Jeanne couldn't remember when there hadn't been a heavy, red-headed baby to move from place to place on the old wharf, as she picked flowers, watched pollywogs turn into frogs, or talked to Old Captain. She didn't mind carrying babies, but her father disliked having her do it.
"Don't carry that child, Jeanne," he would say. "It isn't good for your back. Make him walk—he's big enough. If he can't walk, teach him to crawl. The good God knows that he cannot hurt his clothes."
Old Captain and Léon Duval were great friends. At first they had been rivals in business, the Captain with a fish-shop in one end of his freight car, Duval with a fish-shop on the wharf. Before long, however, they went into partnership. A good thing for Duval, who was a poor business man, and not so bad a thing for the Captain.
"What are you captain of?" asked Jeannette, one day, when her old friend was busy repairing a net.
"Well," returned Old Captain, with a twinkle in his fine blue eye, "some folks takes to makin' music, some folks takes to makin' money, some folks takes to makin' trouble; but I just naturally takes to boats. I allus had some kind of a boat. Bein' as how it was my boat, of course I was Captain, wasn't I? So that's how."
"Didn't you ever have any wives?"
"Just one," replied Old Captain, who loved the sound of Jeannette's soft, earnest little voice. "One were enough. Still, I'm not complainin'. If I'd been real pleased with that one, maybe I'd have tried another. I was spared that."
"Supposing a beautiful lady with blue eyes and golden hair should come walking down the dock and ask you to marry her," queried Jeanne. "What then?"
"I hope I'd have sense enough to jump in the lake," chuckled Old Captain.
"Oh then," cried Jeanne, seriously, "I do hope she won't come. I was only thinking how glad you'd be to have her boil potatoes for you so they'd be hot when you got home."