how to get rid of them."
"Maybe they won't come," said Prudence.
"They won't? I swan!" snorted her husband. "They all see she's more'n half Honey. Couldn't keep 'em away any more than you can flies."
It was quite as Cap'n Ira prophesied. The path from Big Wreck Cove across the fields to the Head, a path which had become grass-grown of late years, was soon worn smooth. It was a shorter way from the town than the wagon road.
The errands invented by the youthful and more or less unattached male inhabitants of the port to bring them by this path through the Ball premises were most ingenious indeed. Early on Monday morning, while Sheila was hanging out her first lineful of clothes, Andrew Roby, clam basket and hoe on arm, appeared as the first of a long line of itinerant pedestrians who more or less bashfully bade Cap'n Ira good day as he sat in his armchair in the sun.
"What's the matter?" asked the old man soberly. "All the clams give out down to the cove? I heard they was getting scarce. You got to come clean over here to the beaches, I cal'late, to find you a mess for dinner, Andy?"
"Well—er—Cap'n Ira, mother was wishing for some big chowder clams," said young Roby, his eyes squinting sidewise at the slim figure of Sheila on tiptoe to reach the line.
"Ye-as," considered the old man. "You got that cat still, Andy?"
"The Maybird? Oh, yes, sir!"
"And there's a fair wind. She'd have taken you in half the time to the outer beaches, and saved your legs," said the caustic speaker. "But exercise is good for you, I don't dispute."
A match, one might think, could easily have been touched off at Andrew's face. He had not much more to say, and went on without having the joy of more than a nod and smile from the busy Sheila.
Then came Joshua Jones. Joshua usually was to be found behind his father's counter, the elder Jones being proprietor of one of the general stores in Big Wreck Cove. Joshua was a bustling young man with a reddish ruff of hair back of a bald brow, "side tabs" of the same hue as his hair before each red and freckled ear, and a nose a good deal like an eagle's beak. In fact, the upper part of his face—Cap'n Ira had often remarked it—was of noble proportions, while the lower part fell away surprisingly in a receding chin which seemed saved from being swallowed completely only by a very prominent Adam's apple.
"I swan!" the captain had said judiciously. "It's more by good luck than good management that Josh's chin didn't fall into his stomach. Only that knob in his neck acts like a stopper."
But when the lanky young storekeeper appeared on this occasion, Cap'n Ira hailed him cheerfully before Joshua could reach the back door.
"Hi, Josh! You ain't goin' for clams, too, be ye?"
"No, no, Cap'n Ira!" cried young Jones cheerfully. "I'm looking to pick up some eggs regular. We want to begin to ship again, and eggs seem to be staying in the nests. He, he! Has Mrs. Ball got any to spare?"
"I don't cal'late she has. You see," said Cap'n Ira soberly, "we got another mouth to feed eggs to now. Did you know we had Ida May Bostwick visiting us? A young lady from Boston. Prue's niece, once removed."
"Why—I—I—ahem! I saw her at church, Cap'n Ira," faltered Joshua.
"Did ye, now?" rejoined Cap'n Ira, in apparent wonder. "I didn't suppose you would ever notice her, you not being much for the ladies, Joshua."
"Oh, I ain't so blind!" giggled the young man, peering in through the kitchen door, where Sheila was stepping briskly from tubs to sink and back again.
"That's a fortunate thing," agreed the old man. "But you've got a long v'y'ge before you, if you cal'late to go to all the houses on the Head to pick up eggs. Good luck to you, Joshua!"
Josh found himself passed along like a country politician in line at a presidential reception. His legs got to working without volition, it seemed, and he was several rods away before he realized that he had not spoken to the girl at all.
Zebedee Pauling, whose ancestor had been an admiral and was never forgotten by the Pauling family—Paulmouth was said to have been named in their honor—arrived at the Ball back door just as the family was finishing the usual "picked-up" washday dinner. Zebedee took off his cap with a flourish, and his grin advertised to all beholders the fact that he felt shy but pleased at his own courage in appearing thus on the Head.
"Why, Zeb!" exclaimed Prudence. "We haven't seen you up here for a dog's age. Won't you set?"
"Oh, no'm, no'm! I was just stopping by and thought I'd ask how are you all, Aunt Prue."
He bobbed and smiled, but kept his gaze fixed upon Sheila to the exclusion of the two old people. But Cap'n Ira was never to be overlooked.
"You're going to be mighty neighborly, now, Zeb," he said. "We shall see you often."
"Er—I don't know, Cap'n Ira," stammered Zebedee, rather taken aback.
The old man rose and hobbled toward the door with the aid of his cane, fumbling in his pocket meanwhile.
"Here, Zeb," he said, producing a dime. "You're a willin' friend, I know. I'm running low on snuff. Get me a packet, will ye? American Affection is my brand. Just slip it in your pocket and bring it along with you when you come by to-morrow."
"But—but I don't know as I shall be up this way to-morrow, Cap'n Ira. Though maybe I shall." And he glanced again at the smiling girl.
"Course you will, or next day at the latest," said the old man stoutly. "I can see plainly that you ain't going to neglect Prue and me no more. And I shall want that snuff."
"Well—er—Cap'n—"
"If you don't come," pursued the perfectly sober captain, "you can hand the snuff to Andy Roby, or to Josh Jones, or to 'most any of the boys. They'll be up this way pretty near every day, I shouldn't wonder."
Zebedee took the hint and the dime.
He was no "slow coach" if he was longshore bred. He got the chance of carrying another heavy basket of clothes out to the lines for Sheila, who rewarded him with a smile, and then he nodded to the old man as he left.
"I'll bring that snuff myself, Cap'n Ira," he assured him.
"Don't it beat all?" queried the captain, shaking his head reflectively, as he resumed his seat. "Don't it beat all? For old folks, Prue, we do certainly seem to be popular."
"Oh, you hesh!" exclaimed his wife.
But Sheila giggled delightedly. The way Cap'n Ira handled the several visitors who thereafter came to Wreckers' Head continued to amuse the girl immensely. Nor did the visits cease. The Ball homestead was no longer a lonely habitation. Somebody was forever "just stopping by," as the expression ran; and the path from the port was trodden brown and sere as autumn drew on apace.
It was not that Sheila Macklin had no graver moments. There were nights when, in spite of her healthful weariness of body, arising from the work of the household, she lay awake for long hours of restless, anxious thought. And sometimes her pillow was wet with tears. Yet she was not of a lachrymose disposition. She could not invent imaginary troubles or build in her mind gibbets on which remorse and sorrow might hang in chains.
Indeed, how could she be sorrowful? Why should she feel remorse? She had taken another girl's name and claim of parentage, and she filled a place which the other girl might have had. But the rightful owner of the name had scorned this refuge. The real Ida May Bostwick had no appreciation of what the Balls had to offer, and she had been unwilling even to open communication with her relatives down on the Cape.
Besides, Tunis Latham always cheered the girl who was playing an imposter's part with the declaration that she had done just right—that without her presence on Wreckers' Head Cap'n Ira and his wife would be in a very bad way, indeed.
She could see that this was so. Her coming to them had been as great a blessing in their lives as it had been in her own.
She fully realized that Cap'n Ira and his wife would not have admitted her to their home and to their hearts had she come in her own person and identity. This was not so much because of their strict morality as because of their strict Puritanism. For a puritan may not be moral always, but he must be just. And justice of that character is seldom tempered by mercy. What they might have forgiven the real Ida May they could scarcely be expected to forgive a stranger.
In spite of this situation, the Balls were being blessed by the presence of a girl in their household who had been tainted with a sentence to a reformatory. Even now, when she knew they loved her and could scarcely imagine what they would do without her, Sheila Macklin was quite convinced that a whisper about these hidden miseries would turn Cap'n Ball, and even Prudence, against her.
Therefore she was careful, putting a guard upon her tongue and almost keeping watch upon her secret thoughts. She never allowed herself to lapse into reverie in their presence for fear the old people might suspect that she had a past that would not endure open discussion.
And, deliberately and with forethought, the intelligent girl went about strengthening her position with the Balls and making her identity as Ida May Bostwick unassailable. She had a retentive memory. Nothing Aunt Prudence ever said in her hearing about Sarah Honey, her ways when she was young, or what the old woman knew or surmised about her dead niece's marriage and her life thereafter, escaped the girl. She treasured it all.
When visitors were by—especially the neighboring women who likewise remembered Sarah Honey—the masquerader often spoke in a way to reduce to a minimum any suspicion that she was not the rightful Ida May. Even a visit from Annabell Coffin—"she who was a Cuttle"—went off without a remark being made which would yield a grain of doubt.
Mrs. Coffin had heard of Ida May while she visited "his folks" in Boston, in a most roundabout way. She did say to the girl, however:
"Let's see, Ida May, didn't they tell me that you worked for a spell in one of them great stores? I wish you could see 'em, Aunt Prue! The Marshall & Denham department store on Washington Street covers acres—acres! Was it there that you worked, Ida May?"
"No," replied Ida May calmly.
"What store did you work in?"
"Hoskin & Marl's," said the girl, still unruffled.
"To be sure. That's what Esther Coffin said she heard, I remember. But I never got to that store. Couldn't go to all of 'em. It tired me to death, just going around Marshall & Denham's."
This and similar incidents were building blocks in the structure which she was raising. Nor did she consider it a structure of deceit. The foundation only was of doubtful veracity. These people had accepted her as somebody she was not, it was true; but she gained nothing thereby that the real Ida May would not have had to win for herself.
With Tunis approving and encouraging her, how could the girl spend much time in doubt or any at all in despair? She felt that she was a much better girl—morally as well as physically—in this environment than she had been for many, many months. Instead of being conscience wrung in playing the part of impostor and living under an assumed name and identity, she felt a sense of self-congratulation.
And when in the company of the captain of the Seamew she felt almost exalted. There was a pact between them that made their tie more than that of sister and brother. Yet, of love they never spoke—not during those first weeks on Wreckers' Head. He never failed to talk with Sheila as he came up from the town when the schooner lay at her moorings in the cove or was docked ready to discharge or take aboard freight. Business remained good, but all was not plain sailing for the young shipmaster. He confided in the girl many of his perplexities. When he went away again, rain or shine, the girl did not fail to be up and about when he passed the Ball homestead. He knew that she did this purposely—that she was on the watch for him. Her reason for doing so was not so clear to the young man, but he appreciated her interest.
Was he overmodest? Perhaps. He might have gained courage regarding the girl's attitude toward him had he known that, on the nights he was at home, she sat in her darkened, upper room and watched the lamp he burned until it was extinguished. On the other hand, Tunis Latham's brotherly manner and cheerful kindness were a puzzle to Sheila. She knew that he had been kinder to her than any other man she had ever met. But what was the root of that kindness?
There were many pleasant thoughts in Sheila's heart just now; nor did she allow the secret of her past to leave its acid scars upon her soul. She was the life and joy of the old house on the Head; she was the center of amusement when she went into company at the church or elsewhere. She managed, too, to be that marvelous specimen of beautiful womankind who can attract other girls as well as men.
For one thing, the girl played no favorites. She treated them all alike. None of the young men of Big Wreck Cove could honestly crow because Ida May Bostwick had showed him any special favor.
And none of them suspected that Tunis Latham had the inside track with the girl from the city. At least, this was unsuspected by all before the occasion of the "harvest-home festival"—that important affair held yearly by the ladies' aid of the Big Wreck Cove church.
For the first time in more than a year, Cap'n Ira and Prudence ventured to town in the evening. Church socials, in the past, and while Cap'n Ira was so much at sea, had been Prudence Ball's chief relaxation. She was naturally of a social disposition, and the simple pleasure of being with and of a party of other matrons of the church was almost the height of Prudence's mundane desire.
When Cap'n Ira heard her express the wish to go to the harvest-home festival he took an extra pinch of snuff.
"I swan!" he said. "If we take that Queen of Sheby out at night, she'll near have a conniption. She'll think the world's come to an end. She ain't been out o' her stable at night since Hector was a pup—and Hector is a big dog now! How can you think of such a thing, Prudence?"
"Queenie won't mind, I guess," said his wife calmly. "I shouldn't be surprised if you was saying one word for her and a good many more'n one for yourself, Ira."
However, they went to the harvest-home festival. It was bound to be a very gay and enjoyable occasion, and Queenie did not stumble more than three times going down the hill into the port.
"That old critter would be the death of us, if she could do it without being the death of herself, too," fumed Cap'n Ira.
There were half a dozen young men almost fighting for the privilege of taking Queenie around to the sheds and blanketing her, the winner hopeful of a special smile and word from Sheila.
The decorated church was well filled when the trio from Wreckers' Head entered, and most delicious odors rose from the basement, where the tables were laid.
Sheila was immediately surrounded by her own little coterie of young people and was enjoying herself quietly when a newcomer, whose appearance created some little surprise at the door, approached the group of which the girl was the center.
"Why, here's Orion Latham!" exclaimed one girl. "I didn't know the Seamew was in."
"We just made it by the skin of our teeth," Orion said, making it a point to shake hands with Sheila. "How are you, Miss Bostwick? I never did see such a Jonah of an old tub as that dratted schooner! I thought she never would get back this trip."
"I cal'late you wouldn't think she was Jonahed if the Seamew was yours, 'Rion," snickered Andrew Roby.
"I wouldn't even take her as a gift," snarled Orion.
"Guess you won't get her that way—if any," chuckled Joshua Jones. "Tunis, he knows which side o' the bread his butter's on. He's doin' well. We cal'late—pa and me—to have all our freight come down from Boston on the Seamew."
Orion glowered at him.
"You'd better have a care, Josh," he growled. "That schooner is hoodooed, as sure as sure! She'll stub her nose some night on Lighthouse Point Reef, if she don't do worse. You can't scurcely steer her proper."
"Nonsense, 'Rion!" spoke up Zebedee Pauling. "I'd like to sail on her myself."
"Perhaps," Sheila interposed, rather flushed, and looking at Orion with unmistakable displeasure, "Orion will give up his berth to you, Zebedee. He seems so very sure that the schooner is unlucky. I came down from Boston in her, and I saw nothing about her save to admire."
"And if you found her all right, Miss Bostwick," struck in the gallant Joshua, "she's good enough for me. Of course, I heard tell some thought the Seamew had a bad reputation—that she run under a fishing boat once and was haunted. But I cal'late that's all bosh."
"Yah!" growled Orion. "Have it your own way. But after the dratted schooner is sunk and you lose a mess of freight, Josh Jones, I guess you'll sing small."
"I've heard," said Andrew Roby gravely, "that it's mighty bad manners to bite the hand that feeds you. You never was overpolite, 'Rion Latham."
"Not only that, but he's clean reckless with his own livelihood," added Zebedee Pauling.