Lydia and her grandfather reached Boston at four o'clock, and the old
man made a bargain, as he fancied, with an expressman to carry her
baggage across the city to the wharf at which the Aroostook lay. The
expressman civilly offered to take their small parcels without charge,
and deliver them with the trunk and large bag; but as he could not check
them all her grandfather judged it safest not to part with them, and he
and Lydia crowded into the horse-car with their arms and hands full. The
conductor obliged him to give up the largest of these burdens, and hung
the old-fashioned oil-cloth sack on the handle of the brake behind,
where Mr. Latham with keen anxiety, and Lydia with shame, watched it as
it swayed back and forth with the motion of the car and threatened
to break loose from its hand-straps and dash its bloated bulk to the
ground. The old man called out to the conductor to be sure and stop in
Scollay's Square, and the people, who had already stared uncomfortably
at Lydia's bundles, all smiled. Her grandfather was going to repeat his
direction as the conductor made no sign of having heard it, when his
neighbor said kindly, “The car always stops in Scollay's Square.”
“Then why couldn't he say so?” retorted the old man, in his high
nasal key; and now the people laughed outright. He had the nervous
restlessness of age when out of its wonted place: he could not remain
quiet in the car, for counting and securing his parcels; when they
reached Scollay's Square, and were to change cars, he ran to the
car they were to take, though there was abundant time, and sat down
breathless from his effort. He was eager then that they should not be
carried too far, and was constantly turning to look out of the window to
ascertain their whereabouts. His vigilance ended in their getting aboard
the East Boston ferry-boat in the car, and hardly getting ashore before
the boat started. They now gathered up their burdens once more, and
walked toward the wharf they were seeking, past those squalid streets
which open upon the docks. At the corners they entangled themselves in
knots of truck-teams and hucksters' wagons and horse-cars; once
they brought the traffic of the neighborhood to a stand-still by the
thoroughness of their inability and confusion. They wandered down the
wrong wharf amidst the slime cast up by the fishing craft moored in the
dock below, and made their way over heaps of chains and cordage, and
through the hand-carts pushed hither and thither with their loads of
fish, and so struggled back to the avenue which ran along the top of
all the wharves. The water of the docks was of a livid turbidity, which
teemed with the gelatinous globes of the sun-fish; and people were
rowing about there in pleasure-boats, and sailors on floats were
painting the hulls of the black ships. The faces of the men they met
were red and sunburned mostly,--not with the sunburn of the fields, but
of the sea; these men lurched in their gait with an uncouth heaviness,
yet gave them way kindly enough; but certain dull-eyed, frowzy-headed
women seemed to push purposely against her grandfather, and one of them
swore at Lydia for taking up all the sidewalk with her bundles. There
were such dull eyes and slattern heads at the open windows of the shabby
houses; and there were gaunt, bold-faced young girls who strolled up
and down the pavements, bonnetless and hatless, and chatted into the
windows, and joked with other such girls whom they met. Suddenly a
wild outcry rose from the swarming children up one of the intersecting
streets, where a woman was beating a small boy over the head with a
heavy stick: the boy fell howling and writhing to the ground, and the
cruel blows still rained upon him, till another woman darted from an
open door and caught the child up with one hand, and with the other
wrenched the stick away and flung it into the street. No words passed,
and there was nothing to show whose child the victim was; the first
woman walked off, and while the boy rubbed his head and arms, and
screamed with the pain, the other children, whose sports had been
scarcely interrupted, were shouting and laughing all about him again.
“Grandfather,” said Lydia faintly, “let us go down here, and rest a
moment in the shade. I'm almost worn out.” She pointed to the open and
quiet space at the side of the lofty granite warehouse which they had
reached.
“Well, I guess I'll set down a minute, too,” said her grandfather.
“Lyddy,” he added, as they released their aching arms from their bags
and bundles, and sank upon the broad threshold of a door which seemed to
have been shut ever since the decay of the India trade, “I don't believe
but what it would have be'n about as cheap in the end to come down in a
hack. But I acted for what I thought was the best. I supposed we'd be'n
there before now, and the idea of givin' a dollar for ridin' about
ten minutes did seem sinful. I ain't noways afraid the ship will sail
without you. Don't you fret any. I don't seem to know rightly just where
I am, but after we've rested a spell I'll leave you here, and inquire
round. It's a real quiet place, and I guess your things will be safe.”
He took off his straw hat and fanned his face with it, while Lydia
leaned her head against the door frame and closed her eyes. Presently
she heard the trampling of feet going by, but she did not open her
eyes till the feet paused in a hesitating way, and a voice asked her
grandfather, in the firm, neat tone which she had heard summer boarders
from Boston use, “Is the young lady ill?” She now looked up, and
blushed like fire to see two handsome young men regarding her with frank
compassion.
“No,” said her grandfather; “a little beat out, that's all. We've been
trying to find Lucas Wharf, and we don't seem somehow just to hit on
it.”
“This is Lucas Wharf,” said the young man. He made an instinctive
gesture of salutation toward his hat, with the hand in which he held a
cigar; he put the cigar into his mouth as he turned from them, and
the smoke drifted fragrantly back to Lydia as he tramped steadily and
strongly on down the wharf, shoulder to shoulder with his companion.
“Well, I declare for't, so it is,” said her grandfather, getting stiffly
to his feet and retiring a few paces to gain a view of the building at
the base of which they had been sitting. “Why, I might known it by this
buildin'! But where's the Aroostook, if this is Lucas Wharf?” He looked
wistfully in the direction the young men had taken, but they were
already too far to call after.
“Grandfather,” said the girl, “do I look pale?”
“Well, you don't now,” answered the old man, simply. “You've got a good
color now.”
“What right had he,” she demanded, “to speak to you about me?”
“I d'know but what you did look rather pale, as you set there with your
head leaned back. I d'know as I noticed much.”
“He took us for two beggars,--two tramps!” she exclaimed, “sitting here
with our bundles scattered round us!”
The old man did not respond to this conjecture; it probably involved
matters beyond his emotional reach, though he might have understood
them when he was younger. He stood a moment with his mouth puckered to
a whistle, but made no sound, and retired a step or two farther from
the building and looked up at it again. Then he went toward the dock and
looked down into its turbid waters, and returned again with a face of
hopeless perplexity. “This is Lucas Wharf, and no mistake,” he said. “I
know the place first-rate, now. But what I can't make out is, What's got
the Aroostook?”
A man turned the corner of the warehouse from the street above, and came
briskly down towards them, with his hat off, and rubbing his head and
face with a circular application of a red silk handkerchief. He was
dressed in a suit of blue flannel, very neat and shapely, and across
his ample waistcoat stretched a gold watch chain; in his left hand he
carried a white Panama hat. He was short and stout; his round florid
face was full of a sort of prompt kindness; his small blue eyes twinkled
under shaggy brows whose sandy color had not yet taken the grizzled tone
of his close-clipped hair and beard. From his clean wristbands his hands
came out, plump and large; stiff, wiry hairs stood up on their backs,
and under these various designs in tattooing showed their purple.
Lydia's grandfather stepped out to meet and halt this stranger, as he
drew near, glancing quickly from the girl to the old man, and then at
their bundles. “Can you tell me where a ship named the Aroostook
is, that was layin' at this wharf--Lucas Wharf--a fortnight ago, and
better?”
“Well, I guess I can, Mr. Latham,” answered the stranger, with a
quizzical smile, offering one of his stout hands to Lydia's grandfather.
“You don't seem to remember your friends very well, do you?”
The old man gave a kind of crow expressive of an otherwise unutterable
relief and comfort. “Well, if it ain't Captain Jenness! I be'n so turned
about, I declare for't, I don't believe I'd ever known you if you hadn't
spoke up. Lyddy,” he cried with a child-like joy, “this is Captain
Jenness!”
Captain Jenness having put on his hat changed Mr. Latham's hand into his
left, while he stretched his great right hand across it and took Lydia's
long, slim fingers in its grasp, and looked keenly into her face. “Glad
to see you, glad to see you, Miss Blood. (You see I've got your name
down on my papers.) Hope you're well. Ever been a sea-voyage before?
Little homesick, eh?” he asked, as she put her handkerchief to her eyes.
He kept pressing Lydia's hand in the friendliest way. “Well, that's
natural. And you're excited; that's natural, too. But we're not going to
have any homesickness on the Aroostook, because we're going to make her
home to you.” At this speech all the girl's gathering forlornness broke
in a sob. “That's right!” said Captain Jenness. “Bless you, I've got a
girl just about your age up at Deer Isle, myself!” He dropped her hand,
and put his arm across her shoulders. “Good land, I know what girls are,
I hope! These your things?” He caught up the greater part of them into
his capacious hands, and started off down the wharf, talking back at
Lydia and her grandfather, as they followed him with the light parcels
he had left them. “I hauled away from the wharf as soon as I'd stowed my
cargo, and I'm at anchor out there in the stream now, waiting till I
can finish up a few matters of business with the agents and get my
passengers on board. When you get used to the strangeness,” he said to
Lydia, “you won't be a bit lonesome. Bless your heart! My wife's been
with me many a voyage, and the last time I was out to Messina I had both
my daughters.”
At the end of the wharf, Captain Jenness stopped, and suddenly calling
out, “Here!” began, as she thought, to hurl Lydia's things into the
water. But when she reached the same point, she found they had all been
caught, and deposited in a neat pile in a boat which lay below, where
two sailors stood waiting the captain's further orders. He keenly
measured the distance to the boat with his eye, and then he bade the men
work round outside a schooner which lay near; and jumping on board this
vessel, he helped Lydia and her grandfather down, and easily transferred
them to the small boat. The men bent to their oars, and pulled swiftly
out toward a ship that lay at anchor a little way off. A light breeze
crept along the water, which was here blue and clear, and the grateful
coolness and pleasant motion brought light into the girl's cheeks and
eyes. Without knowing it she smiled. “That's right!” cried Captain
Jenness, who had applauded her sob in the same terms. “_You'll_ like
it, first-rate. Look at that ship! _That's_ the Aroostook. _Is_ she a
beauty, or ain't she?”
The stately vessel stood high from the water, for Captain Jenness's
cargo was light, and he was going out chiefly for a return freight.
Sharp jibs and staysails cut their white outlines keenly against the
afternoon blue of the summer heaven; the topsails and courses dripped,
half-furled, from the yards stretching across the yellow masts that
sprang so far aloft; the hull glistened black with new paint. When Lydia
mounted to the deck she found it as clean scrubbed as her aunt's kitchen
floor. Her glance of admiration was not lost upon Captain Jenness. “Yes,
Miss Blood,” said he, “one difference between an American ship and any
other sort is dirt. I wish I could take you aboard an English vessel, so
you could appreciate the Aroostook. But I guess you don't need it,” he
added, with a proud satisfaction in his laugh. “The Aroostook ain't in
order yet; wait till we've been a few days at sea.” The captain swept
the deck with a loving eye. It was spacious and handsome, with a stretch
of some forty or fifty feet between the house at the stern and the
forecastle, which rose considerably higher; a low bulwark was surmounted
by a heavy rail supported upon turned posts painted white. Everything,
in spite of the captain's boastful detraction, was in perfect trim, at
least to landfolk's eyes. “Now come into the cabin,” said the captain.
He gave Lydia's traps, as he called them, in charge of a boy, while
he led the way below, by a narrow stairway, warning Lydia and her
grandfather to look out for their heads as they followed. “There!” he
said, when they had safely arrived, inviting their inspection of the
place with a general glance of his own.
“What did I tell you, Lyddy?” asked her grandfather, with simple joy in
the splendors about them. “Solid mahogany trimmin's everywhere.” There
was also a great deal of milk-white paint, with some modest touches of
gilding here and there. The cabin was pleasantly lit by the long low
windows which its roof rose just high enough to lift above the deck, and
the fresh air entered with the slanting sun. Made fast to the floor was
a heavy table, over which hung from the ceiling a swinging shelf. Around
the little saloon ran lockers cushioned with red plush. At either
end were four or five narrow doors, which gave into as many tiny
state-rooms. The boy came with Lydia's things, and set them inside one
of these doors; and when he came out again the captain pushed it
open, and called them in. “Here!” said he. “Here's where my girls made
themselves at home the last voyage, and I expect you'll find it pretty
comfortable. They say you don't feel the motion so much,--_I_ don't
know anything about the motion,--and in smooth weather you can have that
window open sometimes, and change the air. It's light and it's large.
Well, I had it fitted up for my wife; but she's got kind of on now, you
know, and she don't feel much like going any more; and so I always give
it to my nicest passenger.” This was an unmistakable compliment,
and Lydia blushed to the captain's entire content. “That's a rug she
hooked,” he continued, touching with his toe the carpet, rich in its
artless domestic dyes as some Persian fabric, that lay before the berth.
“These gimcracks belong to my girls; they left 'em.” He pointed to
various slight structures of card-board worked with crewel, which were
tacked to the walls. “Pretty snug, eh?”
“Yes,” said Lydia, “it's nicer than I thought it could be, even after
what grandfather said.”
“Well, that's right!” exclaimed the captain. “I like your way of
speaking up. I wish you could know my girls. How old are you now?”
“I'm nineteen,” said Lydia.
“Why, you're just between my girls!” cried the captain. “Sally is
twenty-one, and Persis is eighteen. Well, now, Miss Blood,” he said, as
they returned to the cabin, “you can't begin to make yourself at home
too soon for me. I used to sail to Cadiz and Malaga a good deal; and
when I went to see any of them Spaniards he'd say, 'This house is
yours.' Well, that's what I say: This ship is yours as long as you
stay in her. And I _mean_ it, and that's more than _they_ did!” Captain
Jenness laughed mightily, took some of Lydia's fingers in his left hand
and squeezed them, and clapped her grandfather on the shoulder with
his right. Then he slipped his hand down the old man's bony arm to the
elbow, and held it, while he dropped his head towards Lydia, and said,
“We shall be glad to have him stay to supper, and as much longer as he
likes, heh?”
“Oh, no!” said Lydia; “grandfather must go back on the six o'clock
train. My aunt expects him.” Her voice fell, and her face suddenly
clouded.
“Good!” cried the captain. Then he pulled out his watch, and held it
as far away as the chain would stretch, frowning at it with his head
aslant. “Well!” he burst out. “He hasn't got any too much time on his
hands.” The old man gave a nervous start, and the girl trembled. “Hold
on! Yes; there's time. It's only fifteen minutes after five.”
“Oh, but we were more than half an hour getting down here,” said Lydia,
anxiously. “And grandfather doesn't know the way back. He'll be sure to
get lost. I _wish_ we'd come in a carriage.”
“Couldn't 'a' kept the carriage waitin' on expense, Lyddy,” retorted her
grandfather, “But I tell you,” he added, with something like resolution,
“if I could find a carriage anywheres near that wharf, I'd take it, just
as _sure_! I wouldn't miss that train for more'n half a dollar. It would
cost more than that at a hotel to-night, let alone how your aunt Maria'd
feel.”
“Why, look here!” said Captain Jenness, naturally appealing to the girl.
“Let _me_ get your grandfather back. I've got to go up town again, any
way, for some last things, with an express wagon, and we can ride right
to the depot in that. Which depot is it?”
“Fitchburg,” said the old man eagerly.
“That's right!” commented the captain. “Get you there in plenty of time,
if we don't lose any now. And I'll tell you what, my little girl,” he
added, turning to Lydia: “if it'll be a comfort to you to ride up with
us, and see your grandfather off, why come along! _My_ girls went with
me the last time on an express wagon.”
“No,” answered Lydia. “I want to. But it wouldn't be any comfort. I
thought that out before I left home, and I'm going to say good-by to
grandfather here.”
“First-rate!” said Captain Jenness, bustling towards the gangway so as
to leave them alone. A sharp cry from the old man arrested him.
“Lyddy! Where's your trunks?”
“Why!” said the girl, catching her breath in dismay, “where _can_ they
be? I forgot all about them.”
“I got the checks fast enough,” said the old man, “and I shan't give 'em
up without I get the trunks. They'd ought to had 'em down here long
ago; and now if I've got to pester round after 'em I'm sure to miss the
train.”
“What shall we do?” asked Lydia.
“Let's see your checks,” said the captain, with an evident ease of
mind that reassured her. When her grandfather had brought them with
difficulty from the pocket visited last in the order of his search, and
laid them in the captain's waiting palm, the latter endeavored to get
them in focus. “What does it say on 'em?” he asked, handing them to
Lydia. “My eyes never _did_ amount to anything on shore.” She read aloud
the name of the express stamped on them. The captain gathered them back
into his hand, and slipped them into his pocket, with a nod and wink
full of comfort. “I'll see to it,” he said. “At any rate, this ship
ain't a-going to sail without them, if she waits a week. Now, then, Mr.
Latham!”
The old man, who waited, when not directly addressed or concerned, in a
sort of blank patience, suddenly started out of his daze, and following
the captain too alertly up the gangway stairs drove his hat against the
hatch--with a force that sent him back into Lydia's arms.
“Oh, grandfather, are you hurt?” she piteously asked, trying to pull up
the hat that was jammed down over his forehead.
“Not a bit! But I guess my hat's about done for,--without I can get it
pressed over; and I d'know as this kind of straw _doos_ press.”
“First-rate!” called the captain from above. “Never mind the hat.”
But the girl continued fondly trying to reshape it, while the old man
fidgeted anxiously, and protested that he would be sure to be left. It
was like a half-shut accordion when she took it from his head; when she
put it back it was like an accordion pulled out.
“All ready!” shouted Captain Jenness from the gap in the bulwark, where
he stood waiting to descend into the small boat. The old man ran towards
him in his senile haste, and stooped to get over the side into the boat
below.
“Why, grandfather!” cried the girl in a breaking voice, full of keen,
yet tender reproach.
“I declare for't,” he said, scrambling back to the deck. “I 'most
forgot. I be'n so put about.” He took Lydia's hand loosely into his own,
and bent forward to kiss her. She threw her arms round him, and while he
remained looking over her shoulder, with a face of grotesque perplexity,
and saying, “Don't cry, Lyddy, don't cry!” she pressed her face tighter
into his withered neck, and tried to muffle her homesick sobs. The
sympathies as well as the sensibilities often seem dulled by age. They
have both perhaps been wrought upon too much in the course of the years,
and can no longer respond to the appeal or distress which they can only
dimly realize; even the heart grows old. “Don't you, don't you, Lyddy!”
repeated the old man. “You mustn't. The captain's waitin'; and the
cars--well, every minute I lose makes it riskier and riskier; and your
aunt Maria, she's always so uneasy, you know!”
The girl was not hurt by his anxiety about himself; she was more anxious
about him than about anything else. She quickly lifted her head, and
drying her eyes, kissed him, forcing her lips into the smile that is
more heart-breaking to see than weeping. She looked over the side, as
her grandfather was handed carefully down to a seat by the two
sailors in the boat, and the captain noted her resolute counterfeit of
cheerfulness. “That's right!” he shouted up to her. “Just like my girls
when their mother left 'em. But bless you, they soon got over it, and
so'll you. Give way, men,” he said, in a lower voice, and the boat
shot from the ship's side toward the wharf. He turned and waved
his handkerchief to Lydia, and, stimulated apparently by this, her
grandfather felt in his pockets for his handkerchief; he ended after a
vain search by taking off his hat and waving that.
When he put it on again, it relapsed into that likeness of a half-shut
accordion from which Lydia had rescued it; but she only saw the face
under it.
As the boat reached the wharf an express wagon drove down, and Lydia saw
the sarcastic parley which she could not hear between the captain and
the driver about the belated baggage which the latter put off. Then she
saw the captain help her grandfather to the seat between himself and the
driver, and the wagon rattled swiftly out of sight. One of the sailors
lifted Lydia's baggage over the side of the wharf to the other in the
boat, and they pulled off to the ship with it.