“Gerald, I mean Mr. Blank, is all that true?”
“What’s the use eyeing a fellow like that? I guess it’s true. That’s about the way it must have been and, anyway, that part that our good skipper fished the boy out of the water is a fact. Old Ephraim grand-daddy hated Cap’n Jack like poison before; now he’d kiss the ground he walks on, if he wasn’t ashamed to be caught at it. Funny! That folks should make such an everlasting fuss over one little black boy!”
“I suppose they love him,” answered Elsa. She was amazed to find herself walking along so quietly beside this boy whom she had thought so rough, and from whom she shrank more than from any of the others. He had certainly been kind. He was the one who had stayed to help her home when even Dorothy forsook her. She had hated his rude boisterous ways and the sound of his voice, with its sudden changes from a deep bass to a squeaking falsetto. Now she felt ashamed and punished, that she had so misjudged the beautiful world into which she had come, and, lifting her large eyes to Gerald’s face, said so very prettily.
But the lad had little sentiment in his nature and hated it in others. If she was going to act silly and “sissy” he’d leave her to get home the best way she could. The ground was pretty even now and, with her hand resting on his arm, she was walking steadily enough. Of course, her lame foot did drag but——
A prolonged bray broke into his uncomfortable mood and turning to the startled Elsa, he merrily explained:
“That’s Billy! Hurry up and be introduced to Billy! I tell you he’s a character——”
“Billy? Billy! Don’t tell me there’s another boy come to stay on the Lily!”
“Fact. The smartest one of the lot! Hurry up!”
Elsa had to hurry, though she shrank from meeting any more strangers, because Gerald forgot that he still grasped her arm and forced her along beside him, whether or no. But she released herself as they came to the wharf and the people gathered there.
This company included not only the house-boat party but a number of other people. So novel a craft as a house-boat couldn’t be moored within walking distance of Four-Corners’ Post-Office, and the waterside village of Jimpson’s Landing, without arousing great curiosity. Also, the other boats passing up and down stream, scows and freighters mostly these were, plying between the fertile lands of Anne Arundel and the Baltimore markets, had spread the tale.