Janet of the Dunes Part 10

"How'd ye get yer money, Janet?" A serious look came into the man's face. "It's uncommon clever of ye t' help yerself on; if the money only comes in a G.o.d-fearin' way!"

"Cap'n Daddy!" Janet drew herself up magnificently. "Do you take me for Maud Grace?"

"No, I don't, I'm takin' ye fur _my_ gal, an' it's my duty t' see that ye don't furgit yer trainin' over on the boarder-struck mainland! But what's wrong 'long o' Mrs. Jo G.'s gal?"

"Nothing. Except she keeps dressed up to entertain the boarders, and takes tips. That's what she calls them."

"Tips?" Billy wrinkled his brows.

"Yes. Money for doing nothing. Cap'n Daddy, I _work_ for my money."

"Doin' what?" Billy's insistence was growing vexatious.

"Daddy, don't you ever tell!" Janet danced in front of him and walked backward as she pointed a finger merrily.

The moonlight streaming upon the girl showed her beauty in a witchlike brightness. It stirred Billy in an uneasy, anxious fashion.

"There ain't no call t' tell any one," he said, "you an' me is enough t'

know. Us an' them what pays ye!"

"Cap'n Daddy; I'm--a--model!"

"A modil--what?"

Janet's laugh rose above the lapping water's sound.

"Why, Daddy! Don't you think I'm a model everything?"

"No," Billy shook his head; "I ain't blind, gal, ye ain't what most folks would call a modil, I'm thinkin'!"

"Well, the artists think I am!"

"The artists? Them womin in bonnets and s.m.u.tchy pinafores? Gosh!"

For a moment Janet's truth-loving soul shrank from deceiving Billy, but her promise to Thornly held her. She stopped her merry dance and came again beside him, clasping the hard hand tenderly within her own.

"What do they think ye a modil of?" asked the man, and his face had lightened visibly.

"Oh! just what their silly fancy tells them. Only don't you see, Daddy, dear, they don't want any one to know until the pictures are done. It would spoil the--the--well, I cannot explain; but they want to spring the pictures upon folks by and by."

"'Cordin' t' what Andrew Farley tells," grinned Billy, all amiability now, "no one will be likely t' know ye from a scrub oak stump when the picters is done. Andrew says when he thinks of all it costs t' paint a boat an' then sees the waste of good, honest paint up on the Hills, it turns his stummick sick. Well, long as it is innercent potterin' like that, Janet, I don't know but as yer considerable sharp t' trade yer looks fur their money. It rather goes agin the grain with me t' have ye git the best of them. But Lord! as the good book says, a fool an' his money is soon parted, an' so long as they're sufferin' t' part with theirs, I don't know but what ye have a right t' barter what cargo yer little craft carries, as well as others what have less agreeable stores on board." Janet laughed merrily.

"Mark Tapkins was on yisterday," Billy continued; "he says Bluff Head's open an' Mr. Devant an' a party is there. Must be quite gay an' altered on the mainland." Janet's face clouded.

"Cap'n Daddy," she faltered, "I'm going to tell you something else."

"Yer considerable talky, it seems t' me." Billy eyed the girl.

"Cap'n Billy, have you ever wondered why I talk better than most of the others at the Station?"

"I don't know as I would allow that ye _do_," Billy replied; "ye talk differenter, somewhat, but I don't know as it's better."

"Well, it is. And it isn't all the teachers' doings either, Daddy, for Maud Grace and the rest never changed much; but for years, Daddy, I've been crawling in the cellar window of Bluff Head, when no one on earth knew, and I've read five shelves of books! I've thought like those books, and talked like them, until I seem to be like them; and, Daddy, the day Mr. Devant came home, he found me in his library-room, reading his books!"

"Gawd!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Billy, and stood stock still. "Did he fling ye out, neck and crop?" he gasped at last.

"Daddy! he's a nice old gentleman!"

"Old? He ain't dodderin' yet. An' he use t' have a bit of pepper in his nater. What did he do?"

"Do? Why, he gave me the key to his front door. He reads with me and tells me what to read. We're great friends!"

"Yer 'tarnal specimint!" Billy was shaking. "I see ye've caught the mainland fever, eh, gal? Ye don't want t' bide on the dunes 'long o' old Billy, now, eh?"

"You blessed old Cap'n!" Janet struggled to hold her prize. "I'm perfectly happy! And I had to come over here to-night and tell you."

"Janet,"--Billy's eyes were dim,--"I keep wishin' more an' more that ye had a ma. I ain't never thought openly on it fur years, not since ye was fust borned. But as ye grow int' womanhood, ye seem as helpless as ye did then. I wish ye had a ma!"

The little halfway house was in front of them. Andrew Farley, who served on the crew at the Station beyond, was in the doorway.

"What ye got in tow, Billy?" he called jovially.

"Jest a tarnal little bit of driftwood, Andy." Billy rallied his low spirits.

"h.e.l.lo, Janet!" Andrew recognized her. "How comes ye kin leave the mainland? I thought every one who could, stuck there t' see the show. By gracious! Billy, ye jest oughter see how things is altered." The two men exchanged the bra.s.s checks, then, before returning to their stations, they stood chatting easily.

"Been up to the Hills lately, Janet?" The girl flushed.

"Not very," she replied. "Come on, Cap'n Daddy, I'm going to stay on and sleep in the cottage to-night."

"Them artists," Andrew continued, turning slowly in his own direction, "them artists is smudgin' up the landscape jest scandalous. One of them wanted t' paint me, the other day, an' I held off an' let her. Lord! ye should jest have seen wot she done t' my likeness! I nearly bu'st when she showed me. I ain't handsome, none never accused me of that crime, but I ain't lopsided an' lantern-jawed t' the extent she went. She said I had a loose artistic pose; them was her words, but I ain't so loose that I hang crooked."

Janet slept in the cottage on the dunes that night; and when the men rose to go through the sunrise drill, she ran down the beach, across the sand hills, and set her sail toward the mainland. She had had her breakfast in the Station with the men and, recalling her difficulty in escaping Susan Jane the day before, she headed the _Comrade_ away from the Light and glided toward the Hills.

Mark Tapkins, turning down the wick as the sun came up, saw the white sail set away from home; and something heavier than sleep struck chilly upon his heart. He knew from past spying where Janet was going!

CHAPTER VI

Janet, used as she was to the keen, sweet air of the Hills, stood, after securing her boat, and drew in deep breaths of the fragrant morning. She had taken off her shoes and stockings, for the dew lay heavy upon the ground; and these, wrapped in a fish net, were flung across her shoulder. There was a good half mile to tread before the little hut could be reached bodily, but the whistle's call, going on before, would open the gates of Paradise if Thornly were there! The girl did not put her doubt to the test just yet. There was bliss in dallying with the joy, the bliss of youth, innocence, and unalloyed faith.

Thornly might have stayed, as he generally did, at his own boarding house or at Bluff Head. Janet had learned of his intimacy there, although she had never imagined Mr. Devant's ingenuity in trying to keep them, at first, apart. If Thornly were away from the shanty, Janet knew the hiding place for the key; she could enter at will and the secrets of the treasure house were not hidden from her.

"Lock the door after you, whether you are in or out," was Thornly's command. "No one must know, until the very last!" And the girl would have cheerfully defended the place with her life. Over sandy hillocks she went gleefully. The artist in her was throbbing wildly, she had a new inspiration for Thornly's brush! She led his fancy in riotous joy.

Where his genius grew slack, hers urged him to renewed effort.