A Little Maid of Province Town Part 2

Captain Enos met them at the door. He gave Anne no word of greeting, but said to his wife, "The British tell us to keep ash.o.r.e. They'll have no fishing. They know full well how easy 'tis for a good sloop to carry news up the harbor. They are well posted as to how such things are done."

"But what can we do if we cannot fish?" exclaimed Mrs. Stoddard. "'Tis well known that this sandy point is no place for gardens. We can scarce raise vegetables enough to know what they mean. And as for corn and wheat, every grain of them worth counting has to be bought from the other settlements and paid for in fish. If we do not fish how shall we eat?"

The captain shook his head. "Go about your play, child," he said, turning toward Anne, and the little girl walked slowly away toward a bunch of scrubby pine trees near which she had established a playhouse. She had built a cupboard of smooth chips, and here were gathered the sh.e.l.ls she had brought from the beach, a wooden doll which her father had made her, and the pieces of a broken earthenware plate.

She took the doll from its narrow shelf and regarded it closely. Her father had made it with no small skill. Its round head was covered with curls carved in the soft wood; its eyes were colored with paint, and its mouth was red. The body was more clumsily made, but the arms and legs had joints, and the doll could sit up as erect as its small mistress. It wore one garment made of blue and white checked cotton. It was the only toy Anne Nelson had ever possessed, and it had seemed more her own because she had kept it in the little playhouse under the pines.

"Now, you can go up to the house and live with me," she said happily, "and now you shall have a truly name. You shall be Martha Nelson now. I know my father would want you to be called Martha, if he knew that Mrs. Stoddard put her arm around me and called me a 'dear child,'" and Anne smiled at the remembrance.

She did not speak of her father before the Stoddards, but she could not have explained the reason for her silence. She had wondered much about him, and often watched the harbor yearningly, thinking that after all the old sloop might come sailing back, bringing the slender, silent man who had always smiled upon her, and praised her, and had told her that some day she should have a Maltese kitten, and a garden with blossoming trees and smooth paths. Anne did not forget him, and now as she regarded her wooden doll a great longing for a sight of his dear face made her forget everything, and she leaned her head against a little pine and cried silently. But as she cried the remembrance of the taunts of the Cary children came into her thoughts, and she dried her eyes.

"'Tis near the hour when they go to the spring," she said, laying the doll carefully back in its former resting place. "I will but walk that way that they may not think me afraid of their ill-seeming words," and with her dark head more erect than usual, Anne made her way down the path, her brown feet sinking ankle-deep in the warm sand at every step.

The Cary children, a boy and a girl, both somewhat Anne's seniors, were already filling their buckets at the spring. Jimmie Starkweather was there, and a number of younger children ran shouting up and down the little stream which flowed from the spring across the road.

As Anne came near, Jimmie Starkweather called out: "Oh, Anne Nelson! The Indians from Truro are camping at Shankpainter's Pond. I've been over there, near enough to see them at work, this morning. My father says they'll be gone as soon as they see the British vessels. We'll not have time to buy moccasins if they go so quickly."

Anne's eyes rested for a moment upon Jimmie, but she did not speak. She could hear the Carys whispering as they dipped their buckets in the spring, and as she came nearer, their voices rose loudly: "Daughter of a spy! Beggar-child! Beggar-child!"

But their taunts vanished in splutterings and pleas for mercy; for at their first word Anne had sprung upon them like a young tiger. She had wrenched the bucket of water from the astonished boy and flung it in his face with such energy that he had toppled over backward, soused and whimpering; then she had turned upon his sister, sending handful after handful of sand into the face of that astonished child, until she fled from her, wailing for mercy.

But Anne pursued her relentlessly, and Captain Enos Stoddard, making his mournful way toward the sh.o.r.e, could hardly believe his own senses when he looked upon the scene--the Cary boy prostrate and humble, while his sister, pursued by Anne, prayed for Anne to stop the deluge of sand that seemed to fill the air about her.

"I'll not be called ill-seeming names!" shrieked Anne. "If thou sayest 'traitor' or 'spy' to me again I will do worse things to you!"

Captain Stoddard stood still for a moment. Then a slow smile crept over his weather-beaten face. "Anne!" he called, and at the sound of his voice the child stopped instantly. "Come here," he said, and she approached slowly with hanging head. "Give me your hand, child," he said kindly, and the little girl slipped her slender fingers into the big rough hand.

"So, Jimmie Starkweather, you'll stand by and see my little girl put upon, will you!" he exclaimed angrily. "I thought better than that of your father's son, to stand by and let a small girl be taunted with what she cannot help. It speaks ill for you."

"I had no time, sir," answered the boy sulkily; "she was upon them both in a second," and Jimmie's face brightened; "it was fine, sir, the way she sent yon lubber over," and he pointed a scornful finger toward the Cary boy, who was now slinking after his sister.

"Here, you Cary boy!" called the captain, "come back here and heed what I say to you. If I know of your opening your mouth with such talk again to my girl here," and he nodded toward Anne, "I'll deal with you myself. So look out for yourself."

"I'll see he keeps a civil tongue, sir," volunteered Jimmie, and Captain Enos nodded approvingly.

"Now, Anne, we'd best step up home," said the captain. "I expect Mistress Stoddard will not be pleased at this."

Anne clung close to the big hand but said no word.

"I am not angry, child," went on the captain. "I like your spirit. I do not believe in being put upon."

"But Mistress Stoddard told me I was not to throw water and sand,"

responded Anne, "and I forgot her commands. I fear she will not like me now," and remorseful tears dropped over the flushed little cheeks.

"There, there! Do not cry, Anne," comforted the captain; "I will tell her all about it. She will not blame you. You are my little girl now, and those Cary oafs will not dare open their mouths to plague you."

Mrs. Stoddard, looking toward the sh.o.r.e, could hardly credit what she saw--the captain, who but yesterday had declared that Anne should not stay under his roof, leading the child tenderly and smiling upon her!

"Heaven be thanked!" she murmured. "Enos has come to his senses. There'll be no more trouble about Anne staying."

CHAPTER III

ANNE'S SECRET

Mrs. Stoddard said nothing to Anne of the trouble at the spring, and when Anne would have explained her part in it, her friend said quickly: "Captain Enos is not displeased with you, Anne. He thinks the Cary children not well taught at home, and says for you not to play with them,"

so that Anne had gone happily back to her playhouse, and told "Martha"

that there was no one so good as Mistress and Captain Stoddard, "except my dear father," the little girl had added loyally.

"Now, Martha, you must be a good and quiet child," she advised, "for after this you will live in the house with me. You can come out here to play with me, but every night you are to sleep in my bed; and it may be, Mistress Stoddard will let you rest in the kitchen now and then, and you may go with me over the pasture hill to see Brownie."

The big British ships lay quietly at anchor for several days. The men came ash.o.r.e in boat-loads, washed their clothes at the spring, bought such provisions as the little settlement could offer, and wandered about the sh.o.r.e. The citizens treated them not uncivilly, for since the men of Province Town were unable to make any resistance to those they felt to be their country's foes, they knew it to be best to be silent and accept the authority they had not the strength to defy. So the fishing-boats swung at anchor in the harbor, and the men lingered about the landing, or fished for plaice fish and sole from their dories near sh.o.r.e.

"We'll be poor indeed when frost comes," complained Mrs. Stoddard; "my mola.s.ses keg is near empty now, and the meal barrel not half full. If those Britishers do not soon leave the harbor so that the men can get back to the fishing, this place will know hunger, for our larder is no poorer than our neighbors'."

"Yes," agreed Captain Enos, "the whole coast is feeling the king's displeasure because we will not pay him taxes to fill his pockets, and make slaves of us. I wish we had some news of our Boston friends. The Freemans are well to do, but with Boston beset on all sides with British soldiers they may be hard pressed."

"'Twill come to worse yet, be sure," predicted Mrs. Stoddard gloomily.

It was but a few days after this when with joyful songs the British sailors made ready to sail, and on a bright July morning the vessels, taking advantage of a fair wind, bent their sails and skimmed away up the coast.

"They are bound for Boston," declared Captain Enos, "and 'Tis soon enough they'll be back again. The Boston folk will not let them come to anchor, I'll be bound."

Hardly had the ships got under headway before the fishermen were rowing out to their sailboats, and soon the little fleet was under sail bound off Race Point toward the fishing grounds.

"Now, Anne, you had best go after Brownie and bring her back to her old pasture. I like not the long tramp morning and night to milk the creature," said Mrs. Stoddard, and she watched Anne, with the wooden doll clasped in her arm, go obediently off on her errand.

A little smile crept over her face as she stood in the doorway. "Captain Enos would like well that Anne be called Anne Stoddard," she said aloud; "he begins to recall good traits in her father, and to think no other child in the settlement has the spirit that our girl has. And I am well pleased that it is so," she concluded with a little sigh, "for there will be poor days ahead for us to bear, and had the captain not changed his mind about Anne I should indeed have had hard work to manage," and she turned back to her simple household tasks.

Anne went slowly up the sandy slope, stopping here and there to see if the beach plums showed any signs of ripening, and turning now and then to see if she could pick out Captain Enos's sail among the boats going swiftly out toward the open sea.

As she came in sight of the little grove of maples her quick eyes saw a man moving among them. Brownie was quietly feeding, evidently undisturbed.

Anne stopped, holding Martha very tightly, her eyes fixed upon the moving figure. She was not afraid, but she wondered who it was, for she thought that every man in the settlement had gone to the fishing grounds. As she looked, something familiar in the man's movements sent her running toward the grove.

"It is my father. I know it is my father," she whispered to herself. As she came down the slope the man evidently saw her, for he came out from the wood a little as if waiting for her.

"Anne, Anne!" he exclaimed, as she came near, and in a moment his arm was around her and he was clasping her close.

"Come back in the wood, dear child," he said. "And you have not forgotten your father?"

Anne smiled up at him happily. "I could never do that," she responded.

"See, here is my doll. Her name is Martha Stoddard Nelson."

"An excellent name," declared the man smilingly. "How neat and rosy you look, Anne! You look as if you had fared well. Be they kind to you?"

"Oh, yes, father. They say now that I am their little girl. But I am not,"