“I hardly think so. She thinks she is too young to take the responsibility.”
“Oh, dear, when things are going along so pleasantly why do we have to have changes?”
“That’s what I said to my mother, and she said that change was about the only thing we could count on in this world.”
Joanne considered this for a moment before she said: “There have been a lot of changes in my life within the past two years, but all have been for the better. I don’t see how it can be so in Miss Dodge’s case, but perhaps it will. Who knows?”
“That is the way we should look at it, of course, though I must say I hate to have any one take Miss Dodge’s place. She is a fine captain and a fine teacher. It is just because of that she is going away. She has a splendid offer in another city, and feels that she must take it.”
Soon after this conversation the summer holidays began and Joanne was whirled off to Jamestown. The visit to Winnie did not materialize, but the summer was not without profit, for Joanne did most of her required reading, kept steadily to her decision of giving an hour a day to her mathematics, and under her grandfather’s tutelage progressed so far that she was satisfied that she could pass her examination without any trouble. Beyond this, she made great improvement in a direction which gave her more satisfaction than anything else, for she worked hard to better her writing and spelling. She wrote to Bob and his mother on alternate weeks, and this encouragement did much to keep alive her ambition. When she became too greatly absorbed in what she was saying, her words still had a fashion of falling apart, but when she took pains they never did. With her grandfather as teacher, she learned, too, to do all those things necessary for gaining her boatswain badge, to row, pole and steer a boat, to land it and make it fast, to tell directions by sun and stars, to swim with her clothes on, to box a compass and have a knowledge of tides. She certainly could not have had a better instructor, and the two became great comrades.
“I never expected that child to be such a comfort as she is,” said Dr. Selden to his wife one day. “She takes to the water like a duck and is learning to do all those things I taught her father.”
“Well, you have worked hard enough to make her learn,” replied his wife.
“Worked? Why, it has been the greatest fun imaginable. No boy could have been more companionable.”
Mrs. Selden raised her eyebrows. “That’s just the trouble; you want her to be like a boy, while I want her to be a young lady.”