“You dear old Uncle! Please, forgive me for telling you all I have. I am worried, dreadfully worried, about Father. He is so different of late. He takes everything so seriously where Mr. McGowan is concerned. He is not at all like himself. I’m afraid something dreadful will happen to him if things do not right themselves very soon.”
“Now, don’t you worry, Beth. Just you 151 be patient. I cal’late there is something wrong, but there ain’t no channel so long that it ain’t got an outlet of some sort, and the rougher ’tis, the shorter it’s li’ble to be. We’re going to get out, you bank on that, and when we do, your daddy is going to be aboard.”
“Thank you, Uncle Josiah. I’m ready now to go ashore.”
The look of relief on her beautiful face, as the tears of gratitude filled her eyes, caused the Captain to swallow very hard, and to draw the back of his hand across his eyes, remarking that the smoke was getting into them. He was unmindful that his pipe had gone out long ago.
On his way home the skipper became uncomfortably aware of the seriousness of his promise to the Elder’s daughter. He had pledged himself and his support indirectly to Jim Fox! What that might mean he could not foresee. He remembered what Elizabeth had told him concerning her father’s condition, and this set a new train of thought going through his brain. He recalled that there 152 had always been times since Jim Fox had first come to Little River when he had seemed dejected and melancholy. Could it be possible that there had been some physical disease working all these years in the Elder’s body, and might that not be an explanation for the mental state into which he seemed to be heading? Might that not be the reason for his strange actions against the minister and himself?
Captain Pott entered the dining-room just as Miss Pipkin emerged from the minister’s study. She was carrying a large crock. The seaman looked intently at the bowl.
“There was a mite too much pepper in that basin, Josiah. I was that excited about his ankle that I didn’t notice how much I was putting in. It’ll soon be better, now, for I was bathing it in this cream that Mrs. Beaver give me.”
“Bathing his foot in––what?”
“Cream. It takes the soreness out.”
“Clemmie, you’re a wonder! But if that cream come from Eadie’s I cal’late it won’t be none too healing.”