THE LIFE-BOOK OF CAPTAIN JIM
“I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into
a magnificent moth of fulfilment,” Anne told Gilbert when she reached
home. He had returned earlier than she had expected, and was enjoying
Susan’s cherry pie. Susan herself hovered in the background, like a
rather grim but beneficent guardian spirit, and found as much pleasure
in watching Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it.
“What is your idea?” he asked.
“I sha’n’t tell you just yet--not till I see if I can bring the thing
about.”
“What sort of a chap is Ford?”
“Oh, very nice, and quite good-looking.”
“Such beautiful ears, doctor, dear,” interjected Susan with a relish.
“He is about thirty or thirty-five, I think, and he meditates writing a
novel. His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows
how to dress. He looks as if life hadn’t been altogether easy for him,
somehow.”
Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie;
they spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit
sail on the harbor, in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer
outings. They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having
known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the
house of Joseph. “He is as nice as his ears, Mrs. Doctor, dear,” said
Susan, when he had gone. He had told Susan that he had never tasted
anything like her strawberry shortcake and Susan’s susceptible heart
was his forever.
“He has got a way with him,” she reflected, as she cleared up the
relics of the supper. “It is real queer he is not married, for a man
like that could have anybody for the asking. Well, maybe he is like
me, and has not met the right one yet.”
Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the
supper dishes.
Two nights later Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds Point to
introduce him to Captain Jim. The clover fields along the harbor shore
were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his
finest sunsets on exhibition. He himself had just returned from a trip
over the harbor.
“I had to go over and tell Henry Pollack he was dying. Everybody else
was afraid to tell him. They expected he’d take on turrible, for he’s
been dreadful determined to live, and been making no end of plans for
the fall. His wife thought he oughter be told and that I’d be the best
one to break it to him that he couldn’t get better. Henry and me are
old cronies--we sailed in the Gray Gull for years together. Well, I
went over and sat down by Henry’s bed and I says to him, says I, jest
right out plain and simple, for if a thing’s got to be told it may as
well be told first as last, says I, ‘Mate, I reckon you’ve got your
sailing orders this time,’ I was sorter quaking inside, for it’s an
awful thing to have to tell a man who hain’t any idea he’s dying that
he is. But lo and behold, Mistress Blythe, Henry looks up at me, with
those bright old black eyes of his in his wizened face and says, says
he, ‘Tell me something I don’t know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me
information. I’ve known THAT for a week.’ I was too astonished to
speak, and Henry, he chuckled. ‘To see you coming in here,’ says he,
‘with your face as solemn as a tombstone and sitting down there with
your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue-mouldy
old item of news like that! It’d make a cat laugh, Jim Boyd,’ says he.
‘Who told you?’ says I, stupid like. ‘Nobody,’ says he. ‘A week ago
Tuesday night I was lying here awake--and I jest knew. I’d suspicioned
it before, but then I KNEW. I’ve been keeping up for the wife’s sake.
And I’d LIKE to have got that barn built, for Eben’ll never get it
right. But anyhow, now that you’ve eased your mind, Jim, put on a
smile and tell me something interesting,’ Well, there it was. They’d
been so scared to tell him and he knew it all the time. Strange how
nature looks out for us, ain’t it, and lets us know what we should know
when the time comes? Did I never tell you the yarn about Henry getting
the fish hook in his nose, Mistress Blythe?”
“No.”
“Well, him and me had a laugh over it today. It happened nigh unto
thirty years ago. Him and me and several more was out mackerel fishing
one day. It was a great day--never saw such a school of mackerel in
the gulf--and in the general excitement Henry got quite wild and
contrived to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose.
Well, there he was; there was barb on one end and a big piece of lead
on the other, so it couldn’t be pulled out. We wanted to take him
ashore at once, but Henry was game; he said he’d be jiggered if he’d
leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw; then he kept
fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning between times.
Fin’lly the school passed and we come in with a load; I got a file and
begun to try to file through that hook. I tried to be as easy as I
could, but you should have heard Henry--no, you shouldn’t either. It
was well no ladies were around. Henry wasn’t a swearing man, but he’d
heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he
fished ’em all out of his recollection and hurled ’em at me. Fin’lly
he declared he couldn’t stand it and I had no bowels of compassion. So
we hitched up and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown, thirty-five
miles--there weren’t none nearer in them days--with that blessed hook
still hanging from his nose. When we got there old Dr. Crabb jest took
a file and filed that hook jest the same as I’d tried to do, only he
weren’t a mite particular about doing it easy!”
Captain Jim’s visit to his old friend had revived many recollections
and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences.
“Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Father Chiniquy
blessed Alexander MacAllister’s boat. Another odd yarn--and true as
gospel. I was in the boat myself. We went out, him and me, in
Alexander MacAllister’s boat one morning at sunrise. Besides, there
was a French boy in the boat--Catholic of course. You know old Father
Chiniquy had turned Protestant, so the Catholics hadn’t much use for
him. Well, we sat out in the gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and
not a bite did we get. When we went ashore old Father Chiniquy had to
go, so he said in that polite way of his, ‘I’m very sorry I cannot go
out with you dis afternoon, Mr. MacAllister, but I leave you my
blessing. You will catch a t’ousand dis afternoon. ‘Well, we did not
catch a thousand, but we caught exactly nine hundred and
ninety-nine--the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole north
shore that summer. Curious, wasn’t it? Alexander MacAllister, he says
to Andrew Peters, ‘Well, and what do you think of Father Chiniquy now?’
‘Vell,’ growled Andrew, ‘I t’ink de old devil has got a blessing left
yet.’ Laws, how Henry did laugh over that today!”
“Do you know who Mr. Ford is, Captain Jim?” asked Anne, seeing that
Captain Jim’s fountain of reminiscence had run out for the present. “I
want you to guess.”
Captain Jim shook his head.
“I never was any hand at guessing, Mistress Blythe, and yet somehow
when I come in I thought, ‘Where have I seen them eyes before?’--for I
HAVE seen ’em.”
“Think of a September morning many years ago,” said Anne, softly.
“Think of a ship sailing up the harbor--a ship long waited for and
despaired of. Think of the day the Royal William came in and the first
look you had at the schoolmaster’s bride.”
Captain Jim sprang up.
“They’re Persis Selwyn’s eyes,” he almost shouted. “You can’t be her
son--you must be her--”
“Grandson; yes, I am Alice Selwyn’s son.”
Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again.
“Alice Selwyn’s son! Lord, but you’re welcome! Many’s the time I’ve
wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living. I knew
there was none on the Island. Alice--Alice--the first baby ever born
in that little house. No baby ever brought more joy! I’ve dandled her
a hundred times. It was from my knee she took her first steps alone.
Can’t I see her mother’s face watching her--and it was near sixty years
ago. Is she living yet?”
“No, she died when I was only a boy.”
“Oh, it doesn’t seem right that I should be living to hear that,”
sighed Captain Jim. “But I’m heart-glad to see you. It’s brought back
my youth for a little while. You don’t know yet what a boon THAT is.
Mistress Blythe here has the trick--she does it quite often for me.”
Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford
was what he called a “real writing man.” He gazed at him as at a
superior being. Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never
taken that fact very seriously. Captain Jim thought women were
delightful creatures, who ought to have the vote, and everything else
they wanted, bless their hearts; but he did not believe they could
write.
“Jest look at A Mad Love,” he would protest. “A woman wrote that and
jest look at it--one hundred and three chapters when it could all have
been told in ten. A writing woman never knows when to stop; that’s the
trouble. The p’int of good writing is to know when to stop.”
“Mr. Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim” said Anne.
“Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was
the Flying Dutchman.”
This was Captain Jim’s best story. It was a compound of horror and
humor, and though Anne had heard it several times she laughed as
heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr. Ford did. Other
tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart.
He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer; how he had been
boarded by Malay pirates; how his ship had caught fire; how he helped a
political prisoner escape from a South African republic; how he had
been wrecked one fall on the Magdalens and stranded there for the
winter; how a tiger had broken loose on board ship; how his crew had
mutinied and marooned him on a barren island--these and many other
tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate. The
mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of
adventure, the laughter of the world--his hearers felt and realized
them all. Owen Ford listened, with his head on his hand, and the First
Mate purring on his knee, his brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim’s
rugged, eloquent face.
“Won’t you let Mr. Ford see your life-book, Captain Jim?” asked Anne,
when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn-spinning must end for the
time.
“Oh, he don’t want to be bothered with THAT,” protested Captain Jim,
who was secretly dying to show it.
“I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd,” said Owen.
“If it is half as wonderful as your tales it will be worth seeing.”
With pretended reluctance Captain Jim dug his life-book out of his old
chest and handed it to Owen.
“I reckon you won’t care to wrastle long with my old hand o’ write. I
never had much schooling,” he observed carelessly. “Just wrote that
there to amuse my nephew Joe. He’s always wanting stories. Comes here
yesterday and says to me, reproachful-like, as I was lifting a
twenty-pound codfish out of my boat, ‘Uncle Jim, ain’t a codfish a dumb
animal?’ I’d been a-telling him, you see, that he must be real kind to
dumb animals, and never hurt ’em in any way. I got out of the scrape
by saying a codfish was dumb enough but it wasn’t an animal, but Joe
didn’t look satisfied, and I wasn’t satisfied myself. You’ve got to be
mighty careful what you tell them little critters. THEY can see
through you.”
While talking, Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the corner of his eye
as the latter examined the life-book; and presently observing that his
guest was lost in its pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and
proceeded to make a pot of tea. Owen Ford separated himself from the
life-book, with as much reluctance as a miser wrenches himself from his
gold, long enough to drink his tea, and then returned to it hungrily.
“Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to,” said
Captain Jim, as if the “thing” were not his most treasured possession.
“I must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids. There’s a wind
coming. Did you notice the sky tonight?
Mackerel skies and mares’ tails
Make tall ships carry short sails.”
Owen Ford accepted the offer of the life-book gladly. On their way
home Anne told him the story of lost Margaret.
“That old captain is a wonderful old fellow,” he said. “What a life he
has led! Why, the man had more adventures in one week of his life than
most of us have in a lifetime. Do you really think his tales are all
true?”
“I certainly do. I am sure Captain Jim could not tell a lie; and
besides, all the people about here say that everything happened as he
relates it. There used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to
corroborate him. He’s one of the last of the old type of P.E. Island
sea-captains. They are almost extinct now.”