“We didn’t come to see the drill, Cap’n Smiley,” she said in the severe tone natural to her. “We came to protest, on behalf of good people, against your allowing that child with the improper name to stay here. No one knows anything about her and I dare say the name you’ve given her is no worse than the rest if it were known; but a crew of rough men is not a fit surrounding in which any child should be brought up.”
For an ex-schoolteacher Miss Errily’s sentence construction was not flattering, but it was not the construction which bothered the keeper. The pleasant expression left his face.
“I don’t like insinuations, Miss Errily. Say what you have to say right out.”
Miss Errily compressed her lips more tightly before reopening them.
“Everyone knows, Cap’n Smiley, that this girl is a nobody-knows-who.”
“Go on,” the keeper told her.
“Doubtless,” pursued Miss Errily, “she is a—no, I cannot bring myself to say it, and it is unnecessary—an Improper Child” (Miss Errily’s tone capitalized the words) “With Improper Origins and Antecedents. Her proper place is an Institution. Naturally, the Children’s Home connected with the county house and poor farm. They train them very well for domestic service, and good servants are becoming scarce. Few nowadays can keep their place and so, few keep their places. Besides, it is a Scandal—I speak frankly—an Open Scandal for a child of her years to be living here with rough men who cannot look after her properly nor discipline her. School, church, and home; she goes without all three.”
Cap’n Smiley’s blue eyes flashed as the blue ocean at which he had been gazing flashed when the sun caught the waves. Now he turned and faced the women, but Ho Ha, who had been listening with clenched fists, was before him. At the beginning of Miss Errily’s remarks Ho Ha had whispered in Mermaid’s ear and the child had scampered toward the station, not unpleased, for she did not like the looks the visitors gave her.
“Wait a minute, Miss Errily,” said Ho Ha. He drawled the words. “Wait—a—minute. You are not holding school, now. Who sent you?”
The spokeswoman stiffened. She replied, angrily: