The cobblestones of Main Street—until recently known as State—were
slippery after a heavy shower, and Erica, picking a careful way across
them that she might not bespatter her white stockings with mud, spied a
plump and dignified figure in sober Quaker garb wending its way up the
street ahead of her, and called after it, anxiously: “Mrs. Macy! Oh,
Mrs. Macy, please!”
The plump little lady turned at the sound of her name, smiling. “Good
morning, Erica,” she said. “Was thee trying to overtake me, my dear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Erica was panting with her own hurry. “But you walk twice
as fast as Aunt Charity. I was just going to your house with a message.
Aunt Charity wants that you and Captain Bartlet should come to supper
tomorrow night at six o’clock. You know Tommy is going to sea in the
_Spray_ and—” A sudden twinkle in the little old lady’s blue eyes was
answered by a twinkle in Erica’s. “Yes’m, I guess Aunt Charity thinks
it’s her bounden duty to talk to Captain Bartlet about Tommy.”
“Walk home with me, my dear, and we’ll ask the captain,” Mrs. Macy
invited. “For my part, I shall be pleased to accept. How does thee feel
about Tommy’s going? Won’t thee and Lister both miss him very much?”
Quick tears blurred Erica’s eyes, but she pretended to be looking at
something across Main Street, and wiped them away fiercely with the back
of her hand—having, as usual, mislaid her neat white pocket
handkerchief.
“Yes, ma’am, we will,” she said, dully.
The more she had thought about Tommy’s departure during the past three
days since she had heard the news, the more utterly calamitous it seemed
to her. But Erica’s code was the code drilled into her by Lis and Tommy,
which insisted that tears, particularly in public, were shameful even
for a girl; also that whining over what was fixed and settled was
something only spoiled children did. Besides, Tommy was in the seventh
heaven of delight at the prospect of his first voyage. Even delicate
Aunt Callie, his mother, tightened her lips and tried to smile at his
raptures, instead of dwelling on her own sense of loss.
“Yes’m,” Erica repeated, “we’re going to miss him, I expect.”
They turned into Center Street, and walked two blocks along it to
Pearl—the latter name, changed a few years before, unfortunately, from
India Street. Mrs. Macy’s house was small and neat and white, set back
from the street behind a prim garden blazing with late fall dahlias,
Spanish Browns, and small, hardy chrysanthemums.
A tall man with iron-gray hair and a gray beard stood in the open
doorway, glancing up at the clouds breaking overhead after the rain.
“Judson,” Mrs. Macy greeted her brother, “thee needn’t study the sky for
an hour. I can tell thee that it’s going to clear, unless the fog comes
in again. Here’s Erica Folger bringing us an invitation from Miss
Charity to supper tomorrow night—” She broke off with a little gasp.
“La, Erica! _what_ has come of thy nice thick braids?”
For without thinking what she was about, Erica had snatched off her
bonnet, which had heretofore hidden her revolutionary hair-cut, and was
fanning herself vigorously, swinging it by its strings. Erica hated
bonnets among the many other restraining things of life that seemed to
her young impatience so needless.
Now, startled, her hand flew self-consciously to her head, and her smile
was sheepish.
“I forgot, or I wouldn’t have taken my bonnet off,” she admitted. “I cut
my hair off day before yesterday. I’ve wanted to for a long while. My
braids were so heavy and troublesome, and I’ve always envied Tommy and
Lis being so—so free. At last I just chopped them off. Aunt Charity was
like to have fainted when she saw me.”
“I don’t wonder,” Mrs. Macy said, decidedly. “My dear, who ever heard
tell of a girl with short hair? If it had been Mollie, I don’t know what
I would have done.”
Here Captain Bartlet interposed, seeing Erica’s cheeks crimsoning a
deeper hue of combined anger and mortification.
“Belay there, Mary,” he said in his deep, kindly voice. “Thee is making
the lass unhappy. And there’s no more use crying over a shorn head than
over spilled milk, as I see it.” He looked at the red bob shrewdly.
“Never having been a lass, I can’t say how they’re supposed to feel,” he
added, a slow smile showing above the neatly trimmed gray beard, “but I
guess that crop of red curls ought to be a sight easier to carry about
than full sail. Hey?”
Erica flashed him a grateful smile. “Yes, oh, it _is_! _Ever_ so much
lighter and easier, Captain Bartlet!”
“Kind o’ pretty, too,” he said, gallantly. “An’ grows prettier the
longer I look at it. Seems to me I used to know thee as a baby, or not
much more’n one. Isn’t thee a sister of my new cabin boy, missy?”
“No, I’m his cousin,” Erica said, approving of this big, bluff, friendly
Quaker captain more and more. She was so thankful he was like this, for
Tommy’s sake. She felt suddenly emboldened to put her muscular, tanned
young hand on his arm pleadingly. “He’s a nice boy—Tommy,” she said,
breathlessly. “He—he really is. He’ll learn quickly. And—and I’d rather
be going to sea, too, than anything in this world.”
“Ho!” said the captain, with a great shout of laughter. “So that’s why
thee cut off the pigtails, missy?” He shook a huge forefinger at her
playfully. “Some day thee’ll be adopting boy’s clothes, as well as a
hair-cut, and running off to sea in my ship.” At sea, Captain Bartlet
usually fell into the more usual “you” and “your,” but ashore in
Nantucket he was always scrupulous about the Friends’ mode of speech.
“I’d like to,” Erica laughed back. “Only, if I did run, it would be in
my father’s ship. He’s got a clipper, too, in the China trade.”
“Not Captain Eric Folger of the _Sea Gull_?” the other demanded in
surprise. “Somehow, I’d forgotten to associate him with Nantucket,
though I’ve known thy Aunt Charity and Tommy’s mother for years. Last
voyage but one, the _Spray_ and the _Sea Gull_ lay side by side in the
harbor at Canton, waiting for a fog to lift and let us up to the city.”
“I’ve been there, too,” Erica said, impulsively. “Only I don’t remember
it. I was born at sea, two days before we put in at Canton. My mother
died there, and a great friend of father’s—a Chinese merchant named Sun
Li—sent his little son’s nurse on board to take care of me on the way
home. Ever since then, every voyage father makes to China he brings me
home a present from my Chinese godfather. That’s what he calls himself.
Aunt Charity won’t let me wear the things yet, because she says they’re
too gorgeous. But some of the jade has his seal on it—maybe you’d know
him from it—like this.” With her finger nail she traced an intricate
pattern of characters in the smooth dirt of a flower pot on the porch
railing, looking up eagerly at the captain when it was done.
He bent over it, smiling at her enthusiasm, but when he lifted his head
his expression was faintly astonished and puzzled.
“I don’t know of any merchant named Sun Li,” he said, but he bent once
more and studied the crude little drawing in the dirt. “Thee is sure
thee has it right, my dear?”
“I have every line by heart,” Erica said, proudly. “I’m sorry you don’t
know him. Father does some trading with him, I think.”
“I don’t know him,” the captain repeated, but his thoughts were suddenly
busy. Captain Folger of the _Sea Gull_ was a name synonymous with fast
voyages, also with better cargoes, more quickly loaded, than most of the
clippers could boast. There had been rumors of special high
protection—of favors and concessions shown the Nantucket man. Of course,
it may all have been idle gossip of the water front and the bazaars. But
Captain Bartlet had certainly seen a seal once before like these few
scratched marks in the dirt of his sister’s flower pot. Only he knew of
no one named Sun Li.
Erica hurried down the brick walk, anxious to find Tommy and report the
captain’s genial mood. “I’ll tell Aunt Charity you will both come
tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder to Mrs. Macy.
The boys and Erica were not permitted to be present at the supper party
on the morrow. Aunt Callie was there, of course, and Mr. Presbyn, the
Congregational minister, besides Mrs. Macy and the guest of honor, and
the table groaned under a load of the good things Aunt Charity’s kitchen
was famed for producing—home-cured sugar-baked ham; flaky soda biscuits
still smoking from the oven; steaming, fragrant coffee in the old Folger
silver pot; thick cream for the coffee and for the deep-apple pie that
came afterward; unsalted butter, churned at home; and ginger preserve
made from real ginger roots that had been brought across the Pacific in
a tea clipper.
Erica, invited to keep the twins company at supper in Aunt Callie’s
cheerful brick-floored kitchen, made their mouths water cruelly with a
vivid account of the feast spread for their elders and betters on Aunt
Charity’s side of the fence, meanwhile munching with zest fresh
gingerbread and baked apples, washed down with glasses of cold, creamy
milk.
“You’re awfully glad to be going to sea, Tommy, aren’t you?” she asked,
wistfully, later, when the meal was over and the three had washed the
supper dishes gayly, and now sat at ease before the huge fireplace, with
its swinging crane, and the old Dutch oven at the side. (Aunt Callie
still clung, as so many island housewives did, to the custom of cooking
over the open fire.)
“‘Course I’m glad,” Tommy said, lolling back in his big chair with lazy
content. And he added, teasingly: “Don’t you wish you were a boy? Poor
Rick!”
“Yes, I do,” Erica declared, “but I’m not going to sit here all evening
moaning about it. There’s the most gorgeous full moon outside—the
‘Hunter’s Moon,’ don’t they call it? Let’s all go down to the wharf and
take a last look at Captain Joy’s _Narwhal_. She’s sailing tomorrow
morning at high tide. A ship out in that harbor with the full moon on
her is somehow awfully exciting. They always make me think of pirates,
the sails look so black and mysterious against the moon.”
The _Narwhal_ was a whaler, bound for the South Seas on what would
probably be a three-year cruise, and Erica and the twins had known her
captain and crew (most of them Nantucket men) as long as they could
remember.
“Do you think Aunt Charity will like you to go down there so late?”
Lister asked, doubtfully. Girls were supposed to sit at home in those
days, when even the mildest of adventures were afoot.
“Oh, Tommy and you can protect me,” Erica retorted, flippantly. “Anyhow,
I’m in disgrace with Aunt Charity already, on account of my hair, so a
bit more or less won’t matter.” She was bundling on her wraps as she
spoke, for the evening was cold outside with the chill of the strong
northeaster blowing in from the sea.
Knowing Erica’s stubbornness of old, the twins pulled on caps and
overcoats and followed her to the back door. Lis offered one final
protest, but half-heartedly. “And mother won’t like it if we leave the
house alone, with the fire burning and the lamp lit.”
“Bank the fire with ashes,” Erica said, resourcefully. “And we can blow
out the lamp. Hurry up, you two, or I go without you.”
Five minutes later they were out in the cold, moon-flooded quiet of
Orange Street. They walked in the middle of the deserted road, arms
linked, whistling softly under their breaths. Erica’s spirits had soared
suddenly and unaccountably as high as Tommy’s for this night at least,
and Lis was always willing enough to share their moods, in his own
contained, level-headed fashion.
Then, arms still linked, they fell to dancing in long, gliding skating
steps, weaving from side to side of the road, spirits mounting
hilariously with the exercise and the heady autumn air, that tonight
smelled again of sea salt and the spicy scent of sweet-fern and
bayberry. Finally, breathless with laughter, they swung about the corner
into Main Street, and sobered to a more decorous gait.
“Aunt Charity will never,” Erica panted, “make a perfect lady of me. I
love to move about, and run and shout and _do_ things too much. Oh-h-h!
there’s the _Narwhal_ now! Doesn’t she look like a pirate ship, just as
I said?”
They had reached the wharf, and stood gazing out at the dark harbor
water, across which a broad golden pathway stretched from the Coatue
shore almost to their feet. The moon itself, a huge round disk of
orange, like a Chinese lantern, hung low in the sky, and it seemed to
the three rapt children that the whole atmosphere about them was shot
through with a fine golden mist that rose partly from the path of gold
on the water, and partly dropped, curtain-like, from the moon above it.
“Oh, Tommy, think of how that moon’ll look at sea!” Erica cried, softly,
clutching his sleeve with a new big lump in her throat. “If only I’d
been a boy, you and Lis and I could have shipped together, and gone
adventuring like those friends in that book in your mother’s
library—_The Three Musketeers_.”
“Better not let Aunt Charity know you’ve read that book,” Tommy adjured
her, wisely ignoring the little traitorous break in Erica’s voice. Of
course Erica wasn’t the kind of girl who spilled tears all over the
place, but then, as Tommy philosophised to himself, you never could be
sure about a girl—even the most sensible of them surprised you once in a
while.
“I hate this being always told ‘Don’t do this,’ ‘Don’t read that,’ or
‘Don’t say the other thing,’” Erica burst out, rebelliously. It was an
old grievance. “There’s so little that’s really ladylike for a girl to
do.”
“Listen,” Lis broke in, lifting an emphatic hand for silence. “It
sounded like somebody calling ‘Help.’ Didn’t either of you hear it?”
Straining their ears, Tommy and Erica listened, and faintly but very
distinctly there came to all three the sound repeated. There was no
doubt this time about its being a cry of distress, and it appeared to
come, alarmingly, from the water somewhere off the wharf’s end.
“Some one’s fallen overboard,” Tommy shouted, excitedly. And tearing off
cap and coat with a single jerk, tossed these cumbering articles of
apparel aside and raced down the dock in the direction of the cry.
Lister and Erica were only a step or two behind him, but not near enough
to hold him back from the reckless project he so obviously had in mind.
Reaching the edge of the wharf, he mounted in one agile leap to the
heavy timbering at the side and, lifting both arms above his head, dove
into the blackness below.
Erica’s cry of frightened protest rang out simultaneously with Tommy’s
dive, and the next moment both Lister and she were standing on the edge
of the wharf, staring anxiously down at the choppy little waves raised
by the wind’s violence.
The side of the wharf Tommy had dived from was that away from the moon,
and until the eyes of the two up above grew accustomed to the darkness,
they could make out nothing. Then, gradually, they could see the white
outline of the little wave-crests and the blacker hollows between, and
last of all a moving, dark object that looked like a head swimming very
slowly back toward the dock.
“Tommy!” Erica called, urgently. “Tommy, is that you? Can you make the
ladder—it’s right beside you—or do you want us to find a rope?”
“I’ve got a man here,” came Tommy’s voice, slightly muffled by a too
inquisitive wave that hit him squarely on the mouth as he opened it to
answer. “He’s either dead or unconscious. There—I’ve hold of the ladder
now. I can keep us both afloat till you get help. He’s too heavy for
Rick and you, and I can’t do much toward lifting him. Hit something when
I dived, and hurt my knee.”
“Here comes some one now,” Lister cried in relief. “Hang on a minute
longer, Tommy, and we’ll have you out.” Both Erica and he raised their
voices in vociferous shouts to attract the attention of the two figures
he had noticed farther up the wharf.
“Aye, aye, there! Coming!” a hearty bass voice responded, and the still
night echoed to the clumping of heavy boots hurrying along the wharf
planking. The events of the next few minutes moved so fast for Erica
that afterward she never could quite fill in, by the aid of memory, what
actually happened between the time Lis and she called and that when they
stood on the wharf, looking down at the inert, drenched figure of a
strange sailor stretched out on the ground, and at Tommy slumped back,
curiously white and limp, but conscious, in the arms of a burly man whom
she now recognized as Captain Joy himself, master of the _Narwhal_.
“Is—is he dead?” she asked, fearfully, pointing a shaking hand at the
stranger.
The man with Captain Joy, who had been bending over the sailor, glanced
up, shaking a disgusted head. He was Mr. Stebbins, Captain Joy’s mate,
Erica saw. How very, very lucky for Tommy, and for all of them, that the
captain and Mr. Stebbins had decided to stroll down to the wharf also,
for a good-night look at their ship.
“He—looks so awfully dead,” Erica insisted.
“Not he. No thanks to himself, though, that he ain’t,” the mate growled.
“He’s been celebratin’ our last night ashore, and likely enough just
walked plumb off the end of the wharf here, without knowin’ he was
headed for Davy Jones’s locker.” He added, apologetically: “He ain’t one
of our Nantucket lads. He’s a new hand—a furriner we shipped on the
Cape, last voyage. You jus’ leave him to me, missy, an’ don’t worry.
I’ll see he gits out to the _Narwhal_ an’ into his bunk; an’ in the
mornin’ I surely aim to give him a talkin’ to that’ll turn his hair
plumb gray—leastways, if he’s any sense of the danger he’s been in this
night.”
“And Tommy’s hurt his knee,” Erica went on, anxiously, reassured as to
the stranger’s fate. “Captain Joy, you have to doctor men on your
cruises. Can’t you look at it and see how bad it is, please?”
The boy winced once or twice, in spite of his most herculean attempts at
stoicism, as the captain’s big hands gently prodded his leg here and
there.
“It—it feels like it was broken,” Tommy hazarded, his hands clenched
into tense fists at his side.
Captain Joy nodded. “Not much doubt about that, my lad,” he said,
cheerfully. “But a broken bone’s nothing at your age. Splints an’
rest’ll set that all shipshape again in a matter of a couple o’ months
at most.”
”_Months!_” Tommy gasped, and his head collapsed weakly against Lis’s
shoulder, which happened to be nearest. “But, Captain, I’m shipping on
the _Flying Spray_, bound out for Canton, come Saturday.”