They came to the side of the quay, and he called to some of the sailors, and they came running forward to lift Peggy on board.
Sailors are always specially clean and tidy on Sunday, dressed in their best clothes. They were such nice-looking men—tall, with yellow hair; and Peggy noticed the rings in their ears at once. Of course, she couldn’t speak to them, or at least they couldn’t understand what she said; but the captain took her hand, and led her all round the ship, letting her look at everything she wanted to see—the huge anchor, all red with rust, that took ever so many men to lift; and what interested Peggy more than anything—the cargo of tubs that the ship had brought over. There were tubs of every imaginable size, down to tiny ones of white wood.
“Oh, I could wash my doll’s clothes in these!” Peggy cried. She wanted one dreadfully, and yet didn’t know how to get it, for the man wouldn’t understand about her doll. As she was standing there saying, “Doll, doll, doll,” and looking wistfully at the dear little tubs, Dr. Seaton came round again from the cabin where he had been seeing a boy with a broken arm.
“Oh, I do want a tub to wash my doll’s clothes in so dreadfully!” Peggy cried, “and he doesn’t understand what I mean.”
Dr. Seaton said something in German, and in a minute the captain began to pull out dozens of tubs for Peggy to choose from. But she was not quite pleased till she had explained through Dr. Seaton that she wanted to buy the tub. “I would never ask for anything,” she explained—“mother doesn’t let me do that; and I’ve got a whole shilling of my own to pay it with.”
Dr. Seaton had to explain this to the captain, and they both laughed a great deal.
“But you must pay it for me just now please, Dr. Seaton, because I haven’t my shilling with me,” Peggy explained; and then a horrid fear overcame her that perhaps Dr. Seaton did not carry so much money about with him either, and she would have to go away without her tub; and he had told her that the ship would sail next morning!
She began to look very dismal at this thought, while Dr. Seaton was feeling in his pocket; but to her great relief he drew out quite a handful of shillings, and gave one to the captain, who took it and laughed again.
“There now, Peggy; you can choose which you like best,” he said.