A REAL HERO
“I don’t think it’s worth tellin’,” protested the Captain again. But
as they would not take no for an answer, he began in his droll way.
“It happened before any of you were born,” said he, “when I was
captain of a little schooner named _The Anna_. That was my wife’s
name, and my little daughter’s after her. I had just been married,
and was home for a little vacation. That summer there was a lot of
terrible storms off this coast. If you’ve ever seen a storm on this
bay, girls, you can guess what it’s like in the winter. Our rocks
are cruel hard and sly. They hide under the waves there like giants’
teeth ready to chew up the little boats.
“Well, there was a little schooner from Portygal that had got off
her course, and the storm blew her in here. She beat in to what
looked like a safe harbor out of the storm. But out there on the
Washers she struck the reef, hard. In a jiffy the schooner was all
stove up into kindlin’s; but the men managed to cling to a spar and
drifted onto what seemed to them a little island. They climbed up
into what looked like safety, though it was mighty damp, for it was
low tide at the time. But that island is one of the Washers, and is
covered at high tide with ten foot of roarin’ green water. They was
all pretty nigh drownded already; and while they clung to the rocks
two more of the men were swept away by big waves. They didn’t guess
it, but full tide was bound to get ’em all.
“Now, I was lookin’ out of this front window with my spyglass, same
as I always did in a storm, when I was ashore. And I sighted through
the rain somethin’ black out on the Washers. ‘Gorry! It’s men!’ I
says to Anna. ‘There’s men out on the Washers! Must have been a wreck.
Must try to get ’em off in the double-quick. ’Course, they _had_ to
be got off,’” the Captain paused, already on the defence.
“That was just like Eph!” Aunt Polly interrupted. “Somebody had to
do it; so he did. He never waited for ‘George’ or anybody else to do
it. He tried to get some fellers to go out with him; but they said No
good in that storm. It was sure drowning. They told him he would have
to give it up. But Eph he would go! Not even Anna could keep him, and
they just married! She told me afterwards how she begged and prayed
him to stay for her sake. But he said for her sake he couldn’t let
’em drown; she’d never forget it if he did. Eph’s so obstinate!” Aunt
Polly gazed at the Captain with affectionate admiration. He pretended
to be angry at her interruption.
“You let me tell this here story, will ye?” he growled, whittling
with redoubled vigor. “Well, you see, as Polly says, somebody had to
go out and get those men. Of course I went. Hadn’t I been the first
one to see their danger? The Lord had showed ’em to me. Ye can’t wish
His job onto anyone else. Ye must take it yourself, when He hands it
to ye. That is all there is to it.
“Well, I put the old dory into the surf; I kinder thought she’d see
me through. The fellers helped me--that was tough work! I thought
we’d never get over the rollers. But well--I did get out to the rocks
somehow, and somehow I brought back four of the men--four Portygees
who couldn’t speak a word of English. Tickledest men I ever saw! For
I didn’t get to ’em a mite too soon. The waves were creepin’ mighty
close. Two of the poor chaps had been washed off already. I always
felt kind of guilty about those two. Seems as if I had hurried a
little more; if I hadn’t stopped to put on my son’wester and boots,
I might have saved ’em all. Those two drownded men kind of ha’nt me,
sometimes.”
“The idea!” again interpolated Aunt Polly. “It was a sheer miracle
you saved any of them and got back alive. Everybody said so.”
The Captain calmly ignored her remark and went on with a chuckle.
“You oughter seen this shore the next few days! The Portygee schooner
was freighted with oranges and lemons and pineapples and olives
and oil,--queer things like that. The rocks were covered with
yaller splotches and dabs, like paint the artist-folks daub all
over the cliffs in the summer time. I guess they get mad with their
paint-boxes and tip ’em over out of spite! Well, the waves were all
shiny with oil, and we had pies for dinner and lemonade, till we were
sick of ’em. Anna and I had our first taste of olives. I’ll never
forget what a face she made at the queer flavor of ’em! It was funny
to hear the Portygees tryin’ to thank us in their lingo and make us
a present of all the stuff we could save from the sea. They were so
grateful.”
“I should think they might have been!” cried Norma enthusiastically.
“Why, you’d risked your life for them, like a story-book hero!”
“They lived on Eph for a week,” added Aunt Polly. “I don’t see where
he stowed them all. Foreigners too! I guess he was good to them; just
as good as if they had been American.”
“Well, why shouldn’t I be?” asked the Captain. “They were humans,
weren’t they? Everybody’s neighbors in this world. For all I know,
those Portygees are Americans now. Two of ’em said they were goin’ to
settle in the West some day.”
“Oh, Captain! I am so proud of you!” Beverly’s eyes shone.
“Nonsense! It wa’n’t anything, I tell ye!” blustered Cap’n Sackett,
turning red. “It was about that boat in the bottle you wanted to
hear? Well it is kinder cute, ain’t it? One of the Portygee sailors
sent it to me after he got back to his own land. He carved the little
boat himself, and made all the sails and riggin’. But I dunno how
ever he got it into that little narrow-necked bottle. It beats me!
Those furriners are cuter than we about some things.”
“Eph was about dead when they all got ashore,” Aunt Polly added to
the story. “He never was so husky afterwards. Anna wrote me she had
to rub him half the night to get him limbered up. But he kept telling
her to look after the poor foreign sailors, who couldn’t speak a word
of English. Eph seemed to think that was the pitifulest part of it
all.”
“Wal, I guess it was!” drawled the Captain. “Everybody ought to learn
to talk English--eh, Gilda?”
The girls listened open-mouthed to the story which none of them had
ever heard before. It was not an unusual tale, perhaps; they may have
read something like it. But to think that this was _true_, and that
it had happened right out on these very rocks which they could see
this minute, and that this old man, their friend, was the real hero
of it! Anne, sitting with the rabbit in her lap, soon forgot even
Plon. As the story went on her cheeks grew red and her eyes grew
bright. It seemed as if she were acting out the story, too. When
Cap’n Sackett stopped abruptly, she gave a gasp.
“Oh!” she cried. “How splendid! What next?”
The Captain glanced at her as if he were more pleased by this word
than by anything else. Was it just because she was the Golden Girl?
That did not seem like Cap’n Sackett.
“You like to hear about the sea, don’t ye, Anne?” he said gently.
“Used to when ye were a little kid. You ask ‘what next?’ Why, there
wasn’t any ‘next’ to speak of. I just went on sailin’, till I got
sick. Then I lay-to a spell, here in the house my father built. He
was a captain too; and so were his father and grandfather before
him. But when a man gets rheumatiz he can’t command a ship any more.
Too much depends on the captain. But I could ketch fish off and on.
That’s what I did for a good many years before we had motor-boats to
make it easier. It hasn’t been a kid-glove life, Anne. But I have
kinder liked it.”
“What a pity you didn’t have a lot of little boys and girls to tell
stories to!” exclaimed Norma with warm enthusiasm. “You make it so
interesting.” The Captain’s face clouded.
“Ain’t it a pity?” he said. “I did have one little girl named Anna.”
He gulped and then said with a gentle smile, “And now there’s Nelly,”
he laid his hand affectionately on his niece’s red curls.
“He’s been so good to us,” said Aunt Polly. “After Nelly’s father
died three years ago, he brought Nelly and me right home and treated
us as if we were his own.”
“Well, ain’t ye my own?” chuckled Cap’n Sackett. “My own brother’s
wife and child. I dunno how I ever got along without ye. You make
this a home once more.” Thereupon Aunt Polly scuttled away into the
next room, wiping her eyes on a corner of her apron.
“Let’s go home by the road; it’s shorter,” suggested Nancy, when they
had said good-bye. “We don’t need to go through Mr. Poole’s place at
all. He mightn’t like us to trespass,” she smiled mischievously at
Anne.
“Yes. Let’s go by the road,” agreed Anne. “I don’t want to see
Idlewild again this summer. It is too lonesome.”
“I suppose I oughtn’t to have said that about the Captain’s
children,” said Norma contritely. “Is there something very sad about
it, Nancy? I could have cut out my tongue as soon as I had spoken.
I’m always saying the wrong thing!”
“Mamma says the Captain has had the saddest life,” answered Nancy,
“though he is so cheerful, the most popular man in the township. All
his neighbors are always coming to him with their troubles. You see,
his daughter and her husband were killed in an automobile accident.
It nearly broke his heart, for he worshiped Anna. Then, the very next
spring, his own wife died. His brother and Aunt Polly were living
twenty miles away at the time. He went on a long voyage; but that was
the last. He must have been all alone for years. Wasn’t it sad?”
“He is an old dear!” declared Beverly. “He seems to admire you, Anne.
You ought to be mighty pleased about it.”
“Yes, I’m jealous!” cried Norma. “He will never like me again.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Anne stiffly, and she walked on ahead.
“He is wonderful!” was Cicely’s comment. “He seems like the kind
of big brave men who founded America. I’m glad they are not all in
books. Nelly ought to be proud of her uncle.”
“I guess she is,” said Nancy. “Only it’s not the Yankee way to show
it. I know.”
Anne walked on in silence; then she said rather suddenly. “It’s
queer! When he told that story, I felt as if I had been there! It
must be wonderful to be a sailor. If I were a man, that’s what I’d
like to be.” This sounded so little like the Golden Girl that they
all stared, then began to laugh.
“It’s because your father is a fancy yachtsman,” said Nancy.
Anne looked at her over her shoulder. “That isn’t the same thing,
as you very well know!” she declared. “Yachting is only a game. You
don’t have to be brave to do that kind of thing. Somebody else does
it for you. Captain Sackett is different! He is the first real hero I
ever met; but he is just a common man.”
“Mother says the biggest people in the world have seemed simple men,”
said Nancy gravely. “Even Abraham Lincoln. Or even the Greatest One
of all.”