"DADDY NEIL"
"Stand there, little girl. Why, why--how has it come about! When did you
do it? I went away nine months ago leaving a little girl in Mammy Lucy's
and Harrison's charge and I have returned to find a young lady. Peggy,
baby, what have you done with my little girl?"
Commander Stewart stood in the big living-room of Severndale, his hand
upon Peggy's shoulder as he held her at arm's length to look at her in
puzzled surprise. He had just experienced one of those startling
revelations which often arouse parents to the fact that their children
have stolen a march upon them, and sprung into very pleasing young men
or women while they themselves have been in an unobserving somnolent
state. It is invariably a shock and one which few parents escape.
Peggy laughed, colored a rosy pink but obeyed, a little thrill of
innocent triumph passing over her, for Daddy Neil's eyes held something
more than surprise, and Peggy's feminine soul detected the underlying
pride and admiration.
"By the great god Neptune, you've taken a rise out of me this time,
child. How old ARE you, anyway!"
"As though you didn't know perfectly well, you tease," laughed Peggy,
turning swiftly and nestling in his arms. The arms held her closely and
the sun-tanned cheek rested upon her dark, silky hair. The eyes were
singularly soft and held a suggestion of moisture. It did not seem so
very long ago to Daddy Neil since Peggy's beautiful mother had been in
that very room with him nestling in his arms in that same confiding
little manner. How like her Peggy had grown in looks and a thousand
little mannerisms. From the moment Peggy had met him at the Round Bay
station to this one, he had lived in a sort of waking dream, partly in
the past, partly in the present, and in the strangest possible mental
confusion. His memory picture of Peggy as he had left her in October of
the previous year was of the little hoyden in short skirts, laughing and
prancing from morning till night, and leading Mammy Lucy a life of it.
In nine months the little romp had blossomed into a very charming young
girl, dainty and sweet as a wild rose in her white duck sailor suit,
with its dark red collar, her hair braided in soft coils about her head
and adorned with a big red bow. The embryo woman stood before him.
"Yes, HOW old are you?" he insisted, looking at her with mingled,
puzzled eyes.
"Oh, Daddy, you know I was fourteen in January," she said half
reproachfully. "You sent me such beautiful things from Japan."
"Yes, but you might be eighteen now from your looks and height. And
living here alone with the servants. Why--why, it's, it's all out of
order; you are off your course entirely. You must have someone with you,
or go somewhere, or--or--well SOMETHING has got to be done and right
off, too," and poor perplexed Neil Stewart ran his hand through his
curly, gray-tinged hair in a distracted manner. Peggy looked startled,
then serious. Such a contingency as this incumbent upon growing up had
never entered her head. Must the old order of things which she so loved,
and all the precious freedom of action, give way to something entirely
new? Harrison had more than once hinted that such would be the case when
Daddy Neil came home and found a young lady where he expected to find a
little girl.
"Oh, Daddy, please don't talk about that now. You've only just got here
and I've ten thousand things to tell and show you. Let's not think of
the future just yet. It's such a joy to just live now. To have you here
and see you and hug you, and love you hard," cried Peggy suiting her
actions to her words. Mr. Stewart shook his head, but did not beggar his
response to the caress. It sent a glow all through him to feel that this
beautiful young girl was his daughter, the mistress of the home he so
loved, but so rarely enjoyed.
"We'll have a truce for a week, honey, and during that time we'll do
nothing but enjoy each other. Then we'll take our reckoning and lay our
course by chart, for I'm convinced that I, at least, have been running
on dead reckoning and you--well--I guess the good Lord's been at the
helm and taken in hand my job with a good deal of credit to Himself and
confounded little to me. But it's my watch from now on. I wish your
mother were here, sweetheart. You need her now," and Neil Stewart again
drew the young girl into his strong, circling arm. "I'd resign tomorrow
if--if--well, when I resign I want four stripes at least on my sleeve to
leave you as a memory in the years to come. Now show me the ropes. I'm a
stranger on board my own ship."
For an hour Peggy did the honors of the beautiful home, Jerome, the old
butler, who had been "Massa Neil's body servant" before he entered the
Academy at eighteen, where body servants had no place, hovering around,
solicitous of his master's comfort; Harrison making a hundred and one
excuses to come into the room; Mammy Lucy, with the privileges of an old
servant making no excuses at all but bobbing in and out whenever she saw
fit.
Luncheon was soon served in the wonderful old dining-room, one side of
which was entirely of glass giving upon a broad piazza overlooking Round
Bay. From this room the view was simply entrancing and Neil Stewart, as
he sat at the table at which Peggy was presiding with such grace and
dignity, felt that life was certainly worth while when one could look up
and encounter a pair of such soft brown eyes regarding him with such
love and joy, and see such ripe, red lips part in such carefree, happy
smiles.
"Jerome, don't forget Daddy Neil's sauce.
"Yes, missie, lamb. I knows--I knows. Cynthy, she done got it made to de
very top-notch pint," answered Jerome, hurrying away upon noiseless feet
and in all his immaculate whiteness from the crown of his white woolly
head to his duck uniform, for the Severndale servants wore the uniforms
of the mess-hall rather than the usual household livery. Neil Stewart
could not abide "cit's rigs." Moreover, in spite of the long absences of
the master, everything about the place was kept up in ship-shape order;
Harrison and Mammy Lucy cooperated with Jerome in looking well to this.
"Now, Daddy," cried Peggy happily when luncheon ended, "come out to the
stables and paddock; I've a hundred things to show you."
"A stable and a paddock for an old salt like me," laughed her father. "I
wonder if I shall know a horse's hock from his withers? Yet it DOES seem
good to see them, and smell the grass and woods and know it's all mine
and that YOU are mine," he cried, slipping his arm through hers and
pacing off with her. "Some day," he added, "I am coming here to settle
down with you to enjoy it all, and when I do I mean to let four legs
carry me whenever there is the least excuse for so doing. My own have
done enough pacing of the quarter-deck to have earned that indulgence."
"And won't it be just--paradise," cried Peggy rapturously.
They were now nearing the paddock. To one side was a long row of little
cottages occupied by the stable hands' families. Mr. Stewart paused and
smiled, for out of each popped a funny little black woolly head to catch
a glimpse of "Massa Captain," as all the darkies on the place called
him.
"Good Lord, where DO they all come from, Peggy? Have they all been born
since my last visit? There were not so many here then."
"Not quite all," answered Peggy laughing. "Most of them were here before
that, though there are some new arrivals either in the course of nature
or new help. You see the business is growing, Daddy, and I've had to
take on new hands."
Neil Stewart started. "Was this little person who talked in such a
matter-of-fact way about "taking on new hands" his little Peggy?
"Yes, yes--I dare say," he answered in a sort of daze.
Peggy seemed unaware of anything the least unusual and continued:
"I want you to see THIS family. It is Joshua Jozadak Jubal Jones'. They
might all be of an age, but they are not--quite. Come here, boys, and
see Master Captain," called Peggy to the three piccaninnies who were
peeping around the corner of the cottage. Three black, grinning little
faces, topped by the kinkiest of woolly heads, came slowly at her
bidding, each one glancing half-proudly, yet more or less panic-
stricken, at the big man in white flannels.
"Hello, boys. Whose sons are you? Miss Peggy tells me you are brothers."
"Yas, sir. We is. We's Joshua Jozadak Jubal Jones's boys. I'se Gus--de
ol'es. Der's nine haid o' us, but we's de oniest boys. De yethers ain'
nothin' but gurls."
"And how old are you!"
"I'se nine I reckons."
"And what is your name?"
"My name Gus, sah."
"That's only HALF a name. Your whole name is really Augustus remember."
The "Massa Captain's" voice boomed with the sound of the sea. Augustus
and his brothers were duly impressed. If Gus really meant Augustus, why
Augustus he would be henceforth. The Massa Captain had said it and what
the Massa Captain said--went, especially when he gave a bright new dime
to enforce the order.
"And YOUR name?" continued the questioner, pointing at number two.
"I'se jist Jule, sah," was the shy reply.
"That's a nickname too. I can't have such slipshod, no-account names for
my hands' children. It isn't dignified. It isn't respectful. It's a
disgrace to Miss Peggy. Do you hear?"
"Yas--yas--sir. We--we hears," answered the little darkies in chorus,
the whites of their eyes rolling and their knees fairly smiting
together. How could they have been guilty of thus slighting their adored
young mistress?
"Please, sah, wha's his name ef taint Jule?" Augustus plucked up heart
of grace to ask.
"He is Julius, JUL-I-US, do you understand?"
"Yas--sir. Yas--sir." Another dime helped the memory box.
"And YOUR name?" asked the Massa Captain of quaking number three.
There was a long, significant pause, then contortions as though number
three were suffering from a violent attack of colic. At length, after
two or three futile attempts he blurted out:
"I'se--I'se Billyus, sah!"
There was a terrific explosion, then Neil Stewart tossed the redoubtable
Billyus a quarter, crying: "You win," and walked away with Peggy, his
laughter now and again borne back to his beneficiaries.
Peggy never knew where that month slipped to with its long rides on
Shashai, Daddy Neil riding the Emperor, the magnificent sire of all the
small fry upon the place, from those who had already gone, or were about
to be sent out into the great world beyond the limits of Severndale, to
Roy, the latest arrival. Neil Stewart wondered and marveled more and
more as each day slipped by.
Then, too, were the delightful paddles far up the Severn in Peggy's
canoe, exploring unsuspected little creeks, with now and again a bag in
the wild, lonely reaches of the river, followed by a delicious little
supper of broiled birds, done to a turn by Aunt Cynthia. There were,
too, moonlight sails in Peggy's little half-rater, which she handled
with a master hand. As a rule, one of the boys accompanied her, for the
mainsail and centerboard were pretty heavy for her to handle unaided,
but with Daddy Neil on board--well, not much was left to be desired.
During that month Peggy learned "how lightly falls the foot of time
which only treads on flowers," and was appalled when she realized that
only five more days remained of her father's leave.
Neil Stewart, upon his part, was sorely perplexed, for it had come to
him with an overwhelming force that Peggy was almost a young lady, and
to live much longer as she had been living was simply out of the
question. Yet how solve the problem? He and Dr. Llewellyn talked long
and earnestly upon the subject when Peggy was not near, and fully
concurred in their view-point; a change must be made, and made right
speedily. Should Peggy be sent to school? If so, where? Much depended
upon the choice in her case. Her whole life had been so entirely unlike
the average girl's. Why she scarcely knew the meaning of companions of
her own age of either sex. Neil Stewart actually groaned aloud as he
thought of this.
Dr. Llewellyn suggested a companion for the young girl.
Mr. Stewart groaned again. Whom should he choose? So far as he knew
there was not a relative, near or remote, to whom he could turn, and a
hit-or-miss choice among strangers appalled him.
"I give you my word, Llewellyn, I'm aground--hard and fast. I can't
navigate that little cruiser out yonder," and he nodded toward the lawn
where Peggy was giving his first lessons to Roy in submitting to a
halter. It was a pretty picture, too, and one deeply imprinted upon Neil
Stewart's memory.
"We will do our best for her and leave the rest to the dear Lord,"
answered the good Doctor, his cameo-like face turned toward the lawn to
watch the girl whom he loved as a daughter. "He will show us the way. He
has never yet failed to."
"Well, in all reverence, I wish He'd show it before I leave, for I tell
you I don't like the idea of going away and leaving that little girl
utterly unprotected."
"I should call her very well protected," said Dr. Llewellyn mildly.
"Oh, yes, in a way. You are here off and on, and the servants all the
time, but look at the life she leads, man. Not a girl friend. Nothing
that other girls have. I tell you it's bad navigating and she'll run
afoul rocks or shoals. It isn't natural. For the Lord's sake DO
something. If I could be here a month longer I'd start something or
burst everything wide open. It's simply got to be changed." And Neil
Stewart got up from his big East India chair to pace impatiently up and
down the broad piazza, now and again giving an absent-minded kick to a
hassock, or picking up a sofa pillow to heave it upon a settee, as
though clearing the deck for action. He was deeply perturbed.
Peggy glanced toward him, and quick to notice signs of mental
disturbance, left her charge to Tzaritza's care and came running toward
the piazza. As she ran up the four steps giving upon the lawn she asked
half laughingly, half seriously:
"Heavy weather, Daddy Neil? Barometer falling?"
Neil Stewart paused, looked at her a moment and asked abruptly:
"Peggy, how would you like to go to a boarding school?"
"To boarding school!" exclaimed Peggy in amazement. "Leave Severndale
and all this and go away to a SCHOOL?" The emphasis upon the last word
held whole volumes.
Her father nodded.
"I think I'd die," she said, dropping upon a settee as though the very
suggestion had deprived her of strength.
Her father's forehead puckered into a perplexed frown. If Peggy were
sent to boarding school the choice of one would be a nice question.
"Well, what SHALL I do with you?" demanded the poor man in desperation.
"Leave me right where I am. Compadre will see that I'm not quite an
ignoramus, Harrison keeps me decently clad and properly lectured, and
Mammy looks to my feeding when I'm well and dosing when I'm not, which,
thank goodness, isn't often. Why Daddy, I'm so happy. So perfectly
happy. Please, please don't spoil it," and Peggy rose to slip her arm
within her father's and "pace the deck" as he called it.
"But you haven't a single companion of your own age or station," he
protested.
"Do I look the maiden all forlorn as the result?" she asked, laughing up
at him.
"You look--you look--exactly like your mother, and to me she was the
most beautiful woman I have ever seen," and Peggy found herself in an
embrace which threatened to smother her. She blushed with pleasure. To
be like her mother whom she scarcely remembered, for eight years had
passed since that beautiful mother slipped out of her life, was the
highest praise that could have been bestowed upon her.
"Daddy, will you make a truce with me?"
Her father stopped to look down at her, doubtful of falling into a
snare, for he had wakened to the fact that his little fourteen-year-old
daughter had a pretty long head for her years. Peggy's white teeth
gleamed behind her rosy lips and her eyes danced wickedly.
"What are you hatching for your old Dad's undoing, you witch?"
"Nothing but a truce. It is almost the first of September. Will you give
me just one more year of this glorious freedom? I shall be nearly
sixteen then, and then if you still wish it, I'll go to a finishing
school, or any other old school you say to be polished off for society
and to do the honors of Severndale properly when you retire. But, Daddy,
please, please, don't send me this year. I love it all so dearly--and
I'll be good--I truly will."
At the concluding words the big dark eyes filled. Her father bent down
to kiss away the unshed tears. His own eyes were troublesome.
"I sign the truce, sweetheart, for one year, but I want a detailed
report every week, do you understand?"
"You shall have it, accurate as a ship's log."
Five days later he had joined his ship and Peggy was once more alone,
yet, even then, over yonder under the shadow of the dome of the chapel
at the Naval Academy the future was being shaped for the young girl: a
future so unlike one those who loved her best could possibly have
foreseen or planned.