Читать книгу A Little Maid of Province Town (Children's Book Classic) - Alice Turner Curtis - Страница 4

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“Come, Anne,” called Mrs. Stoddard at so early an hour the next morning that the June sun was just showing itself above the eastern horizon.

“Yes, Mistress Stoddard,” answered the little girl promptly, and in a few minutes she came down the steep stairs from the loft.

“It is early to call you, child,” said the good woman kindly, “but the captain has made an early start for the fishing grounds, and I liked not to leave you alone in the house in these troublous times; and so eat your porridge and we’ll go and milk Brownie.”

Anne hastened to obey; and in a few moments the two were making their way up the slope through the fragrant bayberry bushes, and breathing in the sweet morning air. No one else seemed astir in the little settlement. Now and then a flutter of some wild bird would betray that they had stepped near some low-nesting bird; and the air was full of the morning songs and chirrupings of robins, red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, and of many sea-loving birds which built their nests among the sand-hills, but found their food upon the shore.

Anne noticed all these things as they walked along, but her thoughts were chiefly occupied with other things. There was one question she longed to ask Mrs. Stoddard, yet almost feared to ask. As they reached the summit of the hill and turned for a look at the beautiful harbor she gained courage and spoke:

“Mistress Stoddard, will you please to tell me what a ‘spy’ is?”

“A spy? and why do you wish to know, Anne?” responded her friend; “who has been talking to you of spies?”

“Is it an ill-seeming word?” questioned the child anxiously. “The Cary children did call it after me yesterday when I went to the spring.”

“Did they that!” exclaimed Mrs. Stoddard angrily, “and what reply did you make, Anne?”

The little girl shook her head. “I said nothing. I knew not what they might mean. Does it mean an orphan child, Mistress Stoddard?” and the little girl lifted her dark eyes appealingly.

“I will tell you its meaning, Anne, and then you will see that it has naught to do with little girls. A ‘spy’ is like this: Suppose some one should wish to know if I kept my house in order, and what I gave the captain for dinner, and could not find out, and so she came to you and said, ‘Anne Nelson, if you will tell me about the Stoddard household, and open the door that I may come in and see for myself, I will give thee a shilling and a packet of sweets’; then, if you should agree to the bargain, then you could be called a spy.”

“But I would not do such a thing!” declared Anne, a little flash of resentment in her dark eyes. “Do the Cary children think me like that? I will throw water on them when next we meet at the spring—aye, and sand.”

“Nay, Anne,” reproved Mrs. Stoddard, but she was not ill-pleased at the child’s spirit. “Then you would be as bad as they. It does not matter what they may say; that is neither here nor there. If you be an honest-thinking child and do well they cannot work harm against you.”

As they talked they had walked on and now heard a low “Moo!” from behind a bunch of wild cherry trees.

“There’s Brownie!” exclaimed Anne, “but I do wish she would not ‘moo’ like that, Mistress Stoddard. The British might hear her if they come up this far from shore.”

“’Tis only to remind me that it is time she was milked,” said Mrs. Stoddard. “You can play about here, child, till I have finished.”

Anne did not wander far. There was something else she wished to know, and when the bucket was filled with foamy, fragrant milk, of which Mrs. Stoddard bade the child drink, she said:

“’Tis near a month since my father went. The Cary children also called after me that my father was a ‘traitor’; is that an ill-seeming word?”

“The little oafs!” exclaimed Mrs. Stoddard, “and what else did they say?”

“’Twill not make you dislike me, Mistress Stoddard?” questioned the child. “I honestly do not know why they should so beset me. But they called me ‘beggar’ as well, whatever that may be; though I’m sure I am not it, if it be an ill-seeming word.”

Mrs. Stoddard had set down her milking-pail; Brownie was quietly feeding near by; there was no one to see, and she put her arm about the little girl and drew her near. It was the first outward show of tenderness that she had made toward the child, and as Anne felt the kindly pressure of her arm and looked up into the tender eyes her own face brightened.

“We’ll sit here for a bit and rest, child,” said Mrs. Stoddard, “and be sure I think only well of you. Thou art a dear child, and I will not have aught harm thee or make thee unhappy.”

Anne drew a long breath, and snuggled closely to her good friend’s side. A great load was lifted from her sad little heart, for since she had come to Province Town she could remember but few kindly words, and to have Mistress Stoddard treat her with such loving kindness was happiness indeed. For a moment she forgot the taunts of the Cary children, and sat silent and smiling, her head resting against Mrs. Stoddard’s shoulder. There was a peaceful little silence between the two, and then Anne spoke.

“I would wish to know what ‘traitor’ might mean, Mistress Stoddard?”

“Very like to ‘spy,’” answered Mrs. Stoddard. “The children meant that your father had told the British that they could find good harbor and provisions here. That, like a spy, he had opened the door of a friend’s house for silver.”

Anne sprang from the arm that had encircled her, her cheeks flushed and her eyes blazing. “Now!” she declared, “I will throw water upon them when I go to the spring! All that the bucket will hold I will splash upon them,” and she made a fierce movement as if casting buckets full of wrath upon her enemies, “and sand!” she continued; “while they are wet with the water I will throw sand upon them. ’Tis worse to say things of my father than of me.”

“Come here, child,” said Mrs. Stoddard; “we will not let words like the Cary children speak trouble us. And you will remember, Anne, that I shall be ill-pleased if I hear of water-throwing at the spring. Come, now, we’ll be going toward home.”

Anne made no response, but walked quietly on beside her companion. When they reached the hilltop they paused again before going down the slope toward home.

“Look, Anne! Are not the fishing-boats all at anchor? What means it that the men are not about their fishing? We’d best hurry.”

Captain Enos met them at the door. He gave Anne no word of greeting, but said to his wife, “The British tell us to keep ashore. They’ll have no fishing. They know full well how easy ’tis for a good sloop to carry news up the harbor. They are well posted as to how such things are done.”

“But what can we do if we cannot fish?” exclaimed Mrs. Stoddard. “’Tis well known that this sandy point is no place for gardens. We can scarce raise vegetables enough to know what they mean. And as for corn and wheat, every grain of them worth counting has to be bought from the other settlements and paid for in fish. If we do not fish how shall we eat?”

The captain shook his head. “Go about your play, child,” he said, turning toward Anne, and the little girl walked slowly away toward a bunch of scrubby pine trees near which she had established a playhouse. She had built a cupboard of smooth chips, and here were gathered the shells she had brought from the beach, a wooden doll which her father had made her, and the pieces of a broken earthenware plate.

She took the doll from its narrow shelf and regarded it closely. Her father had made it with no small skill. Its round head was covered with curls carved in the soft wood; its eyes were colored with paint, and its mouth was red. The body was more clumsily made, but the arms and legs had joints, and the doll could sit up as erect as its small mistress. It wore one garment made of blue and white checked cotton. It was the only toy Anne Nelson had ever possessed, and it had seemed more her own because she had kept it in the little playhouse under the pines.

“Now, you can go up to the house and live with me,” she said happily, “and now you shall have a truly name. You shall be Martha Nelson now. I know my father would want you to be called Martha, if he knew that Mrs. Stoddard put her arm around me and called me a ‘dear child,’” and Anne smiled at the remembrance.

She did not speak of her father before the Stoddards, but she could not have explained the reason for her silence. She had wondered much about him, and often watched the harbor yearningly, thinking that after all the old sloop might come sailing back, bringing the slender, silent man who had always smiled upon her, and praised her, and had told her that some day she should have a Maltese kitten, and a garden with blossoming trees and smooth paths. Anne did not forget him, and now as she regarded her wooden doll a great longing for a sight of his dear face made her forget everything, and she leaned her head against a little pine and cried silently. But as she cried the remembrance of the taunts of the Cary children came into her thoughts, and she dried her eyes.

“’Tis near the hour when they go to the spring,” she said, laying the doll carefully back in its former resting place. “I will but walk that way that they may not think me afraid of their ill-seeming words,” and with her dark head more erect than usual, Anne made her way down the path, her brown feet sinking ankle-deep in the warm sand at every step.

The Cary children, a boy and a girl, both somewhat Anne’s seniors, were already filling their buckets at the spring. Jimmie Starkweather was there, and a number of younger children ran shouting up and down the little stream which flowed from the spring across the road.

As Anne came near, Jimmie Starkweather called out: “Oh, Anne Nelson! The Indians from Truro are camping at Shankpainter’s Pond. I’ve been over there, near enough to see them at work, this morning. My father says they’ll be gone as soon as they see the British vessels. We’ll not have time to buy moccasins if they go so quickly.”

Anne’s eyes rested for a moment upon Jimmie, but she did not speak. She could hear the Carys whispering as they dipped their buckets in the spring, and as she came nearer, their voices rose loudly: “Daughter of a spy! Beggar-child! Beggar-child!”

But their taunts vanished in splutterings and pleas for mercy; for at their first word Anne had sprung upon them like a young tiger. She had wrenched the bucket of water from the astonished boy and flung it in his face with such energy that he had toppled over backward, soused and whimpering; then she had turned upon his sister, sending handful after handful of sand into the face of that astonished child, until she fled from her, wailing for mercy.

But Anne pursued her relentlessly, and Captain Enos Stoddard, making his mournful way toward the shore, could hardly believe his own senses when he looked upon the scene—the Cary boy prostrate and humble, while his sister, pursued by Anne, prayed for Anne to stop the deluge of sand that seemed to fill the air about her.

“I’ll not be called ill-seeming names!” shrieked Anne. “If thou sayest ‘traitor’ or ‘spy’ to me again I will do worse things to you!”

Captain Stoddard stood still for a moment. Then a slow smile crept over his weather-beaten face. “Anne!” he called, and at the sound of his voice the child stopped instantly. “Come here,” he said, and she approached slowly with hanging head. “Give me your hand, child,” he said kindly, and the little girl slipped her slender fingers into the big rough hand.

“So, Jimmie Starkweather, you’ll stand by and see my little girl put upon, will you!” he exclaimed angrily. “I thought better than that of your father’s son, to stand by and let a small girl be taunted with what she cannot help. It speaks ill for you.”

“I had no time, sir,” answered the boy sulkily; “she was upon them both in a second,” and Jimmie’s face brightened; “it was fine, sir, the way she sent yon lubber over,” and he pointed a scornful finger toward the Cary boy, who was now slinking after his sister.

“Here, you Cary boy!” called the captain, “come back here and heed what I say to you. If I know of your opening your mouth with such talk again to my girl here,” and he nodded toward Anne, “I’ll deal with you myself. So look out for yourself.”

“I’ll see he keeps a civil tongue, sir,” volunteered Jimmie, and Captain Enos nodded approvingly.

“Now, Anne, we’d best step up home,” said the captain. “I expect Mistress Stoddard will not be pleased at this.”

Anne clung close to the big hand but said no word.

“I am not angry, child,” went on the captain. “I like your spirit. I do not believe in being put upon.”

“But Mistress Stoddard told me I was not to throw water and sand,” responded Anne, “and I forgot her commands. I fear she will not like me now,” and remorseful tears dropped over the flushed little cheeks.

“There, there! Do not cry, Anne,” comforted the captain; “I will tell her all about it. She will not blame you. You are my little girl now, and those Cary oafs will not dare open their mouths to plague you.”

Mrs. Stoddard, looking toward the shore, could hardly credit what she saw—the captain, who but yesterday had declared that Anne should not stay under his roof, leading the child tenderly and smiling upon her!

“Heaven be thanked!” she murmured. “Enos has come to his senses. There’ll be no more trouble about Anne staying.”