“Lemons,” Uncle Ho was saying. “Oranges, onions—fine big Spanish onions from Valencia; pineapples and pomegranates, even Havana see-gars but mostly spoiled by salt water. Once, army blankets; we slept warm that winter. Cocoanuts every little while. The next cocoanut I find I’ll carve a mask out of for Mermaid.”
Her cheeks flushed and she tossed her hair and looked at him with dancing eyes. Wasn’t Uncle Ho good! And he was wonderfully skillful with a knife; a full rigged ship carved in a great glass bottle lay in the keeper’s room to witness his craftsmanship. He did marvellous things with bits of rope. He had promised to make her a hammock and with some fine white rope he was braiding a mat to adorn the little shelf which was her dressing table. Rose knots, diamond knots; knots and hitches and splices without number—Uncle Ho was master of them all. Mermaid listened to his further talk about the things that ships jettison and the things that wash ashore.
“Even little girls come ashore,” said Uncle Ho with great seriousness and nodding his head many times. “Not to speak of animals. We brought a Shetland pony to land in the breeches buoy and, Mermaid, you should have heard him squeal!” Mermaid gave a little squeal of her own. “Not like that,” corrected Ho Ha. “He said, ‘Nay-ay-ay. Nay-yay-yay-yay!’ That means ‘No!’ Why, a Dutch ship, named the Dutch for good luck, had a cow in the afterhold to provide the skipper with fresh milk every morning. And lots of ships have pigs aboard ’em. Sheep, too. You might get wool enough for a new suit of homespun.
“But the strangest thing was the animal ship. Mind I don’t say it was Noah’s Ark, Mermaid. The skipper was a youngish man, not old enough to be Noah. Maybe one of his sons. Now this Ark of Noah & Sons came ashore in fine weather, but very thick. So much fog young Noah couldn’t tell where he was. He couldn’t shoot the sun at noon. Well——
“He had pairs of almost all kinds of animals aboard. They were a consignment to the big Zoo in New York. There was a pair of camels and a pair of leopards and a pair of lions and pairs of snakes and two beautiful giraffes with necks so long that they could see as well as a man in the topgallant rigging. The Ark came on in fine weather but it didn’t stay fine. Bad southeasterly storm blew up and when it abated the Ark was so leaky that the skipper—young Noah—put the animals over the side thinking they’d drown. He hated to do it, but the ship was all going to pieces. But you know, Mermaid, that all animals can swim. And most of these critters swam ashore. Little girl, you should have seen them! But, no! I’m glad you weren’t here. Life wasn’t safe on the beach here then with those pairs of animals ranging about. Finally we had to shoot them all with the little brass cannon.”
Mermaid had been listening, at first doubtfully and with enchanted pleasure; but now something about the story itself joined to some oddity of expression in the faces of her other uncles caused her to say:
“Uncle Ho, that isn’t so, is it?”
“Not so, but so-so,” replied Ho Ha, persuasively. “If you mean, is it true, why——”
“Oh, I don’t mind it’s not being true,” explained the little girl, twisting her fingers. “It spoils things to have them true—just a little—doesn’t it?”
The smile left Ho Ha’s face.