Читать книгу A Little Maid of Province Town (Children's Book Classic) - Alice Turner Curtis - Страница 5

Table of Contents

Mrs. Stoddard said nothing to Anne of the trouble at the spring, and when Anne would have explained her part in it, her friend said quickly: “Captain Enos is not displeased with you, Anne. He thinks the Cary children not well taught at home, and says for you not to play with them,” so that Anne had gone happily back to her playhouse, and told “Martha” that there was no one so good as Mistress and Captain Stoddard, “except my dear father,” the little girl had added loyally.

“Now, Martha, you must be a good and quiet child,” she advised, “for after this you will live in the house with me. You can come out here to play with me, but every night you are to sleep in my bed; and it may be, Mistress Stoddard will let you rest in the kitchen now and then, and you may go with me over the pasture hill to see Brownie.”

The big British ships lay quietly at anchor for several days. The men came ashore in boat-loads, washed their clothes at the spring, bought such provisions as the little settlement could offer, and wandered about the shore. The citizens treated them not uncivilly, for since the men of Province Town were unable to make any resistance to those they felt to be their country’s foes, they knew it to be best to be silent and accept the authority they had not the strength to defy. So the fishing-boats swung at anchor in the harbor, and the men lingered about the landing, or fished for plaice fish and sole from their dories near shore.

“We’ll be poor indeed when frost comes,” complained Mrs. Stoddard; “my molasses keg is near empty now, and the meal barrel not half full. If those Britishers do not soon leave the harbor so that the men can get back to the fishing, this place will know hunger, for our larder is no poorer than our neighbors’.”

“Yes,” agreed Captain Enos, “the whole coast is feeling the king’s displeasure because we will not pay him taxes to fill his pockets, and make slaves of us. I wish we had some news of our Boston friends. The Freemans are well to do, but with Boston beset on all sides with British soldiers they may be hard pressed.”

“’Twill come to worse yet, be sure,” predicted Mrs. Stoddard gloomily.

It was but a few days after this when with joyful songs the British sailors made ready to sail, and on a bright July morning the vessels, taking advantage of a fair wind, bent their sails and skimmed away up the coast.

“They are bound for Boston,” declared Captain Enos, “and ’Tis soon enough they’ll be back again. The Boston folk will not let them come to anchor, I’ll be bound.”

Hardly had the ships got under headway before the fishermen were rowing out to their sailboats, and soon the little fleet was under sail bound off Race Point toward the fishing grounds.

“Now, Anne, you had best go after Brownie and bring her back to her old pasture. I like not the long tramp morning and night to milk the creature,” said Mrs. Stoddard, and she watched Anne, with the wooden doll clasped in her arm, go obediently off on her errand.

A little smile crept over her face as she stood in the doorway. “Captain Enos would like well that Anne be called Anne Stoddard,” she said aloud; “he begins to recall good traits in her father, and to think no other child in the settlement has the spirit that our girl has. And I am well pleased that it is so,” she concluded with a little sigh, “for there will be poor days ahead for us to bear, and had the captain not changed his mind about Anne I should indeed have had hard work to manage,” and she turned back to her simple household tasks.

Anne went slowly up the sandy slope, stopping here and there to see if the beach plums showed any signs of ripening, and turning now and then to see if she could pick out Captain Enos’s sail among the boats going swiftly out toward the open sea.

As she came in sight of the little grove of maples her quick eyes saw a man moving among them. Brownie was quietly feeding, evidently undisturbed. Anne stopped, holding Martha very tightly, her eyes fixed upon the moving figure. She was not afraid, but she wondered who it was, for she thought that every man in the settlement had gone to the fishing grounds. As she looked, something familiar in the man’s movements sent her running toward the grove.

“It is my father. I know it is my father,” she whispered to herself. As she came down the slope the man evidently saw her, for he came out from the wood a little as if waiting for her.

“Anne, Anne!” he exclaimed, as she came near, and in a moment his arm was around her and he was clasping her close.

“Come back in the wood, dear child,” he said. “And you have not forgotten your father?”

Anne smiled up at him happily. “I could never do that,” she responded. “See, here is my doll. Her name is Martha Stoddard Nelson.”

“An excellent name,” declared the man smilingly. “How neat and rosy you look, Anne! You look as if you had fared well. Be they kind to you?”

“Oh, yes, father. They say now that I am their little girl. But I am not,” and Anne shook her head smilingly. “I am my own father’s little girl; though I like them well,” she added.

The two were seated on a grassy hummock where no eye could see them; but from time to time John Nelson looked about furtively as if expecting some one to appear.

“You are not a ‘traitor’ or a ‘spy,’ are you, father?” questioned the child. “When the Cary children did say so I chased them from the spring, and Captain Enos said I did well. But I did think you lost at sea, father!”

The man shook his head. “Try and remember what I tell you, child, that you may know your father for an honest man. The day I left harbor on my fishing trip I was run down by one of those British vessels. The sloop sank, and they threw me a rope and pulled me on board. It was rare sport for their sailors to see me struggle for my very life.” The man stopped and his face grew very grave and stern. “Then they said they were coming into Cape Cod Harbor, and that I should be their pilot. They said they would make a good bonfire of the shanties of the settlement. And then, child, I misled them. I laughed and said, ‘’Tis a settlement of good Royalists if ever there was one.’ They would scarce believe me. But they came into harbor, and when the men proved civil and refused them nothing, then they credited what I said. But they told me they were bound for Dorchester Harbor, and there they would make a good English soldier of me. I said nothing, but this morning, in the confusion of making sail, I slipped overboard and swam ashore, bound that I would have a look at my girl and know her safe and well.”

“And now, father, shall we go back and live in the little house by the shore? Mistress Stoddard has kept our things safely, and she has taught me many useful things,” said Anne proudly.

“No, child. For me to stay in this settlement would bring trouble upon it. Those ships will return here, and if I were found among the men here, then, indeed, would their anger be great. They must think me drowned, else they would indeed make a bonfire of every house along the shore.”

“But what will you do, father? You must stay with me now.”

“No, dear child. I must make my way up the cape to the settlements and join the Americans. My eyes are opened: ’Tis right that they should protect their homes. I will have some information for them, and I no longer have any place here. The Stoddards are good to you, Anne? They task thee not beyond thy strength? and they speak pleasantly to thee?”

“They are ever kind, father; they do smile on me, and Captain Enos does always give me the best piece of fish at table; and he told the Cary children that I was his little girl, and that I was not to be plagued. But he is not my own father,” answered Anne, “and if you must go up the cape I will go with you. The nights are warm and pleasant, and I shall like well to sleep out-of-doors with the stars shining down on us. And if you go with the Americans I will go too. They will not mind one little girl!”

Her father smoothed the dark hair tenderly and smiled at the eager, upturned face.

“You love me, Anne, and I’ll not forget that I have a dear, brave daughter waiting for me. I’ll be the braver and the better man remembering. But you cannot go with me. I shall be scant fed and footsore for many a long day, and I will not let you bear any hardship I can keep from you. It will be a joy to me to know you safe with Mistress Stoddard; and if I live they shall be repaid for all they do for you. They are indeed kind to you?” he again questioned anxiously.

“They are indeed,” responded Anne, seriously.

“Now I must begin my journey, Anne. And do not say that you have seen me. Keep in your heart all I have told you. I shall come for you when I can. But you are to be happy and not think of me as in danger. A brave man is always quite safe, and I wish you to believe that your father is a brave man, Anne.”

“Am I not to tell Mistress Stoddard?”

“Tell no one, Anne. Remember. Promise me that when they speak of me as drowned you will say no word!”

“I will not speak, father. But if they do say ‘traitor’ or ‘spy’ I am not to bear it. Captain Enos said I need not.”

A little smile came over the man’s face and he nodded silently. Then he kissed his little daughter and again promising that it should not be long before he would come for her, he turned and made his way through the wood, and soon Anne could no longer see him.

For a long time the little girl sat silent and sorrowful where he had left her. She had forgotten all about the little brown cow; her wooden doll lay neglected on the grass beside her. But after a little she remembered the errand on which she had been sent, and, picking Martha up, started off to drive Brownie back to the pasture near home.

Anne was so quiet that day that at night Mrs. Stoddard questioned her anxiously. “Have those Cary children been saying hateful words to you again, child?” she asked.

“No, I have not been to the spring,” answered Anne.

“Has Jimmie Starkweather been telling thee more foolish tales of a big wolf that comes prowling about at night?” continued Mrs. Stoddard.

“Oh, no, Mistress Stoddard. And indeed I do not think Jimmie Starkweather would frighten me. You know his father has seen the wolf. ’Twas near Blackwater Pond.”

“Then, child, I fear you are ill. Your face is flushed and you left your porridge untasted. Would you like it better if I put a spoonful of molasses over it?”

Anne nodded soberly. Molasses was not to be refused, even if she must live without her brave father; and so she ate her porridge, and Mrs. Stoddard patted her on the shoulder, and told her that the beach-plums would soon be ripening and then she should have a pie, sweet and crusty. And if the captain did well at the fishing, and the British ships kept their distance, she should have some barley sugar, a great treat in those days.

“We’ll be getting you some sort of foot-gear before long, too,” promised Mrs. Stoddard. “I have enough wool yarn in the house to knit you a good pair of warm stockings. ’Tis an ugly gray; I wish I could plan some sort of dye for it to make it a prettier color.”

“But I like gray,” said Anne. “Last winter my feet were cold, and ached with the chilblains. My father knew not how to get stockings for me, and cut down his own, but they were hard to wear.”

“I should say so!” said Mrs. Stoddard; “a man is a poor manager when it comes to fending for children’s clothes. ’Tis well I am provided with some warm garments. When the frost comes you shall learn to knit, Anne; and if we be in good fortune you shall do a sampler,” and Anne, comforted and somewhat consoled by all these pleasant plans for her future happiness, went to sleep that night with the wooden doll closely clasped in her arms, wishing her father might know how good Mistress Stoddard was to her.