第37章

The Board of Strategy was waiting at the end of the yard. Its members were filled with curiosity.

"Did you give it to her good?" demanded Asaph. "Did you let her understand we wouldn't put up with such cruelizin'?""Where's Bos'n?" asked Mr. Bangs.

Their friend's answers were brief and tantalizingly incomplete. He walked homeward at a gait which caused plump little Bailey to puff in his efforts to keep up, and he would say almost nothing about the interview in the schoolroom.

"Well," said Mr. Tidditt, when they reached the Whittaker gate, "Iguess she knows her place now; hey, Cy? I cal'late she'll be careful who she keeps after school from now on.""Didn't use no profane language, did you, Cy?" asked Bailey. "Ihope not, 'cause she might have you took up just out of spite. Did she ask your pardon for her actions?""No!" roared the captain savagely. Then, banging the gate behind him, he strode up the yard and into the house.

Bos'n came home a half hour later. Captain Cy was alone in the sitting room, seated in his favorite rocker and moodily staring at nothing in particular. The girl gazed at him for a moment and then climbed into his lap.

"I wrote my fifty lines, Uncle Cyrus," she said. "Teacher said I'd done them very nicely, too."The captain grunted.

"Uncle Cy," whispered Bos'n, putting her arms around his neck, "I'm awful sorry I was so bad.""Bad? Who--you? You couldn't be bad if you wanted to. Don't talk that way or I'll say somethin' I hadn't ought to.""Yes, I could be bad, too. I was bad. I whispered.""Whispered! What of it? That ain't nothin'. When I was a young one in school I used to whis-- . . . Hum! Well, anyhow, don't you think any more about it. 'Tain't worth while."They rocked quietly for a time. Then Bos'n said:

"Uncle Cyrus, don't you like teacher?"

"Hey? LIKE her? Well, if that ain't a question? Yes, I like her about as well as Lonesome likes Eben Salter's dog.""I'm sorry. I like her ever so much."

"You DO? Go 'long! After the way she treated you, poor little thing!""She didn't treat me any worse than she does the other girls and boys when they're naughty. And I did know the rule about whispering.""Well, that's different. Comparin' you with that Bennie Edwards--the idea! And then makin' you cry!"

"She didn't make me cry."

"Did, too. I heard you."

The child looked up at him and then hid her face in his waistcoat.

"I wasn't crying about her," she whispered. "It was you.""ME!" The captain gasped. "Good land!" he muttered. "It's just as I expected. She's studied too hard and it's touchin' her brain.""No, sir, it isn't. It isn't truly. I did cry about you because Ididn't like to hear you talk so. And I was so sorry to have you come there.""You WAS!"

"Yes, sir. Other children's folks don't come when they're bad.

And I kept feeling so sort of ashamed of you.""Ashamed of ME?"

Bos'n nodded vigorously.

"Yes, sir. Everything teacher said sounded so right, and what you said didn't. And I like to have you always right.""Do, hey? Hum!" Captain Cy didn't speak again for some few minutes, but he held the little girl very tight in his arms. At length he drew a long breath.

"By the big dipper, Bos'n!" he exclaimed. "You're a wonder, you are. I wouldn't be surprised if you grew up to be a mind reader, like that feller in the show we went to at the townhall a spell ago. To tell you the honest Lord's truth, I've been ashamed of myself ever since I come out of that schoolhouse door. When that teacher woman sprung that on me about my fo'mast hands aboard ship I was set back about forty fathom. I never wanted to answer anybody so bad in MY life, and I couldn't 'cause there wasn't anything to say. I cal'late I've made a fool of myself."Bos'n nodded again.

"We won't do so any more, will we?" she said.

"You bet we won't! _I_ won't, anyhow. You haven't done anything.""And you'll like teacher?"

The captain stamped his foot.

"No, SIR!" he declared. "She may be all right in her way--I s'pose she is; but it's too Massachusettsy a way for me. No, sir! Idon't like her and I WON'T like her. No, sir-ee, never! She--she ain't my kind of a woman," he added stubbornly. "That's what's the matter! She ain't my kind of a woman."