“Oh, you must tell us about it!” begged the girls in chorus. “Heia! Hoia!”
“Now, please begin,” commanded Nancy.
They all sat down on the grass, Anne still clasping Plon in her arms, and listened breathless to the Captain’s story, which he told while he whittled at a wooden peg.
CHAPTER X
A REAL HERO
“I don’t think it’s worth tellin’,” protested the Captain again. But as they would not take no for an answer, he began in his droll way.
“It happened before any of you were born,” said he, “when I was captain of a little schooner named The Anna. That was my wife’s name, and my little daughter’s after her. I had just been married, and was home for a little vacation. That summer there was a lot of terrible storms off this coast. If you’ve ever seen a storm on this bay, girls, you can guess what it’s like in the winter. Our rocks are cruel hard and sly. They hide under the waves there like giants’ teeth ready to chew up the little boats.
“Well, there was a little schooner from Portygal that had got off her course, and the storm blew her in here. She beat in to what looked like a safe harbor out of the storm. But out there on the Washers she struck the reef, hard. In a jiffy the schooner was all stove up into kindlin’s; but the men managed to cling to a spar and drifted onto what seemed to them a little island. They climbed up into what looked like safety, though it was mighty damp, for it was low tide at the time. But that island is one of the Washers, and is covered at high tide with ten foot of roarin’ green water. They was all pretty nigh drownded already; and while they clung to the rocks two more of the men were swept away by big waves. They didn’t guess it, but full tide was bound to get ’em all.
“Now, I was lookin’ out of this front window with my spyglass, same as I always did in a storm, when I was ashore. And I sighted through the rain somethin’ black out on the Washers. ‘Gorry! It’s men!’ I says to Anna. ‘There’s men out on the Washers! Must have been a wreck. Must try to get ’em off in the double-quick. ’Course, they had to be got off,’” the Captain paused, already on the defence.
“That was just like Eph!” Aunt Polly interrupted. “Somebody had to do it; so he did. He never waited for ‘George’ or anybody else to do it. He tried to get some fellers to go out with him; but they said No good in that storm. It was sure drowning. They told him he would have to give it up. But Eph he would go! Not even Anna could keep him, and they just married! She told me afterwards how she begged and prayed him to stay for her sake. But he said for her sake he couldn’t let ’em drown; she’d never forget it if he did. Eph’s so obstinate!” Aunt Polly gazed at the Captain with affectionate admiration. He pretended to be angry at her interruption.