The children had often asked their mother to tell them over and over Lassie’s story, and their hearts had thrilled again and again as they heard of the great ship that in the morning had swept through the water with all sails set, like a thing of life, only to be a shattered wreck at night, and of the little wave-tossed baby. And so they never came to Oldport without stopping to see Lassie.
They found her this morning in the kitchen. She was walking up and down the floor carrying in her arms little Betty, who could never be persuaded to take her nap unless Lassie sang to her. Lassie’s voice was very sweet and Betty dropped off just as the children came in.
“Well, Lassie,” said Hal, beginning as he always did at the same question, “have you had any tidings yet from your family?”
“No,” said Lassie, “and I hope I never shall. I love my home here too well to want to have any one come and take me away.”
“But suppose your real father turned out to be the king of England,” said Hal. “It would be much finer to be the Princess Thalassa than just Old David’s Lassie.”
“I wouldn’t go with him a step if he were the King of England,” said Lassie, “no, not even if he were the Khan of Tartary.”
Hal had not much to say to this, as he did not even know who the Khan of Tartary was, so after a little he said good-by. “Perhaps he may turn up yet,” he called out as he moved along. “Any way, I’ll come and see you next time I am in Oldport and hear if he has.”
The harbor was quite a busy scene as they sailed across it. Here was a great ship just home from some foreign land. Away up aloft, so high above the water that it made Dolly dizzy to look, out on the yards sun-burned sailors were furling the sails, happy, no doubt, to be home again. Here and there heavy sloops, coasters Hal thought them, were making their way slowly on.
Old Andrew, as he sat at tiller of their boat, cast his eyes up at the sailors on the large ship and sighed.
“Does it make you feel like going to sea again, Andrew?” asked Mr. Brooks.
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the old man. “It’s ten years now since I left the sea, but every now and then the old longing comes back.”
“Why, Andrew,” exclaimed Hal and Dolly both at once, “we never knew that you had been a real sailor! Tell us all about it, away back from the very beginning.”
“The very beginning was pretty bad,” said the old man, “for I ran away from home when
I was a boy. I had sometimes been to the little seaport near where I lived, and had watched the ships and had longed to be a sailor.
“But my father would not hear of it. He wanted me to stay at home and be a farmer like himself. I tried to like farming, but I could not, and so one day I sat down on a log and thought it all out, and that night I ran away and shipped as a cabin boy.”
“How splendid!” said Hal.
“It doesn’t look very splendid to me,” said old Andrew. “If I had stayed at home I might have had a farm of my own now, instead of having to hire out like any other common man. And I would never have had the thought of how I broke my mother’s heart, to trouble me all these fifty years.”
Hal began to think that perhaps it was not such a spirited thing to run away as he had thought. At all events he said to himself, as he squeezed his mamma’s hand, he would never do anything to break his mamma’s heart, no never, never.
Andrew did not have time to tell any more of his experience then, for just at that moment the boat came alongside of their pier. In a minute more it was fast and they were ashore and at their own summer home again.
Tom and Dolly were wild with joy. They rushed about the house, into all the rooms and out again. Then they went to the tool-house, and finding here the sand-shovels that they had left behind the summer before, they seized them and rushed off to the beach, where they were soon hard at work building a sand castle that the next wave would surely knock down. They found this such fun that long before they had dreamed of its being dinner time, they were called to come in and make ready for the noon-tide meal. And such hungry little people as they were! They passed their plates twice for everything, and papa said that if they kept on at that rate they would eat him out of house and home.
In the afternoon they planned to walk along the beach at low tide to the point of rocks that I told you of, and visit a cave that they had found the year before, where they had often been. But this they could not do, for when they rose from the table and went out on the piazza they saw that a storm was brewing. Great heavy black clouds were piled up in the west, and a stormy wind was beginning to blow. The fishing boats in the open sea were making all speed to get into the quiet waters of the bay before the squall burst upon them.
Mr. Brooks brought out his glass, and through it the children could make out quite plainly the figures of the men in the flying boats. The clouds were rising so fast that the sun was soon hidden. Far out at sea, where the sun was still shining, a great ocean steamer was ploughing its way along as if squalls and storms were something that it had no concern with; but inside the harbor, all the little boats were making great haste to get to their piers before the storm broke. But few of them succeeded, though, for while the children watched down came the rain in a blinding flood that shut out everything from their view, and they were glad to escape from it into the house.
At first they were inclined to feel very much aggrieved that they could not get their walk and had to stay indoors, and Hal was a little bit cross, I am afraid. But mamma said that she was very glad of the rain, for it gave her time to see to the unpacking of the trunks, and she said that if they would be very good they might both help her. At this all Hal’s crossness disappeared, for there was nothing they both liked to do more than to help mamma. They emptied trunk after trunk, bringing armfuls of clothing to her to put away in drawers, and so much engaged were they that they did not notice that the clouds had broken away, until a broad gleam of sunshine came boldly in at the western windows and lay in a yellow band across the floor. Yes, the shower was over, and the clouds were fast disappearing. That night the moon came as brightly in Dolly’s window as it had ever done, for not even a baby cloud was there to dim its splendor.
The long June days went by one after another and soon July was at hand. July was fast going where June had gone before it. Many a day had Hal and Dolly spent on the sands, sometimes alone sometimes with papa and mamma, watching the great waves come rolling in and break into great clouds of foam.
The beach was not now as quiet and deserted as it had been when they first came, for now people were flocking down from the heated towns to gain health and strength from the cool sea air. The farmers’ houses all along back of the beach were full of them, and Hal and Dolly in their walks often met parties climbing over the rocks, or wading out into the shallow water to gather shells or seaweed that the tide had washed in.
They were not always pleasant people, but one day they came suddenly upon two children not far from their own age.
They were a boy and girl. The girl was younger than Dolly and looked very thin and pale. Her face brightened up so when she saw Dolly that she went up and spoke to her, and gave her a whole apronful of bright shells that she had picked up.
The little girl was very much pleased with the shells, and soon all four were talking busily. The boy told them that his name was Will Thornton, and that his sister’s name was Ellen. Ellen had been very ill, Will said, and that was the reason that her cheeks were so pale; but now she was going to get well at once. His papa had taken a house high up on a cliff that rose above the ocean. It was more than two miles away from where they now where, and Will told Hal that they had been left on the beach by their papa and mamma, who had gone to make a call and would soon come back for them in a carriage and take them home. Hal and Dolly liked their new friends very much, and were very sorry that they lived so far away; but Will said that he would ask his papa sometime when they were out driving to leave them at their house, so that they could spend the whole morning together.
And playing on the sands was not the only way Hal and Dolly had of passing their days; sometimes their papa took them in the Speedwell across the bay to Oldport. When he had business to transact he would leave them in charge of old Andrew, but when he was not very busy he would take them with him. They never failed to stop and see Lassie, and Hal was always much disappointed that no news from her family had come. Hal enjoyed these trips to Oldport more than anything else. It was such fun to see the sailors on the ships that lay idly at the piers. Sometimes they would be lying on a coil of rope spinning yarns, and Hal wished that he could go and listen, for he was sure that he should enjoy their stories.
Sometimes a man-of-war lay in the harbor, and Hal was wildly envious of the midshipmen whom he saw away up in the rigging, looking as much at home in that lofty situation as if they had been born there. When he grew old enough he meant to be a sailor; that was, at least, if mamma would let him. For he had made up his mind that he could not go unless she said yes. He would never break his mamma’s heart, as old Andrew had done, of that he was determined, sailor or no sailor.