THE SKIPPER.
The little boy slept brokenly that night. Bronze statues flitted through
his dreams, sometimes frowning darkly on him, folding him in an iron
clasp, dragging him down into the depths of roaring whirlpools;
sometimes, still stranger to say, smiling, looking on him with kindly
eyes, and telling him that the sea was not so far away as he thought,
and that one day he should see it and know the sound of it. His bed was
a white schooner,--there seemed no possible doubt of that; it tossed up
and down as it lay by the wharf; and once the lines were cast off, and
he was about to be carried away, when up rose the crew that he had
rescued from shipwreck, and cried with one voice, "No! no! he shall not
go!" The voice was that of Mr. Endymion Scraper, and not a pleasant
voice to hear; moreover, the voice had hands, lean and hard, which
clutched the boy's shoulder, and shook him roughly; and at last,
briefly, it appeared that it was time to get up, and that if the boy
John did not get up that minute, like the lazy good-for-nothing he was,
Mr. Scraper would give him such a lesson as he would not forget for one
while.
John tumbled out of bed, and stood rubbing his eyes for a moment, his
wits still abroad. The water heaved and subsided under him, but
presently it hardened into the garret floor. He staggered a few steps,
as the hard hand gave him a push and let him go, then stood firm and
looked about him. Gradually the room grew familiar; the painted bed and
chair, the window with its four small panes, which he loved to polish
and clean, "so that the sky could come through," the purple mussel-shell
and the china dog, his sole treasures and ornaments. The mussel was his
greatest joy, perhaps; it had been given him by a fisherman, who had
brought a pocket-full back from his sea trip, to please his own
children. It made no sound, but the tint was pure and lovely, and it was
lined with rainbow pearl. The dog was not jealous, for he knew (or the
boy John thought he knew), that he was, after all, the more
companionable of the two, and that he was talked to ten times for the
mussel's once. John was telling him now, as he struggled into his shirt
and trousers, about the vision of last night, and the dreams that
followed it. "And as soon as ever I have my chores done," he said, and
his eyes shone, and his cheek flushed at the thought, "as soon as ever,
I'm going down there, just to see. Of course, I suppose it isn't there,
you know; but then,--if it should be!"
The dog expressed sympathy in his usual quiet way, and was of the
opinion that John should go by all means, for, after all, who could say
that the vision might not have been reality? When one considered the
stories one had read! and had not the dog just heard the whole of
"Robinson Crusoe" read aloud, bit by bit, in stealthy whispers, by early
daylight, by moonlight, by stray bits of candle begged from a
neighbor,--had he not heard and appreciated every word of the immortal
story? He was no ignorant dog, indeed! His advice was worth having.
Breakfast was soon eaten; it did not take long to eat breakfast in Mr.
Scraper's house. The chores were a more serious matter, for every spoon
and plate had to be washed to the tune of a lashing tongue, and under an
eye that withered all it lighted on. But at last,--at last the happy
hour came when the tyrant's back was turned, and the tyrant's feet
tottered off in the direction of the post-office. The daily purchases,
the daily gossip at the "store," would fill the rest of the morning, as
John well knew. He listened in silence to the charges to "keep stiddy to
work, and git that p'tater-patch wed by noon;" he watched the departure
of his tormentor, and went straight to the potato-patch, duty and fear
leading him by either hand. The weeds had no safety of their lives that
day; he was in too great a hurry to dally, as he loved to do, over the
bigger stalks of pigweed, the giants which he, with his trusty
sword--only it was a hoe--would presently dash to the earth and behead,
and tear in pieces. Even the sprawling pusley-stems, which generally
played the part of devil-fish and tarantulas and various other monsters,
suffered no amputation of limb by limb, but were torn up with merciful
haste, and flung in heaps together.
Was the potato-patch thoroughly "wed?" I hardly know. But I know that in
less than an hour after Mr. Endymion Scraper started for the village the
boy John was on his way to the wharf.
As he drew near the river he found that something was the matter with
his breath. It would not come regularly, but in gasps and sighs; his
heart beat so hard, and was so high up in his throat he was almost
choked. Would he see anything when he turned the corner that led down to
the wharf? And if anything,--what? Then he shut his eyes and turned the
corner.
The schooner was there. No longer spectral or shadowy, she lay in plain
sight by the wharf, her trim lines pleasant to look at, her decks
shining with neatness, her canvas all spread out to dry, for the night
dew had been heavy. Lifting his fearful eyes, the child saw the bronze
figure standing in the bow, but now it was plainly seen to be a man, a
swarthy man, with close-curled black hair, and bright, dark eyes. Two
other men were lounging about the deck, but John took little heed of
them. This man, the strangest he had ever seen, claimed his whole
thought. He was as dark as the people in the geography book, where the
pictures of the different races were; not an Ethiopian, evidently (John
loved the long words in the geography book), because his nose was
straight and his lips thin; perhaps a Malay or an Arab. If one could see
a real Arab, one could ask him about the horses, and whether the dates
were always sticky, and what he did in a sandstorm, and lots of
interesting things. And then a Malay,--why, you could ask him how he
felt when he ran amuck,--only, perhaps, that would not be polite.
These meditations were interrupted by a hail from the schooner. It was
the dark man himself who spoke, in a quiet voice that sounded kind.
"Good-morning, sir! Will you come aboard this morning?"
John was not used to being called "Sir," and the word fell pleasantly on
ears that shrank from the detested syllable "Bub," with which strangers
were wont to greet him.
"Yes, if you please," he answered, with some dignity. It is, perhaps,
difficult to be stately when one is only five feet tall, but John felt
stately inside, as well as shy. The stranger turned and made a sign to
the other men, who came quickly, bringing a gang-plank, which they ran
out from the schooner's deck to the wharf. The Skipper, for such the
dark man appeared to be, made a sign of invitation, and after a moment's
hesitation, John ran across and stood on the deck of the white schooner.
Was he still dreaming? Would he wake in a moment and find himself back
in the garret at home, with Mr. Scraper shaking him?
"Welcome, young gentleman!" said the Skipper, holding out his hand.
"Welcome! the first visitor to the schooner. That it is a child, brings
luck for the next voyage, so we owe you a thank. We arrived last night
only. And what is my young gentleman's name?"
"My name is John," said the boy, standing with down-cast eyes before
this wonderful person.
"And mine!" said the Skipper,--"two Johns, the black and the red. You
should be called Juan Colorado, for your hair of red gold."
The boy looked up quickly, his cheek flushing; he did not like to be
laughed at; but the Skipper's face was perfectly grave, and only
courtesy and hospitality shone from his dark eyes.
"I wonder what the schooner's name is!" John said, presently, speaking
low, and addressing his remarks apparently to the mast, which he kicked
gently with his foot.
"The schooner is the 'Nautilus,' young gentleman!"
The reply came from the Skipper, not from the mast, yet it was still to
the latter that the boy made his next observation.
"I wonder where she comes from, and where she is going, and what she is
going to do here!" And having delivered himself breathlessly of these
remarks, the boy John wished he could squeeze through a port-hole, or
melt away into foam, or get away somehow, anyhow.
But now he felt himself lifted in strong arms, and set on the rail of
the vessel, with his eyes just opposite those of the Skipper, so that he
could not look up without meeting them; and on so looking up, it became
evident immediately that this was the kindest man in the world, and that
he liked boys, and that, finally, there was nothing to be afraid of. On
which John heaved a mighty sigh of relief, and then smiled, and then
laughed.
"I like to know things!" he said, simply.
"Me, too," replied the Skipper. "I also like to know things. How else
shall we become wise, Juan Colorado? Now listen, and you shall hear.
This schooner is the 'Nautilus,' as I say, and she is a Spanish
schooner. Yes;" (in reply to the question in the boy's eyes,) "I am
partly a Spanish man, but not all. I have other mankind in me, young
gentleman. We come from the Bahamas. Do you know where are they, the
Bahamas?"
John nodded. He liked geography, and stood at the head of his class.
"Part of the West Indies," he said, rapidly. "Low, coral islands. One of
them, San Salvador, is said to be the first land discovered by Columbus
in 1492. Principal exports, sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco, and tropical
fruits. Belong to Great Britain. That's all I know."
"Caramba!" said a handsome youth, who was lounging on the rail a few
feet off, gazing on with idle eyes, "you got the schoolmaster here,
Patron! I did not know all that, me, and I come, too, from Bahamas. Say,
you teach a school, M'sieur?"
"Franci!" said the Patron, gravely.
"Si, Señor!" said Franci, with a beautiful smile, which showed his teeth
under his black mustache.
"There is a school of flying-fish in the cabin. Better see to them!"
"Si, Señor!" said Franci, and disappeared down the hatchway.
"Is there?" asked the boy John, with great eyes of wonder. The Skipper
smiled, and shook his head.
"Franci understands me," he said. "I wish to tell him that he go about
his business, and not linger,--as you say, loaf about the deck. I take a
little way round about, but he understands very well, Franci. And of all
these exports, what does the young gentleman think I have brought from
the Bahamas?"
"I--I was just wondering!" John confessed; but he did not add his
secret hope that it was something more interesting than cotton or
tobacco.
The Skipper turned and made a quick, graceful gesture with his hand.
"Perhaps the young gentleman like to see my cargo," he said. "Do me the
favor!" and he led the way down to the cabin.
Now it became evident to the boy that all had indeed been a dream. It
sometimes happened that way, dreaming that you woke and found it all
true, and then starting up to find that the first waking had been of
dream-stuff too, that it was melting away from your sight, from your
grasp; even things that looked so real, so real,--he pinched himself
violently, and shook his head, and tried to break loose from fetters of
sleep, binding him to such sweet wonders, that he must lose next moment;
but no waking came, and the wonders remained.
The cabin was full of shells. Across one end of the little room ran a
glazed counter, where lay heaped together various objects of jewelry,
shell necklaces, alligator teeth and sea-beans set in various ways,
tortoise-shell combs, bracelets and hairpins,--a dazzling array. Yet the
boy's eyes passed almost carelessly over these treasures, to light with
quick enchantment on the shells themselves, the _real_ shells, as he
instantly named them to himself, resenting half-consciously the turning
of Nature's wonders into objects of vulgar adornment.
The shells were here, the shells were there, the shells were all around!
Shelf above shelf of them, piled in heaps, lying in solitary splendor,
arranged in patterns,--John had never, in his wildest dreams, seen so
many shells. Half the poetry of his little life had been in the lovely
forms and colors that lay behind the locked glass doors in Mr. Scraper's
parlor; for Mr. Scraper was a collector of shells in a small way. John
had supposed his collection to be, if not the only one in the world, at
least the most magnificent, by long odds; yet here were the old man's
precious units multiplied into tens, into twenties, sometimes into
hundreds, and all lying open to the day, as if anyone, even a small one,
even a little boy, who almost never had anything in his hand more
precious than his own purple mussel at home, might touch and handle them
and feel himself in heaven.
They gleamed with the banded glories of the rainbow: they softened into
the moonlight beauty of the pearl; they veiled their loveliness in milky
clouds, through which the color showed as pure and sweet as the cheek of
a bride; they glowed with depths of red and flame that might almost burn
to the touch.
The little boy stood with clasped hands, and sobbed with excitement.
"Did you dig up all the sea?" he asked, in a wonder that was not without
reproach. "Are there none left any more, at all?"
The Skipper laughed quietly. "The mermaids see not any difference, sir,"
he said. "Where I take one shell from its rock, I leave a hundred, a
thousand. The sea is a good mother, she has plenty children. See!" he
added, lifting a splendid horned shell, "this is the Royal Triton. On a
rock I found him, twenty fathom down. It was a family party, I think,
for all around they lay, some clinging to the rock, some in the mud,
some walking about. I take one, two, three, put them in my pouch; up I
go, and the others, they have a little more room, that's all."
John's eyes glowed in his head.
"I--I should like to see that!" he cried. "What is it like down there?
Do sharks come by,--swish! with their great tails? And why don't they
eat you, like the man in the geography book? And is there really a
sea-serpent? And do the oysters open and shut their mouths, so that you
can see the pearls, or how do you know which are the right ones?
"There are a great many things that I have thought about all my life,"
he said, "and nobody could ever tell me. The bottom of the sea, that is
what I want most in the world to know about."
He paused, out of breath, and would have been abashed at his own
boldness, had not the Skipper's eyes told him so perfectly that they had
understood all about it, and that there was no sort of reason why he
should not ask all the questions he liked.
They were wonderful eyes, those of the Skipper. Most black eyes are
wanting in the depths that one sounds in blue, or gray, in brown, more
rarely in hazel eyes; they flash with an outward brilliancy, they soften
into velvet, but one seldom sees through them into the heart. But these
eyes, though black beyond a doubt, had the darkness of deep, still
water, when you look into it and see the surface mantling with a bluish
gloss, and beneath that depth upon depth of black--clear, serene,
unfathomable. And when a smile came into them,--ah, well! we all know
how that same dark water looks when the sun strikes on it. The sun
struck now, and little John felt warm and comfortable all through his
body and heart.
"The bottom of the sea?" said the Skipper, taking up a shell and
polishing it on his coat-sleeve. "Yes, that is a fine place, Colorado.
You mind not that I call you Colorado? It pleases me,--the name. A fine
place, truly. You have never seen the sea, young gentleman?"
The boy shook his head.
"Never, really!" he said. "I--I've dreamed about it a great deal, and I
think about it most of the time. There's a picture in my geography book,
just a piece of sea, and then broken off, so that you don't see any end
to it; that makes it seem real, somehow, I don't know why.
"But I've heard the sound of it!" he added, his face brightening.
"There's a shell in Mr. Scraper's parlour, on the mantelpiece, and
sometimes when he goes to sleep I can get it for a minute, and hold it
to my ear, and then I hear the sound, the sound of the sea."
"Yes," said the Skipper, taking up another shell from one of the
shelves, a tiger cowry, rich with purple and brown. "The sound of the
sea; that is a good thing. Listen here, young gentleman, and tell me
what the tiger say to you of the sea."
He held the shell to the boy's ear, and saw the colour and the light
come like a wave into his face. They were silent for a moment; then the
child spoke, low and dreamily.
"It doesn't say words, you know!" he said. "It's just a soft noise, like
what the pine-trees make, but it sounds cool and green and--and wet. And
there are waves a long way off, curling over and over, and breaking on
white beaches, and they smell good and salt. And it seems to make me
know about things down under the sea, and bright colours shining through
the water, and light coming 'way down--cool, green light, that doesn't
make you wink when you look at it. And--and I guess there are lots of
fishes swimming about, and their eyes shine, too, and they move just as
soft, and don't make any noise, no more than if their mother was sick in
the next room. And on the ground there seem to be like flowers, only
they move and open and shut without any one touching them. And--and--"
Was the boy going into a trance? Were the dark eyes mesmerizing him, or
was all this to be heard in the shell? The Skipper took the shell gently
from his hand, and stroked his hair once or twice, quickly and lightly.
"That will do!" he said. "The young gentleman can hear truly. All these
things are under the sea, yes, and more, oh, many more! Some day you
shall see them, young gentleman; who knows? But now comes Franci to make
the dinner. Will Señor Colorado dine with the Skipper from the Bahamas?
Welcome he will be, truly."
Little John started, and a guilty flush swept over his clear face.
"I forgot!" he cried. "I forgot all about everything, and Cousin
Scraper will be home by this time, and--and--I'll have to be going,
please; but I'll come again, if you think I may."
The Skipper had raised his eyebrows at the name of Scraper, and was now
looking curiously at the boy. "Who is that you say?" he asked. "Scraper,
your cousin? And of your father, young gentleman,--why do you not speak
of him?"
"My father is dead," replied little John. "And my mother too, a good
while ago. I don't remember father. Mother----" he broke off, and
dropped his eyes to hide the tears that sprang to them. "Mother died a
year ago," he said; "ever since then I've lived with Cousin Scraper.
He's some sort of kin to father, and he says he's my guardian by law."
"His other name?" suggested the dark man, quietly. "For example,
Endymion?"
"Why, yes!" cried John, raising his honest blue eyes in wonder. "Do you
know him, sir? Have you ever been here before?"
The Skipper shook his head. "Not of my life!" he said. "Yet--I make a
guess at the name; perhaps of this gentleman I have heard. He--he is a
kind person, Colorado?"
John hung his head. He knew that he must not speak evil; his mother had
always told him that; yet what else was there to speak about Cousin
Scraper? "He--he collects shells!" he faltered, after a pause, during
which he was conscious of the Skipper's eyes piercing through and
through him, and probably seeing the very holes in his stockings. But
now the Skipper threw back his head with a laugh.
"He collects shells, eh? My faith, I have come to the right place, I
with my 'Nautilus.' See, young gentleman! I go with my shells where I
think is good market. In large cities, many rich people who collect
shells. I sell many, many, some very precious. Never have I come up this
river of great beauty; but I say, who knows? Maybe here are persons who
know themselves, who have the feeling of shells in their hearts. I find,
first you, Colorado; and that you have the feeling in your heart I see,
at the first look you give to my pretties here. That you have the
fortune to live with a collector, that I could not guess, ha? He is
kind, I say, this Scraper? He loves you as a son, he gives you his
shells to look at, to care for as your own?"
John hung his head again.
"He keeps them locked up," he admitted. "I never had one in my hand,
except the one on the mantelpiece, sometimes when he goes to sleep after
dinner. I--I must be going now!" he cried in desperation, making his way
to the gang-plank. "I must get home, or he'll--"
"What he will do?" the Skipper inquired, holding the plank in his hand.
"What he do to you, young gentleman, eh? A little scold you, because you
stay too long to talk with the Skipper from the Bahamas, hey? No more
than that, is it not?"
"He'll beat me," cried little John, driven fairly past himself. "He
beats me every time I'm late, or don't get my work done. I thank you
ever so much for being so kind, but I can't stay another minute."
"Adios, then, Señor Colorado!" said the Skipper, with a stately bow.
"You come soon again, I pray you. And if you will tell Sir Scraper, and
all those others, your friends, the shell schooner is here. Exhibition
in a few hours ready, free to all. Explanation and instruction when
desired by intelligent persons desiring of to know the habits under the
sea. Schooner 'Nautilus,' from the Bahamas, with remarkable collection
of shells and marine curiosities. Adios, Señor Juan Colorado!"