But she refused the correction. “—The white-prowed Argo that is building across the river, to go in search of a golden fleece for little Jason here, a boat large, oh larger even than those other boats of little Jason’s father, the Captain down there, which used to float up and down the Mississippi, and which vanished one day into the maw of the Confederacy—”
But Jason was lifting his voice. “Not that way; make her stop, father; that ain’t the way!”
But mother was not to be hurried out of her revenge. “And this big, white ark is one day going to float off on the flood of Hope, bearing Jason and his father and his mother, the last plank of fortune between them and—”
Jason was beating with his hands on the steps. “Make her stop, father; make her tell it right; she don’t understand what mother means. Do you?” with an appeal to the absorbed Alexina.
That small soul jumped and looked embarrassed to know what to say, for direct admissions are not always polite. “I had an ark once,” she stated, “but I sucked the red off Noah, and Marie, my bonne, took it away.”
Leaning down, Charlotte Leroy swept the baby-voiced creature up into her lap. There was a passion of maternity in the act. “You innocent,” she said, and held her fast.
It was nice to be there; the ribbons and the lacy ruffles were soft beneath her cheek, and the dark eyes of the lady were smiling down.
The child turned suddenly and clung to Charlotte with passionate responsiveness.
“It’s about the boat his father is building, Willy wants you to know, little Mab,” the lady was telling her, “and how, the other day, the Captain down there and our friends and Willy and I went aboard her, on the ways at the shipyard over the river, and how, at the ax-stroke, as she slid down and out across the water, Willy broke the bottle on the bow and christened the boat ‘King William.’”
“Just so,” came up in the Captain’s voice.