"Oh! Cap'n, and just when we've got the blessed beach to ourselves! Mrs. Jo G. and her kind gone; only the crew and us! Why, Cap'n, this is life!"
"Now, Janet, 'tain't no use fur ye t' coax. Ye're goin' on seventeen, ain't ye?"
"Seventeen, Cap'n, and eleven months!"
"It's distractin' the way ye've shot up. Clar distractin'; an' I ain't been an' done my duty by ye, nuther." Billy yanked a strand of cord vigorously.
"Yes, you have, Cap'n," Janet's tone was dangerously soft; "I'm the very properest girl at the Station. Look at me, Cap'n Daddy!"
But Billy steeled himself, and rigidly attended to the net. "Well," he admitted, "ye're proper enough 'long some lines. I've taught ye t' conquer yer 'tarnal bad temper—"
"You've taught me to know its power, Cap'n Daddy," warned Janet with a glint of darkness in the laughing serenity of her gaze; "the temper is here just the same, and powerful bad, upon provocation!"
A smile moved the corners of Billy's humorous lips.
"An' the bedpost is here, too, Janet. Lordy! I can see ye now as I used t' tie ye up till the storm was over. What a 'tarnal little rascal ye war! The waves of tantrums rolled over ye, one by one, yer yells growin' less an' less; an' bime by ye called out 'tween squalls, 'Cap'n Daddy, it's most past!'" There was a mist over Billy's eyes. "Ye 'tarnal little specimint!" he added.
"But, Cap'n, dear!" Janet was growing more and more dangerous; "I've been so good. Just think how I've gone across the bay, to the Corners, to school. My! how educated I am! Storm or ice, I leave it to you, Daddy, did I ever complain?"