CHAPTER 6
CAPTAIN JIM
"Old Doctor Dave" and "Mrs. Doctor Dave" had come down to the littlehouse to greet the bride and groom. Doctor Dave was a big, jolly,white-whiskered old fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked,silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once to her heart, literallyand figuratively.
"I'm so glad to see you, dear. You must be real tired. We've got abite of supper ready, and Captain Jim brought up some trout for you.Captain Jim--where are you? Oh, he's slipped out to see to the horse,I suppose. Come upstairs and take your things off."
Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as she followedMrs. Doctor Dave upstairs. She liked the appearance of her new homevery much. It seemed to have the atmosphere of Green Gables and theflavor of her old traditions.
"I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a 'kindred spirit,'"she murmured when she was alone in her room. There were two windows init; the dormer one looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar andthe Four Winds light.
"A magic casement opening on the foam Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn,"
quoted Anne softly. The gable window gave a view of a littleharvest-hued valley through which a brook ran. Half a mile up thebrook was the only house in sight--an old, rambling, gray onesurrounded by huge willows through which its windows peered, like shy,seeking eyes, into the dusk. Anne wondered who lived there; they wouldbe her nearest neighbors and she hoped they would be nice. Shesuddenly found herself thinking of the beautiful girl with the whitegeese.
"Gilbert thought she didn't belong here," mused Anne, "but I feel sureshe does. There was something about her that made her part of the seaand the sky and the harbor. Four Winds is in her blood."
When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing before the fireplacetalking to a stranger. Both turned as Anne entered.
"Anne, this is Captain Boyd. Captain Boyd, my wife."
It was the first time Gilbert had said "my wife" to anybody but Anne,and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it. The old captainheld out a sinewy hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and werefriends from that moment. Kindred spirit flashed recognition tokindred spirit.
"I'm right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe; and I hope you'llbe as happy as the first bride was who came here. I can't wish you nobetter than THAT. But your husband doesn't introduce me jest exactlyright. 'Captain Jim' is my week-a-day name and you might as well beginas you're sartain to end up--calling me that. You sartainly are a nicelittle bride, Mistress Blythe. Looking at you sorter makes me feelthat I've jest been married myself."
Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim tostay and have supper with them.
"Thank you kindly. 'Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor. I mostlyhas to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in alooking-glass opposite for company. 'Tisn't often I have a chance tosit down with two such sweet, purty ladies."
Captain Jim's compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid themwith such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the womanupon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen'stribute in a kingly fashion.
Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternalyouth in his eyes and heart. He had a tall, rather ungainly figure,somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; aclean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-grayhair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue,deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, andsometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of oneseeking something precious and lost. Anne was to learn one day what itwas for which Captain Jim looked.
It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely man. His sparejaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines ofbeauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which hadmarked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Annethought him plain she never thought anything more about it--the spiritshining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.
They gathered gaily around the supper table. The hearth fire banishedthe chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining roomwas open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. The view wasmagnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hillsbeyond. The table was heaped with Mrs. Doctor's delicacies but thepiece de resistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.
"Thought they'd be sorter tasty after travelling," said Captain Jim."They're fresh as trout can be, Mistress Blythe. Two hours ago theywere swimming in the Glen Pond."
"Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?" asked Doctor Dave.
"Nephew Alec. He understands it as well as I do. Well, now, I'm realglad you asked me to stay to supper. I'm proper hungry--didn't havemuch of a dinner today."
"I believe you half starve yourself most of the time down at thatlight," said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely. "You won't take the trouble toget up a decent meal."
"Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do," protested Captain Jim. "Why, I livelike a king gen'rally. Last night I was up to the Glen and took hometwo pounds of steak. I meant to have a spanking good dinner today."
"And what happened to the steak?" asked Mrs. Doctor Dave. "Did youlose it on the way home?"
"No." Captain Jim looked sheepish. "Just at bedtime a poor, ornerysort of dog came along and asked for a night's lodging. Guess hebelonged to some of the fishermen 'long shore. I couldn't turn thepoor cur out--he had a sore foot. So I shut him in the porch, with anold bag to lie on, and went to bed. But somehow I couldn't sleep.Come to think it over, I sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry."
"And you got up and gave him that steak--ALL that steak," said Mrs.Doctor Dave, with a kind of triumphant reproof.
"Well, there wasn't anything else TO give him," said Captain Jimdeprecatingly. "Nothing a dog'd care for, that is. I reckon he WAShungry, for he made about two bites of it. I had a fine sleep the restof the night but my dinner had to be sorter scanty--potatoes and point,as you might say. The dog, he lit out for home this morning. I reckonHE weren't a vegetarian."
"The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!" sniffed Mrs.Doctor.
"You don't know but he may be worth a lot to somebody," protestedCaptain Jim. "He didn't LOOK of much account, but you can't go bylooks in jedging a dog. Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside.The First Mate didn't approve of him, I'll allow. His language wasright down forcible. But the First Mate is prejudiced. No use intaking a cat's opinion of a dog. 'Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so thisnice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It's a greatthing to have good neighbors."
"Who lives in the house among the willows up the brook?" asked Anne.
"Mrs. Dick Moore," said Captain Jim--"and her husband," he added, as ifby way of an afterthought.
Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick Moore fromCaptain Jim's way of putting it; evidently a second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
"You haven't many neighbors, Mistress Blythe," Captain Jim went on."This side of the harbor is mighty thinly settled. Most of the landbelongs to Mr. Howard up yander past the Glen, and he rents it out forpasture. The other side of the harbor, now, is thick withfolks--'specially MacAllisters. There's a whole colony of MacAllistersyou can't throw a stone but you hit one. I was talking to old LeonBlacquiere the other day. He's been working on the harbor all summer.'Dey're nearly all MacAllisters over thar,' he told me. 'Dare's NeilMacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and William MacAllister and AlecMacAllister and Angus MacAllister--and I believe dare's de DevilMacAllister.'"
"There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords," said Doctor Dave,after the laughter had subsided. "You know, Gilbert, we folk on thisside of Four Winds have an old saying--'From the conceit of theElliotts, the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of theCrawfords, good Lord deliver us.'"
Doctor Dave, who had a forty years' feud with the over-harbor people,laughed and subsided.
"Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half a mile up theroad?" asked Gilbert.
Captain Jim smiled delightedly.
"Miss Cornelia Bryant. She'll likely be over to see you soon, seeingyou're Presbyterians. If you were Methodists she wouldn't come at all.Cornelia has a holy horror of Methodists."
"She's quite a character," chuckled Doctor Dave. "A most inveterateman-hater!"
"Sour grapes?" queried Gilbert, laughing.
"No, 'tisn't sour grapes," answered Captain Jim seriously. "Corneliacould have had her pick when she was young. Even yet she's only to saythe word to see the old widowers jump. She jest seems to have beenborn with a sort of chronic spite agin men and Methodists. She's gotthe bitterest tongue and the kindest heart in Four Winds. Whereverthere's any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help inthe tenderest way. She never says a harsh word about another woman,and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon ourtough old hides can stand it."
"She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim," said Mrs. Doctor.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. I don't half like it. It makes me feel as ifthere must be something sorter unnateral about me."
Anne's House of Dreams Page 6