“Cap'n,” she said, “when you were in command of a ship did you allow outsiders to tell you how to treat the sailors?”
The captain opened his mouth to reply. He wanted to reply very much, but somehow he couldn't find a satisfying answer to that question.
“Ma'am,” he said, “all I can say is that if you'd been in South America, same as I have, and seen the way them half-breed young ones act, you'd—”
The teacher smiled, in spite of an apparent effort not to.
“Perhaps so,” she said, “but this is Massachusetts. And—well, Emily isn't a half-breed.”
Captain Cy strode through the vestibule. Just before the door closed behind him he heard a stifled sob from poor Bos'n.
The Board of Strategy was waiting at the end of the yard. Its members were filled with curiosity.
“Did you give it to her good?” demanded Asaph. “Did you let her understand we wouldn't put up with such cruelizin'?”
“Where's Bos'n?” asked Mr. Bangs.
Their friend's answers were brief and tantalizingly incomplete. He walked homeward at a gait which caused plump little Bailey to puff in his efforts to keep up, and he would say almost nothing about the interview in the schoolroom.