Dorothy on a House Boat

How that week flew! How busy was everybody concerned in the cruise of the wonderful Water Lily!

Early on the morning after his arrival, Jim Barlow repaired to Halcyon Point, taking an expert engineer with him, as Aunt Betty had insisted, and from that time till the Water Lily sailed he spent every moment of his waking hours in studying his engine and its management. At the end he felt fully competent to handle it safely and was as impatient as Dorothy herself to be off; and, at last, here they all were waiting on the little pier for the word of command or, as it appeared, for one tardy arrival.

From her own comfortable steamer-chair, Aunt Betty watched the gathering of the company and wondered if anybody except Dolly could have collected such a peculiar lot of contrasts. But the girl was already “calling the roll” and she listened for the responses as they came.

“Mrs. Elisabeth Cecil Somerset Calvert?”

“Present!”

“Mrs. Charlotte Bruce?”

“Here.”

“Mabel Bruce?”

“Present!”

“Elsa Carruthers?”

“Oh! I – don’t know – I guess – .” But a firm voice, her father’s, answered for the hesitating girl, whose timidity made her shrink from all these strangers.

“Aurora Blank? Gerald Blank?”

“Oh, we’re both right on hand, don’t you know? Pop’s pride rather stood in the way, but – Present!”

“Mr. Ephraim Brown-Calvert?”

The old man bowed profoundly and answered:

“Yeah ’m I, li’l miss!”

“That ends the passengers. Now for the crew. Captain Jack Hurry?”

Nobody responded. Whoever owned the rapid name was slow to claim it. But Dorothy smiled and proceeded. “Cap’n Jack” was a surprise of her own. He would keep for a time.

“Engineer James Barlow?”

“At his post!”

“Master Engineer, John Stinson?”

“Present!” called that person, laughing. He was Jim’s instructor and would see them down the bay and into the quiet river where they would make their first stop.

“Mrs. Chloe Brown, assistant chef and dishwasher?”

“Yeah ’m I?” returned the only one of Aunt Betty’s household-women who dared to trust herself on board a boat “to lib.” She was Methuselah’s mother and as his imposing name was read, answered for him; while the “cabin boy and general utility man” ducked his woolly head beneath her skirts, for once embarrassed by the attention he received.

“Miss Calvert, did you know that you make the thirteenth person?” asked Aurora Blank, who had kept tally on her white-gloved fingers.

“I hope I do – there’s ‘luck in odd numbers’ one hears. But I’m not – I’m not! Auntie, Jim, look yonder – quick! It’s Melvin! It surely is!”

With a cry of delight Dorothy now rushed down the pier to where a street-car had just stopped and a lad alighted. She clasped his hands and fairly pumped them up and down in her eagerness, but she didn’t offer to kiss him though she wanted to do so. She remembered in time that the young Nova Scotian was even shyer than James Barlow and mustn’t be embarrassed. But her questions came swiftly enough, though his answers were disappointing.

However, she led him straight to Mrs. Calvert, his one-time hostess at Deerhurst, and there was now no awkward shyness in his respectful greeting of her, and the acknowledgment he made to the general introductions which followed.

Seating himself on a rail close to Mrs. Betty’s chair he explained his presence.

“The Judge sent me to Baltimore on some errands of his own, and after they were done I was to call upon you, Madam, and say why her father couldn’t spare Miss Molly so soon again. He missed her so much, I fancy, while she was at San Leon ranch, don’t you know, and she is to go away to school after a time – that’s why. But – ”

The lad paused, colored, and was seized by a fit of his old bashfulness. He had improved wonderfully during the year since he had been a member of “Dorothy’s House Party” and had almost conquered that fault. No boy could be associated for so long a time with such a man as Judge Breckenridge and fail to learn much; but it wasn’t easy to offer himself as a substitute for merry Molly, which he had really arrived to do.

However, Dolly was quick to understand and caught his hands again, exclaiming:

“You’re to have your vacation on our Water Lily! I see, I see! Goody! Aunt Betty, isn’t that fine? Next to Molly darling I’d rather have you.”

Everybody laughed at this frank statement, even Dolly herself; yet promptly adding the name of Melvin Cook to her list of passengers. Then as he walked forward over the plank to where Jim Barlow smilingly awaited him, carrying his small suit-case – his only luggage, she called after him:

“I hope you brought your bugle! Then we can have ‘bells’ for time, as on the steamer!”

He nodded over his shoulder and Dorothy strained her eyes toward the next car approaching over the street line, while Mrs. Calvert asked:

“For whom are we still waiting, child? Why don’t we go aboard and start?”

“For dear old Cap’n Jack! He’s coming now, this minute.”

All eyes followed hers and beheld an old man approaching. Even at that distance his wrinkled face was so shining with happiness and good nature that they smiled too. He wore a very faded blue uniform made dazzlingly bright by scores of very new brass buttons. His white hair and beard had been closely trimmed, and the discarded cap of a street-car conductor crowned his proudly held head. The cap was adorned in rather shaky letters of gilt: “Water Lily. Skipper.”

Though he limped upon crutches he gave these supports an airy flourish between steps, as if he scarcely needed them but carried them for ornaments. Nobody knew him, except Dorothy; not even Ephraim recognizing in this almost dapper stranger the ragged vagrant he had once seen on a street car.

But Dorothy knew and ran to meet him – “last but not least of all our company, good Cap’n Jack, Skipper of the Water Lily.”

Then she brought him to Aunt Betty and formally presented him, expressing by nods and smiles that she would “explain him” later on. Afterward, each and all were introduced to “our Captain,” at whom some stared rather rudely, Aurora even declining to acknowledge the presentation.

“Captain Hurry, we’re ready to embark. Is that the truly nautical way to speak? Because, you know, we long to be real sailors on this cruise and talk real sailor-talk. We cease to be ‘land lubbers’ from this instant. Kind Captain, lead ahead!” cried Dorothy, in a very gale of high spirits and running to help Aunt Betty on the way.

But there was no hurry about this skipper, except his name. With an air of vast importance and dignity he stalked to the end of the pier and scanned the face of the water, sluggishly moving to and fro. Then he pulled out a spy glass, somewhat damaged in appearance, and tried to adjust it to his eye. This was more difficult because the lens was broken; but the use of it, the old man reckoned, would be imposing on his untrained crew, and he had expended his last dollar – presented him by some old cronies – in the purchase of the thing at a junk shop by the waterside. Indeed, the Captain’s motions were so deliberate, and apparently, senseless, that Aunt Betty lost patience and indignantly demanded:

“Dorothy, who is this old humbug you’ve picked up? You quite forgot – or didn’t forget – to mention him when you named your guests.”

“No, Auntie, I didn’t forget. I kept him as a delightful surprise. I knew you’d feel so much safer with a real captain in charge.”

“Humph! Who told you he was a captain, or had ever been afloat?”

“Why – he did;” answered the girl, under her breath. “I – I met him on a car. He used to own a boat. He brought oysters to the city. I think it was a – a bugeye, some such name. Auntie, don’t you like him? I’m so sorry! because you said, you remember, that I might choose all to go and to have a real captain who’ll work for nothing but his ‘grub’ – that’s food, he says – ”

“That will do. For the present I won’t turn him off, but I think his management of the Water Lily will be brief. On a quiet craft – Don’t look so disappointed. I shall not hurt your skipper’s feelings though I’ll put up with no nonsense.”

At that moment the old man had decided to go aboard and leading the way with a gallant flourish of crutches, guided them into the cabin, or saloon, and made his little speech.