Cast Away in the Cold Part 24

"Good by," the Captain was about to say again, but (he was always good at getting out of sc.r.a.pes) at that very moment he contracted a suspicion that something moist was getting up into his own big hazel eyes; and so he began to whistle briskly, and then to cry out, loud enough to call all hands to close reef the topsails in a gale of wind: "Port and Starboard! Port and Starboard! come here, old curs and landlubbers that you are,--come, bear a hand and be lively there, and say 'good by.'"

And along Port and Starboard came, bounding at a tremendous rate, barking "good by" at every bound, and with their great bushy tails wagging "good by" besides.

The foreign ducks stopped shovelling and spattering mud, and quacked "good by."

The chickens stopped stuffing themselves with gra.s.shoppers, and, while the hens cackled "good by," the roosters crowed it.

And, lastly, Main Brace came waddling along on his sausage legs, and from his plum-duff head let off "good by" at intervals, as a revolving gun lets off its b.a.l.l.s, without appearing to have any more idea of what it was all about than the gun itself, until he reached the arbor, when he broke out into a loud "boo-hoo," which was the only "good by" he was now equal to; and as the first "boo-hoo" let loose a second, and the second a third, and the third a deluge and an earthquake all in one, there is no knowing what might have happened, had not the children scampered off and stopped the outburst,--Fred running on ahead, and William following after, leading his sister Alice by the hand, while the gentle little girl turned every dozen steps to throw back through the tender evening air, from her dainty little fingertips, a loving kiss (there was no laughing now) to the Ancient Mariner, whose face beamed brightly on her from the arbor door, and whose lips were saying plainly, "Good by, and G.o.d bless you till you come again!"