Snuggling down against the sunny logs, Miles gravely watched the Captain. He washed the clothes deliberately, with a good deal of sober splashing and a lavish use of soap; and then he wrung them so vigorously that the muscles of his bared arms stood out. So earnest and busy did he seem about the undignified task that, before he thought, Miles blurted out: "Do you like to do it, Captain Standish?"
"Not in the least," the Captain answered cheerfully, as he twisted a sheet so hard that a jet of water spurted over the front of his shirt, "not in the least, Miles. But there's no one else to do it, and it must needs be done."
Miles pondered a moment. "I take it, that's how it is with living; somebody has to," he said at length.
"And somebody is right glad to," Captain Standish answered, with a quick glance at Miles. "You must get well and run about and do a man's share of the work that's before us, and you'll soon be rid of any heavy thoughts."
Miles sat still in the sunlight, and, reflecting vaguely, called to mind that, if his father and mother both were dead, Mistress Rose Standish, who was all the Captain had, likewise rested yonder on the bluff. Out of the fullness of knowledge the Captain was trying once more to teach him how to bear all bravely, he guessed, so he began stoutly: "Yes, I'm going to be a man, sir. Because now I'll have to take care of Trug and Dolly and Solomon."
Captain Standish smiled a little, as he gathered the wet clothes into his arms. "You're a true man already, Miles," he said. "At least, you're a man in the way you group your women-folk with your cattle."
After the Captain had gone behind the house to hang out his wash, Miles rested a time very thoughtful. The sunlight was warm and pleasant, and southward across the harbor the great bluff was dense with evergreen. A brave world, and he was going to do a brave part in it, as his mother had looked for him to do.
A step upon the chips made him rouse up just as Master Hopkins came leisurely round the woodpile. His face was pale, for he, too, had been touched with the sickness, and his manner was kinder than Miles had ever known in him. "So you're hale again, Miles Rigdale? Do you think you could make shift to walk up the hill to my house?"
"Yes, sir," Miles replied promptly. The house that Master Hopkins was building when Miles fell sick stood just across the street from the Elder's, and the boy had made up his mind to drag himself to the latter's cottage that day. It made his heart quicken to think of seeing again the rooms where his mother had lived that last month, and of talking with Dolly and Mistress Brewster. He hoped, too, that if he got up to the house they would keep him there to supper, perhaps all night. So he answered Master Hopkins's question confidently and happily: "Yes, sir. I can surely walk that far up the hill."
"That's well," said Master Hopkins; "you shall eat dinner with us this noontime."