"Yes, just a grain sick."

It was so pleasant to be in the warm, comfortable sitting-room and watch the dreary weather out in the lane. The back side of the house b.u.t.ted on the lane, no fence intervening. Aunt Stanshy had no objection to such a close contact, but rather liked it, declaring it to be "social." She did not favor, though, the sociability that drunken sailors manifested several times when going from the saloons on Water Street down to their vessels at the wharf in which the lane ended. They would stagger against the house, pushing one another and bombarding it. Aunt Stanshy was on hand, though. A pail of freshly-drawn water, Arctic cold, and from an upper window, administered freely to the offenders, had been known to produce a healthy effect. Aunt Stanshy's remedies for various troubles might be vigorous, but they were generally effective. There was not much pa.s.sing in the lane, that stormy day. A fisherman, in an oil-skin suit, went by, trundling a wheel-barrow of fish to a store in town. At noon, somebody else appeared.

"There's Mr. Walton," said Aunt Stanshy.

"And there's Tony with him," said Charlie.

"Where's his father?"

"Tony says he is in Europe."

"He the one that people say is an Italian, and--and--n.o.body knows what he is up to?"

"That's the one, aunty."

The minister and Tony, hand in hand, pa.s.sed out of sight.

"This is the kind of day when Mr. Walton's mother will be watching the weather, looking up at the vane. People say that she has a great deal to say about the sea, and takes a great interest in sailors."

"What for?"

"Because they say she has a son somewhere at sea."

"And don't any one know where he is really?"

"No; and they have hinted and suspected and guessed and done every thing, except ask old Miss Walton right out, but they can't find out a thing.

She's close as a clam in this matter."

By and by there appeared in the lane a drunken man. As he staggered along he was exposed to all the pitiless pelting of the wild north east rain, and moved away like a dark, forlorn shadow.

"Poor fellow!" the sympathizing Charlie exclaimed. "Who's that, I wonder?"

"Where?"

"A drunken man in the lane."

"If people would only take the water inside and the rum outside, sort of turnin' things round, it would be much better, better," said Aunt Stanshy, going to the window. She gave one look and came back to her ironing.

Charlie thought he heard her sigh. He had already noticed that Aunt Stanshy never made fun of drunken people.

"Who is it?" he asked.

She did not answer, but taking up her flat-iron again, pounded the clothes with it vigorously, as if trying to call attention from herself to her work.

"Is she crying?" thought Charlie.

As if wet with her tears, her spectacles gleamed sharply. The muscles of her arms swelled as she pounded the innocent sheet before her, and Charlie was reluctant to ask again. For some time there was silence, the only interrupting sound being Aunt Stanshy's pound--pound--pound. Charlie sat in his chair, looking steadily out upon the somber, dripping rain.

"Don't you want to play something?"

It was Aunt Stanshy speaking. A troubled look on her face had pa.s.sed away and she was ironing quietly again.

"Yes;" said Charlie, "you--you sick?"

Aunt Stanshy gave no answer to this, but asked again, "Don't you want to play?"

"Play what?"

"Boat."

"Boat! how!"

"O make believe, you know."

Charlie thought in silence.

"You lend me a box, aunty?"

"Yes, certainly."

"And that little broom you sweep with?"

The amateur ship-carpenter went to work.

"There is my mast," said Charlie, securing the broom to the bottom of the box which he had turned over. "Now I must have sails. It is going to be a monitor, too, like what I read about in a book the other day."

After some effort, and more tribulation, there appeared a splendid piece of naval architecture, a monitor with a turret, the deck bordered with a twine-railing, two sails hanging down from Aunt Stanshy's small broom.

"That broom makes me think of what I learned at school when I was a girl."

"What was that?"

"I am not much of a scholar, but I remember this. Admiral Tromp was a Dutchman, and commanded a fleet that went against the English. Tromp was so successful that he tied a broom to his mast-head and went sailing over the waters, and that meant he had swept his enemy from the sea, and if he hadn't, he would certainly do it and make clean work of it. Over the blue waters he went skipping along, feeling dreadful big, with that broom at the mast-head. The English boys, though, came at him again and whipped him, and poor Tromp was finally killed in a sea-fight. I don't know what became of his broom. You had better call that an English and not a Dutch broom."

When Charlie went up stairs that night, the _Neponset_ as he called the monitor, was still sailing in the sitting-room, its sails all set, its broom at the mast-head. He thought it was splendid to be sick.

"How long do you think this sickness may go on?" was the last question he asked Aunt Stanshy that night.

"O, if it is a slow fever, it might last several weeks, but I don't want to discourage you."

"Discourage!" It was magnificent. Two or three weeks of toast and jelly and oranges and many soft words, and not a few hugs! That night he was dreaming of boxes of oranges he was emptying, and of gla.s.ses of jelly big as hogsheads, out of which he was taking jelly by the shovelful! The next morning he felt--though unwilling to confess it--much better. At noon keen old Dr. Pillipot happened to come along, and Aunt Stanshy referred Charlie's case to him. Old Dr. Pillipot bent his sharp, gray eyes down toward Charlie and made up a horrid face as he growled, "Let me see your tongue, young man. Hem! Looks quite well. Let me feel your pulse. So!

Quite good. The weather has changed, and as it is mild and sunny, he might walk down to school this--afternoon.

"O dear!" groaned Charlie, when the doctor had left. "I wish I had scared his horse off when I saw him coming down the lane. You and I, aunty, did have such a nice time!"

O, the trials of this life!

Charlie, though, had a dose of comfort from Aunt Stanshy. She told him he need not go to school until the next day, and when the morning came, she said:

"I believe the _Neponset_ took a cargo on board in the night."