I
“No one,” snapped Keturah Smiley, “can play Providence to a married
couple.”
“Some women can play Lucifer,” retorted her brother. His hoarse but not
unmusical voice shook with anger.
“I had nothing to do with your wife’s running away,” Keturah Smiley
answered. “What is this child you have adopted?”
“I have adopted no child,” said Cap’n John Smiley with coldness. “A
child was saved from the wreck of the _Mermaid_ and the men at the
station have adopted her. The fancy struck them and--I certainly had no
objection. It’s--she’s--a girl, a little girl of about six. We don’t
know her name. The men are calling her Mermaid after the ship.”
Keturah Smiley sniffed. She wrapped the man’s coat she wore more
closely about her, and made as if to return to her gardening.
Her brother eyed her with a wrathful blue eye. He never saw her that
they did not quarrel. He was aware that, deep down, she loved him; he
was aware that it was this jealous love of Keturah’s which had caused
her to nag the young girl he had married some seven years earlier. Mary
Rogers, in Keturah’s eyes, was a silly, thoughtless, flighty person
quite unfitted to fill the rôle of John Smiley’s wife and the mother of
John Smiley’s children. She must be made to feel this; Keturah had done
her best to make her feel it. And there could be no question that the
young wife had felt it. So much so that, joined to John Smiley’s long
absences on duty at the Coast Guard station on the beach, joined to her
loneliness, joined to who knows what secret doubts and anguish, she
had disappeared one day some months after their child was born, taking
the baby girl with her and leaving no word, no note, no token. And she
had never come back. She had never been traced. She might be dead; the
child might be dead; no one knew.
Of course this was the crowning evidence of the unfitness Keturah
Smiley had found in her; but somehow Keturah Smiley did not make that
triumphant point before her brother. It is possible that Keturah Smiley
who wore a man’s old coat, who drove hard bargains at better than six
per cent., whose tongue made the Long Islanders of Blue Port shrink as
under a cutting lash--it is possible that Keturah Smiley was just the
least bit afraid of her brother.
If so she could hardly be said to show it. There was no trace of the
stricken conscience in the air with which she always faced him. There
was none now.
“Well, John,” she said, almost pleasantly, as she hoed her onion bed.
“You’re blowing from the southeast pretty strong to-day and you appear
to be bringing trouble. I’ll just take three reefs in my temper and
listen to what further you have to say.”
John Smiley was not heeding her. He had found that there are times in
life when it is necessary not to listen if you would keep sane and
kind. He was reflecting on the difficulty of his errand.
“Keturah,” he asked, off-handedly, “this little girl has got to have
some clothes. Do you suppose----”
“Perhaps you would like me to adopt her,” his sister interrupted. “No,
I thank you, John. As for clothes, I daresay that if you and your
men are going to bring up a six-year-old girl the lot of you can get
clothes from somewhere.”
Do we always torture the things we love? Love and jealousy, jealousy
and torture. Cap’n Smiley saw red for a moment; then he turned on his
heel and strode down the path and out the gate.
He walked up the long main street until he came to the handful of
stores at the crossroads. Entering one of the largest he went to the
counter where a pleasant-faced woman confronted him.
“Oh, Cap’n Smiley!” exclaimed the shopwoman. “Are you all right? Are
all the men all right? What a terrible time you _have_ been a-having!
That ship--she’s pounded all to pieces they say.”
The Coast Guard keeper nodded. He began his errand:
“I’ve got to get some clothes for a little girl that was saved--only
one we got ashore alive except one of the hands. I guess I need a
complete outfit for a six-year-old,” he explained.
The shopwoman, with various exclamations, bustled about. She spread out
on the counter a variety of garments. The keeper eyed them with some
confusion. It appeared he had to make a selection; impossible task!
“What would you think was best?” he inquired, anxiously. The shopwoman
came to his aid and a bundle was made up. Two little gingham dresses, a
warm coat; and did he want a nice dress? A dress-up dress? The keeper
had given no thought to the matter. A pity the little girl wasn’t
along! It was hard to tell what would become her. She had blue eyes and
reddish hair? Something dark and plain, but not too dark. A plaid; yes,
a warm plaid would be best. Here was a nice pattern.
“I s’pose you’ll be bringing her over here,” ventured the shopkeeper.
“Does any one know who she is?... What a pity! Mermaid! After the ship!
I declare. I don’t know’s I ever heard that for a girl’s name, though
it’s suitable, to be sure. I s’pose you’ll look after her.”
“The--the men have sort of adopted her,” Cap’n Smiley said, hastily.
“We thought we could look after her and it would be rather nice having
a youngster around. Of course, it’s unusual,” he went on in answer to
the shopwoman’s expression of amazement. He thanked her, and taking his
bundles, fared forth.
The woman in the shop sent after him a curious and softened look. She
had a habit of saying aloud the things that struck her most forcibly.
She remarked now to the empty store:
“Adopt her! Well, there’s those will say a crew of Coast Guardsmen are
no fit lot to bring up a six-year-old girl. But any child will be safe
with John Smiley to look after her.” A new and important thought struck
her.
“Goodness!” she ejaculated. “This will be something for Keturah to
exercise her brain about!”