Sheila of Big Wreck Cove. James A. Cooper

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СКАЧАТЬ tell you, Tunis. I swan! I was goin' to murder the old critter."

      "What do you mean?" gasped Tunis in apparent horror. "Not Aunt Prue?"

      "What's the matter with you?" snapped Cap'n Ira. "I mean that old mare. I was going to murder her in cold blood, only the sand slide wrecked my plans."

      "If you had killed her, Aunt Prue would have had hard work to forgive you. Come on now. I'll lead Queenie up to our barn. Let her stay there for a spell. I tell you, Cap'n Ira, you and Aunt Prue must have somebody to live with you."

      "Who?"

      "Get a girl from the port."

      "Huh! One o' them Portygees? They're as dirty and useless in the kitchen as their men folks are aboard ship."

      "Oh, they are not all like that!" objected the captain of the Seamew. "I've got a good crew of 'em aboard my schooner."

      "You think so. Wait till you get in a jam. And the men ain't so bad as the gals. All hussies."

      "I don't know, then, what you'll do."

      "I do," interrupted the old man, hobbling along the hard sand beside Tunis and the horse. "It's just like I told Prudence yesterday. I know just what we've got to do whether you or Prue or anybody else knows," and he was very emphatic.

      "Let's hear your plan, Cap'n," said Tunis.

      "It's like this," went on Cap'n Ira. "Prudence ain't got but one living relative, a grandniece, that's kin to her. That Ida May Bostwick we must have come and live with us, and that's all there is about it."

      Tunis stared. He said:

      "Never heard of her. She doesn't live anywhere around here, does she?"

      "No, no! Lives to Boston."

      "Boston!"

      Why was it Tunis Latham felt that his heart skipped a beat? Memory of that pale, violet-eyed girl who worked in the restaurant on Scollay Square flashed across his mind like a shooting star. Indeed, he was so confused that he heard only a little at first of Cap'n Ira's rambling explanation. Then he caught:

      "And if you will go to that address—Prue's got the street and number—and see Ida May Bostwick and tell her about us, you'd be doing us a kindness, Tunis."

      "Me?" exclaimed the startled captain of the Seamew.

      "Yes, you. The gal won't bite you. You're going to Boston next week, you say. Will you do it?"

      "Sure I will, Cap'n Ira," said the young man heartily. "It's a good move, and I'll say all I can to get the girl to come down here."

      "That's the boy! You're going on an errand of mercy; that's as sure as sure. Prue and me need that gal. And maybe she needs us. I don't know what sort of a place she works at, but no city job for a gal can be the equal of living down here on the Cape, with her own folks, as you might say. Yes, Tunis, you'll be doing an errand of mercy mebbe both ways."

CHAPTER V

       Table of Contents

LOOKING FOR IDA MAY

       Table of Contents

      The Seamew was put in commission in a very few days. Tunis Latham had many friends in and about Big Wreck Cove, and he had little difficulty in picking up a cargo, which was loaded right at the port.

      As for the schooner's crew, Tunis could have filled every billet four times over had he so desired. But he had already picked his crew with some care. Mason Chapin was mate, a perfectly capable navigator who might have used his ticket to get a berth on a much larger craft than the Seamew. But he had an invalid wife and wished only to leave home on brief voyages. Johnny Lark was shipped as cook, with a Portygee boy, Tony, to help him.

      Forward, Horace Newbegin served as boatswain and Orion Latham was a sort of supercargo and general handy man. He was Tunis' cousin, several times removed. There were four Portygees to make up the company, a full crew for a sailing vessel of the tonnage of the Seamew. Yet every man was needed in handling her lofty canvas and in loading and unloading freight.

      With a well-stowed cargo below deck the schooner sailed even better than she had in ballast. She slipped out of the cove through the rather tortuous channel like an eel through the meshes of a broken trap. In the dawn, and with a fresh outside breeze just ruffling the sea into whitecaps, they broke out her upper sails and caught the very last breath of the gale the canvas would draw.

      Cap'n Ira, and even Prudence, had got up before daybreak to see the schooner pass. They watched her, turn and turn about at the spyglass, till she was blotted out by the distant fog bank.

      "I swan," said the old man, "when she heaves into view again I hope she'll have Ida May Bostwick aboard! That is what I hope."

      "The dear girl!" breathed Prudence.

      It never crossed their simple minds that Ida May Bostwick might see this chance they offered her in a different light from that in which they looked at it. The old couple made their innocent plans for the welcoming of the "grandniece," positive that a happy future was in store for both Ida May and themselves.

      In Tunis Latham's mind there was more uncertainty regarding the mysterious Ida May Bostwick than there was in the minds of Cap'n Ira and Prudence. Whenever he considered his "errand of mercy" the captain of the Seamew had a flash of that girl with the violet eyes who worked in the restaurant on Scollay Square. The Balls did not know where Ida May worked. Prudence only had obtained the lodging-house address of her young relative from Annabell Coffin, "she who was a Cuttle."

      Of course, it was merely a faint and tenuous possibility that Ida May was a waitress. Still fainter was the chance that she would prove to be the girl with the violet eyes that Tunis Latham remembered so distinctly. The Balls knew that she worked in a store, and all stores were the same to them. There might be a few hundred thousand other girls in Boston besides that particular girl whom he had saved from falling on the square.

      Nevertheless, when the Seamew had unloaded and been warped to a berth in an outer tier of small craft to await her turn to load barrels and box shooks for a concern at Paulmouth, Captain Tunis started up into the city. He knew his way about Boston as well as any one not a native, and his first objective point was that restaurant on Scollay Square.

      It was the dogwatch when Tunis Latham entered the eating place, but the dogwatch here was not at the same time of day as aboard ship. The captain's first startled glance about the room assured him that there was not a girl employee in sight, not even at the cashier's desk, and very few customers.

      He ordered a late but hearty breakfast of the unshaven waiter in half-spoiled apron and coat who lounged over his table.

      "I thought they used to have girl waiters in this place?" the captain said when the man brought the tableware and glass of water.

      "On from 'leven till СКАЧАТЬ