The Captain laughed, too, quite as if he were enjoying Doodles and Doodles’s brother. But the chat presently became less personal, and Blue was unconsciously drawn into it, discovering that the Captain, after all, was not a man to be feared.
The route, although far longer than that of the morning, came at last to its end; but Captain Bligh gave the boys a new subject to wonder and talk about when he told them that he should come to see them very soon.
CHAPTER XIX
JOSEPH SITNITSKY PROVES HIS VALOR
“Do you think God would have any objections to my asking Him to send us a stove?”
Blue was living with “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” and at the moment was so eager to know whether the young Lord lost his estate and his title that he absently queried, “H—m?”
It was only after the question had been patiently repeated that he came out of the story long enough to say, rather doubtfully, “N—no, I guess not.”
“Because we need one so bad,” Doodles went on, “and seeing it was his lightning that spoiled the old one, you know—of course, it was all right,” he hurried to add. “Maybe,” he continued thoughtfully, “He did it so He could have the chance to give us a new stove—if we asked for it. You know, He says He will give us anything that’s best for us, and I think that must be best for us, don’t you?”
Blue nodded smilingly, but returned at once to his book, and Doodles, with a wee breath of disappointment, gave up the one-sided talk. He craved a stronger assurance from his brother that a stove was a proper subject for prayer; but he could wait until the story was finished, and meanwhile he would venture to pray.
It happened that Doodles was alone when Captain Bligh fulfilled his promise, and he had much to tell his mother and Blue of what the genial Captain had said. But one thing he kept to himself. He was anxious to have the gift from Heaven come as a surprise to his mother. Thinking that the Captain was a suitable person to pass judgment on such a matter, he had referred to him his weighty question, and had received so prompt and hearty an approval of praying for what he wanted that no longer was he troubled with doubts.