NEW FRIENDS AND THE GREEN STAIRS
THE town filled up with artists earlier than usual that summer. Stable
lofts and old boathouses along the shore blossomed into studios.
Sketching classes met in the rooms of the big summer art schools which
made the Cape end famous, or set up their models down by the wharfs. One
ran into easels pitched in the most public places: on busy street
corners, on the steps of the souvenir shops and even in front of the
town hall. People in paint-besmeared smocks, loaded with canvases,
sketching stools and palettes, filled the board-walk and overflowed into
the middle of the street.
The _Dorothy Bradford_ steamed up to the wharf from Boston with her
daily load of excursionists, and the "accommodation" busses began to ply
up and down the three miles of narrow street with its restless tide of
summer visitors.
Up along, through the thick of it one June morning, came the Towncrier,
a picturesque figure in his short blue jacket and wide seaman's
trousers, a red bandanna knotted around his throat and a wide-rimmed
straw hat on the back of his head.
"Notice!" he cried, after each vigorous ringing of his big brass bell.
"Lost, between Mayflower Heights and the Gray Inn, a black leather
bill-case with important papers."
He made slow progress, for someone stopped him at almost every rod with
a word of greeting, and he stopped to pat every dog which thrust a
friendly nose into his hand in passing. Several times strangers stepped
up to him to inquire into his affairs as if he were some ancient
historical personage come to life. Once he heard a man say:
"Quick with your kodak, Ethel. Catch the Towncrier as he comes along.
They say there's only one other place in the whole United States that
has one. You can't afford to miss anything _this_ quaint."
It was nearly noon when he came towards the end of the beach. He walked
still more slowly here, for many cottages had been opened for summer
residents since the last time he passed along, and he knew some of the
owners. He noticed that the loft above a boat-house which had once been
the studio of a famous painter of marine scenes was again in use. He
wondered who had taken it. Almost across from it was the "Green Stairs"
where Georgina always came to meet him if she were outdoors and heard
his bell.
The "Green Stairs" was the name she had given to a long flight of wooden
steps with a railing on each side, leading from the sidewalk up a steep
embankment to the bungalow on top. It was a wide-spreading bungalow
with as many windows looking out to sea as a lighthouse, and had had an
especial interest for Georgina, since she heard someone say that its
owner, Mr. Milford, was an old bachelor who lived by himself. She used
to wonder when she was younger if "all the bread and cheese he got he
kept upon a shelf." Once she asked Barbara why he didn't "go to London
to get him a wife," and was told probably because he had so many guests
that there wasn't time. Interesting people were always coming and going
about the house; men famous for things they had done or written or
painted.
Now as the Towncrier came nearer, he saw Georgina skipping along toward
him with her jumping rope. She was bare-headed, her pink dress
fluttering in the salt breeze, her curls blowing back from her glowing
little face. He would have hastened his steps to meet her, but his
honest soul always demanded a certain amount of service from himself for
the dollar paid him for each trip of this kind. So he went on at his
customary gait, stopping at the usual intervals to ring his bell and
call his news.
At the Green Stairs Georgina paused, her attention attracted by a
foreign-looking battleship just steaming into the harbor. She was
familiar with nearly every kind of sea-going craft that ever anchored
here, but she could not classify this one. With her hands behind her,
clasping her jumping rope ready for another throw, she stood looking
out to sea. Presently a slight scratching sound behind her made her turn
suddenly. Then she drew back startled, for she was face to face with a
dog which was sitting on the step just on a level with her eyes. He was
a ragged-looking tramp of a dog, an Irish terrier, but he looked at her
in such a knowing, human way that she spoke to him as if he had been a
person.
"For goodness' sake, how you made me jump! I didn't know anybody was
sitting there behind me."
It was almost uncanny the way his eyes twinkled through his hair, as if
he were laughing with her over some good joke they had together. It gave
her such a feeling of comradeship that she stood and smiled back at him.
Suddenly he raised his right paw and thrust it towards her. She drew
back another step. She was not used to dogs, and she hesitated about
touching anything with such claws in it as the paw he gravely presented.
But as he continued to hold it out she felt it would be impolite not to
respond in some way, so reaching out very cautiously she gave it a limp
shake. Then as he still kept looking at her with questioning eyes she
asked quite as if she expected him to speak, "What's your name, Dog?"
A voice from the top of the steps answered, "It's Captain Kidd." Even
more startled than when the dog had claimed her attention, she glanced
up to see a small boy on the highest step. He was sucking an orange,
but he took his mouth away from it long enough to add, "His name's on
his collar that he got yesterday, and so's mine. You can look at 'em if
you want to."
Georgina leaned forward to peer at the engraving on the front of the
collar, but the hair on the shaggy throat hid it, and she was timid
about touching a spot just below such a wide open mouth with a red
tongue lolling out of it. She put her hands behind her instead.
"Is--is he--a pirate dog?" she ventured.
The boy considered a minute, not wanting to say yes if pirates were not
respectable in her eyes, and not wanting to lose the chance of
glorifying him if she held them in as high esteem as he did. After a
long meditative suck at his orange he announced, "Well, he's just as
good as one. He buries all his treasures. That's why we call him Captain
Kidd."
Georgina shot a long, appraising glance at the boy from under her dark
lashes. His eyes were dark, too. There was something about him that
attracted her, even if his face was smeary with orange juice and
streaked with dirty finger marks. She wanted to ask more about Captain
Kidd, but her acquaintance with boys was as slight as with dogs.
Overcome by a sudden shyness she threw her rope over her head and went
skipping on down the boardwalk to meet the Towncrier.
The boy stood up and looked after her. He wished she hadn't been in such
a hurry. It had been the longest morning he ever lived through. Having
arrived only the day before with his father to visit at the bungalow he
hadn't yet discovered what there was for a boy to do in this strange
place. Everybody had gone off and left him with the servants, and told
him to play around till they got back. It wouldn't be long, they said,
but he had waited and waited until he felt he had been looking out to
sea from the top of those green steps all the days of his life. Of
course, he wouldn't want to play with just a girl, but----
He watched the pink dress go fluttering on, and then he saw Georgina
take the bell away from the old man as if it were her right to do so.
She turned and walked along beside him, tinkling it faintly as she
talked. He wished _he_ had a chance at it. He'd show her how loud he
could make it sound.
"Notice," called the old man, seeing faces appear at some of the windows
they were passing. "Lost, a black leather bill-case----"
The boy, listening curiously, slid down the steps until he reached the
one on which the dog was sitting, and put his arm around its neck. The
banister posts hid him from the approaching couple. He could hear
Georgina's eager voice piping up flute-like:
"It's a pirate dog, Uncle Darcy. He's named Captain Kidd because he
buries his treasures."
In answer the old man's quavering voice rose in a song which he had
roared lustily many a time in his younger days, aboard many a gallant
vessel:
"_Oh, my name is Captain Kidd,
And many wick-ud things I did,
And heaps of gold I hid,
As I sailed._"
The way his voice slid down on the word wick-_ud_ made a queer thrilly
feeling run down the boy's back, and all of a sudden the day grew
wonderfully interesting, and this old seaport town one of the nicest
places he had ever been in. The singer stopped at the steps and
Georgina, disconcerted at finding the boy at such close range when she
expected to see him far above her, got no further in her introduction to
Captain Kidd than "Here he----"
But the old man needed no introduction. He had only to speak to the dog
to set every inch of him quivering in affectionate response. "Here's a
friend worth having," the raggedy tail seemed to signal in a wig-wag
code of its own.
Then the wrinkled hand went from the dog's head to the boy's shoulder
with the same kind of an affectionate pat. "What's _your_ name, son?"
"Richard Morland."
"What?" was the surprised question. "Are you a son of the artist
Morland, who is visiting up here at the Milford bungalow?"
"Yes, that's us."
"Well, bless my stars, it's _his_ bill-case I have been crying all
morning. If I'd known there was a fine lad like you sitting about doing
nothing, I'd had you with me, ringing the bell."
The little fellow's face glowed. He was as quick to recognize a friend
worth having as Captain Kidd had been.
"Say," he began, "if it was Daddy's bill-case you were shouting about,
you needn't do it any longer. It's found. Captain Kidd came in with it
in his mouth just after Daddy went away. He was starting to dig a hole
in the sand down by the garage to bury it in, like he does everything.
He's hardly done being a puppy yet, you know. I took it away from him
and reckanized it, and I've been waiting here all morning for Dad to
come home."
He began tugging at the pocket into which he had stowed the bill-case
for safe-keeping, and Captain Kidd, feeling that it was his by right of
discovery, stood up, wagging himself all over, and poking his nose in
between them, with an air of excited interest. The Towncrier shook his
finger at him.
"You rascal! I suppose you'll be claiming the reward next thing, you old
pirate! How old is he, Richard?"
"About a year. He was given to me when he was just a little puppy."
"And how old are you, son?"
"Ten my last birthday, but I'm so big for my age I wear 'leven-year-old
suits."
Now the Towncrier hadn't intended to stop, but the dog began burrowing
its head ecstatically against him, and there was something in the boy's
lonesome, dirty little face which appealed to him, and the next thing he
knew he was sitting on the bottom step of the Green Stairs with Georgina
beside him, telling the most thrilling pirate story he knew. And he told
it more thrillingly than he had ever told it before. The reason for this
was he had never had such a spellbound listener before. Not even Justin
had hung on each word with the rapt interest this boy showed. His dark
eyes seemed to grow bigger and more luminous with each sentence, more
intense in their piercing gaze. His sensitive mouth changed expression
with every phase of the adventure--danger, suspense, triumph. He
scarcely breathed, he was listening so hard.
Suddenly the whistle at the cold-storage plant began to blow for noon,
and the old man rose stiffly, saying:
"I'm a long way from home, I should have started back sooner."
"Oh, but you haven't finished the story!" cried the boy, in distress at
this sudden ending. "It _couldn't_ stop there."
Georgina caught him by the sleeve of the old blue jacket to pull him
back to the seat beside her.
"_Please_, Uncle Darcy!"
It was the first time in all her coaxing that that magic word failed to
bend him to her wishes.
"No," he answered firmly, "I can't finish it now, but I'll tell you what
I'll do. This afternoon I'll row up to this end of the beach in my dory
and take you two children out to the weirs to see the net hauled in.
There's apt to be a big catch of squid worth going to see, and I'll
finish the story on the way. Will that suit you?"
Richard stood up, as eager and excited as Captain Kidd always was when
anybody said "Rats!" But the next instant the light died out of his eyes
and he plumped himself gloomily down on the step, as if life were no
longer worth living.
"Oh, bother!" he exclaimed. "I forgot. I can't go anywhere. Dad's
painting my portrait, and I have to stick around so's he can work on it
any old time he feels like it. That's why he brought me on this visit
with him, so's he can finish it up here."
"Maybe you can beg off, just for to-day," suggested Mr. Darcy.
"No, it's very important," he explained gravely. "It's the best one
Daddy's done yet, and the last thing before we left home Aunt Letty
said, 'Whatever you do, boys, don't let anything interfere with getting
that picture done in time to hang in the exhibition,' and we both
promised."
There was gloomy silence for a moment, broken by the old man's cheerful
voice.
"Well, don't you worry till you see what we can do. I want to see your
father anyhow about this bill-case business, so I'll come around this
afternoon, and if he doesn't let you off to-day maybe he will to-morrow.
Just trust your Uncle Darcy for getting where he starts out to go. Skip
along home, Georgina, and tell your mother I want to borrow you for the
afternoon."
An excited little pink whirlwind with a jumping rope going over and over
its head, went flying up the street toward the end of the beach. A
smiling old man with age looking out of his faded blue eyes but with the
spirit of boyhood undimmed in his heart, walked slowly down towards the
town. And on the bottom step of the Green Stairs, his arm around Captain
Kidd, the boy sat watching them, looking from one to the other as long
as they were in sight. The heart of him was pounding deliciously to the
music of such phrases as, "_Fathoms deep, lonely beach, spade and
pickaxe, skull and cross-bones, bags of golden doubloons and chests of
ducats and pearls!_"
[Illustration]