Dorothy on a House Boat Part 5

"Miss Calvert, did you know that you make the thirteenth person?"

asked Aurora Blank, who had kept tally on her white-gloved fingers.

"I hope I do--there's 'luck in odd numbers' one hears. But I'm not--I'm not! Auntie, Jim, look yonder--quick! It's Melvin! It surely is!"

With a cry of delight Dorothy now rushed down the pier to where a street-car had just stopped and a lad alighted. She clasped his hands and fairly pumped them up and down in her eagerness, but she didn't offer to kiss him though she wanted to do so. She remembered in time that the young Nova Scotian was even shyer than James Barlow and mustn't be embarra.s.sed. But her questions came swiftly enough, though his answers were disappointing.

However, she led him straight to Mrs. Calvert, his one-time hostess at Deerhurst, and there was now no awkward shyness in his respectful greeting of her, and the acknowledgment he made to the general introductions which followed.

Seating himself on a rail close to Mrs. Betty's chair he explained his presence.

"The Judge sent me to Baltimore on some errands of his own, and after they were done I was to call upon you, Madam, and say why her father couldn't spare Miss Molly so soon again. He missed her so much, I fancy, while she was at San Leon ranch, don't you know, and she is to go away to school after a time--that's why. But----"

The lad paused, colored, and was seized by a fit of his old bashfulness. He had improved wonderfully during the year since he had been a member of "Dorothy's House Party" and had almost conquered that fault. No boy could be a.s.sociated for so long a time with such a man as Judge Breckenridge and fail to learn much; but it wasn't easy to offer himself as a subst.i.tute for merry Molly, which he had really arrived to do.

However, Dolly was quick to understand and caught his hands again, exclaiming:

"You're to have your vacation on our Water Lily! I see, I see! Goody!

Aunt Betty, isn't that fine? Next to Molly darling I'd rather have you."

Everybody laughed at this frank statement, even Dolly herself; yet promptly adding the name of Melvin Cook to her list of pa.s.sengers.

Then as he walked forward over the plank to where Jim Barlow smilingly awaited him, carrying his small suit-case--his only luggage, she called after him:

"I hope you brought your bugle! Then we can have 'bells' for time, as on the steamer!"

He nodded over his shoulder and Dorothy strained her eyes toward the next car approaching over the street line, while Mrs. Calvert asked:

"For whom are we still waiting, child? Why don't we go aboard and start?"

"For dear old Cap'n Jack! He's coming now, this minute."

All eyes followed hers and beheld an old man approaching. Even at that distance his wrinkled face was so shining with happiness and good nature that they smiled too. He wore a very faded blue uniform made dazzlingly bright by scores of very new bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. His white hair and beard had been closely trimmed, and the discarded cap of a street-car conductor crowned his proudly held head. The cap was adorned in rather shaky letters of gilt: "Water Lily. Skipper."

Though he limped upon crutches he gave these supports an airy flourish between steps, as if he scarcely needed them but carried them for ornaments. n.o.body knew him, except Dorothy; not even Ephraim recognizing in this almost dapper stranger the ragged vagrant he had once seen on a street car.

But Dorothy knew and ran to meet him--"last but not least of all our company, good Cap'n Jack, Skipper of the Water Lily."

Then she brought him to Aunt Betty and formally presented him, expressing by nods and smiles that she would "explain him" later on.

Afterward, each and all were introduced to "our Captain," at whom some stared rather rudely, Aurora even declining to acknowledge the presentation.

"Captain Hurry, we're ready to embark. Is that the truly nautical way to speak? Because, you know, we long to be real sailors on this cruise and talk real sailor-talk. We cease to be 'land lubbers' from this instant. Kind Captain, lead ahead!" cried Dorothy, in a very gale of high spirits and running to help Aunt Betty on the way.

But there was no hurry about this skipper, except his name. With an air of vast importance and dignity he stalked to the end of the pier and scanned the face of the water, sluggishly moving to and fro. Then he pulled out a spy gla.s.s, somewhat damaged in appearance, and tried to adjust it to his eye. This was more difficult because the lens was broken; but the use of it, the old man reckoned, would be imposing on his untrained crew, and he had expended his last dollar--presented him by some old cronies--in the purchase of the thing at a junk shop by the waterside. Indeed, the Captain's motions were so deliberate, and apparently, senseless, that Aunt Betty lost patience and indignantly demanded:

"Dorothy, who is this old humbug you've picked up? You quite forgot--or didn't forget--to mention him when you named your guests."

"No, Auntie, I didn't forget. I kept him as a delightful surprise. I knew you'd feel so much safer with a real captain in charge."

"Humph! Who told you he was a captain, or had ever been afloat?"

"Why--he did;" answered the girl, under her breath. "I--I met him on a car. He used to own a boat. He brought oysters to the city. I think it was a--a bugeye, some such name. Auntie, don't you like him? I'm so sorry! because you said, you remember, that I might choose all to go and to have a real captain who'll work for nothing but his 'grub'--that's food, he says----"

"That will do. For the present I won't turn him off, but I think his management of the Water Lily will be brief. On a quiet craft--Don't look so disappointed. I shall not hurt your skipper's feelings though I'll put up with no nonsense."

At that moment the old man had decided to go aboard and leading the way with a gallant flourish of crutches, guided them into the cabin, or saloon, and made his little speech.

"Ladies and gents, mostly ladies, welcome to my new ship--the Water Lily. Bein' old an' seasoned in the knowledge of navigation I'll do my duty to the death. Anybody wishin' to consult me will find me on the bridge."

With a wave of his cap the queer old fellow stumped away to the crooked stairway, which he climbed by means of the bal.u.s.ter instead of the steps, his crutches thump-thumping along behind him.

By "bridge" he meant the forward point of the upper deck, or roof of the cabin, and there he proceeded to rig up a sort of "house" with pieces of the awning in which there had been inserted panes of gla.s.s.

But the effect of his address was to put all these strangers at ease, for none could help laughing at his happy pomposity, and after people laugh together once stiffness disappears.

Gerald Blank promptly followed Melvin Cook to Jim's little engine-room on the tender, and the colored folks as promptly followed him. Their own bunks were to be on the small boat and Chloe was anxious to see what they were like.

Then Mrs. Bruce roused from her silence and asked Aunt Betty about the provisions that had been brought on board and where she might find them. She had been asked to join the party as housekeeper, really for Mabel's sake, from whom she couldn't be separated now, and because Dorothy had argued:

"That dear woman loves to cook better than anything else. She always did. Now she hasn't anybody left to cook for, 'cept Mabel, and she'll forget to cry when she has to get a dinner for lots of hungry sailors."

The first sight of Mrs. Bruce's sad face, that morning, had been most depressing; and she was relieved to find a change in its aspect as the woman roused to action. There hadn't been much breakfast eaten by anybody and Dorothy had begged her old friend to:

"Just give us lots of goodies, this first meal, Mrs. Bruce, no matter if we have to do with less afterwards. You see--three hundred dollars isn't so very much----"

"It seems a lot to me, now," sighed the widow.

But Dorothy went on quickly:

"And it's every bit there is. When the last penny goes we'll have to stop, even if the Lily is right out in the middle of the ocean."

"Pshaw, Dolly! I thought you weren't going out of sight of land!"

"Course, we're not. That is--we shall never go anywhere if my skipper doesn't start. I'll run up to his bridge and see what's the matter.

You see I don't like to offend him at the beginning of things and though Jim Barlow is really to manage the boat, I thought it would please the old gentleman to be put in charge, too."

"Foolish girl, don't you know that there can't be two heads to any management?" returned the matron, now really smiling. "It's an odd lot, a job lot, seems to me, of widows and orphans and cripples and rich folks all jumbled together in one little house-boat. More 'n likely you'll find yourself in trouble real often amongst us all. That old chap above is mighty pleasant to look at now, but he's got too square a jaw to be very biddable, especially by a little girl like you."

"But, Mrs. Bruce, he's so poor. Why, just for a smell of salt water--or fresh either--he's willing to sail this Lily; just for the sake of being afloat and--his board, course. He'll have to eat, but he told me that a piece of sailor's biscuit and a cup of warmed over tea would be all he'd ever 'ax' me. I told him right off then I couldn't pay him wages and he said he wouldn't touch them if I could. Think of that for generosity!"

"Yes, I'm thinking of it. Your plans are all right--I hope they'll turn out well. A captain for nothing, an engineer the same, a housekeeper who's glad to cook for the sake of her daughter's pleasure, and the rest of the crew belonging--so no more wages to earn than always. Sounds--fine. By the way, Dorothy, who deals out the provisions on this trip?"

"Why, you do, of course, Mrs. Bruce, if you'll be so kind. Aunt Betty can't be bothered and I don't know enough. Here's a key to the 'lockers,' I guess they call the pantries; and now I _must_ make that old man give the word to start! Why, Aunt Betty thought we'd get as far as Annapolis by bed-time. She wants to cruise first on the Severn river. And we haven't moved an inch yet!"

"Well, I'll go talk with Chloe about dinner. She'll know best what'll suit your aunt."

Dorothy was glad to see her old friend's face brighten with a sense of her own importance, as "stewardess" for so big a company of "shipmates," and slipping her arm about the lady's waist went with her to the "galley," or tiny cook-room on the tender. There she left her, with strict injunctions to Chloe not to let her "new mistress"

overtire herself.

It was Aunt Betty's forethought which had advised this, saying: