The Lady of the Aroostook. William Dean Howells

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      Lydia's grandfather stepped out to meet and halt this stranger, as he drew near, glancing quickly from the girl to the old man, and then at their bundles. “Can you tell me where a ship named the Aroostook is, that was layin' at this wharf—Lucas Wharf—a fortnight ago, and better?”

      “Well, I guess I can, Mr. Latham,” answered the stranger, with a quizzical smile, offering one of his stout hands to Lydia's grandfather. “You don't seem to remember your friends very well, do you?”

      The old man gave a kind of crow expressive of an otherwise unutterable relief and comfort. “Well, if it ain't Captain Jenness! I be'n so turned about, I declare for't, I don't believe I'd ever known you if you hadn't spoke up. Lyddy,” he cried with a child-like joy, “this is Captain Jenness!”

      Captain Jenness having put on his hat changed Mr. Latham's hand into his left, while he stretched his great right hand across it and took Lydia's long, slim fingers in its grasp, and looked keenly into her face. “Glad to see you, glad to see you, Miss Blood. (You see I've got your name down on my papers.) Hope you're well. Ever been a sea-voyage before? Little homesick, eh?” he asked, as she put her handkerchief to her eyes. He kept pressing Lydia's hand in the friendliest way. “Well, that's natural. And you're excited; that's natural, too. But we're not going to have any homesickness on the Aroostook, because we're going to make her home to you.” At this speech all the girl's gathering forlornness broke in a sob. “That's right!” said Captain Jenness. “Bless you, I've got a girl just about your age up at Deer Isle, myself!” He dropped her hand, and put his arm across her shoulders. “Good land, I know what girls are, I hope! These your things?” He caught up the greater part of them into his capacious hands, and started off down the wharf, talking back at Lydia and her grandfather, as they followed him with the light parcels he had left them. “I hauled away from the wharf as soon as I'd stowed my cargo, and I'm at anchor out there in the stream now, waiting till I can finish up a few matters of business with the agents and get my passengers on board. When you get used to the strangeness,” he said to Lydia, “you won't be a bit lonesome. Bless your heart! My wife's been with me many a voyage, and the last time I was out to Messina I had both my daughters.”

      At the end of the wharf, Captain Jenness stopped, and suddenly calling out, “Here!” began, as she thought, to hurl Lydia's things into the water. But when she reached the same point, she found they had all been caught, and deposited in a neat pile in a boat which lay below, where two sailors stood waiting the captain's further orders. He keenly measured the distance to the boat with his eye, and then he bade the men work round outside a schooner which lay near; and jumping on board this vessel, he helped Lydia and her grandfather down, and easily transferred them to the small boat. The men bent to their oars, and pulled swiftly out toward a ship that lay at anchor a little way off. A light breeze crept along the water, which was here blue and clear, and the grateful coolness and pleasant motion brought light into the girl's cheeks and eyes. Without knowing it she smiled. “That's right!” cried Captain Jenness, who had applauded her sob in the same terms. “You'll like it, first-rate. Look at that ship! That's the Aroostook. Is she a beauty, or ain't she?”

      The stately vessel stood high from the water, for Captain Jenness's cargo was light, and he was going out chiefly for a return freight. Sharp jibs and staysails cut their white outlines keenly against the afternoon blue of the summer heaven; the topsails and courses dripped, half-furled, from the yards stretching across the yellow masts that sprang so far aloft; the hull glistened black with new paint. When Lydia mounted to the deck she found it as clean scrubbed as her aunt's kitchen floor. Her glance of admiration was not lost upon Captain Jenness. “Yes, Miss Blood,” said he, “one difference between an American ship and any other sort is dirt. I wish I could take you aboard an English vessel, so you could appreciate the Aroostook. But I guess you don't need it,” he added, with a proud satisfaction in his laugh. “The Aroostook ain't in order yet; wait till we've been a few days at sea.” The captain swept the deck with a loving eye. It was spacious and handsome, with a stretch of some forty or fifty feet between the house at the stern and the forecastle, which rose considerably higher; a low bulwark was surmounted by a heavy rail supported upon turned posts painted white. Everything, in spite of the captain's boastful detraction, was in perfect trim, at least to landfolk's eyes. “Now come into the cabin,” said the captain. He gave Lydia's traps, as he called them, in charge of a boy, while he led the way below, by a narrow stairway, warning Lydia and her grandfather to look out for their heads as they followed. “There!” he said, when they had safely arrived, inviting their inspection of the place with a general glance of his own.

      “What did I tell you, Lyddy?” asked her grandfather, with simple joy in the splendors about them. “Solid mahogany trimmin's everywhere.” There was also a great deal of milk-white paint, with some modest touches of gilding here and there. The cabin was pleasantly lit by the long low windows which its roof rose just high enough to lift above the deck, and the fresh air entered with the slanting sun. Made fast to the floor was a heavy table, over which hung from the ceiling a swinging shelf. Around the little saloon ran lockers cushioned with red plush. At either end were four or five narrow doors, which gave into as many tiny state-rooms. The boy came with Lydia's things, and set them inside one of these doors; and when he came out again the captain pushed it open, and called them in. “Here!” said he. “Here's where my girls made themselves at home the last voyage, and I expect you'll find it pretty comfortable. They say you don't feel the motion so much,—I don't know anything about the motion,—and in smooth weather you can have that window open sometimes, and change the air. It's light and it's large. Well, I had it fitted up for my wife; but she's got kind of on now, you know, and she don't feel much like going any more; and so I always give it to my nicest passenger.” This was an unmistakable compliment, and Lydia blushed to the captain's entire content. “That's a rug she hooked,” he continued, touching with his toe the carpet, rich in its artless domestic dyes as some Persian fabric, that lay before the berth. “These gimcracks belong to my girls; they left 'em.” He pointed to various slight structures of card-board worked with crewel, which were tacked to the walls. “Pretty snug, eh?”

      “Yes,” said Lydia, “it's nicer than I thought it could be, even after what grandfather said.”

      “Well, that's right!” exclaimed the captain. “I like your way of speaking up. I wish you could know my girls. How old are you now?”

      “I'm nineteen,” said Lydia.

      “Why, you're just between my girls!” cried the captain. “Sally is twenty-one, and Persis is eighteen. Well, now, Miss Blood,” he said, as they returned to the cabin, “you can't begin to make yourself at home too soon for me. I used to sail to Cadiz and Malaga a good deal; and when I went to see any of them Spaniards he'd say, 'This house is yours.' Well, that's what I say: This ship is yours as long as you stay in her. And I mean it, and that's more than they did!” Captain Jenness laughed mightily, took some of Lydia's fingers in his left hand and squeezed them, and clapped her grandfather on the shoulder with his right. Then he slipped his hand down the old man's bony arm to the elbow, and held it, while he dropped his head towards Lydia, and said, “We shall be glad to have him stay to supper, and as much longer as he likes, heh?”

      “Oh, no!” said Lydia; “grandfather must go back on the six o'clock train. My aunt expects him.” Her voice fell, and her face suddenly clouded.

      “Good!” cried the captain. Then he pulled out his watch, and held it as far away as the chain would stretch, frowning at it with his head aslant. “Well!” he burst out. “He hasn't got any too much time on his hands.” The old man gave a nervous start, and the girl trembled. “Hold on! Yes; there's time. It's only fifteen minutes after five.”

      “Oh, but we were more than half an hour getting down here,” said Lydia, anxiously. “And grandfather doesn't know the way back. He'll be sure to get lost. СКАЧАТЬ