Part 19 (1/2)
She came to him with a clean towel which she tucked carefully in at the neckband of his s.h.i.+rt. Practically she lathered his face and rubbed the lather into the stubble with brisk hands. He grunted ecstatically, lying back in the chair in solid comfort. He eyed her manipulation of the razor on the strop with approval.
For the first time in many a morning he was shaved neatly and with dispatch. When Prudence came feebly into the room, he hailed her delightedly.
”You've lost your job, old woman!” he cried.
”And ain't there a thing for me to do?” queried Prudence softly, yet smiling.
”Just sit down at the table, auntie,” said the girl. ”The coffee is made. How long do you want your eggs boiled? The water is bubbling.”
”Eggs!” exclaimed Cap'n Ira. ”I thought them hens of Prue's had give up layin' altogether.”
”I found some stolen nests in the barn,” returned Ida May. ”They have been playing tricks on you.”
It was near noon when Ida May from an upper window saw the _Seamew_ beating out of the cove on her return trip to Boston. She watched the schooner as long as the white sails were visible. But her heart was not wholly with the beautiful schooner. A great content filled her soul. Afterward she bustled about, straightening up the house, her cheerful smile always ready when the old folks spoke. They watched her with such a feeling of thankfulness as they could not openly express.
After dinner she started on the ironing and proved herself to be as capable in that line as in everything else.
”Maybe she's been a shopgirl, Ira,” Prudence observed in private to her husband; ”but Sarah Honey didn't neglect teaching her how to keep any man's home neat and proper.”
”s.h.!.+” admonished Cap'n Ira. ”Don't put no such ideas in the gal's head.”
”What ideas?” the old woman asked wonderingly.
His eyes twinkled and he rewarded himself with a generous pinch of snuff before repeating his bon mot:
”If you don't tell her she'll make some man a good wife, maybe she won't never know it! Looker out, Prudence! _A-choon!_”
CHAPTER XIII
SOME YOUNG MEN APPEAR
A house plant brought out into the May suns.h.i.+ne and air expands almost immediately under the rejuvenating influences of improved conditions. Its leaves uncurl; its buds develop; it turns at once and gratefully to the business of growing which has been restricted during its incarceration indoors.
So with Sheila Macklin--she who now proclaimed herself Ida May Bostwick and who was gladly welcomed as such by the old people at the Ball homestead on Wreckers' Head. After the girl's experiences of more than three years since leaving her home town, the surroundings of the house on the headland seemed an estate in paradise.
As for the work which fell to her share, she enjoyed it. She felt that she could not do too much for the old people to repay them for this refuge they had given her. That Cap'n Ira and Prudence had no idea of the terrible predicament in which she had been placed previous to her coming made no difference to the girl's feeling of grat.i.tude toward them. She had been serving a sentence in purgatory, and Tunis Latham's bold plan had opened the door of heaven to her.
The timidity which had so marked her voice and manner when Tunis had first met her soon wore away. With Cap'n Ira and Prudence she was never shy, and when the captain of the _Seamew_ came back again he found such a different girl at the old house on Wreckers' Head that he could scarcely believe she was the Sheila Macklin who had told him her history on the bench on Boston Common.
”I swan, Tunis,” hoa.r.s.ely announced Cap'n Ira, ”you done a deed that deserves a monument equal to that over there to Plymouth. Them Pilgrim fathers--to say nothing of the mothers--never done no more beneficial thing than you did in bringing Ida May down here to stay along o' Prudence and me. And I cal'late Prue and me are more thankful to you than the red Indians was to the Pilgrims for coming ash.o.r.e in Plymouth County and so puttin' the noses of Provincetown people out o' joint.”
He chuckled.
”She's as sweet as them rose geraniums of Prue's and just as sightly looking. Did you ever notice how that black hair of hers sort of curls about her ears, and them ears like little, tiny seash.e.l.ls ye pick up 'long sh.o.r.e? Them curls just lays against her neck that pretty! I swan! I don't see how the young fellers kept their hands off her where she come from. Do you?”
”Why, you old Don Juan!” exclaimed Tunis, grinning. ”Ain't you ashamed of yourself?”
”Me? Aha! I've come to that point of age and experience, Tunis, where whatever I say about the female sect can't be misconstrued.