Carolyn of the Corners Part 27

"I tell you," Mr. Stagg maintained, "Jed Parlow's had a change of heart, or something. Know what he's done?"

"I could not guess, Joseph Stagg," said Aunty Rose austerely.

"Why, he's letting that old tramp Car'lyn May picked up stay there till he gets well enough to work, so they tell me. Who ever heard the like?

And Jed hasn't a blessed thing for a man like that tramp to do at this time of year."

"It's Miss Amanda that lets him stay, I guess," said Carolyn May with a wise little nod of her sunny head.

"Hum!" grunted her uncle. "Time was when Jed Parlow wouldn't have played the part of a good Samaritan to the Angel Gabriel himself."

"You should not say such things in the hearing of the child," admonished Aunty Rose severely. "Perhaps Jedidiah Parlow has been misjudged all these years. He may have a kinder heart than you think."

"Kind-hearted!" snorted Mr. Stagg. "If he's got a heart at all, he's successfully hidden it for nigh seventy years, from all I've heard tell."

"Oh, Uncle Joe, he _must_ have a heart, you know," broke in Carolyn May earnestly. "We had physerology studies in the school I used to go to, and you have to have hearts, and lungs, and livers, and other inwards, or else you couldn't keep going. Mr. Parlow must have a heart."

"I s'pose he must," acknowledged Uncle Joe, "from that standpoint. But, beside from its pumping blood through his arteries, his heart action hasn't been what you might call excessive. And for him to take that old codger in out o' the snow--"

Aunty Rose interrupted, as she often did at such times, sternly.

"Joseph Stagg, for a man with ordinary, good common sense, as you've got, you do sometimes 'pear to be pretty near purblind. I shouldn't wonder if Jedidiah Parlow has changed of late. It is more than probable."

Then, as Mr. Stagg continued to stare at her, plainly surprised by her vehemence, the housekeeper continued:

"Nor is he the only person that shows signs of change-and from the same cause. Have you never stopped to think of other changes nearer home that have been brought about by the same means? Answer me, Joseph Stagg."

The hardware dealer cast a quick glance at Carolyn May, busy with her knife and fork, and had the grace to blush a little. Then, suddenly, his eyes twinkled, and a smile wreathed the corners of his mouth.

"Hold on, Aunty Rose. I say! do you ever look in the mirror?"

"Never mind about me, Joseph Stagg," she rejoined rather tartly. "Never mind about me!"

Carolyn May insisted on going to the Parlow house herself after school that afternoon to enquire about her "sailor man." She just had to know personally how he was getting on!

The steady stream of timber sleds from Adams' camp, and others, had beaten down the drifts again, so Aunty Rose made no objection to the little girl and the dog's making this call.

Mr. Parlow peered at them through the window of the carpenter's shop and waved his hand; but Carolyn May went right into the house. When she had been kissed by Miss Amanda, and Prince had lain down by the kitchen range, the little girl demanded:

"And do tell me how my sailor man is, Miss Mandy. He got _such_ a b.u.mp on the head!"

"Yes; the man's wound is really serious. I'm keeping him in bed. But you can go up to see him. He's talked a lot about you, Carolyn May."

"Is that so?" eagerly cried the little girl. "And I'm just as cur'ous about him as I can be."

"Why are you so curious about him?" asked Miss Amanda.

"Because he's a sailor and has been away across the ocean-right to the place my papa and mamma were going to when the _Dunraven_ was sunk.

Don't you see? They were going to Naples. That's in Italy. And this sailor man told Mr. Parlow, Miss Amanda, that he has been to Naples. So he must have been through that Mediterranean Ocean, or sea, or whatever it is-right where my papa and mamma were lost."

The sailor lay in the warm bedroom over the kitchen. In bed, with his head bound up as though it were in a huge nightcap, he looked oddly like a gnome, for he was banked up with pillows, and wore one of Mr. Parlow's flannelette nightshirts, which was too small for him. In spite of his odd habiliments, his was a cheerful face-red, with few wrinkles, save about his eyes, and a scattering brush of grey bristles along his jaw, for he needed a shave.

"h.e.l.lo, my hearties!" was his rumbling greeting when Carolyn May and Miss Amanda appeared.

"This is the little miss I've got to thank for savin' me yesterday."

"And my dog, sir," said Carolyn May. "He's downstairs by the stove. Of course, I couldn't have brought you here on my sled, if it hadn't been for Princey."

"That's a fine dog," agreed the sailor. "I ain't never seen a finer."

Carolyn May warmed to him more and more at this enthusiastic praise. She prattled on gaily and soon had her "sailor man" telling all about the sea and ships, and "they that go down therein."

"For, you see," explained Carolyn May, "I'm dreadful cur'ous about the sea. My papa and mamma were lost at sea."

"You don't say so, little miss!" exclaimed the old fellow. "Aye, aye, that's too bad."

Miss Amanda had disappeared, busy about some household matter, and the little girl and the sailor were alone together.

"Yes," Carolyn May proceeded, "it is dreadful hard to _feel_ that it is so."

"Feel that what's so, little miss?" asked the man in bed.

"That my papa and mamma are really drownd-ed," said the little girl with quivering lips. "Some of the folks on their boat were saved. The papers said so."

"Aye, aye!" exclaimed the sailor, his brows puckered into a frown. "Aye, aye, matey! that's allus the way. Why, I was saved myself from a wreck.

I was in the first officer's boat, and we in that boat was saved. There was another boat-the purser's, it was-was driftin' about all night with us. We come one time near smashin' into each other and wreckin' both boats. There was a heavy swell on.

"Yet," pursued the sailor, "come daylight, and the fog splitting we never could find the purser's boat. She had jest as good a chance as us after the steamship sank. But there it was! We got separated from her, and we was saved, whilst the purser's boat wasn't never heard on again."

"That was dreadful!" sighed the little girl.

"Yes, little miss. And the poor pa.s.sengers! Purser had twenty or more in his boat. Women mostly. But there was a sick man, too. Why, I helped lower his wife and him into the boat 'fore I was called to go with the first officer in his boat. We was the last to cast off. The purser had jest as good a chance as we did.

"I guess I won't never forgit that time, little miss," went on the seaman, seeing the blue eyes fixed on his face, round with interest.

"No! And I've seen some tough times, too.

"The ship was riddled. She had to sink-and it was night. We burned Coston lights, and our signal gun banged away for help, and the old siren tooted. The wireless top-hamper had been shot away in the fust place.

"We didn't have no chance at all to save the ship. Some of the boats was smashed. Two was overturned jest as they struck the water. There wasn't any of the life rafts launched at all. But we didn't have much of a panic; the steerage pa.s.sengers was jest like dumb cattle.

"They was goin' back to Italy because of the war-the men to fight, the women and children so's to benefit by the Government pay to soldiers'

families."

This was mostly beyond Carolyn May's comprehension, but she listened to the sailor with serious attention. The seaman told his story as though it really were unforgettable.

"There was the sick man I told you about, little miss. He was a wonder, that feller! Cheerful-brave-Don't often see a feller like him. Jokin' to the last, he was. He didn't want to go in the purser's boat, if there was more women or children to go.

"We told him all the women folk had left the ship. So, then, he let me lower him down into the purser's boat after his wife. And that boat had as good a chance as we had, I tell you," repeated the seaman in quite an excited manner.