"Any other great men here, besides Smith?" asked Herbert.
"Not many—besides myself," said Capt. Dickerson, smiling, "except, perhaps, Sir Wm. Pepperell. At least his father was one of the early settlers of the Shoals, and he was born here. But you'll hear about him at Kittery. Then, as I said before, Appledore's full of Celia Thaxter, and her father was queer enough to be called a great man. He had been a politician, and when he got out of sorts with his party he quit the mainland, and brought his boys to White Island, where he was lighthouse keeper. They say the boys were fourteen or fifteen before they ever went ashore, and then they were frightened by the first horse they saw."
"Thank you, Capt. Dickerson. I knew you'd have something interesting to tell," and Herbert moved away impatiently. "I'm coming over some day next week to go fishing with you."
"Yes, I shall be expecting you. I could show you a good many things, young ladies, if you'd spend the day, but it is hard to understand even Smutty Nose alone in an hour."
"Oh, but we've enjoyed coming here," replied Martine, and she and Clare shook hands cordially with Captain Dickerson as they said good-bye.
After dinner at Appledore, all sat for a half-hour on the hotel piazza, which was so near the water that it seemed in many ways like the deck of a ship. Miss Byng and Mrs. Trotter, who had taken charge of the party from York Harbor (the girls declined to call them chaperones) met several acquaintances among the hotel guests. Miss Byng, in fact, had spent a summer at Appledore, and she exchanged reminiscences with one of her friends about Celia Thaxter, the "Queen of Appledore."
"She was certainly a wonderful woman," said Miss Byng, as Clare and Martine drew their chairs within her circle. "Sometimes in the early morning when I looked out of my window, I would see her working in her garden. She was often up at four o'clock, and she made the most wonderful flowers grow from this rocky soil."
"Oh, flowers were to her as individual as human beings," added Mrs. Trotter. "She watched over them lovingly while they were in the garden, and when she brought them into the house they were treated sumptuously. Each flower was placed in a vase by itself, and every spot that could hold them had its vases, silver, glass, or china, each with its single blossom."
"What a strange idea!" cried Clare.
"The effect was beautiful, the brilliant flowers, the picture-covered walls—and the queenly mistress of the house with snow-white hair, in her clinging grey gown—the favorite costume of her latter years."