“I never gave anybody a present,” she said, “but I know it must be the finest thing in the world to give somebody a gift,” and she looked up into Uncle Enos’s kindly face questioningly.
“You are a good child, Anne,” he said, “and I will make the wooden doll as soon as time offers. Now take thy beads and box and Martha Stoddard Nelson to thy room, and I will bring in some wood for Aunt Martha. Then ’twill be time for a bite of supper.”
Anne carried her treasures up-stairs to the little room. There was a stand in the room now, one that had belonged to her father. It had two drawers, and in one of them Anne carefully put the sandalwood box with the pink coral beads.
“I guess I have more lovely things than any little girl,” she said to herself, as she slowly closed the drawer. “There’s my doll, and my white kitten, and my scarlet stockings, which I shall have finished to-morrow, and my leather shoes, and these coral beads and the box!” But Anne gave a little sigh and then whispered, “And if my dear father could only know all about them, and that I am to give a doll to Amanda.” She looked out of the small window toward the beautiful harbor, and wished that she might go sailing over it to Boston, to find her father and bring him safe to Province Town. “I wish King George knew how much trouble he was making with his old war-ships,” Anne whispered to the wooden doll.
CHAPTER XII
AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
“I have a fine dish of ink all ready,” said Captain Enos the next morning, “but ’Tis too clear a morning to sit in the house and write letters. There are good cod coming into the harbor, and I must row out and catch what I can while the weather is good.”
“Can we not write the letter to-night?” asked Anne. “Aunt Martha has some fine pitch knots to burn that will make the kitchen light as day.”