Concerning Sally Part 34

Mrs. Ladue laughed softly. "What should she have done, you great boy?"

she asked. "Should she have fallen upon your neck and kissed you?"

"Why, yes," Fox replied, "something of the sort. I shouldn't have minded. I think it might have been rather nice. But I suppose it might be a hard thing to do."

"Fox," she protested, "you are wrong about Sally. She isn't cold at all, not at all. She is as glad to see you as I am--almost. And I am glad."

"That is something to be grateful for, dear lady," he said. "I would not have you think that I am not grateful--very grateful. It is one of the blessings showered upon me by a very heedless providence," he continued, smiling, "unmindful of my deserts."

"Oh, Fox!" she protested. "Your deserts! If you had--"

He interrupted gently. "I know. The earth ought to be laid at my feet.

I know what you think and I am grateful for that, too."

To this there was no reply.

"I think," he resumed reflectively, "that enough of the earth is laid at my feet, as it is. I shall not be thirty until next fall." He spoke with a note of triumph, which can easily be forgiven.

"And I," she said, "am forty-three. Look at my gray hairs."

He laughed. "Who would believe it? But what," he asked, "was the special reason for your wanting to see me now? I take it there was a special reason?"

She shook her head. "There wasn't any _special_ reason. I meant to make that plain and I thought I had. I feel as if I ought to apologize for asking you at all, for you may have felt under some obligation to come just because you were asked. I hope you didn't, Fox, for--"

Fox smiled quietly. His smile made her think of Uncle John Hazen. "I didn't," he said.

"I'm glad you didn't. Don't ever feel obliged to do anything for me--for us." She corrected herself quickly. "We are grateful, too,--at least, I am--for anything. No, there wasn't any special reason. I just wanted to see you with my own eyes. Four years is a long time."

Fox, who had almost reached the advanced age of thirty, was plainly embarra.s.sed.

"Well," he asked, laughing a little, "now that you have seen me, what do you think?"

"That," she answered, still in her tone of gentle banter, "I shall not tell you. It would not be good for you." A step was heard in the hall.

"Oh," she added, hastily, in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper, "here's Patty. Be nice to her, Fox."

However much--or little--Mrs. Ladue's command had to do with it, Fox was as nice to Patty as he knew how to be. To be sure, Fox had had much experience with just Patty's kind in the past four years, and he had learned just the manner for her. It was involuntary on his part, to a great extent, and poor Patty beamed and fluttered and was very gracious. She even suggested something that she had had no expectation of suggesting when she entered the room.

"Perhaps, Mr. Sanderson," she said, with a slight inclination of her head, "you would care to accompany us out on the harbor to-morrow afternoon. It is frozen over, you know, and the ice is very thick.

There is no danger, I a.s.sure you. It doesn't happen every winter and we make the most of it." She laughed a little, lightly. "The men--the young men--race their horses there every afternoon. They usually race on the Cow Path--Washington Street, no doubt I should call it, but we still cling to the old names, among ourselves. These young men have taken advantage of the unusual condition of the harbor and it is a very pretty sight; all those horses flying along. We shall not race, of course."

If Sally had heard her, I doubt whether she would have been able to suppress her chuckles at the idea of the Hazens' stout horse--the identical horse that had drawn her on her first arrival--at the idea, I say, of that plethoric and phlegmatic and somewhat aged animal's competing with such a horse as Sawny, for example. Mrs. Ladue had some difficulty in doing no more than smile.

"Why, Patty," she began, in amazement, "were you--but I must not keep Fox from answering."

Patty had betrayed some uneasiness when Mrs. Ladue began to speak, which is not to be wondered at. She quieted down.

"I ought to have called you Doctor Sanderson," she observed, "ought I not? I forgot, for the moment, the celebrity to which you have attained." Again she inclined her head slightly.

Fox laughed easily. "Call me anything you like," he replied. "As to going with you to see the races, I accept with much pleasure, if you can a.s.sure me that there is really no danger. I am naturally timid, you know."

Patty was in some doubt as to how to take this reply of Fox's; not in much doubt, however. She laughed, too. "Are you, indeed?" she asked.

"It is considered quite safe, I do a.s.sure you."

Mrs. Ladue looked very merry, but Patty did not see her.

"We will consider it settled, then," Patty concluded, with evident satisfaction.

On her way to her room, half an hour later, Mrs. Ladue met Patty on the stairs.

"Sarah," said Patty graciously, "I find Doctor Sanderson very agreeable and entertaining; much more so than I had any idea."

Mrs. Ladue was outwardly as calm as usual, but inwardly she felt a great resentment.

"I am glad, Patty," she replied simply; and she escaped to her room, where she found Sally and Henrietta.

"Sally," she said abruptly, "what do you think? Patty has asked Fox to go with us to see the racing to-morrow afternoon. I don't know who the 'us' is. She didn't say."

Sally stared and broke into chuckling. "Oh, _mother_!" she cried.

CHAPTER III

Whitby has a beautiful harbor. It is almost land-locked, the entrance all but closed by Ship Island, leaving only a narrow pa.s.sage into the harbor. That pa.s.sage is wide enough and deep enough for steam-ships to enter by; it is wide enough for ships of size to enter, indeed, if they are sailed well enough and if there were any object in sailing-ships of size entering Whitby Harbor. Many a ship has successfully navigated Ship Island Channel under its own sail, but that was before the days of steam.

Before the days of steam Whitby had its shipping; and in the days of shipping Whitby had its fleets of ships and barks and brigs and a schooner or two. Although the industries of Whitby have changed, the remnants of those fleets are active yet, or there would have been nothing doing at the office of John Hazen, Junior, or at his wharf.

Patty and some others of the old regime, as she would have liked to put it, were wont to sigh and to smile somewhat pathetically when that change was alluded to, and they would either say nothing or they would say a good deal, according to circ.u.mstances. The old industry was more picturesque than the new, there is no doubt about that, and I am inclined to the view of Miss Patty and her party. It is a pity.

But some of those old barks and brigs are in commission still. Only a few years ago, the old bark Hong-Kong, a century old and known the world over, sailed on her last voyage before she was sold to be broken up. They were good vessels, those old barks; not fast sailers, but what did the masters care about that? There was no hurry, and they could be depended upon to come home when they had filled, for the weather that would harm them is not made. In the course of their voyages they pushed their bluff bows into many unknown harbors and added much to the sum of human knowledge. They could have added much more, but ship captains are uncommunicative men, seldom volunteering information, although sometimes giving it freely when it is asked; never blowing their own horns, differing, in that respect, from certain explorers. Perhaps they should be called lecturers rather than explorers. Poor chaps! It may be that if they did not blow them and make a noise, n.o.body would do it for them, but they never wait to find out. Let them blow their penny trumpets. It is safe and sane--very.

Captain Forsyth had p.r.o.nounced views on this subject. "Explorers!" he roared to Sally one day. "These explorers! Huh! It's all for Smith, that's what it is, and if Jones says he has been there, Jones is a liar. Where? Why, anywhere. That previously unknown harbor Smith has just discovered and made such a fuss over--I could have told him all about it forty years ago. Previously unknown nothing! It's Wingate's Harbor, and when I was in command of the Hong-Kong we poked about there for months. And there's another, about a hundred miles to the east'ard that he hasn't discovered yet, and it's a better harbor than his. Discover! Huh!"

"But why," Sally asked in genuine surprise,--"why, Captain Forsyth, haven't you told about it? Why don't you, now?"

"Why don't I?" Captain Forsyth roared again. "n.o.body's asked me; that's why. They don't want to know. They'd say I was a liar and call for proofs. Why should I? Cap'n Wingate found it, as far as I know, but there might have been a dozen others who were there before him. I don't know. And Cap'n Sampson and Cap'n Wingate and Cap'n Carling and Cap'n Pilcher and--oh, all the masters knew them almost as well as they knew Whitby Harbor. They're mostly dead now. But I'm not. And if anybody comes discovering Whitby Harbor, why, let him look out." And the old captain went off, chuckling to himself.

Many a time the old Hong-Kong had entered Whitby Harbor under her own sail. Later, the tugs met the ships far down the bay and brought them in, thereby saving some time. Whether they saved them money or not I do not know, but the owners must have thought they did. At least, they saved them from the danger of going aground on Ship Island Shoal, for that pa.s.sage into the harbor was hardly wide enough for two vessels to pa.s.s in comfort unless the wind was just right.

Once in, it must have been a pretty sight for the returned sailors and one to warm their hearts--a pretty sight for anybody, indeed; one did not need to be a returned sailor for that. There, on the left, was the town, sloping gently down to the water, with its church spires rising from a sea of green, for every street was lined with elms. And there were the familiar noises coming faintly over the water: the noise of many beetles striking upon wood. There were always vessels being repaired, and the masters of Whitby despised, for daily use, such things as marine railways or dry-docks. They would haul down a vessel in her dock until her keel was exposed and absolutely rebuild her on one side, if necessary; then haul her down on the other tack, so to speak, and treat that side in the same way. Even in these later years the glory of Whitby Harbor, although somewhat dimmed, has not departed. On the right sh.o.r.e there was nothing but farms and pastures and hay-fields with the men working in them; for there is less water toward the right sh.o.r.e of the harbor.

There were no hay-fields visible on this day of which I am speaking, but almost unbroken snow; and there were no noises of beetles to come faintly to a vessel which had just got in. Indeed, no vessel could have just got in, but, having got in, must have stayed where she happened to lie. For Whitby Harbor was more like Wingate's Harbor, of which Captain Forsyth had been speaking, in connection with explorers, than it was like Whitby Harbor. It presented a hard and shining surface, with a bark and three schooners frozen in, caught at their anchorages, and with no open water at all, not even in the channel.

If you will take the trouble to recall it, you will remember that the winter of 1904-05 was very cold; even colder, about Whitby, than the previous cold winter had been. Toward the end of January, not only was Whitby Harbor frozen, but there was fairly solid ice for miles out into the bay. Whitby, not being, in general, prepared for such winters, was not provided with boats especially designed for breaking the ice. The two tugs had kept a channel open as long as they could; but one night the temperature fell to twenty-three below zero and the morning found them fast bound in their docks. So they decided to give it up--making a virtue of necessity--and to wait; which was a decision reached after several hours of silent conference between the tugboat captains, during which conference they smoked several pipes apiece and looked out, from the snug pilothouse of the Arethusa, over the glittering surface. At a quarter to twelve Captain Hannibal let his chair down upon its four feet and thoughtfully knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

"I guess we can't do it," he said conclusively. "I'm goin' home to dinner."

The condition, now, reminded Captain Forsyth of other days. For nearly two weeks the temperature had not been higher than a degree or two above zero and the ice in the harbor, except for an occasional air-hole, was thick enough to banish even those fears which Doctor Sanderson had mentioned. Any timidity was out of place.