Sheila of Big Wreck Cove Part 19

She came to him with a clean towel which she tucked carefully in at the neckband of his shirt. Practically she lathered his face and rubbed the lather into the stubble with brisk hands. He grunted ecstatically, lying back in the chair in solid comfort. He eyed her manipulation of the razor on the strop with approval.

For the first time in many a morning he was shaved neatly and with dispatch. When Prudence came feebly into the room, he hailed her delightedly.

"You've lost your job, old woman!" he cried.

"And ain't there a thing for me to do?" queried Prudence softly, yet smiling.

"Just sit down at the table, auntie," said the girl. "The coffee is made. How long do you want your eggs boiled? The water is bubbling."

"Eggs!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira. "I thought them hens of Prue's had give up layin' altogether."

"I found some stolen nests in the barn," returned Ida May. "They have been playing tricks on you."

It was near noon when Ida May from an upper window saw the _Seamew_ beating out of the cove on her return trip to Boston. She watched the schooner as long as the white sails were visible. But her heart was not wholly with the beautiful schooner. A great content filled her soul. Afterward she bustled about, straightening up the house, her cheerful smile always ready when the old folks spoke. They watched her with such a feeling of thankfulness as they could not openly express.

After dinner she started on the ironing and proved herself to be as capable in that line as in everything else.

"Maybe she's been a shopgirl, Ira," Prudence observed in private to her husband; "but Sarah Honey didn't neglect teaching her how to keep any man's home neat and proper."

"Sh!" admonished Cap'n Ira. "Don't put no such ideas in the gal's head."

"What ideas?" the old woman asked wonderingly.

His eyes twinkled and he rewarded himself with a generous pinch of snuff before repeating his bon mot:

"If you don't tell her she'll make some man a good wife, maybe she won't never know it! Looker out, Prudence! _A-choon!_"

CHAPTER XIII

SOME YOUNG MEN APPEAR

A house plant brought out into the May sunshine and air expands almost immediately under the rejuvenating influences of improved conditions. Its leaves uncurl; its buds develop; it turns at once and gratefully to the business of growing which has been restricted during its incarceration indoors.

So with Sheila Macklin--she who now proclaimed herself Ida May Bostwick and who was gladly welcomed as such by the old people at the Ball homestead on Wreckers' Head. After the girl's experiences of more than three years since leaving her home town, the surroundings of the house on the headland seemed an estate in paradise.

As for the work which fell to her share, she enjoyed it. She felt that she could not do too much for the old people to repay them for this refuge they had given her. That Cap'n Ira and Prudence had no idea of the terrible predicament in which she had been placed previous to her coming made no difference to the girl's feeling of grat.i.tude toward them. She had been serving a sentence in purgatory, and Tunis Latham's bold plan had opened the door of heaven to her.

The timidity which had so marked her voice and manner when Tunis had first met her soon wore away. With Cap'n Ira and Prudence she was never shy, and when the captain of the _Seamew_ came back again he found such a different girl at the old house on Wreckers' Head that he could scarcely believe she was the Sheila Macklin who had told him her history on the bench on Boston Common.

"I swan, Tunis," hoa.r.s.ely announced Cap'n Ira, "you done a deed that deserves a monument equal to that over there to Plymouth. Them Pilgrim fathers--to say nothing of the mothers--never done no more beneficial thing than you did in bringing Ida May down here to stay along o' Prudence and me. And I cal'late Prue and me are more thankful to you than the red Indians was to the Pilgrims for coming ash.o.r.e in Plymouth County and so puttin' the noses of Provincetown people out o' joint."

He chuckled.

"She's as sweet as them rose geraniums of Prue's and just as sightly looking. Did you ever notice how that black hair of hers sort of curls about her ears, and them ears like little, tiny seash.e.l.ls ye pick up 'long sh.o.r.e? Them curls just lays against her neck that pretty! I swan! I don't see how the young fellers kept their hands off her where she come from. Do you?"

"Why, you old Don Juan!" exclaimed Tunis, grinning. "Ain't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Me? Aha! I've come to that point of age and experience, Tunis, where whatever I say about the female sect can't be misconstrued.

That's where I have the advantage of you."

"Uh-huh!" agreed Tunis, nodding.

"Now, if you begun raving about that gal's black hair--An' come to think of it, Tunis, her mother, Sarah Honey's hair was near 'bout red. Funny, ain't it?"

"The Bostwicks must have been dark people," said Tunis evenly.

But he remembered in a flash the "fool's gold" which had adorned in rich profusion the head of the girl in the lace department of Hoskin & Marl's.

"Well, the Honeys warn't. None I ever see, leastways," announced Cap'n Ira. "Howsomever, Ida May fits her mother's maiden name in disposition, if ever a gal did. She's pure honey, Tunis; right from the comb! And she takes to everything around the house that handy."

Prudence was equally enthusiastic. And Tunis Latham could see for himself many things which marked the regime of the newcomer at the Ball homestead as one of vast improvement over that past regime of the old couple, who had been forced to manage of late in ways which troubled their orderly souls.

"Catch as catch can," was Cap'n Ball's way of expressing the condition of the household and other affairs before the advent of Ida May. Now matters were already getting to be "shipshape," and no observer could fail to note the increased comfort enjoyed by Cap'n Ira and Prudence.

Nor need Tunis feel anxious, either, regarding the girl's state of mind or body. She was so blithe and cheerful that he could scarcely recall the picture of that girl who had waited upon him in the cheap restaurant on Scollay Square. Here was a transformation indeed!

Nor had Ida May's activities been confined wholly to the house and the old folks' comfort. He noted that the wire fence of the chicken run was handily repaired; that Aunt Prue's few languishing flowers had been weeded; and that one end of the garden was the neater for the use of hoe and rake.

It was too late in the season, of course, for much new growth in the vegetable beds; but the half-hearted attention of John-Ed, junior, had never brought about this metamorphosis, Tunis well knew. He went on to the Latham house, feeling well pleased. Aside from all other considerations, he was glad to know that his Machiavellian plan had brought about these good results.

He did not have much time to spend with Sheila, for the _Seamew's_ freighting business was good. He never remained ash.o.r.e but one night between trips, and he spent that evening with his Aunt Lucretia, whose enjoyment of his presence in the house was none the less keen because inarticulate.

But when he started off across the fields for the port in the early morning he saw Sheila's rising light, and she was at the back door to greet him when he went past. They stole a little time to be together there, whispering outside the door so as not to awaken Cap'n Ira and Prudence. And Tunis Latham went on to the wharf where the _Seamew_ tied up with a warmth at his heart which he had never experienced before.

That another girl rose betimes on these mornings and waited and watched for him to pa.s.s, the young schooner captain never noticed.

That Eunez Pareta should be lingering about the edge of Portygee Town as he came down from the Head made small impression on his mind. He never particularly remarked her presence or her smile as being for him alone. It was that Eunez did not count in any of his calculations.

"That girl at Cap'n Ball's place, Tunis," said the Portygee girl.

"Does she like it up there?"

"Oh, yes! She's getting on fine," was his careless response.

"And will they keep her?"

"Of course they will keep her." He laughed. "Who wouldn't, if they got the chance?"

"_Si?_" Eunez commented sibilantly.

Naturally, many people besides Eunez Pareta in and about Big Wreck Cove were interested in the coming of the stranger to Cap'n Ira Ball's. Those housewives who lived on Wreckers' Head and in the vicinity were able more easily to call at the Ball homestead for the express purpose of meeting and becoming acquainted with "Sarah Honey's daughter." And they did so.

"I'd got into the way of thinking," remarked Cap'n Ball dryly, "that most folks--'ceptin' John-Ed and his wife--had got the notion we'd dried up here, Prue and me, and blowed away. Some of 'em ain't never come near in six months. I swan!"

"Now, Ira," admonished his wife, "do have charity."