Captain January.

by Laura E. Richards.

CHAPTER I. -- STAR BRIGHT

The Captain had sold all his lobsters. They had been particularly fine ones, and had gone off "like hot cakes," everyone who pa.s.sed by the wharf stopping to buy one or two. Now the red dory was empty, and the Captain had washed her out with his usual scrupulous care, and was making preparations for his homeward voyage, when he was hailed by a cheery voice from the street.

"Hillo, January!" said the voice. "Is that you? How goes it?" and the owner of the voice, a st.u.r.dy man in a blue coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, came down the wharf and greeted the Captain with a hearty shake of the hand.

"How goes it?" he repeated. "I haven't seen ye for a dog's age."

"I'm hearty, Cap'n Nazro!" replied Captain January. "Hearty, that's what I am, an' hopin' you're the same."

"That's right!" said the first speaker. "'Tain't often we set eyes on you, you stick so close to your light. And the little gal, she's well, I expect? She looks a picture, when I take a squint at her through the gla.s.s sometimes. Never misses running out and shaking her ap.r.o.n when we go by!"

"Cap'n Nazro," said January, speaking with emphasis, "if there is a pictur in this world, o' health, and pootiness, and goodness, it's that child. It's that little un, sir. Not to be beat in this country, nor yet any other 'cordin' as I've voyaged."

"Nice little gal!" said Captain Nazro, a.s.senting. "Mighty nice little gal! Ain't it time she was going to school, January? My wife and I were speaking about it only the other day. Seems as if she'd oughter be round with other children now, and learning what they do. Mis Nazro would be real pleased to have her stop with us a spell, and go to school with our gals. What do you say?" He spoke very heartily, but looked doubtfully at the old man, as if hardly expecting a favourable answer.

Captain January shook his head emphatically, "You're real kind, Cap'n Nazro!" he said; "real kind, you and Mis Nazro both are! and she makin' the little un's frocks and pinafores, as is a great help. But I can't feel to let her out o' my sight, nohow; and as for school, she ain't the kind to bear it, nor yet I couldn't for her. She's learnin'!" he added, proudly. "Learnin' well! I'll bet there ain't no gal in your school knows more nor that little un does. Won'erful, the way she walks ahead!"

"Get the school readers, hey! and teach her yourself do you?" queried Captain Nazro.

"No, sir!" replied the old man; "I don't have no school readers. The child learns out o' the two best books in the world,--the Bible, and William Shakespeare's book; them's all the books she ever seed--_saw_, I should say."

"William Shak--" began Captain Nazro; and then he broke off in sheer amazement, and said, simply, "Well, I'm blowed!"

"The minister giv 'em to me," said Captain January. "I reckon he knows. There's a dictionary, too," he added, rather sadly; "but I can't make her take to that, nohow, though there's a power o' fine words in it."

Then, as the other man remained silent and openmouthed, he said: "But I must be goin', Cap'n Nazro, sir! The little un'll be lookin' for me. Good day, sir, and thank ye kindly, all the same as if it was to be, which it ain't!" And with a friendly gesture, the old man stepped into his red dory, and rowed away with long, st.u.r.dy strokes.

Captain Nazro gazed after him meditatively, took out his pipe and looked at it, then gazed again. "January's cracked," he said; "that's what's the matter with him. He's a good man, and a good lighthouse-keeper, and he's been an able seaman in his day, none better; but he's cracked!"

There is an island off a certain part of the coast of Maine,--a little rocky island, heaped and tumbled together as if Dame Nature had shaken down a heap of stones at random from her ap.r.o.n, when she had finished making the larger islands which lie between it and the mainland. At one end, the sh.o.r.eward end, there is a tiny cove, and a bit of silver-sand beach, with a green meadow beyond it, and a single great pine; but all the rest is rocks, rocks. At the farther end the rocks are piled high, like a castle wall, making a brave barrier against the Atlantic waves; and on top of this cairn rises the lighthouse, rugged and st.u.r.dy as the rocks themselves, but painted white, and with its windows shining like great, smooth diamonds. This is Light Island; and it was in this direction that Captain January's red dory was headed when he took his leave of his brother-captain, and rowed away from the wharf. It was a long pull; in fact, it took pretty nearly the whole afternoon, so that the evening shadows were lengthening when at length he laid down his oars, and felt the boat's nose rub against the sand of the little home-cove. But rowing was no more effort than breathing to Captain January, and it was no fatigue, but only a trifle of stiffness from sitting so long, that troubled him a little in getting out of the boat. As he stepped slowly out upon the firm-grained silver of the little beach, he looked up and around with an expectant air, and seeing no one, a look of disappointment crossed his face. He opened his lips as if to call some one, but checking himself, "Happen she's gettin' supper!" he said. "It's later than I thought. I don't pull so spry as I used ter, 'pears ter me. Wal, thar! 'tain't to be expected. I sh'll be forty years old before I know it!"

Chuckling to himself, the Captain drew up the little boat and made her fast; then, taking sundry brown-paper parcels from under the thwart, he turned and made his way up towards the lighthouse. A picturesque figure he was, striding along among the heaped and tumbled rocks. His hair and beard, still thick and curly, were absolutely white, as white as the foam that broke over the rocks at the cliff's foot. His face was tanned and weather-beaten to the colour of mahogany, but the features were strong and sharply cut, while the piercing blue eyes which gleamed beneath his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows showed all the fire of youth, and seemed to have no part in the seventy years which had bent the tall form, and rounded slightly the broad and ma.s.sive shoulders. The Captain wore a rough pea-jacket and long boots, while his head was adorned with a nondescript covering which might have begun life either as a hat or a cap, but would now hardly be owned by either family.

Reaching the house, the old man mounted the rude steps which led to the door, and entered the room which was kitchen, dining, and drawing room at Storm Castle, as the lighthouse was called by its inhabitants.

The room was light and cheerful, with a pleasant little fire crackling sociably on the hearth. The table was laid with a clean white cloth, the kettle was singing on the hob, and a little covered saucepan was simmering with an agreeable and suggestive sound; but no one was to be seen. Alarmed, he hardly knew why, at the silence and solitude, Captain January set his parcels down on the table, and going to the foot of the narrow stone staircase which wound upward beside the chimney, called, "Star! Star Bright, where are you? Is anything wrong?"

"No, Daddy Captain!" answered a clear, childish voice from above; "I'm coming in a minute. Be patient, Daddy dear!"

With a sigh of relief, Captain January retired to the fireplace, and sitting down in a huge high-backed armchair, began leisurely pulling off his great boots. One was already off and in his hand, when a slight noise made him look up. He started violently, and then, leaning back in his chair, gazed in silent amazement at the vision before him.

On the stone stairway, and slowly descending, with steps that were meant to be stately (and which might have been so, had not the stairs been so steep, and the little legs so short) was the figure of a child: a little girl about ten years old, with a face of almost startling beauty. Her hair floated like a cloud of pale gold about her shoulders; her eyes were blue, not light and keen, like the old man's, but of that soft, deep, shadowy blue that poets love to call violet. Wonderful eyes, shaded by long, curved lashes of deepest black, which fell on the soft, rose-and-ivory tinted cheek, as the child carefully picked her way down, holding up her long dress from her little feet. It was the dress which so astonished Captain January.

Instead of the pink calico frock and blue checked pinafore, to which his eyes were accustomed, the little figure was clad in a robe of dark green velvet with a long train, which spread out on the staircase behind her, very much like the train of a peac.o.c.k. The body, made for a grown woman, hung back loosely from her shoulders, but she had tied a scarf of gold tissue under her arms and round her waist, while from the long hanging sleeves her arms shone round and white as sculptured ivory. A strange sight, this, for a lighthouse tower on the coast of Maine! but so fair a one, that the old mariner could not take his eyes from it.

"Might be Juliet!" he muttered to himself. "Juliet, when she was a little un. 'Her beauty hangs upon the cheek o' Night,'--only it ain't, so to say, exactly night,--'like a rich jewel in a n.i.g.g.e.r's ear.'

No! that ain't right. 'n.i.g.g.e.r' ain't right, 'Ethiop's ear, 'that's it! Though I should judge they were much the same thing, and they more frekently wear 'em in their noses, them as I've seen in their own country."

As he thus soliloquised, the little maiden reached the bottom of the stairs in safety, and dropping the folds of the velvet about her, made a quaint little courtesy, and said, "Here I am, Daddy Captain!

how do you like me, please?"

"Star Bright," replied Captain January, gazing fixedly at her, as he slowly drew his pipe from his pocket and lighted it. "I like you amazin'. _A_-mazin' I like you, my dear! but it is what you might call surprisin', to leave a little maid in a blue pinafore, and to come back and find a princess in gold and velvet. Yes, Pigeon Pie, you might call it surprisin', and yet not be stretchin' a p'int."

"Am I _really_ like a princess?" said the child, clapping her hands, and laughing with pleasure. "Have you ever seen a princess, Daddy Captain, and did she look like me?"

"I seed--I _saw_--one, once," replied the Captain, gravely, puffing at his pipe. "In Africky it was, when I was fust mate to an Indiaman.

And she wa'n't like you, Peach Blossom, no more than Hyperion to a Satyr, and that kind o' thing. She had on a short petticut, comin'

half-way down to her knees, and a necklace, and a ring through her nose. And--"

"Where were her other clothes?" asked the child.

"Wal--maybe she kem off in a hurry and forgot 'em!" said the Captain, charitably. "Anyhow, not speakin' her language, I didn't ask her.

And she was as black as the ace of spades, and shinin' all over with b.u.t.ter."

"Oh, _that_ kind of princess!" said Star, loftily. "I didn't mean that kind, Daddy. I meant the kind who live in fretted palaces, with music in th' enamelled stones, you know, and wore clothes like these every day."

"Wal, Honey, I never saw one of that kind, till now!" said the Captain, meekly. "And I'm sorry I hain't--I mean I _ain't_--got no fretted palace for my princess to live in. This is a poor place for golden la.s.ses and velvet trains."

"It _isn't_!" cried the child, her face flashing into sudden anger, and stamping her foot. "You sha'n't call it a poor place, Daddy! It's wicked of you. And I wouldn't live in a palace if there were _fifty_ of them all set in a row. So there now!" She folded her arms and looked defiantly at the old man, who returned her gaze placidly, and continued to puff at his pipe, until he was seized in a penitent embrace, hugged, and kissed, and scolded, and wept over, all at once.

The brief tempest over, the child seated herself comfortably on his knee, and said, "Now, Daddy, I want a story."

"Story before supper?" asked the Captain, meekly, looking at the saucepan, which was fairly lifting its lid in its eagerness to be attended to. A fresh access of remorseful hugging followed.

"You poor darling!" said Star; "I forgot all about supper. And it's stewed kidneys, too! But oh! my dress!" and she glanced down at her velvet splendour. "I must go and take it off," she said, sadly.

"Not you, Honeysuckle," said the old man, rising and setting the child down carefully in the chair. "Sit you there, and be a real princess, and I will be your steward, and get supper this time. I like to see you in your fine clothes, and 'twould be a shame to take 'em off so soon."

She clapped her hands again, and settling herself cosily in the great chair, arranged her train with a graceful sweep, and pushed back her cloudy golden hair.

"Shall I really act princess?" she asked,--and without waiting for an answer, she began to give orders in lofty tones, holding her head high in the air, and pointing hither and thither with her tiny hands.

"Take up the golden chafing-dish, Grumio!" she cried. "The kidneys--I mean the capons--are quite ready now. And the milk--no! the sack--is in the silver flagon!" she pointed to an ancient blue jug which stood on the dresser.

The obedient Captain hastened to take up the saucepan, and soon the frugal supper was set out, and princess and steward were doing ample justice to it.

"You didn't say 'Anon! anon! Madam' when I ordered you about," said the Princess, thoughtfully. "You ought to, you know. Servants always do in the book."

"Wal, I didn't think on't," the steward admitted. "I wa'n't brought up to the business, you see, Princess. It always seemed to me a foolish thing to say, anyhow: no disrespect to W. Shakespeare. The hull of the word's 'anonymous,' I believe, and the dictionary says _that_ means 'wanting a name.' So, altogether, Star Bright, I haven't been able to make much sense out o' that answer."

"Oh, never mind!" said the Princess, tossing her head. "I don't like the dictionary. It's a wretch!"

"So 'tis, so 'tis," a.s.sented the Captain, with servile alacrity. "Have some more milk then, Sunshine."

"It isn't milk! it's sack," said the child, promptly, holding out her small yellow mug with a royal air. "Are the capons good, Grumio?"