JOLLY JACK TAR
Captain Ball kept a toy shop, and all he had for sale were dolls and
ships.
He fashioned the toys himself, carved out of wood by his keen
jack-knife and painted to suit his own fancy, while his sister, Miss
Betsy Ball, made the clothes for the dolls and the sails for the ships
quite as well as any dressmaker or sailmaker in town.
Captain Ball’s dolls and ships were popular with the children of
Seabury. Almost every little boy owned a ship. Almost every little girl
owned a doll.
So the Captain was not at all surprised when Sally and Alice, followed
by Mrs. Waters, stepped into his front room, which was toy shop and
work room in one.
‘Well, Sally,’ said the Captain, laying down the paint-brush with which
he was putting a pair of pretty red lips on a doll; ‘well, Sally, and
how have you been this summer?’
‘I have been well,’ answered Sally, shaking hands with the Captain,
‘but this is Alice, and she isn’t well at all, because this morning
Tippy ruined her doll. It is the only doll Alice has with her here, so
we have come down to buy a Nancy Lee for her, just like mine.’
‘Too bad, too bad,’ said the Captain, shaking his head over naughty
Tip, ‘but such accidents will happen. Now, I have three Nancy Lees this
morning for Alice to choose from, one with brown hair, one with black
hair, and one with yellow curls. And here is a brand-new little Jack
Tar, finished only yesterday, in case she would like a boy doll for a
change.’
The Captain waved his hand toward a low shelf where the dollies sat
in an orderly row, and turned to talk to Mrs. Waters, while Alice and
Sally made their choice.
As the Captain had said, there was a Nancy Lee with brown curls, a
Nancy Lee with black curls, and a Nancy Lee with golden curls like the
one Sally had at home. Each wore a spotless white middy blouse with
trimmings of blue and a pair of dark blue bloomers. There was also one
boy doll with a yellow crop of boyish curls and the same blue eyes with
which the Captain had graced all the Nancy Lees. He was dressed very
much like the girls, except that a tiny handkerchief peeped from a
mannish pocket in his blouse.
‘Which do you like best?’ whispered Sally.
Alice whispered back, ‘I don’t know.’
But after a pause she said, ‘I think that I like the boy best, because
I never have had a boy doll. Have you?’
‘No,’ returned Sally, ‘I never have. And, if we play together, it will
be much better if you have a boy and I have a girl, instead of having
them just exactly alike.’
‘I think his name is pretty, too,’ said Alice thoughtfully. ‘Jack Tar.’
‘That means a sailor,’ said Sally, who was wise in ways of the sea.
‘And Nancy Lee means a sailor girl, you know. There is a song about
her. Father whistles it.
‘“See, there she stands
And waves her hands
Upon the quay,
And every day
When I’m away
She’ll watch for me,”’
sang Sally. ‘That is the song about Nancy Lee.’
‘His clothes are just as pretty as Nancy’s,’ said Alice, whose heart
was plainly set upon jolly little Jack Tar. ‘Aren’t they?’
‘Every bit as pretty,’ agreed Sally. ‘And I will tell you something. If
ever you wanted him to have different clothes, you could just put them
on him and turn him into a girl, and I don’t believe he would ever know
the difference. Only don’t let him hear us talking about it.’
And Sally put her finger to her lip and looked the other way for a
moment, in case Jack Tar should have been trying to hear what she said.
[Illustration: JACK TAR]
So Jack Tar was chosen to go home with Alice, and once the choice was
made, the girls felt free to wander about and look at the Captain’s
ships, of which there were every kind and color that a little boy would
care to own.
There were sail-boats and row-boats, yachts and schooners, fishing
smacks and dories, even a little warship and a tiny submarine. They
ranged in color from gayest red and blue and yellow to the sober gray
of the small man-o’-war.
Before they were halfway round the room, Sally and Alice had almost
begun to wish that they were little boys.
‘I could sail a boat as well as a boy,’ said Sally in a low voice.
‘So could I,’ returned Alice, ‘but I don’t want to. I would rather play
with Jack Tar.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Sally in haste, ‘so would I. But perhaps some day
Father will buy a ship for me, too.’
The rain had ceased. A watery sun was shining and patches of blue sky
were showing here and there.
As they stepped out of the Captain’s shop they could hear the noise of
the sea rushing up among the rocks at the back of the Captain’s house.
‘Let us go home along the shore, Mother,’ begged Sally. ‘Alice came
only yesterday and she hasn’t seen the ocean yet at all.’
So Mother and Sally and Alice, carrying Jack Tar, walked home along the
rocky shore. The sea breeze blew their hair about their ears. The waves
thundered up among the rocks and broke into creamy foam. The boats in
the harbor danced up and down and bobbed about on the tossing gray
water.
Then, suddenly, the sun shone out, warm and golden, and turned the
whole world into blue and white. Blue sky, blue waves, white boats, and
great white clouds!
‘Oh, look, look!’ cried Alice, standing quite still in pleasure at the
beautiful sight.
‘When the tide goes out and we can climb down among the rocks, we find
all sorts of things in the little pools, don’t we, Mother? Seaweed, and
periwinkles, and little crabs, and jellyfish. Sometimes we go to the
beach, and play in the water and dig in the sand and find shells, pink
and lavender and blue. Oh, I am so glad that you have come to stay!’
And Sally squeezed Alice’s arm so violently in her gladness that Jack
Tar was only just saved from a tumble to the street.
Once home, Mother went over the way to call on Miss Neppy and to meet
Alice’s mother, she said.
So Sally with Nancy Lee, and Alice with Jack Tar walked up and down and
up and down the street.
Aunt Bee passed by on her way home from market, and stopped to hear all
that had happened that day.
She learned of Tippy’s wrongdoing, of poor Tilly Maud’s fate. She
admired Jack Tar and agreed that he might be turned into a girl at a
moment’s notice, and without the least harm to his feelings, too.
‘Really the most boyish thing about him is his hair,’ said Aunt Bee.
‘And if he wore a little cap or a ribbon I don’t believe Captain Ball
himself could tell whether he were Jack Tar or Nancy Lee.’
‘But I like him to be a boy,’ said Alice. ‘I like a boy baby and a boy
doll just as well as girls.’
‘And so do I,’ said agreeable Aunt Bee.
Presently the dolls grew sleepy, or so their mothers said, and down
on the doorstep, now dry in the sun, sat Sally and Alice, to give the
children a nap.
‘There is Buff,’ said Sally in a low voice, ‘up on the window-sill
asleep in the sun.’
‘I wonder where Tippy is,’ inquired Alice, whose tender heart held no
wrath against Tip, especially now that little Jack Tar lay sleeping in
her lap.
‘I wonder, too,’ said Sally.
‘Tippy! Tippy!’ she called softly.
There was no answer. Tippy did not hear. So putting Nancy Lee down on
the edge of Alice’s dress, Sally tiptoed off round the corner of the
house.
Alice heard her calling, ‘Tippy! Tippy! Tip!’
But back came Sally, shaking her yellow head.
‘He isn’t anywhere. He doesn’t answer,’ said she. ‘I wonder what Mother
will say when she comes home.’
What Mother said was that she thought Tippy was probably taking a nap.
‘Or else he has gone off to play somewhere,’ said she. ‘He knows he was
a naughty dog. He will be back at dinner time. Wait and see.’
But the long day passed and still Tippy did not come.
Father came home, dinner was over, bedtime drew near.
‘Do you think he is lost, Father?’ asked Sally for at least the tenth
time.
‘No, I don’t think he is lost,’ answered Father patiently. ‘I think he
will come home again.’
‘What do you think, Mother?’ asked Sally, as Mother at last tucked her
in bed. ‘I don’t feel as if I could go to sleep and not know where
Tippy is. Mayn’t I stay up and watch for him, Mother?’
But at this idea Mother shook her head.
‘Set your little white dove to watch for him,’ suggested she. ‘He can
see so far up the street that he would know the moment Tippy turned the
corner.’
‘I will,’ said Sally, springing out of bed. ‘I am glad you thought of
that, Mother.’
‘Now, Snow White,’ said Sally in the window, for so she had named her
little white bird, ‘you watch for Tippy, and when you see him you give
the loudest Squawk! you can to wake me up. Will you do that, Snow
White? Do you promise?’
And to her great delight the dove winked his shining black eyes and
nodded his little white head.
‘At least I _think_ he did,’ said Sally to Mother, as she climbed back
into bed.