NEWS FROM THE SHORE
BECAUSE Miles's hand was hurt, Goodwife Rigdale made much of him, till
he fairly resented it, for he had grown into the age where he was
sheepish and awkward under open petting. He soon slipped away from his
mother and the sympathetic Dolly, and went to spend his time with Jack
Cooke, who, during the day, while his father worked on shore, was glad
of company. The boys had now almost room enough on shipboard to play
satisfactorily, for many of the passengers had gone ashore; but it must
be quiet playing, for, of those who still remained in their cabins not
a few were ill.
Goodwife Rigdale was busied to and fro in caring for the sick ones,
and, at her bidding, Miles ran many an errand, to fetch water from the
casks on deck or heat a pot of broth in the ship's galley. But their
joint labor soon ended, for, a few days after the boy's return to the
ship, came a message from Goodman Rigdale: he was just touched with the
fever, he said, though nothing serious, but a many lay sick ashore,
and the Goodwife could aid them as well as himself; Mistress Brewster,
who, with her family, had gone to the settlement, had offered to
shelter her, and he prayed her come.
Next morning Goodwife Rigdale bundled her cloak about her, and set
out in the shallop. Miles, standing by the bulwark, watched her go,
but only for a time; it had snowed the night before, so the railings
were white and smooth to the touch, and he found it of more absorbing
interest to poke off strips of the frozen snow, and send them splashing
into the cold-looking water beneath the ship's side. By the time he
looked again to the shallop, it was so near shore he could no longer
make out his mother's figure, and his feet were chilled too, so he went
back to Dolly in the cabin.
At first he found it manly and grown up to be left in charge, for so
he esteemed his position. The cut in his hand was healing well, and
he felt he would have been working ashore, if it were not that some
one must mind his father's quarters on shipboard and care for Dolly
and Solomon. He ordered his sister about in a paternal manner; he
rebuked her severely if she so much as showed her small, snub nose on
the frosty deck without wrapping herself up well; and he even insisted
on her going to bed punctually at sundown, while he, in the glory of
manhood, waited in the great cabin to hear what news those who came
from the shore would bring.
But Dolly took her turn when it came to their daily meals, for she had
certain deft, housewifely ways, which Miles could not hope to imitate,
and he was ashamed even of trying to better himself, after he heard the
little woman speak like her mother of "men and boys that set a body's
kitchen in a mash." Miles might tug out the pot of broth,--'twas all he
was fit for; Goodwife Dolly would herself do the stirring and tasting;
and though, among so many cooks, the broth sometimes burned, yet they
always contrived to eat it.
The four of them--Miles, Dolly, Jack, and Solomon--ate their food
together in the Rigdales' cabin: most times it was only broth, or
perhaps salted meat and biscuit, which Goodwife Rigdale, before she
went away, had laid out for them; but once Goodman Cooke brought them
from the shore a large piece of a cold roast goose. There was but one
drumstick, and each felt he should have it,--Jack because he had been
ill, and Dolly because she was a girl, and Miles because he was the
eldest. Solomon said nothing, but he purred his loudest and rubbed his
head against Dolly's knee. They ended by eating the drumstick together,
each a bite, turn and turn about, and what they could not get from the
bone was left to Solomon, who dragged his ration beneath the bunk,
and, with eyes big and fiery, growled at them.
The children remembered that supper, not only because of the cold
goose, but because it was the last they ate together, for next morning
Goodman Cooke took Jack to the shore. Miles watched his friend's small
preparations enviously, and Dolly, who had come also to stand in the
doorway of the Cookes' cabin, voiced a sorrowful wish: "I think I'd
best go too, and see father and mother."
"They've no place to put you, lass," Goodman Cooke explained. "So soon
as there is place, they'll send for you both, be sure. For Doctor
Fuller says your father grows heartier, Miles," he went on; "you've no
need to worry yourself."
"Indeed, I have not worried," Miles answered, in some surprise.
After Jack went, life on shipboard was not so pleasant. Dolly began
to fret for her mother and scoff at Miles's authority; Miles grew
cross; and the broth burned oftener than ever, and finally, giving out
altogether, left them with nothing to eat but dry biscuit. With this
woful tale of starvation, Dolly betook herself at last to Constance
Hopkins in the great cabin, and Miles, glad that some one should make
known their unhappy state, yet ashamed to do so himself, lagged on
behind.
Constance Hopkins was Giles's sister, a slip of a lass, not three
years older than Miles, but to him she seemed quite grown up. Certainly
she bore the responsibilities of age in those days, for not only must
she nurse her stepmother, Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins, who lay helpless
in her cabin, but she must care for the baby, Oceanus, born on the
voyage across the sea, and the little half-sister, Damaris, a baby
also, not two years old. Yet somehow motherly little Constance found
time to comfort Dolly, and cook a bit of meat for hungry Miles, and
assure them both that their father and mother surely would come soon to
look to them.
Dolly hugged the "big girl," but Miles could scarcely do that, and he
knew no civil speech to tell his gratitude, so he was glad when, his
eyes falling on Damaris, he thought to pick her up. "I'll mind her for
you a bit, Constance," he offered.
Damaris was pleased with Miles's tousled hair and sturdy arms, that
held her more firmly than her half-sister could; and Miles, never
guessing what a source of misfortune her liking would prove to him
hereafter, was much elated at his success with her. He tugged baby
out on deck to show her the gulls looking for food in the water, and
the bright crusted snow that sparkled in the sunshine on the wooded
point. Damaris gurgled appreciatively and pulled Miles's hair; then,
when he carried her back into the cabin, slept like a kitten, whereat
Constance was so relieved and pleased that Miles gladly cared for the
baby, his baby, the next day, and the next.
[Illustration: "Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers."]
But the third day, a Friday, a pelting fine rain set in that made an
airing on the deck out of the question, not for the baby alone, but
for a well-grown boy and girl. Miles and Dolly went up to spend the
afternoon in the great cabin, because in their own quarters there was
no one to talk to, and, moreover, it was cold. In the main cabin they
would find some one to keep them company, and they could, at least,
warm their hands at the little fire burning in a tubful of sand, which
Constance often used in heating food for Mistress Hopkins.
But this afternoon the fire was out and Constance busied with her
mother, so the two children, disappointed, sat down together on a
rude bench, at the angle in the stern where two rows of little cabins
joined. "I wish I were with my mother," sniffed Dolly; and "'Twill do
you no good to cry," Miles checked her sternly.
"I was not crying, Miles Rigdale," the damsel answered hotly.
It was on Miles's lips to reply, when close at hand a voice spoke his
name, "Miles Rigdale!"
Readily enough he jumped up and went to the half-opened door of the
adjoining cabin. It was Captain Standish's cabin, he remembered now,
and, as he halted in the doorway, he perceived Mistress Rose
Standish lying in the bunk. A little of the afternoon light sifted
in through the tiny port-hole, and by it he noted how her hair fell
loosely about her face, unlike the way she wore it when on deck;
but her cheeks were rosy as ever, and her voice quite steady as she
spoke: "It's you, the lad my husband told me of? I thought I heard
one call you by name. Will you not do somewhat for me, Miles? Fetch
me my jug here full of water again. Goodwife Tinker was to look to
me to-day; I felt very well this morning. But she's ill now herself,
and when I tried to rise,--" she laughed, with a nervous catch in her
laughter,--"why, then things went whisking round me very strangely. But
you look as you still could stand stoutly, sir."
"I'll fetch you the water, and gladly, mistress," Miles answered, so
eagerly that he stammered. He stepped into the cabin to take the jug
from where it rested on a chest beneath the port-hole, and Dolly,
following shyly after, hesitated on the threshold.
"Is this little maid your sister?" Mistress Standish roused up to ask.
"Won't you come in and bear me company, sweetheart, while Miles fetches
the water?"
Dolly plaited a fold of her apron between her fingers and nodded dumbly.
"That's well," said Mistress Standish. "Sit you down here on the chest
by me. And I've some raisins of the sun you shall have if you'll stay."
"Dolly must not eat your raisins if you be sick." Miles formulated the
relentless principle which had been enforced as regards himself when
Dolly lay ill. "And I'll fetch the water speedily." He stood a moment
on the threshold, balancing the jug in one hand. "Mistress Standish,"
he blurted out, with sudden resolution, "would you not rather have beer
than water?"
"Than the water from the ship's casks, yes," she answered; "but 'twill
relish well enough, Miles. At even, when Captain Standish comes, mayhap
he'll get me a draught of beer."
"I'll get it for you now," Miles said cheerily, and walked away, with
his head up and the jug swinging.
Outside the door of the great cabin the chilly rain, that stung
finely on his cheeks, pricked him alive to realization of what he had
undertaken. Since Christmas, when the supply of the Pilgrim emigrants
had given out, beer could be obtained on board the _Mayflower_ only
from the ship's stores, through the courtesy of Master Jones, the
captain; and he was a terrible person. Most times he ranged about the
high quarter-deck, where only the chiefs of the Pilgrims dared go;
once Francis Billington, to show his daring, had clambered thither,
and Master Jones, without parley, had bidden his quartermaster, "Kick
that young imp down into Limbo, where he belongs." From that experience
Francis had been black and blue, and subdued in manner for a week.
So it was no wonder now that, for long minutes, Miles stood shivering
in the rain at the foot of the companion ladder, while he tried to
summon courage to venture up. He might never have arrived at such
hardihood, had not Jones himself, strolling forth upon the quarter-deck
to study the weather, observed him, and presently bellowed lustily:
"What beest thou staring up hither for, hey?"
"I--I want to come up, if it like you, sir," Miles piped quaveringly.
"Then come up. Beelzebub fetch thee! What's hindering thee?"
Miles could have answered truly that it was a loud-voiced,
broad-shouldered man, with a bushy gray beard, whose name was Jones,
that hindered him; but he thought best, even on so poor an invitation,
to scramble in silence up the steep ladder to the quarter-deck. The
wind there was high, so he gripped the bulwark to keep erect.
"Well, now thou art up, what is it thou wouldst have?" roared Jones.
"Beer, sir. For Captain Standish's wife. She is ill."
Master Jones hesitated a little minute, then caught Miles by the
collar of his doublet, and only let go when he landed him within
the roundhouse. Miles said nothing to this, but his heart thumped
alarmingly at finding himself thus tumbled headlong into the very lair
of the Master. Yet the roundhouse proved a harmless place, with its
shipshape bunks and table and stools; and one of the mates, who lay
upon a bunk, rose up at Jones's bidding, to do nothing more formidable
than fill Miles's jug from a keg that stood in one corner.
"Now see to it thou dost not filch the beer by the way," grumbled
Master Jones. "I be ready to give to your Captain's wife, but not to
fill the stomach of every knavish lad on shipboard; dost thou hear?"
"I wouldn't take the beer that was meant for Mistress Standish," Miles
said indignantly.
"Nay, but boys be a slippery race," growled the Master. "The saints be
blest I never had none!"
Miles privately was glad of that, for he could not help thinking how
unhappy a boy would be, with such an alarming father as Master Jones.
Very prudently, he did not say so, but, seizing his jug, backed out of
the roundhouse, almost too hastily to say "Thank you."
He had come back to a good conceit of himself, however, by the time he
had manoeuvred safely down the ticklish ladder, and he walked in on
Mistress Standish and Dolly quite proudly. Mistress Standish thanked
him mightily, enough to make Miles redden and shuffle his foot on the
floor. "But I liked to do it for you," he muttered.
After that he was persuaded to sit down on the chest beside Dolly, and
tell Mistress Standish all about how they were building houses on the
shore, and how he had gone to the Indian fields, and what a wonderful
dog Trug was. Dolly chimed in there to tell what a rare pussy Solomon
was, and how he would leap over your hands. Then Mistress Standish, who
lay listening, and seemed to like their talk, though she said little,
bade Miles bring her a box from a shelf against the wall, and in it,
sure enough, were a few big raisins and a small handful of currants.
The sight was too much for Miles's scruples, and when she urged the
children eat of them, he yielded, weakly as eager little Dolly. "We'll
take two raisins each," he said, with an effort at firmness, "and three
currants." Then, with a sigh, he shut the box up tight, and ate his own
share very slowly.
Dolly finished more speedily, and straightway Mistress Standish urged
her sing to them. "Dolly told me while you were gone that she is wont
to sing to mother," she explained to Miles. "Now I want her to sing to
me. You shall have more raisins if you will, Dolly, in spite of Brother
Miles."
Dolly was bashful, and, for all it was now murky twilight, so faces
were not plain to see, insisted on sitting on the other side of Miles,
where she could hide behind him. Then, at last, she sang. "Though it is
a worldly song," she protested.
"No matter. I am what your people call a worldly woman," Mistress
Standish answered.
So Dolly cuddled up to Miles and sang:--
"Skip and trip it,
Hey non nonny!
For the lark is in the clover,
And the fields are green and bonny,
And a dappled sky shows over.
Sing hey nonny nonny!
'Tis blithe world and gay,
When spring comes bonny
And the winter packs away."
There Dolly broke off, short and sudden, and Miles, looking to the
dusky doorway, saw a man's sturdy figure blocking it.
"'Tis you come back, Miles?" Mistress Standish spoke quickly. "Come you
in and sit down. Your namesake and his sister have been caring for me
bravely--"
"I'm sorry," came the Captain's voice out of the dark. "That is-- You
must be wearied now, sweetheart. Come, Miles, my soldier, I want to
speak with you."
Miles wondered why, as he stepped out from the cabin, the Captain
troubled to put one arm about his shoulders; he was pleased at the
caress, yet awkward in receiving it. "I want you to go in here," said
Captain Standish, leading him to the cabin that the Brewsters had
occupied. "Constance Hopkins is waiting within to tell you somewhat.
And you must remember, Miles, that you are to bear you like a man."
Miles wrested round suddenly and faced the Captain. There was a little
dim lantern light in this part of the great cabin, not enough for him
to read the other's face, but he could guess and feel what was coming.
"Has anything gone wrong with my mother? Tell me; tell me, quick!" he
cried.
"Not your mother, Miles. Your father."