"And there doesn't seem to be anybody else," said his companion. "Can
you think of anybody, cap'n?"
"There ain't anybody to think of," replied Captain Cephas, "unless it
might be Eliza Trimmer. She's generally ready enough to do anything
that turns up. But she wouldn't be no good--her house is too far away
for either you or me to hail her in case a croup came up suddint."
"That's so," said Captain Eli. "She does live a long way off."
"So that settles the whole business," said Captain Cephas. "She's too
far away to come if wanted, and nuther of us couldn't keep no child
without somebody to come if they was wanted, and it's no use to have a
Christmas tree without a child. A Christmas without a Christmas tree
don't seem agreeable to you, cap'n, so I guess we'd better get along
just the same as we've been in the habit of doin', and eat our
Christmas dinner, as we do our other meals in our own houses."
Captain Eli looked into the fire. "I don't like to give up things if I
can help it. That was always my way. If wind and tide's ag'in' me, I
can wait till one or the other, or both of them, serve."
"Yes," said Captain Cephas, "you was always that kind of a
man."
"That's so. But it does 'pear to me as if I'd have to give up this
time, though it's a pity to do it, on account of the little gal, fer
she ain't likely to have any Christmas this year. She's a nice little
gal, and takes as natural to navigation as if she'd been born at sea.
I've given her two or three things because she's so pretty, but there's
nothing she likes so much as a little ship I gave her."
"Perhaps she was born at sea," remarked Captain Cephas.
"Perhaps she was," said the other; "and that makes it the bigger pity."
For a few moments nothing was said. Then Captain Eli suddenly
exclaimed, "I'll tell you what we might do, cap'n! We might ask Mrs.
Trimmer to lend a hand in givin' the little gal a Christmas. She ain't
got nobody in her house but herself, and I guess she'd be glad enough
to help give that little gal a regular Christmas. She could go and get
the child, and bring her to your house or to my house, or wherever
we're goin' to keep Christmas, and--"
"Well," said Captain Cephas, with an air of scrutinizing inquiry,
"what?"
"Well," replied the other, a little hesitatingly, "so far as I'm
concerned,--that is, I don't mind one way or the other,--she might take
her Christmas dinner along with us and the little gal, and then she
could fix her stockin' to be hung up, and help with the Christmas tree,
and--"
"Well," demanded Captain Cephas, "what?"
"Well," said Captain Eli, "she could--that is, it doesn't make any
difference to me one way or the other--she might stay all night at
whatever house we kept Christmas in, and then you and me might spend
the night in the other house, and then she could be ready there to help
the child in the mornin', when she came to look at her stockin'."
Captain Cephas fixed upon his friend an earnest glare. "That's pretty
considerable of an idea to come upon you so suddint," said he. "But I
can tell you one thing: there ain't a-goin' to be any such doin's in my
house. If you choose to come over here to sleep, and give up your
house to any woman you can find to take care of the little gal, all
right. But the thing can't be done here."
There was a certain severity in these remarks, but they appeared to
affect Captain Eli very pleasantly.
"Well," said he, "if you're satisfied, I am. I'll agree to any plan
you choose to make. It doesn't matter to me which house it's in, and
if you say my house, I say my house. All I want is to make the
business agreeable to all concerned. Now it's time fer me to go to my
dinner, and this afternoon we'd better go and try to get things
straightened out, because the little gal, and whatever woman comes with
her, ought to be at my house to-morrow before dark. S'posin' we divide
up this business: I'll go and see Mrs. Crumley about the little gal,
and you can go and see Mrs. Trimmer."
"No, sir," promptly replied Captain Cephas, "I don't go to see no Mrs.
Trimmer. You can see both of them just the same as you can see
one--they're all along the same way. I'll go cut the Christmas tree."
"All right," said Captain Eli. "It don't make no difference to me
which does which. But if I was you, cap'n, I'd cut a good big tree,
because we might as well have a good one while we're about it."
When he had eaten his dinner, and washed up his dishes, and had put
everything away in neat, housewifely order, Captain Eli went to Mrs.
Crumley's house, and very soon finished his business there. Mrs.
Crumley kept the only house which might be considered a boarding-house
in the village of Sponkannis; and when she had consented to take charge
of the little girl who had been left on her hands she had hoped it
would not be very long before she would hear from some of her relatives
in regard to her maintenance. But she had heard nothing, and had now
ceased to expect to hear anything, and in consequence had frequently
remarked that she must dispose of the child some way or other, for she
couldn't afford to keep her any longer. Even an absence of a day or
two at the house of the good captain would be some relief, and Mrs.
Crumley readily consented to the Christmas scheme. As to the little
girl, she was delighted. She already looked upon Captain Eli as her
best friend in the world.
It was not so easy to go to Mrs. Trimmer's house and put the business
before her. "It ought to be plain sailin' enough," Captain Eli said to
himself, over and over again, "but, fer all that, it don't seem to be
plain sailin'."
But he was not a man to be deterred by difficult navigation, and he
walked straight to Eliza Trimmer's house.
Mrs. Trimmer was a comely woman about thirty-five, who had come to the
village a year before, and had maintained herself, or at least had
tried to, by dressmaking and plain sewing. She had lived at Stetford,
a seaport about twenty miles away, and from there, three years before,
her husband, Captain Trimmer, had sailed away in a good-sized schooner,
and had never returned. She had come to Sponkannis because she thought
that there she could live cheaper and get more work than in her former
home. She had found the first quite possible, but her success in
regard to the work had not been very great.
When Captain Eli entered Mrs. Trimmer's little room, he found her busy
mending a sail. Here fortune favored him. "You turn your hand to
'most anything, Mrs. Trimmer," said he, after he had greeted her.
"Oh, yes," she answered, with a smile, "I am obliged to do that.
Mending sails is pretty heavy work, but it's better than nothing."
"I had a notion," said he, "that you was ready to turn your hand to any
good kind of business, so I thought I would step in and ask you if
you'd turn your hand to a little bit of business I've got on the
stocks."
She stopped sewing on the sail, and listened while Captain Eli laid his
plan before her. "It's very kind in you and Captain Cephas to think of
all that," said she. "I have often noticed that poor little girl, and
pitied her. Certainly I'll come, and you needn't say anything about
paying me for it. I wouldn't think of asking to be paid for doing a
thing like that. And besides,"--she smiled again as she spoke,--"if
you are going to give me a Christmas dinner, as you say, that will make
things more than square."
Captain Eli did not exactly agree with her, but he was in very good
humor, and she was in good humor, and the matter was soon settled, and
Mrs. Trimmer promised to come to the captain's house in the morning and
help about the Christmas tree, and in the afternoon to go to get the
little girl from Mrs. Crumley's and bring her to the house.
Captain Eli was delighted with the arrangements. "Things now seem to
be goin' along before a spankin' breeze," said he. "But I don't know
about the dinner. I guess you will have to leave that to me. I don't
believe Captain Cephas could eat a woman-cooked dinner. He's
accustomed to livin sailor fashion, you know, and he has declared over
and over again to me that woman-cookin' doesn't agree with him."
"But I can cook sailor fashion," said Mrs. Trimmer,--"just as much
sailor fashion as you or Captain Cephas, and if he don't believe it,
I'll prove it to him; so you needn't worry about that."
When the captain had gone, Mrs. Trimmer gayly put away the sail. There
was no need to finish it in a hurry, and no knowing when she would get
her money for it when it was done. No one had asked her to a Christmas
dinner that year, and she had expected to have a lonely time of it.
But it would be very pleasant to spend Christmas with the little girl
and the two good captains. Instead of sewing any more on the sail, she
got out some of her own clothes to see if they needed anything done to
them.
The next morning Mrs. Trimmer went to Captain Eli's house, and finding
Captain Cephas there, they all set to work at the Christmas tree, which
was a very fine one, and had been planted in a box. Captain Cephas had
brought over a bundle of things from his house, and Captain Eli kept
running here and there, bringing, each time that he returned, some new
object, wonderful or pretty, which he had brought from China or Japan
or Corea, or some spicy island of the Eastern seas; and nearly every
time he came with these treasures Mrs. Trimmer declared that such
things were too good to put upon a Christmas tree, even for such a nice
little girl as the one for which that tree was intended. The presents
which Captain Cephas brought were much more suitable for the purpose;
they were odd and funny, and some of them pretty, but not expensive, as
were the fans and bits of shellwork and carved ivories which Captain
Eli wished to tie upon the twigs of the tree.
There was a good deal of talk about all this, but Captain Eli had his
own way.
"I don't suppose, after all," said he, "that the little gal ought to
have all the things. This is such a big tree that it's more like a
family tree. Cap'n Cephas can take some of my things, and I can take
some of his things, and, Mrs. Trimmer, if there's anything you like,
you can call it your present and take it for your own, so that will be
fair and comfortable all round. What I want is to make everybody
satisfied."
"I'm sure I think they ought to be," said Mrs. Trimmer, looking very
kindly at Captain Eli.
Mrs. Trimmer went home to her own house to dinner, and in the afternoon
she brought the little girl. She had said there ought to be an early
supper, so that the child would have time to enjoy the Christmas tree
before she became sleepy.
This meal was prepared entirely by Captain Eli, and in sailor fashion,
not woman fashion, so that Captain Cephas could make no excuse for
eating his supper at home. Of course they all ought to be together the
whole of that Christmas eve. As for the big dinner on the morrow, that
was another affair, for Mrs. Trimmer undertook to make Captain Cephas
understand that she had always cooked for Captain Trimmer in sailor
fashion, and if he objected to her plum-duff, or if anybody else
objected to her mince-pie, she was going to be very much surprised.
Captain Cephas ate his supper with a good relish, and was still eating
when the rest had finished. As to the Christmas tree, it was the most
valuable, if not the most beautiful, that had ever been set up in that
region. It had no candles upon it, but was lighted by three lamps and
a ship's lantern placed in the four corners of the room, and the little
girl was as happy as if the tree were decorated with little dolls and
glass balls. Mrs. Trimmer was intensely pleased and interested to see
the child so happy, and Captain Eli was much pleased and interested to
see the child and Mrs. Trimmer so happy, and Captain Cephas was
interested, and perhaps a little amused in a superior fashion, to see
Captain Eli and Mrs. Trimmer and the little child so happy.
Then the distribution of the presents began. Captain Eli asked Captain
Cephas if he might have the wooden pipe that the latter had brought for
his present. Captain Cephas said he might take it, for all he cared,
and be welcome to it. Then Captain Eli gave Captain Cephas a red
bandanna handkerchief of a very curious pattern, and Captain Cephas
thanked him kindly. After which Captain Eli bestowed upon Mrs. Trimmer
a most beautiful tortoise-shell comb, carved and cut and polished in a
wonderful way, and with it he gave a tortoise-shell fan, carved in the
same fashion, because he said the two things seemed to belong to each
other and ought to go together; and he would not listen to one word of
what Mrs. Trimmer said about the gifts being too good for her, and that
she was not likely ever to use them.
"It seems to me," said Captain Cephas, "that you might be giving
something to the little gal."
Then Captain Eli remembered that the child ought not to be forgotten,
and her soul was lifted into ecstasy by many gifts, some of which Mrs.
Trimmer declared were too good for any child in this wide, wide world.
But Captain Eli answered that they could be taken care of by somebody
until the little girl was old enough to know their value.
Then it was discovered that, unbeknown to anybody else, Mrs. Trimmer
had put some presents on the tree, which were things which had been
brought by Captain Trimmer from somewhere in the far East or the
distant West. These she bestowed upon Captain Cephas and Captain Eli.
And the end of all this was that in the whole of Sponkannis, from the
foot of the bluff to the east, to the very last house on the shore to
the west, there was not one Christmas eve party so happy as this one.
Captain Cephas was not quite so happy as the three others were, but he
was very much interested. About nine o'clock the party broke up, and
the two captains put on their caps and buttoned up their pea-jackets,
and started for Captain Cephas's house, but not before Captain Eli had
carefully fastened every window and every door except the front door,
and had told Mrs. Trimmer how to fasten that when they had gone, and
had given her a boatswain's whistle, which she might blow out of the
window if there should be a sudden croup and it should be necessary for
any one to go anywhere. He was sure he could hear it, for the wind was
exactly right for him to hear a whistle from his house. When they had
gone Mrs. Trimmer put the little girl to bed, and was delighted to find
in what a wonderfully neat and womanlike fashion that house was kept.
It was nearly twelve o'clock that night when Captain Eli, sleeping in
his bunk opposite that of Captain Cephas, was aroused by hearing a
sound. He had been lying with his best ear uppermost, so that he
should hear anything if there happened to be anything to hear. He did
hear something, but it was not a boatswain's whistle; it was a
prolonged cry, and it seemed to come from the sea.
In a moment Captain Eli was sitting on the side of his bunk, listening
intently. Again came the cry. The window toward the sea was slightly
open, and he heard it plainly.
"Cap'n!" said he, and at the word Captain Cephas was sitting on the
side of his bunk, listening. He knew from his companion's attitude,
plainly visible in the light of a lantern which hung on a hook at the
other end of the room, that he had been awakened to listen. Again came
the cry.
"That's distress at sea," said Captain Cephas. "Harken!"
They listened again for nearly a minute, when the cry was repeated.
"Bounce on deck, boys!" said Captain Cephas, getting out on the floor.
"There's some one in distress off shore."
Captain Eli jumped to the floor, and began to dress quickly.
"It couldn't be a call from land?" he asked hurriedly. "It don't sound
a bit to you like a boatswain's whistle, does it?"
"No," said Captain Cephas, disdainfully. "It's a call from sea." Then,
seizing a lantern, he rushed down the companionway.
As soon as he was convinced that it was a call from sea, Captain Eli
was one in feeling and action with Captain Cephas. The latter hastily
opened the draughts of the kitchen stove, and put on some wood, and by
the time this was done Captain Eli had the kettle filled and on the
stove. Then they clapped on their caps and their pea-jackets, each
took an oar from a corner in the back hall, and together they ran down
to the beach.
The night was dark, but not very cold, and Captain Cephas had been to
the store that morning in his boat.
Whenever he went to the store, and the weather permitted, he rowed
there in his boat rather than walk. At the bow of the boat, which was
now drawn up on the sand, the two men stood and listened. Again came
the cry from the sea.
"It's something ashore on the Turtle-back Shoal," said Captain Cephas.
"Yes," said Captain Eli, "and it's some small craft, fer that cry is
down pretty nigh to the water."
"Yes," said Captain Cephas. "And there's only one man aboard, or else
they'd take turns a-hollerin'."
"He's a stranger," said Captain Eli, "or he wouldn't have tried, even
with a cat-boat, to get in over that shoal on ebb-tide."
As they spoke they ran the boat out into the water and jumped in, each
with an oar. Then they pulled for the Turtle-back Shoal.
Although these two captains were men of fifty or thereabout, they were
as strong and tough as any young fellows in the village, and they
pulled with steady strokes, and sent the heavy boat skimming over the
water, not in a straight line toward the Turtle-back Shoal, but now a
few points in the darkness this way, and now a few points in the
darkness that way, then with a great curve to the south through the
dark night, keeping always near the middle of the only good channel out
of the bay when the tide was ebbing.
Now the cries from seaward had ceased, but the two captains were not
discouraged.
"He's heard the thumpin' of our oars," said Captain Cephas.
"He's listenin', and he'll sing out again if he thinks we're goin'
wrong," said Captain Eli. "Of course he doesn't know anything about
that."
And so when they made the sweep to the south the cry came again, and
Captain Eli grinned. "We needn't to spend no breath hollerin'," said
he. "He'll hear us makin' fer him in a minute."
When they came to head for the shoal they lay on their oars for a
moment, while Captain Cephas turned the lantern in the bow, so that its
light shone out ahead. He had not wanted the shipwrecked person to see
the light when it would seem as if the boat were rowing away from him.
He had heard of castaway people who became so wild when they imagined
that a ship or boat was going away from them that they jumped overboard.
When the two captains reached the shoal, they found there a cat-boat
aground, with one man aboard. His tale was quickly told. He had
expected to run into the little bay that afternoon, but the wind had
fallen, and in trying to get in after dark, and being a stranger, he
had run aground. If he had not been so cold, he said, he would have
been willing to stay there till the tide rose; but he was getting
chilled, and seeing a light not far away, he concluded to call for help
as long as his voice held out.
The two captains did not ask many questions. They helped anchor the
cat-boat, and then they took the man on their boat and rowed him to
shore. He was getting chilled sitting out there doing nothing, and so
when they reached the house they made him some hot grog, and promised
in the morning, when the tide rose, they would go out and help him
bring his boat in. Then Captain Cephas showed the stranger to a bunk,
and they all went to bed. Such experiences had not enough of novelty
to the good captains to keep them awake five minutes.
In the morning they were all up very early, and the stranger, who
proved to be a seafaring man with bright blue eyes, said that, as his
cat-boat seemed to be riding all right at its anchorage, he did not
care to go out after her just yet. Any time during flood-tide would do
for him, and he had some business that he wanted to attend to as soon
as possible.
This suited the two captains very well, for they wished to be on hand
when the little girl discovered her stocking.
"Can you tell me," said the stranger, as he put on his cap, "where I
can find a Mrs. Trimmer, who lives in this village?"
At these words all the sturdy stiffness which, from his youth up, had
characterized the legs of Captain Eli entirely went out of them, and he
sat suddenly upon a bench. For a few moments there was silence.
Then Captain Cephas, who thought some answer should be made to the
question, nodded his head.
"I want to see her as soon as I can," said the stranger. "I have come
to see her on particular business that will be a surprise to her. I
wanted to be here before Christmas began, and that's the reason I took
that cat-boat from Stetford, because I thought I'd come quicker that
way than by land. But the wind fell, as I told you. If either one of
you would be good enough to pilot me to where Mrs. Trimmer lives, or to
any point where I can get a sight of the place, I'd be obliged."
Captain Eli rose and with hurried but unsteady steps went into the
house (for they had been upon the little piazza), and beckoned to his
friend to follow. The two men stood in the kitchen and looked at each
other. The face of Captain Eli was of the hue of a clam-shell.
"Go with him, cap'n," he said in a hoarse whisper. "I can't do it."
"To your house?" inquired the other.
"Of course. Take him to my house. There ain't no other place where
she is. Take him along."
Captain Cephas's countenance wore an air of the deepest concern, but he
thought that the best thing to do was to get the stranger away.
As they walked rapidly toward Captain Eli's house there was
very little said by either Captain Cephas or the stranger. The latter
seemed anxious to give Mrs. Trimmer a surprise, and not to say anything
which might enable another person to interfere with his project.
The two men had scarcely stepped upon the piazza when Mrs. Trimmer, who
had been expecting early visitors, opened the door. She was about to
call out "Merry Christmas!" but, her eyes falling upon a stranger, the
words stopped at her lips. First she turned red, then she turned pale,
and Captain Cephas thought she was about to fall. But before she could
do this the stranger had her in his arms. She opened her eyes, which
for a moment she had closed, and, gazing into his face, she put her
arms around his neck. Then Captain Cephas came away, without thinking
of the little girl and the pleasure she would have in discovering her
Christmas stocking.
When he had been left alone, Captain Eli sat down near the kitchen
stove, close to the very kettle which he had filled with water to heat
for the benefit of the man he had helped bring in from the sea, and,
with his elbows on his knees and his fingers in his hair, he darkly
pondered.
"If I'd only slept with my hard-o'-hearin' ear up," he said to himself,
"I'd never have heard it."
In a few moments his better nature condemned this thought.
"That's next to murder," he muttered, "fer he couldn't have kept
himself from fallin' asleep out there in the cold, and when the tide
riz held have been blowed out to sea with this wind. If I hadn't heard
him, Captain Cephas never would, fer he wasn't primed up to wake, as I
was."
But, notwithstanding his better nature, Captain Eli was again saying to
himself, when his friend returned, "If I'd only slept with my other ear
up!"
Like the honest, straightforward mariner he was, Captain Cephas made an
exact report of the facts. "They was huggin' when I left them," he
said, "and I expect they went indoors pretty soon, fer it was too cold
outside. It's an all-fired shame she happened to be in your house,
cap'n, that's all I've got to say about it. It's a thunderin' shame."
Captain Eli made no answer. He still sat with his elbows on his knees
and his hands in his hair.
"A better course than you laid down fer these Christmas times was never
dotted on a chart," continued Captain Cephas. "From port of sailin' to
port of entry you laid it down clear and fine. But it seems there was
rocks that wasn't marked on the chart."
"Yes," groaned Captain Eli, "there was rocks."
Captain Cephas made no attempt to comfort his friend, but went to work
to get breakfast.
When that meal--a rather silent one--was over, Captain Eli felt better.
"There was rocks," he said, "and not a breaker to show where they lay,
and I struck 'em bow on. So that's the end of that voyage. But I've
tuk to my boats, cap'n, I've tuk to my boats."
"I'm glad to hear you've tuk to your boats," said Captain Cephas, with
an approving glance upon his friend.
About ten minutes afterwards Captain Eli said, "I'm goin' up to my
house."
"By yourself?" said the other.
"Yes, by myself. I'd rather go alone. I don't intend to mind
anything, and I'm goin' to tell her that she can stay there and spend
Christmas,--the place she lives in ain't no place to spend
Christmas,--and she can make the little gal have a good time, and go
'long just as we intended to go 'long--plum-duff and mince-pie all the
same. I can stay here, and you and me can have our Christmas dinner
together, if we choose to give it that name. And if she ain't ready to
go to-morrow, she can stay a day or two longer. It's all the same to
me, if it's the same to you, cap'n."
Captain Cephas having said that it was the same to him, Captain Eli put
on his cap and buttoned up his pea-jacket, declaring that the sooner he
got to his house the better, as she might be thinking that she would
have to move out of it now that things were different.
Before Captain Eli reached his house he saw something which pleased
him. He saw the sea-going stranger, with his back toward him, walking
rapidly in the direction of the village store.
Captain Eli quickly entered his house, and in the doorway of the room
where the tree was he met Mrs. Trimmer, beaming brighter than any
morning sun that ever rose.
"Merry Christmas!" she exclaimed, holding out both her hands. "I've
been wondering and wondering when you'd come to bid me `Merry
Christmas'--the merriest Christmas I've ever had."
Captain Eli took her hands and bid her "Merry Christmas" very gravely.
She looked a little surprised. "What's the matter, Captain Eli?" she
exclaimed. "You don't seem to say that as if you meant it."
"Oh, yes, I do," he answered. "This must be an all-fired--I mean a
thunderin' happy Christmas fer you, Mrs. Trimmer."
"Yes," said she, her face beaming again. "And to think that it should
happen on Christmas day--that this blessed morning, before anything
else happened, my Bob, my only brother, should--"
"Your what!" roared Captain Eli, as if he had been shouting orders in a
raging storm.
Mrs. Trimmer stepped back almost frightened. "My brother," said she.
"Didn't he tell you he was my brother--my brother Bob, who sailed away
a year before I was married, and who has been in Africa and China and I
don't know where? It's so long since I heard that he'd gone into
trading at Singapore that I'd given him up as married and settled in
foreign parts. And here he has come to me as if he'd tumbled from the
sky on this blessed Christmas morning."
Captain Eli made a step forward, his face very much flushed.
"Your brother, Mrs. Trimmer--did you really say it was your brother?"
"Of course it is," said she. "Who else could it be?" Then she paused
for a moment and looked steadfastly at the captain.
"You don't mean to say, Captain Eli," she asked, "that you thought it
was--"
"Yes, I did," said Captain Eli, promptly.
Mrs. Trimmer looked straight in the captain's eyes, then she looked on
the ground. Then she changed color and changed back again.
"I don't understand," she said hesitatingly, "why--I mean what
difference it made."
"Difference!" exclaimed Captain Eli. "It was all the difference
between a man on deck and a man overboard--that's the difference it was
to me. I didn't expect to be talkin' to you so early this Christmas
mornin', but things has been sprung on me, and I can't help it I just
want to ask you one thing: Did you think I was gettin' up this
Christmas tree and the Christmas dinner and the whole business fer the
good of the little gal, and fer the good of you, and fer the good of
Captain Cephas?"
Mrs. Trimmer had now recovered a very fair possession of herself. "Of
course I did," she answered, looking up at him as she spoke. "Who else
could it have been for!"
"Well," said he, "you were mistaken. It wasn't fer any one of you. It
was all fer me--fer my own self."
"You yourself?" said she. "I don't see how."
"But I see how," he answered. "It's been a long time since I wanted to
speak my mind to you, Mrs. Trimmer, but I didn't ever have no chance.
And all these Christmas doin's was got up to give me the chance not
only of speakin' to you, but of showin' my colors better than I could
show them in any other way. Everything went on a-skimmin' till this
mornin', when that stranger that we brought in from the shoal piped up
and asked fer you. Then I went overboard--at least, I thought I
did--and sunk down, down, clean out of soundin's."
"That was too bad, captain," said she, speaking very gently, "after all
your trouble and kindness."
"But I don't know now," he continued, "whether I went overboard or
whether I am on deck. Can you tell me, Mrs. Trimmer?"
She looked up at him. Her eyes were very soft, and her lips trembled
just a little. "It seems to me, captain," she said, "that you are on
deck--if you want to be."
The captain stepped closer to her. "Mrs. Trimmer," said he, "is that
brother of yours comin' back?"
"Yes," she answered, surprised at the sudden question. "He's just gone
up to the store to buy a shirt and some things. He got himself
splashed trying to push his boat off last night."
"Well, then," said Captain Eli, "would you mind tellin' him when he
comes back that you and me's engaged to be married? I don't know
whether I've made a mistake in the lights or not, but would you mind
tellin' him that?"
Mrs. Trimmer looked at him. Her eyes were not so soft as they had
been, but they were brighter. "I'd rather you'd tell him that
yourself," said she.
The little girl sat on the floor near the Christmas tree, just
finishing a large piece of red-and-white candy which she had taken out
of her stocking. "People do hug a lot at Christmas-time," said she to
herself. Then she drew out a piece of blue-and-white candy and began
on that.
Captain Cephas waited a long time for his friend to return, and at last
he thought it would be well to go and look for him. When he entered
the house he found Mrs. Trimmer sitting on the sofa in the parlor, with
Captain Eli on one side of her and her brother on the other, and each
of them holding one of her hands.
"It looks as if I was in port, don't it?" said Captain Eli to his
astonished friend. "Well, here I am, and here's my fust mate,"
inclining his head toward Mrs. Trimmer. "And she's in port too, safe
and sound. And that strange captain on the other side of her, he's her
brother Bob, who's been away for years and years, and is just home from
Madagascar."
"Singapore," amended Brother Bob.
Captain Cephas looked from one to the other of the three occupants of
the sofa, but made no immediate remark. Presently a smile of genial
maliciousness stole over his face, and he asked, "How about the poor
little gal? Have you sent her back to Mrs. Crumley's?"
The little girl came out from behind the Christmas tree, her stocking,
now but half filled, in her hand. "Here I am," she said. "Don't you
want to give me a Christmas hug, Captain Cephas? You and me's the only
ones that hasn't had any."
The Christmas dinner was as truly and perfectly a sailor-cooked meal as
ever was served on board a ship or off it. Captain Cephas had said
that, and when he had so spoken there was no need of further words.
It was nearly dark that afternoon, and they were all sitting around the
kitchen fire, the three seafaring men smoking, and Mrs. Trimmer greatly
enjoying it. There could be no objection to the smell of tobacco in
this house so long as its future mistress enjoyed it. The little girl
sat on the floor nursing a Chinese idol which had been one of her
presents.
"After all," said Captain Eli, meditatively, "this whole business come
out of my sleepin' with my best ear up. Fer if I'd slept with my
hard-o'-hearin' ear up--" Mrs. Trimmer put one finger on his lips.
"All right," said Captain Eli, "I won't say no more. But it would have
been different."
Even now, several years after that Christmas, when there is no Mrs.
Trimmer, and the little girl, who has been regularly adopted by Captain
Eli and his wife, is studying geography, and knows more about latitude
and longitude than her teacher at school, Captain Eli has still a
slight superstitious dread of sleeping with his best ear uppermost.
"Of course it's the most all-fired nonsense," he says to himself over
and over again. Nevertheless, he feels safer when it is his
"hard-o'-hearin' ear" that is not upon the pillow.