The Cinder Pond Part 6

This time the clerk giggled outright.

"They're on cards," said she. "Here are three sizes of white pearl b.u.t.tons--a dozen on each card. Five cents a card."

"Make it three cards of each size," returned the Captain, promptly. "She might lose a few. And not bein' flower seeds, they wouldn't sprout and grow _more_. Now, what's the damage for all that?"

The Captain's money smelled dreadfully fishy, like all the rest of his belongings; but the good old man didn't know that. He was greatly pleased with himself and with his purchases. But when he reached the open air, he paused on the doorstep to draw a deep breath.

"'Twould a taken less time to bought the riggin' fer a hull boat," said he, mopping his pink countenance. "But I made a rare good job of it."

CHAPTER VI

MOLLIE

When Jeannette, according to her promise, arrived the next afternoon, the impatient Captain, who wished he had said _morning_, escorted her inside the old box-car. Sammy and Annie were at her heels; but Patsy was having a nap. The rough table was nicely decorated with folded squares of gorgeous calico. The cards of b.u.t.tons, spools of thread, and glittering thimbles formed a sort of fancy border along the edge. The packets of needles were placed for safety in the exact center of the table.

"Them's yourn," said the Captain. "This here's a pattern. You spread it on you to see if it fits. It's your size."

"But," said Jeanne, "I wanted the clothes for the _children_."

"That's all right. You cut it out like this here paper. Then you just chop a piece off the end, wherever it's too long. There's enough for you and the little chaps, too. I'll get my shears and we'll do like it says on the back of the pattern."

The old shears, unfortunately, declined to cut; but the Captain sharpened the blade of his jack-knife, and, after Jeanne had laid the pieces, according to the printed directions, succeeded in hacking out the pink dress. The Captain insisted that Jeanne should begin on the pink one. He liked that best. Fortunately the shop girl had been wise enough to choose a very simple pattern; and Jeanne was bright enough to follow the simple rules.

"With one of them there charts," declared Old Captain, admiringly, "I could make a pair o' pants or a winter overcoat--all but the sewin'. My kind's all right in summer; but 'twouldn't do in winter--wind'd get in atween the st.i.tches. Here, you ain't makin' that knot big enough!"

"Don't you think a smaller one would do?" asked Jeanne, wistfully. "I don't like such big, black ones. See, this little one doesn't; come through when I pull."

"Well, just add an extry hitch or two when you begin--that's right. Why, you're a natural born sewer."

It was a strange sight--the big red Captain and the slight dark girl, side by side on the old bench outside the battered freight car; Old Captain busy with his net, the eager little girl busy with her pink calico. If it seemed almost _too_ pink, she was much too polite to say so. She had decided that Annie should have the purple and that Sammy should have the blue. Little Patsy wouldn't mind the big black spots. As for the red stripes, that piece could wait.

"You see," thought Jeanne, "I'll ask Father to buy Michael some regular boys' clothes. A pair of trousers anyhow. If he doesn't get him a shirt too, I suppose I _can_ make him one out of that, but I'd _rather_ have it for Annie. And I do hope I can squeeze out a pair of knickerbockers for Sammy. There was enough pink left for one leg--but I'll do his blue clothes before I plan any _extra_ ones."

Jeanne's fingers were as busy as her thoughts; and, as the Captain had hoped, the seams certainly looked better when done with the proper tools.

"I _like_ to sew," said Jeanne.

"Well," confided the Captain, "I can't say as how I _do_."

Suddenly, wild shrieks rent the air. Sammy was jumping up and down in a patch of crimson clover. One grimy hand clasped a throbbing eyelid.

"Sammy smelled a b.u.mby-bee," explained Annie, when Jeanne, dropping her pink calico, rushed to the rescue.

There were many other interruptions, happily not all so painful, before the new garments were finished; but, for many weeks, Jeanne's sewing traveled with her from end to end of the old dock; while she kept a watchful eye on her restless small charges.

"Father," asked Jeanne, one evening, when the pink dress was finished and Michael had received what the Captain called "a real pair of store pants," "aren't Michael and Sammy and Annie and Patsy your children, too?"

"Why, yes," replied Mr. Duval.

"Then why don't you take as much pains with them as you do with me? You never scold Michael for eating with his knife or for not being clean or for saying bad words. You didn't like it at all the day I said those bad words to Mollie's mother. _You_ remember. The words I heard those men say when their boat ran into the dock. You said that ladies _never_ said bad ones. Of course you couldn't make a lady out of Michael; but there's Annie. Why _is_ it, Daddy?"

"Well," returned Mr. Duval, carefully shaved and very neat and tidy in his shabby clothes, "they are Mollie Shannon's children. You are the daughter of Elizabeth Huntington. Your full name is Jeannette Huntington Duval. I want you to live up to that name."

"Do you mean," asked Jeanne, who was perched on the old trunk, "that Mollie's children _have_ to be like Mollie?"

"Something like that," admitted Mr. Duval.

"That's a pity," said Jeanne. "I _like_ those children. They're _sweet_ when they're clean. And Michael's almost always good to the others."

"Perhaps it wouldn't be right," said her father, "to make Mollie's children better than she is. They might despise her and be unkind to her. It is best, I fear, to leave things as they are."

"Don't you _love_ those other children?" queried Jeanne.

"You are asking a great many questions," returned her father. "It is my turn now. Suppose you tell me through what states the Mississippi River flows?"

Mr. Duval admitted to himself, however, that he did _not_ love those other children as he loved Jeanne. He tried hard, in fact, not to hate them. They were so dreadfully like Mollie; so dirty, so untidy, so common. Dazed from his long illness, half crazed by the death of his beautiful young wife, he had married Mollie Shannon without at all realizing what he was doing. He hadn't wanted a wife. All he thought of was a caretaker for wailing Jeannette, who seemed, to her inexperienced father, a terrifying responsibility.

Mollie, in her younger days, with a capable, scheming mother to skillfully conceal her faults--her indolence, her untidiness, her lack of education--had _seemed_ a fitting person for the task of rearing Jeanne. Bolstered by her mother, Mollie looked not only capable, but even rather pleasing with the soothed and contented baby cuddled in her soft arms. At the moment, the arrangement had seemed fortunate for both the Duvals and the Shannons.

Duval, however, was not really so prosperous as his appearance led the Shannons to believe. He had arrived in Bancroft with very little money.

Time had proved to his grasping mother-in-law that he was not and never would be a very great success as a money-maker. Some persons aren't, you know. As soon as Mrs. Shannon had fully grasped this disappointing fact, she suffered a surprising relapse. She began to show her true colors--her vile temper, her lack of breeding, her innate coa.r.s.eness.

Her true colors, in fact, were such displeasing ones that Leon Duval was not surprised to learn that Mollie's only brother, a lively and rather reckless lad, by all accounts, had run away from home at the age of fourteen--and was perhaps still running, since he had given no proof of having paused long enough to write. When his absence had stretched into years, Mrs. Shannon became convinced that John was dead; but Mollie was not so sure. The runaway had had much to forgive, and the process, with resentful John, would be slow.

Of course, without her mother's aid, easy-going Mollie resumed her former slovenly habits, neglected her hair, her dress, and her finger nails. Most of her rather faint claim to beauty departed with her neatness.

After a time, when his strength had fully returned and his mental powers with it, Duval realized that he had made a very dreadful mistake in marrying Mollie; but there seemed to be nothing that he could do about it. After all, the only thing in life that he had ever really cared for was buried in Elizabeth Huntington's grave.

At first, Jeanne had been precious only because she was Elizabeth's daughter. As for Mollie's children, they were simply little pieces of Mollie. With the years, Mollie had grown so unlovely that one really couldn't expect a fastidious person to like four small copies of her.

Unfortunately, perhaps, Leon Duval was a _very_ fastidious person.

Mrs. Shannon, perpetually crouched over the battered stove for warmth, had a grievance.

"If Duval earned half as much as any other fisherman around here," said she, in her harsh, disagreeable voice, "we'd be livin' in a real house on dry land. And what's more, Mollie, you ain't gettin' all he earns.

He's savin' on you. He's got money in the bank. I seen a bankbook a-stickin' out of his pocket. You ain't gettin' what you'd ought to have; I _know_ you ain't."

"Leave me be," returned Mollie. "We gets enough to eat and more'n a body wants to cook. Clothes is a bother any way you want to look at 'em."

"He's a-saving fer _Jeanne_," declared the old lady. "'Tain't fair to you. 'Tain't fair to your children."

"Well," said Mollie, waking up for a moment, "I dunno as I blame him. I likes Jeanne better myself. She's got _looks,_ Jeanne has; an' she's always been a _good_ child, with nice ways with her. Neither me nor mine has much more looks nor a lump o' putty."

"You'd have _some_, if you was tidy."

"Well, I ain't," returned Mollie, truthfully. "You got to lace yourself in, an' keep b.u.t.toned up tight an' wear tight shoes an' keep your stockings fastened up an' your head full o' hairpins if you wants to look neat, when you're fat, like I be. I hates all of them things. I'd ruther be comfortable."