“Yes, tell them about that ship, Eph,” urged Aunt Polly who had followed them into the door-yard. “That is a good story.”
“How did ze tall ship go into ze leetle bottle?” asked Gilda in amazement. “I don’t know!”
“Oh yes, Cap’n!” pleaded Nancy. “Do tell that story. Have you heard it, Anne?”
Anne shook her head. “I’ve heard a lot of the Captain’s stories, but never that one,” she said.
“Oh, I dunno about tellin’ that story,” protested the Captain. “It wa’n’t anything.”
“That was a copy of the ship he saved,” interpolated Aunt Polly. “They had it made for him, those Portygees. Ain’t it cute? I don’t see how they ever got it into the bottle, as the little foreign girl says.”
“Did he save a ship?” asked Anne with round eyes, hugging the rabbit.
“More than one!” chuckled Aunt Polly. “Ask anybody in this county. But that was the best one. Eph was a real hero, everybody says. He’s a real hero still, for that matter, isn’t he, Nelly? Once a hero, always a hero, that’s what I say!”
“Oh nonsense, Polly!” exclaimed Cap’n Sackett testily. “You hadn’t ought to talk such foolishness to these girls. Now young Victor Lanfranc, down to your camp, he is a real hero. He got wounded ’way up in the air over the German lines, that young Frenchy did. He bombed the factory where they made their wicked guns; and he got a medal for it. I admire that lad! I never got nothin’ but a salt water duckin’. He! He!” Captain Sackett gave a merry little chuckle.
“You ought to have had a medal,” insisted Aunt Polly.