His letter was a short one and rather noncommittal. As Mrs. Thomas no doubt knew he had come back to live in his father's house at Bayport. He might possibly need some one to keep house for him. He understood that she, Mary Thayer that was, was a good housekeeper and that she was open to an engagement if everything was mutually satisfactory. He had known her mother slightly when the latter lived in Orham. He thought an interview might be pleasant, for they could talk over old times if nothing more. Perhaps, on the whole, she might care to risk a trip to Bayport, therefore he inclosed money for her railroad fare. "You understand, of course," so he wrote in conclusion, "that nothing may come of our meeting at all. So please don't say a word to anybody when you strike town. You've lived here yourself, and you know that three words hove overboard in Bayport will dredge up gab enough to sink a dictionary. So just keep mum till the business is settled one way or the other."

He put on his hat and went down to the post office, where he dropped his letter in the slot of the box fastened to the front door. Then he returned home and retired at exactly eleven o'clock. In spite of his remarks to Asaph, he had not "turned in" so early after all.

If the captain expected a prompt reply to his note he was disappointed.

A week pa.s.sed and he heard nothing. Then three more days and still no word from the New Hampshire widow. Meanwhile fresh layers of dust spread themselves over the Whittaker furniture, and the gaudy patterns of the carpets blushed dimly beneath a grimy fog. The situation was desperate; even Matilda Tripp, Come-Outer sermons and all, began to be thinkable as a possibility.

The eleventh day began with a pouring rain that changed, later on, to a dismal drizzle. The silver-leaf tree in the front yard dripped, and the overflowing gutters gurgled and splashed. The bay was gray and lonely, and the fish weirs along the outer bar were lost in the mist. The flowers in the Atkins urns were draggled and beaten down. Only the iron dogs glistened undaunted as the wet ran off their newly painted backs.

The air was heavy, and the salty flavor of the flats might almost be tasted in it.

Captain Cy was in the sitting room, as usual. His spirits were as gray as the weather. He was actually lonesome for the first time since his return home. He had kindled a wood fire in the stove, just for the sociability of it, and the crackle and glow behind the isingla.s.s panes only served to remind him of other days and other fires. The sitting room had not been lonesome then.

He heard the depot wagon rattle by and, peering from the window, saw that, except for Mr. Lumley, it was empty. Not even a summer boarder had come to brighten our ways and lawns with reckless raiment and the newest slang. Summer boarding season was almost over now. Bayport would soon be as dull as dish water. And the captain admitted to himself that it WAS dull. He had half a mind to take a flying trip to Boston, make the round of the wharves, and see if any of the old shipowners and ship captains whom he had once known were still alive and in harness.

"JINGLE! Jingle! JINGLE! Jingle! Jingle! Jing! Jing! Jing!"

Captain Cy bounced in his chair. That was the front-door bell. The FRONT-door bell! Who on earth, or, rather, who in Bayport, would come to the FRONT door?

He hurried through the dim grandeur of the best parlor and entered the little dark front hall. The bell was still swinging at the end of its coil of wire. The dust shaken from it still hung in the air. The captain unbolted and unlocked the big front door.

A girl was standing on the steps between the lines of box hedge--a little girl under a big "grown-up" umbrella. The wet dripped from the umbrella top and from the hem of the little girl's dress.

Captain Cy stared hard at his visitor; he knew most of the children in Bayport, but he didn't know this one. Obviously she was a stranger.

Portuguese children from "up Harniss way" sometimes called to peddle huckleberries, but this child was no "Portugee."

"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed the captain wonderingly.

"Did you ring the bell?"

"Yes, sir," replied the girl.

"Humph! Did, hey? Why?"

"Why? Why, I thought--Isn't it a truly bell? Didn't it ought to ring? Is anybody sick or dead? There isn't any c.r.a.pe."

"Dead? c.r.a.pe?" Captain Cy gasped. "What in the world put that in your head?"

"Well, I didn't know but maybe that was why you thought I hadn't ought to have rung it. When mamma was sick they didn't let people ring our bell. And when she died they tied it up with c.r.a.pe."

"Did, hey? Hum!" The captain scratched his chin and gazed at the small figure before him. It was a self-poised, matter-of-fact figure for such a little one, and, out there in the rain under the tent roof of the umbrella, it was rather pitiful.

"Please, sir," said the child, "are you Captain Cyrus Whittaker?"

"Yup! That's me. You've guessed it the first time."

"Yes, sir. I've got a letter for you. It's pinned inside my dress. If you could hold this umbrella maybe I could get it out."

She extended the big umbrella at arm's length, holding it with both hands. Captain Cy woke up.

"Good land!" he exclaimed, "what am I thinkin' of? You're soakin' wet through, ain't you?"

"I guess I'm pretty wet. It's a long ways from the depot, and I tried to come across the fields, because a boy said it was nearer, and the bushes were--"

"Across the FIELDS? Have you walked all the way from the depot?"

"Yes, sir. The man said it was a quarter to ride, and auntie said I must be careful of my money because--"

"By the big dipper! Come in! Come in out of that this minute!"

He sprang down the steps, furled the umbrella, seized her by the arm and led her into the house, through the parlor and into the sitting room, where the fire crackled invitingly. He could feel that the dress sleeve under his hand was wet through, and the worn boots and darned stockings he could see were soaked likewise.

"There!" he cried. "Set down in that chair. Put your feet up on that h'ath. Sakes alive! Your folks ought to know better than to let you stir out this weather, let alone walkin' a mile--and no rubbers! Them shoes ought to come off this minute, I s'pose. Take 'em off. You can dry your stockings better that way. Off with 'em!"

"Yes, sir," said the child, stooping to unb.u.t.ton the shoes. Her wet fingers were blue. It can be cold in our village, even in early September, when there is an easterly storm. Unb.u.t.toning the shoes was slow work.

"Here, let me help you!" commanded the captain, getting down on one knee and taking a foot in his lap. "Tut! tut! tut! you're wet! Been some time sence I fussed with b.u.t.ton boots; lace or long-legged cowhides come handier. Never wore cowhides, did you?"

"No, sir."

"I s'pose not. I used to when I was little. Remember the first pair I had. Copper toes on 'em--whew! The copper was blacked over when they come out of the store and that wouldn't do, so we used to kick a stone wall till they brightened up. There! there she comes. Humph! stockin's soaked, too. Wish I had some dry ones to lend you. Might give you a pair of mine, but they'd be too scant fore and aft and too broad in the beam, I cal'late. Humph! and your top-riggin's as wet as your hull. Been on your beam ends, have you?"

"I don't know, sir. I fell down in the bushes coming across. There were vines and they tripped me up. And the umbrella was so heavy that--"

"Yes, I could see right off you was carryin' too much canvas. Now take off your bunnit and I'll get a coat of mine to wrap you up in."

He went into his bedroom and returned with a heavy "reefer" jacket.

Ordering his caller to stand up he slipped her arms into the sleeves and turned the collar up about her neck. Her braided "pigtail" of yellow hair stuck out over the collar and hung down her back in a funny way. The coat sleeves reached almost to her knees and the coat itself enveloped her like a bed quilt.

"There!" said Captain Cy approvingly. "Now you look more as if you was under a storm rig. Set down and toast your toes. Where's that letter you said you had?"

"It's inside here. I don't know's I can get at it; these sleeves are so long."

"Reef 'em. Turn 'em up. Let me show you. That's better! Hum! So you come from the depot, hey? Live up that way?"

"No, sir! I used to live in Concord, but--"

"Concord? CONCORD? Concord where?"

"Concord, New Hampshire. I came on the cars. Auntie knew a man who was going to Boston, and he said he'd take care of me as far as that and then put me on the train to come down here. I stopped at his folks'

house in Charlestown last night, and this morning we got up early and he bought me a ticket and started me for here. I had a box with my things in it, but it was so heavy I couldn't carry it, so I left it up at the depot. The man there said it would be all right and you could send for it when--"

"I could SEND for it? _I_ could? What in the world--Say, child, you've made a mistake in your bearin's. 'Taint me you want to see, it's some of your folks, relations, most likely. Tell me who they are; maybe I know 'em."

The girl sat upright in the big chair. Her dark eyes opened wide and her chin quivered.

"Ain't you Captain Cyrus Whittaker?" she demanded. "You said you was."

"Yes, yes, I am. I'm Cy Whittaker, but what--"