CHAPTER I
THE STOWAWAY
JOANNE was leaning on the deck’s rail watching the loading of freight. The black, perspiring men made much ado about it, and Joanne did not much wonder, for it seemed heavy work. She was not particularly interested in the boxes and bales, but presently she did see something which specially attracted her attention, and she leaned far over the rail to catch a last glimpse of a little black pony which came along with a dash once he gained his footing.
“Take care, Joanne,” her grandmother called from her steamer chair in which she was already established, “don’t lean over too far.”
Joanne came back to the perpendicular. “Oh, but Gradda, you should have seen the darling pony that just came aboard; he was so much more interesting than all those bunches of bananas and crates of stuff. At first he didn’t want to come and planted his feet as stubbornly as a mule with his head up and ears back; that was when they put him on the barge to bring him to the steamer; then they hoisted him up by a strap over the side. He must have been scared, poor dear, but now he is safe, I hope. He is such a darling little fellow, bigger than a Shetland, but rough like one.”
“Why didn’t you call me to see all this?” asked her grandmother.
“Why, I was so excited and so afraid I would miss something that I forgot. I wish I had a pony like that.”
“You couldn’t ride it, my dear, if you had.”
“But I could learn. Whose is it, do you suppose? I wonder if it is going to a new home and if its people are on board. I’m going to ask the captain when I get acquainted with him. There is a lot of freight, isn’t there? I don’t suppose we can start till it is all on board.”
“We needn’t have come down so soon,” remarked Mrs. Selden, “but that is just the way at the small ports; it takes forever to get ready to start. Probably we shall be here the rest of the day. You’d better sit down and rest, Joanne, and not wear yourself out by rushing around.”
“But, Gradda, there are hours and hours ahead when there will be nothing to do but rest; I shall get too much rested.”