Dorothy on a House Boat

“If it rains I’ll run back and get you an umbrella, Aunt Betty’s own – the only one aboard, I fancy. And as for fear – child alive! Did you never get into the woods and smell the ferns and things? There’s nothing so sweet in the world as the delicious woodsy smell! Ah! um! Let’s hurry!” cried Dolly, linking her arm in the lame girl’s and helping her over the grassy hummocks.

Even then Elsa would have retreated, startled by the idea of “woods” where the worst she had anticipated was a leisurely stroll over a green meadow. But there was no resisting her friend’s enthusiasm; besides, looking backward she was as much afraid to return and try clambering aboard the Lily, unaided, as she was to go forward.

So within a few minutes all four had entered the bit of woodland and, following Dorothy’s example, were eagerly searching for belated blossoms. Learning, too, from that nature-loving girl, things they hadn’t known before.

“A cardinal flower – more of them – a whole lot! Yes, of course, it’s wet there. Cardinals always grow in damp places, along little streams like this I’ve slipped my foot into! Oh! aren’t they beauties! Won’t dear Aunt Betty go just wild over them! if Father John, the darling man who ‘raised’ me, were only here! He’s a deal lamer than you, Elsa Carruthers, but nobody’s feet would get over the ground faster than his crutches if he could just have one glimpse of this wonderland!

“Did you ever notice? Almost all the autumn flowers are either purple or yellow or white? There are no real blues, no rose-colors; with just this lovely, lovely cardinal for an exception.”

Dorothy sped back to where Elsa stood nervously balancing herself upon a fallen tree-trunk and laid the brilliant flowers in her hands. Elsa looked at them in wonder and then exclaimed:

“My! how pretty! They look just as if they were made out of velvet in the milliner’s window! And how did you know all that about the colors?”

“Oh! Father John, and Mr. Winters – Uncle Seth, he likes me to call him – the dear man that gave us the Water Lily – they told me. Though I guessed some things myself. You can’t help that, you know, when you love anything. I think, I just do think, that the little bits of things which grow right under a body’s feet are enough to make one glad forever. Sometime, when I grow up, if Aunt Betty’s willing, and I don’t have to work for my living, I shall build us a little house right in the woods and live there.”

“Pshaw, Dolly Doodles! You couldn’t build a house if you tried. And you’d get mighty sick of staying in the woods all the time, with nobody coming to visit you – ” remarked Mabel coming up behind them.

“I should have the birds and the squirrels, and all the lovely creatures that live in the forest!”

“And wild-cats, and rattlesnakes, and horrid buggy things! Who’d see any of your new clothes?”

“I shouldn’t want any. I’d wear one frock till it fell to pieces – ”

“You wouldn’t be let! Mrs. Calvert’s awful particular about your things.”

“That’s so,” commented Aurora. “They’re terrible plain but they look just right, somehow. Righter ’n mine do, Gerry says, though I don’t believe they cost near as much.”

“Well, we didn’t come into these lovely woods to talk about clothes. Anybody can make clothes but only the dear God can make a cardinal flower!” cried Dorothy, springing up, with a sudden sweet reverence on her mobile face.

Elsa as suddenly bent and kissed her, and even the other matter-of-fact girls grew thoughtful.

“It’s like a church, isn’t it? Only more beautiful,” whispered the lame girl.

“Yes, isn’t it? Makes all the petty hatefulness of things seem not worth while. What matter if the storm did break the engine – that stranded us right here and gave us this. If we’d kept on down the bay we’d have missed it. That’s like dear Uncle Seth says – that things are meant. So I believe that it was ‘meant’ you should come here to-day and have your first taste of the woods. You’ll never be afraid of them again, I reckon.”

“Never – never! I’m glad you made me come. I didn’t want to. I wanted to read, but this is better than any book could be, because like you said – God made it.”

Aurora and Mabel had already turned back toward the Lily and now called that it was time to go. Though the little outing had meant less to them than it had to Elsa and Dorothy, it had still given them a pleasure that was simple and did them good. Aurora had gathered a big bunch of purple asters for the table, thinking how well they would harmonize with the dainty lavender of her hostess’s gown; and Mabel had plucked a lot of “boneset” for her mother, remembering how much that lady valued it as a preventive of “malary” – the disease she had been sure she would contract, cruising in shallow streams.

“Come on, girls! Something’s happened! The boys are waving to us like all possessed!” shouted Mabel, when they had neared the wharf and the boat which already seemed like home to them.

Indeed, Gerald and Melvin were dancing about on the little pier beckoning and calling: “Hurry up, hurry up!” and the girls did hurry, even Elsa moving faster than she had ever done before. Already she felt stronger for her one visit to that wonderful forest and she was hoping that the Water Lily might remain just where it was, so that she might go again and again.

Then Gerald came to meet them, balancing a water-melon on his head, trying to imitate the ease with which the colored folks did that same trick. But he had to use his hands to keep it in place and even so it slipped from his grasp and fell, broken to pieces at Elsa’s feet.

“Oh! What a pity!” she cried, then dropped her eyes because she had been surprised into speaking to this boy who had never noticed her before.

“Not a bit! Here, my lady, taste!”

She drew back her head from the great piece he held at her lips but was forced to take one mouthful in self-defence. But Dorothy, in similar fix was eating as if she were afraid of losing the dainty, while Gerald merrily pretended to snatch it away.

“Ha! That shows the difference – greed and daintiness!”

Then in a changed tone he exclaimed:

“Pretty close shave for the pickaninny!”

Dorothy held her dripping bit of melon at arm’s length and quickly asked:

“What do you mean? Why do you look so sober all of a sudden?”

“Metty came near drowning. Tried to follow his mother over the field to the melon-patch and fell into the water. Mrs. Calvert was walking around the deck and heard the splash. Nobody else was near. She ran around to that side and saw him. Then she screamed. Old Cap’n says by the time he got there the little chap was going under for the last time. Don’t know how he knew that – doubt if he did – but if he did – but he wouldn’t spoil a story for a little thing like a lie. Queer old boy, that skipper, with his pretended log and his broken spy-glass. He – ”

“Never mind that, go on – go on! He was saved, wasn’t he? Oh! say that he was!” begged Dolly, wringing her hands.

“Course. And you’re dripping pink juice all over your skirt!”

“If you’re going to be so tantalizing – ” she returned and forgetful of lame Elsa, sped away to find out the state of things for herself.

Left alone Elsa began to tremble, so that her teeth chattered when Gerald again held the fruit to her lips.

“Please don’t! I – I can’t bear it! It seems so dreadful! Nothing’s so dreadful as – death! Poor, poor, little boy!”

The girl’s face turned paler than ordinary and she shook so that Gerald could do no less than put his arm around her to steady her.

“Don’t feel that way, Elsa! Metty isn’t dead. I tell you he’s all right. He’s the most alive youngster this minute there is in the country. Old Cap’n is lame; of course he couldn’t swim, even if he’d tried. But he didn’t. He just used his wits, and they’re pretty nimble, let me tell you! There was a boat-hook hanging on the rail – that’s a long thing with a spike, or hook, at one end, to pull a boat to shore, don’t you know? He caught that up and hitched it into the seat of Metty’s trousers and fished him out all right. Fact.”

Elsa’s nervousness now took the form of tears, mingled with hysterical laughter, and it was Gerald’s turn to grow pale. What curious sort of a girl was this who laughed and cried all in one breath, and just because a little chap wasn’t drowned, though he might have been?

“I say, girlie, Elsa, whatever your name is, quit it! You’re behaving horrid! Metty isn’t dead. He’s very much happier than – than I am, at this minute. He’s eating water-melon and you’d show some sense if you’d do that, too. When his mother got back, after stealing her melon, she found things in a fine mess. Old Cap’n had fished the youngster out but he wasn’t going to have him drip muddy water all over his nice clean ‘ship.’ Not by a long shot! So he carries him by the boat-hook, just as he’d got him, over to the grass and hung him up in a little tree that was there, to dry. Yes, sir! Gave him a good spanking, too, Mrs. Bruce said, just to keep him from taking cold! Funny old snoozer, ain’t he?”

In spite of herself Elsa stopped sobbing and smiled; while relieved by this change Gerald hurriedly finished his tale.

“He was hanging there, the Cap’n holding him from falling, when his mother came tearing down the hill and stopped so short her melon fell out her skirt – ker-smash! ‘What you-all doin’ ter mah li’l lamb?’ says she. ‘Just waterin’ the grass,’ says he. ‘Why-fo’?’ says she. ‘’Cause the ornery little fool fell into the river and tried to spile his nice new livery. Why else?’ says he. Then – Did you ever hear a colored woman holler? Made no difference to her that the trouble was all over and Methuselah Washington Bonaparte was considerable cleaner than he had been before his plunge; she kept on yelling till everybody was half-crazy and we happened along with – Billy! Say, Elsa – ”

“Gerald, I mean Mr. Blank, is all that true?”

“What’s the use eyeing a fellow like that? I guess it’s true. That’s about the way it must have been and, anyway, that part that our good skipper fished the boy out of the water is a fact. Old Ephraim grand-daddy hated Cap’n Jack like poison before; now he’d kiss the ground he walks on, if he wasn’t ashamed to be caught at it. Funny! That folks should make such an everlasting fuss over one little black boy!”

“I suppose they love him,” answered Elsa. She was amazed to find herself walking along so quietly beside this boy whom she had thought so rough, and from whom she shrank more than from any of the others. He had certainly been kind. He was the one who had stayed to help her home when even Dorothy forsook her. She had hated his rude boisterous ways and the sound of his voice, with its sudden changes from a deep bass to a squeaking falsetto. Now she felt ashamed and punished, that she had so misjudged the beautiful world into which she had come, and, lifting her large eyes to Gerald’s face, said so very prettily.

But the lad had little sentiment in his nature and hated it in others. If she was going to act silly and “sissy” he’d leave her to get home the best way she could. The ground was pretty even now and, with her hand resting on his arm, she was walking steadily enough. Of course, her lame foot did drag but —

A prolonged bray broke into his uncomfortable mood and turning to the startled Elsa, he merrily explained:

“That’s Billy! Hurry up and be introduced to Billy! I tell you he’s a character – ”

“Billy? Billy! Don’t tell me there’s another boy come to stay on the Lily!”

“Fact. The smartest one of the lot! Hurry up!”

Elsa had to hurry, though she shrank from meeting any more strangers, because Gerald forgot that he still grasped her arm and forced her along beside him, whether or no. But she released herself as they came to the wharf and the people gathered there.

This company included not only the house-boat party but a number of other people. So novel a craft as a house-boat couldn’t be moored within walking distance of Four-Corners’ Post-Office, and the waterside village of Jimpson’s Landing, without arousing great curiosity. Also, the other boats passing up and down stream, scows and freighters mostly these were, plying between the fertile lands of Anne Arundel and the Baltimore markets, had spread the tale.

Now, at evening, when work was over, crowds flocked from the little towns to inspect the Water Lily and its occupants. Also, many of them to offer supplies for its convenience. The better to do this last, they unceremoniously climbed aboard, roamed at will over both boat and tender, inspected and commented upon everything and, finally, demanded to see the “Boss.”

Outside on the grass beside the wharf sat Colonel Dillingham of T, side-saddle-wise upon great Billy, who had gone to sleep. He was waiting to be presented to Mrs. Calvert and would not presume to disturb her till she sent for him. Meanwhile he was very comfortable, and with folded arms, his habitual attitude, he sadly observed the movements of his neighbors.

Most of these nodded to him as they passed, with an indifferent “Howdy, Cunnel?” paying no further attention to him. Yet there was something about the man on mule-back that showed him to be of better breeding than the rustics who disdained him. Despite his soiled and most unhappy appearance he spoke with the accents of a gentleman, and when his name was repeated to Mrs. Calvert she mused over it with a smile.

“Dillingham? Dillingham of T? Why, of course, Dolly dear, he’s of good family. One of the best in Maryland. I reckon I’ll have to go into the cabin and receive him. Is it still full of those ill-bred men, who swarmed over this boat as if they owned it?”

“Yes, Aunt Betty, pretty full. Some, a few, have gone. Those who haven’t want to see the ‘Boss.’”

Mrs. Calvert peered from her stateroom whither she had fled at the first invasion of visitors, and smiled. Then she remarked:

“Just go ashore and be interviewed there, dear.”

“Auntie! What do you mean?”

“I fancy you’re the real ‘boss,’ or head of this company, when it comes to fact. It’s your Water Lily, you are bearing the expenses, I’m your guest, and ‘where the honey is the bees will gather.’ If these good people once understand that it’s you who carry the purse – ”

“But I don’t! You know that. I gave it to Mrs. Bruce. I asked her to take care of the money because – Well, because I’m careless, sometimes, you know, and might lose it.”

“It’s the same thing. Ask her to go with you and advise you, if there is anything you need. But, remember, money goes fast if one doesn’t take care.”

It sounded rather strange to Dorothy to hear Aunt Betty say this for it wasn’t the lady’s habit to discuss money matters. However, she hadn’t time to think about that for here was Mrs. Bruce, urging:

“Dorothy, do come and do something with these men. There’s one fairly badgering me to buy cantaloupes – and they do look nice – but with all the water-melons – Yes, sir; this is the ‘Boss;’ this is Miss Calvert, the owner of the Water Lily.”

A man with a basket of freshly dug potatoes had followed Mrs. Bruce to the door of Mrs. Calvert’s stateroom which, with a hasty “Beg pardon” from within, had been closed in their faces. Another man, carrying smaller baskets of tempting plums, was trying to out-talk his neighbor; while a third, dangling a pair of chickens above the heads of the other two, was urging the sale of these, “raised myself, right here on Annyrunnell sile! Nicest, fattest, little br’ilers ever you see, Ma’am!”

“Huh! that pair of chickens wouldn’t make a mouthful for our family!” cried the matron, desperately anxious to clear the cabin of these hucksters. She had made it her business to keep the Water Lily in spotless order and this invasion of muddy boots and dirt-scattering baskets fretted her. Besides, like all the rest of that “ship’s company,” her one desire was to make Mrs. Calvert perfectly comfortable and happy. She knew that this intrusion of strangers would greatly annoy her hostess and felt she must put an end to it at once. But how?

Dorothy rose to the occasion. Assuming all the dignity her little body could summon she clapped her hands for silence and unexpectedly obtained it. People climbing the crooked stairs to the roof and the “Skipper’s bridge” craned their necks to look at her; those testing the arrangement of the canvas partitions between the cots on one side stopped with the partitions half-adjusted and stared; while the chattering peddlers listened, astonished.

“Excuse me, good people, but this boat is private property. None should come aboard it without an invitation. Please all go away at once. I’ll step ashore with this lady and there we’ll buy whatever she thinks best.”

Probably because her words made some of the intruders ashamed a few turned to leave; more lingered, among these the hucksters, and Dorothy got angry. Folding her arms and firmly standing in her place she glared upon them till one by one they slipped away over the gang-plank and contented themselves with viewing the Water Lily and its Pad from that point.

As the last smock-clad farmer disappeared Dorothy dropped upon the floor and laughed.

“O Mrs. Bruce! Wasn’t that funny? Those great big men and I – a little girl! They mustn’t do it again. They shall not!”

“The best way to stop them is to do as you promised – step to the shore and see them there. Those potatoes were real nice. We might get some of them, but the chickens – it would take so many. Might get one for Mrs. Calvert’s breakfast – oatmeal will do for the rest of us.”

Dorothy sprang up and hurried with her friend off from the Lily. But she made a wry face at the mention of oatmeal-breakfasts and explained:

“Aunt Betty wouldn’t eat chicken if none of the others had it. And just oatmeal – I hate oatmeal! It hasn’t a bit of expression and I’m as hungry after it as before. Just do get enough of those ‘br’ilers’ for all. Please, Mrs. Bruce! There’s nobody in the world can broil a chicken as you do! I remember! I’ve eaten them at your house before I ever left Baltimore!”

Naturally, the matron was flattered. She wasn’t herself averse to fine, tasty poultry, and resolved to gratify the teasing girl that once. But she qualified her consent with the remark:

“It mustn’t be such luxury very often, child, if you’re to come out even with this trip and the money. My! What a great mule! What a curious man on it! Why does he sit sidewise and gloom at everybody, that way?”

Dorothy hadn’t yet spoken with Colonel Dillingham though the boys had given her a brief description of him and their attempted purchase. But she was unprepared to have him descend from his perch and approach her, saying:

“Your servant, Miss Calvert. You resemble your great-grandfather. He was a man. He —was a man! Ah! yes! he was a —man! I cayn’t be too thankful that you are you, and that it’s to a descendant of a true southern nobleman I now present – Billy. Billy, Miss Calvert. Miss Calvert, Billy!”

With a sigh that seemed to come from his very boots the gallant Colonel placed one of the mule’s reins in Dorothy’s astonished hand and bowed again; and as if fully appreciating the introduction old Billy bobbed his head up and down in the mournfulest manner and gravely brayed, while the observant bystanders burst into a loud guffaw.