“The little girl who lives with my sister is my adopted daughter,” he began. “She was rescued from the wreck of the Mermaid.” He went on to tell of the few decipherable words in the letter found on the body of the Mermaid’s skipper; then of the delirious sailor who had talked of “Captain King.” Captain Vanton paced to and fro in perfect silence. He seemed not to be paying attention, but to be thinking.
“Anything you may have learned that would help us to find out the child’s identity——” John Smiley began, and then he stopped with a sudden sinking of the heart. If Mermaid’s identity were established he would probably lose her! The thought gave him, as he afterward put it, “a turn.” He never finished his sentence, and while he was recovering himself Captain Vanton uttered his first words of the conversation.
“I know—knew of—the child,” he muttered. “He sent her back. Yes. No, I don’t know anything that would make matters any better than they are.” He did not look through Cap’n Smiley, as was his customary way with people, but seemed to avoid his eye. He frowned at the floor as he might have frowned at the deck if the holystoning and cleaning had not been thorough. John Smiley, rising, thanked him and took his departure. The sense of relief at the thought that Mermaid would not be taken from him was so strong that he felt not in the least disappointed, but really grateful for Vanton’s reticence. Captain Vanton may even have thought him effusive in his thanks. Keturah Smiley heard her brother’s report of his failure with calmness.
“Did he wear the scalp at his belt?” she inquired.
Mermaid appearing, they all sat down and had a hot supper after which Cap’n Smiley and Mermaid played checkers and Keturah walked about with a yardstick in an effort to decide where she would have three shelves put up. She had a passion for shelves and drawers.
“What are these shelves to be for, Miss Smiley?” asked Mermaid, looking up from the board after she had beat her Dad for the third time.
“Medicine, most like,” Keturah, told her.
“Why not for our books?” Mermaid suggested.
“Bottles break,” said Keturah, concisely. “Do you prefer books to medicine? Not when you’re sick, I’ll warrant!”
“Yes, I do,” Mermaid insisted, and then she explained to her antagonist with a smile: