Sandy. Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ something fell at his feet. It was an orange. Looking up, he saw a slender little girl in a long tan coat and a white tam-o'-shanter leaning over the railing. He only knew that her eyes were brown and that she was sorry for him, but it changed his world. He pulled off his cap, and sent her such an ardent smile of gratitude that she melted from the railing like a snowflake under the kiss of the sun.

      Sandy ate the orange and took courage. Life had acquired a new interest.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      ON SHIPBOARD

      The days that followed were not rose-strewn. Disgrace sat heavily upon the delinquent, and he did penance by foregoing the joys of society. Menial labor and the knowledge that he would not be allowed to land, but would be sent back by the first steamer, were made all the more unbearable by his first experience with illness. He had accepted his fate and prepared to die when the ship's surgeon found him.

      The ship's surgeon was cruel enough to laugh, but he persuaded Sandy to come back to life. He was a small, white, round little man; and when he came rolling down the deck in his white linen suit, his face beaming from its white frame of close-cropped hair and beard, he was not unlike one of his own round white little pills, except that their sweetness stopped on the outside and his went clear through.

      He discovered Sandy lying on his face in the passageway, his right hand still dutifully wielding the scrub-brush, but his spirit broken and his courage low.

      "Hello!" he exclaimed briskly; "what's your name?"

      "Sandy Kilday."

      "Scotch, eh?"

      "Me name is. The rest of me's Irish," groaned Sandy.

      "Well, Sandy, my boy, that's no way to scrub. Come out and get some air, and then go back and do it right."

      He guided Sandy's dying footsteps to the deck and propped him against the railing. That was when he laughed.

      "Not much of a sailor, eh?" he quizzed. "You'll be all right soon; we have been getting the tail-end of a big nor'wester."

      "A happy storm it must have been, sir, to wag its tail so gay," said Sandy, trying to smile.

      The doctor clapped him on the back. "You're better. Want something to eat?"

      Sandy declined with violence. He explained his feelings with all the authority of a first experience, adding in conclusion: "It was Jonah I used to be after feelin' sorry for; it ain't now. It's the whale."

      The doctor prevailed upon him to drink some hot tea and eat a sandwich. It was a heroic effort, but Sandy would have done even more to prolong the friendly conversation.

      "How many more days have we got, sir?"

      "Five; but there's the return trip for you."

      Sandy's face flushed. "If they send me home, I'll be comin' back!" he cried, clinging to the railing as the ship lurched forward. "I'm goin' to be an American. I am goin'—" Further declarations as to his future policy were cut short.

      From that time on the doctor took an interest in him. He even took up a collection of clothes for him among the officers. His professional services were no longer necessary, for Sandy enjoyed a speedy recovery from his maritime troubles.

      "You are luckier than the rest," he said, one day, stopping on his rounds. "I never had so many steerage patients before."

      The work was so heavy, in fact, that he obtained permission to get a boy to assist him. The happy duty devolved upon Sandy, who promptly embraced not only the opportunity, but the doctor and the profession as well. He entered into his new work with such energy and enthusiasm that by the end of the week he knew every man below the cabin deck. So expeditious did he become that he found many idle moments in which to cultivate acquaintances.

      His chosen companion at these times was a boy in the steerage, selected not for congeniality, but for his unlimited knowledge of all things terrestrial, from the easiest way of making a fortune to the best way of spending it. He was a short, heavy-set fellow of some eighteen years. His hair grew straight up from an overhanging forehead, under which two small eyes seemed always to be furtively watching each other over the bridge of his flat snub nose. His lips met with difficulty across large, irregular teeth. Such was Ricks Wilson, the most unprepossessing soul on board the good ship America.

      "You see, it's this way," explained Ricks as the boys sat behind the smokestack and Sandy became initiated into the mysteries of a wonderful game called "craps." "I didn't have no more 'n you've got. I lived down South, clean off the track of ever'thing. I puts my foot in my hand and went out and seen the world. I tramps up to New York, works my way over to England, tramps and peddles, and gits enough dough to pay my way back. Say, it's bum slow over there. Why, they ain't even on to street-cars in London! I makes more in a week at home than I do in a month in England. Say, where you goin' at when we land?"

      Sandy shook his head ruefully. "I got to go back," he said.

      Ricks glanced around cautiously, then moved closer.

      "You ain't that big a sucker, are you? Any feller that couldn't hop the twig offen this old boat ain't much, that's all I got to say."

      "Oh, it's not the gettin' away," said Sandy, more certain than ever, now that he was sure of an ally.

      "Homesick?" asked Ricks, with a sneer.

      Sandy gave a short laugh. "Home? Why, I ain't got any home. I've just lived around since I was a young one. It's a chance to get on that I'm after."

      "Well, what in thunder is takin' you back?"

      "I don't know," said Sandy, "'cep'n' it ain't in me to give 'em the slip now I know 'em. Then there's the doctor "

      "That old feather-bed? O Lord! He's so good he gives me a pain. Goes round with his mouth hiked up in a smile, and I bet he's as mean as the "

      Before Hicks could finish he found himself inextricably tangled in Sandy's arms and legs, while that irate youth sat upon him and pommeled him soundly.

      "So it's the good doctor ye'd be after blasphemin' and abusin' and makin' game of! By the powers, ye'll take it back! Speak one time more, and I'll make you swaller the lyin' words, if I have to break every bone in your skin!"

      There was an ugly look in Ricks's face as he threw the smaller boy off, but further trouble was prevented by the appearance of the second mate.

      Sandy hurried away to his duties, but not without an anxious glance at the upper deck. He had never lost an opportunity, since that first day, of looking up; but this was the first time that he was glad she was not there. Only once had he caught sight of a white tam and a tan coat, and that was when they were being conducted hastily below by a sympathetic stewardess.

      But Sandy needed no further food for his dreams than he already had. On sunny afternoons, when he had the time, he would seek a secluded corner of the deck, and stretching himself on the boards with the green book in his hand, would float in a sea of sentiment. The fact that he had decided СКАЧАТЬ