“I wasn't crying about her,” she whispered. “It was you.”
“ME!” The captain gasped. “Good land!” he muttered. “It's just as I expected. She's studied too hard and it's touchin' her brain.”
“No, sir, it isn't. It isn't truly. I did cry about you because I didn't like to hear you talk so. And I was so sorry to have you come there.”
“You WAS!”
“Yes, sir. Other children's folks don't come when they're bad. And I kept feeling so sort of ashamed of you.”
“Ashamed of ME?”
Bos'n nodded vigorously.
“Yes, sir. Everything teacher said sounded so right, and what you said didn't. And I like to have you always right.”
“Do, hey? Hum!” Captain Cy didn't speak again for some few minutes, but he held the little girl very tight in his arms. At length he drew a long breath.
“By the big dipper, Bos'n!” he exclaimed. “You're a wonder, you are. I wouldn't be surprised if you grew up to be a mind reader, like that feller in the show we went to at the townhall a spell ago. To tell you the honest Lord's truth, I've been ashamed of myself ever since I come out of that schoolhouse door. When that teacher woman sprung that on me about my fo'mast hands aboard ship I was set back about forty fathom. I never wanted to answer anybody so bad in MY life, and I couldn't 'cause there wasn't anything to say. I cal'late I've made a fool of myself.”