“You let me tell this here story, will ye?” he growled, whittling with redoubled vigor. “Well, you see, as Polly says, somebody had to go out and get those men. Of course I went. Hadn’t I been the first one to see their danger? The Lord had showed ’em to me. Ye can’t wish His job onto anyone else. Ye must take it yourself, when He hands it to ye. That is all there is to it.
“Well, I put the old dory into the surf; I kinder thought she’d see me through. The fellers helped me—that was tough work! I thought we’d never get over the rollers. But well—I did get out to the rocks somehow, and somehow I brought back four of the men—four Portygees who couldn’t speak a word of English. Tickledest men I ever saw! For I didn’t get to ’em a mite too soon. The waves were creepin’ mighty close. Two of the poor chaps had been washed off already. I always felt kind of guilty about those two. Seems as if I had hurried a little more; if I hadn’t stopped to put on my son’wester and boots, I might have saved ’em all. Those two drownded men kind of ha’nt me, sometimes.”
“The idea!” again interpolated Aunt Polly. “It was a sheer miracle you saved any of them and got back alive. Everybody said so.”
The Captain calmly ignored her remark and went on with a chuckle. “You oughter seen this shore the next few days! The Portygee schooner was freighted with oranges and lemons and pineapples and olives and oil,—queer things like that. The rocks were covered with yaller splotches and dabs, like paint the artist-folks daub all over the cliffs in the summer time. I guess they get mad with their paint-boxes and tip ’em over out of spite! Well, the waves were all shiny with oil, and we had pies for dinner and lemonade, till we were sick of ’em. Anna and I had our first taste of olives. I’ll never forget what a face she made at the queer flavor of ’em! It was funny to hear the Portygees tryin’ to thank us in their lingo and make us a present of all the stuff we could save from the sea. They were so grateful.”
“I should think they might have been!” cried Norma enthusiastically. “Why, you’d risked your life for them, like a story-book hero!”
“They lived on Eph for a week,” added Aunt Polly. “I don’t see where he stowed them all. Foreigners too! I guess he was good to them; just as good as if they had been American.”
“Well, why shouldn’t I be?” asked the Captain. “They were humans, weren’t they? Everybody’s neighbors in this world. For all I know, those Portygees are Americans now. Two of ’em said they were goin’ to settle in the West some day.”
“Oh, Captain! I am so proud of you!” Beverly’s eyes shone.
“Nonsense! It wa’n’t anything, I tell ye!” blustered Cap’n Sackett, turning red. “It was about that boat in the bottle you wanted to hear? Well it is kinder cute, ain’t it? One of the Portygee sailors sent it to me after he got back to his own land. He carved the little boat himself, and made all the sails and riggin’. But I dunno how ever he got it into that little narrow-necked bottle. It beats me! Those furriners are cuter than we about some things.”
“Eph was about dead when they all got ashore,” Aunt Polly added to the story. “He never was so husky afterwards. Anna wrote me she had to rub him half the night to get him limbered up. But he kept telling her to look after the poor foreign sailors, who couldn’t speak a word of English. Eph seemed to think that was the pitifulest part of it all.”