Swiftly Joseph Stagg trudged towards home, dragging Carolyn May behind
him.
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed the little girl with exultation, "we're all so
excited, Uncle Joe!"
"I can see you're all of a-twitter," he returned absent-mindedly.
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, you never could guess!" was Carolyn May's introduction, and
forthwith, in breathless sentences, went on to tell of her discovery in
the snow and about the old sailor now lying asleep on the Parlow couch.
"I vum!" ejaculated Uncle Joe, when he had listened to it all. "Who ever
heard the beat of that! And Jed Parlow really helped take him in, did
he? The day of miracles isn't past, then, that's sure."
Of course, when Carolyn May arrived at home, the story had to be told
all over again to Aunty Rose Kennedy--all the details, even to Prince's
feast of chicken bones. If the housekeeper was surprised--as Joseph Stagg
had been--that the carpenter should take the injured man into his house,
she did not say so.
"A mighty plucky youngster, this Car'lyn May of ours," Uncle Joe
remarked. "What do you say, Aunty Rose?"
"She is, indeed, Joseph Stagg," agreed the woman.
Carolyn May was very much excited over the adventure, and, although it
snowed some that night and the paths were drifted full in places, she
wanted greatly to go down to the Parlow house the next day to see her
"sailor man," as she called the unfortunate she had assisted.
Naturally, she could not expect Uncle Joe to stop and ask how the sailor
was, he not being on speaking terms with the Parlows; but the hardware
dealer did pick up a morsel of news about the stranger and brought it
home at noon time to detail to Aunty Rose and the little girl at the
dinner table.
"I tell you," Mr. Stagg maintained, "Jed Parlow's had a change of heart,
or something. Know what he's done?"
"I could not guess, Joseph Stagg," said Aunty Rose austerely.
"Why, he's letting that old tramp Car'lyn May picked up stay there till
he gets well enough to work, so they tell me. Who ever heard the like?
And Jed hasn't a blessed thing for a man like that tramp to do at this
time of year."
"It's Miss Amanda that lets him stay, I guess," said Carolyn May with a
wise little nod of her sunny head.
"Hum!" grunted her uncle. "Time was when Jed Parlow wouldn't have played
the part of a good Samaritan to the Angel Gabriel himself."
"You should not say such things in the hearing of the child," admonished
Aunty Rose severely. "Perhaps Jedidiah Parlow has been misjudged all
these years. He may have a kinder heart than you think."
"Kind-hearted!" snorted Mr. Stagg. "If he's got a heart at all, he's
successfully hidden it for nigh seventy years, from all I've heard
tell."
"Oh, Uncle Joe, he _must_ have a heart, you know," broke in Carolyn May
earnestly. "We had physerology studies in the school I used to go to,
and you have to have hearts, and lungs, and livers, and other inwards,
or else you couldn't keep going. Mr. Parlow must have a heart."
"I s'pose he must," acknowledged Uncle Joe, "from that standpoint. But,
beside from its pumping blood through his arteries, his heart action
hasn't been what you might call excessive. And for him to take that old
codger in out o' the snow----"
Aunty Rose interrupted, as she often did at such times, sternly.
"Joseph Stagg, for a man with ordinary, good common sense, as you've
got, you do sometimes 'pear to be pretty near purblind. I shouldn't
wonder if Jedidiah Parlow has changed of late. It is more than
probable."
Then, as Mr. Stagg continued to stare at her, plainly surprised by her
vehemence, the housekeeper continued:
"Nor is he the only person that shows signs of change--and from the same
cause. Have you never stopped to think of other changes nearer home that
have been brought about by the same means? Answer me, Joseph Stagg."
The hardware dealer cast a quick glance at Carolyn May, busy with her
knife and fork, and had the grace to blush a little. Then, suddenly, his
eyes twinkled, and a smile wreathed the corners of his mouth.
"Hold on, Aunty Rose. I say! do you ever look in the mirror?"
"Never mind about me, Joseph Stagg," she rejoined rather tartly. "Never
mind about me!"
Carolyn May insisted on going to the Parlow house herself after school
that afternoon to enquire about her "sailor man." She just had to know
personally how he was getting on!
The steady stream of timber sleds from Adams' camp, and others, had
beaten down the drifts again, so Aunty Rose made no objection to the
little girl and the dog's making this call.
Mr. Parlow peered at them through the window of the carpenter's shop and
waved his hand; but Carolyn May went right into the house. When she had
been kissed by Miss Amanda, and Prince had lain down by the kitchen
range, the little girl demanded:
"And do tell me how my sailor man is, Miss Mandy. He got _such_ a bump
on the head!"
"Yes; the man's wound is really serious. I'm keeping him in bed. But you
can go up to see him. He's talked a lot about you, Carolyn May."
"Is that so?" eagerly cried the little girl. "And I'm just as cur'ous
about him as I can be."
"Why are you so curious about him?" asked Miss Amanda.
"Because he's a sailor and has been away across the ocean--right to the
place my papa and mamma were going to when the _Dunraven_ was sunk.
Don't you see? They were going to Naples. That's in Italy. And this
sailor man told Mr. Parlow, Miss Amanda, that he has been to Naples. So
he must have been through that Mediterranean Ocean, or sea, or whatever
it is--right where my papa and mamma were lost."
The sailor lay in the warm bedroom over the kitchen. In bed, with his
head bound up as though it were in a huge nightcap, he looked oddly like
a gnome, for he was banked up with pillows, and wore one of Mr. Parlow's
flannelette nightshirts, which was too small for him. In spite of his
odd habiliments, his was a cheerful face--red, with few wrinkles, save
about his eyes, and a scattering brush of grey bristles along his jaw,
for he needed a shave.
"Hello, my hearties!" was his rumbling greeting when Carolyn May and
Miss Amanda appeared.
"This is the little miss I've got to thank for savin' me yesterday."
"And my dog, sir," said Carolyn May. "He's downstairs by the stove. Of
course, I couldn't have brought you here on my sled, if it hadn't been
for Princey."
"That's a fine dog," agreed the sailor. "I ain't never seen a finer."
Carolyn May warmed to him more and more at this enthusiastic praise. She
prattled on gaily and soon had her "sailor man" telling all about the
sea and ships, and "they that go down therein."
"For, you see," explained Carolyn May, "I'm dreadful cur'ous about the
sea. My papa and mamma were lost at sea."
"You don't say so, little miss!" exclaimed the old fellow. "Aye, aye,
that's too bad."
Miss Amanda had disappeared, busy about some household matter, and the
little girl and the sailor were alone together.
"Yes," Carolyn May proceeded, "it is dreadful hard to _feel_ that it is
so."
"Feel that what's so, little miss?" asked the man in bed.
"That my papa and mamma are really drownd-ed," said the little girl with
quivering lips. "Some of the folks on their boat were saved. The papers
said so."
"Aye, aye!" exclaimed the sailor, his brows puckered into a frown. "Aye,
aye, matey! that's allus the way. Why, I was saved myself from a wreck.
I was in the first officer's boat, and we in that boat was saved. There
was another boat--the purser's, it was--was driftin' about all night with
us. We come one time near smashin' into each other and wreckin' both
boats. There was a heavy swell on.
"Yet," pursued the sailor, "come daylight, and the fog splitting we
never could find the purser's boat. She had jest as good a chance as us
after the steamship sank. But there it was! We got separated from her,
and we was saved, whilst the purser's boat wasn't never heard on again."
"That was dreadful!" sighed the little girl.
"Yes, little miss. And the poor passengers! Purser had twenty or more in
his boat. Women mostly. But there was a sick man, too. Why, I helped
lower his wife and him into the boat 'fore I was called to go with the
first officer in his boat. We was the last to cast off. The purser had
jest as good a chance as we did.
"I guess I won't never forgit that time, little miss," went on the
seaman, seeing the blue eyes fixed on his face, round with interest.
"No! And I've seen some tough times, too.
"The ship was riddled. She had to sink--and it was night. We burned
Coston lights, and our signal gun banged away for help, and the old
siren tooted. The wireless top-hamper had been shot away in the fust
place.
"We didn't have no chance at all to save the ship. Some of the boats was
smashed. Two was overturned jest as they struck the water. There wasn't
any of the life rafts launched at all. But we didn't have much of a
panic; the steerage passengers was jest like dumb cattle.
"They was goin' back to Italy because of the war--the men to fight, the
women and children so's to benefit by the Government pay to soldiers'
families."
This was mostly beyond Carolyn May's comprehension, but she listened to
the sailor with serious attention. The seaman told his story as though
it really were unforgettable.
"There was the sick man I told you about, little miss. He was a wonder,
that feller! Cheerful--brave--Don't often see a feller like him. Jokin' to
the last, he was. He didn't want to go in the purser's boat, if there
was more women or children to go.
"We told him all the women folk had left the ship. So, then, he let me
lower him down into the purser's boat after his wife. And that boat had
as good a chance as we had, I tell you," repeated the seaman in quite an
excited manner.
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Carolyn May. "My papa and mamma might have been
just like that," she added. "Of course, we don't know whether they got
off the steamship at all."
"Aye, aye!" the sailor said. "Pretty tough on you, little miss."
Miss Amanda had come back into the room, and she stood listening to the
old man's talk. She said:
"Carolyn May, I think you had better go downstairs now. We mustn't let
our patient talk too much. It won't be good for him."
So Carolyn May shook hands with the old sailor and started downstairs
ahead of Miss Amanda. The latter lingered a moment to ask a question.
"What was the name of the steamship you were wrecked on?" she asked.
"The one you were just telling about."
"She was the _Dunraven_--the _Dunraven_, of the Cross and Crescent Line,"
replied the mariner. "Didn't I tell you that before, ma'am?"