“You mustn’t be superstitious, Ann. There is always a logical explanation for everything that seems strange and unnatural. There must be a good reason why that boat had no cargo and probably we shall learn all about her this summer before we go back to Boston. Some of the people about here may know more than they care to admit and have purposely kept it secret from Jo and Mr. Bailey.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun if we could find out all about her!” Her father’s calm confidence had reassured Ann; her father must be right and she didn’t want to be silly and timid. Never before had she felt the least bit afraid of anything.
Ben had been thinking. “Just exactly what does it mean to be superstitious, dad?” he asked.
“If you try to make yourself believe that the wooden figure out there is alive, or if you are willing to accept any one else’s belief in such nonsense, you will be superstitious and not intelligent. For instance, you may think you see something, or hear something, and not be able to explain what it is immediately. If instead of working to learn a true explanation you remember the incident as it first impressed you——”
“Like thinking a mouse at night is a burglar,” Ann interrupted.
“That is it exactly,” said Mr. Seymour. “Take that figurehead of a demon on the boat; we passed by it just at twilight when it couldn’t be seen as plainly as in full sunlight, and because the face was leaning toward us, with shadows moving over it, it gave you the impression that the thing was alive and watching you. To-morrow when the sun comes out you will go back to look at it and see that it is only a wooden statue, while if we should go home to-night, as Helen wishes, you children would remember it all your lives as something evil. And in that case you would be permitting yourselves to grow superstitious instead of taking this as an opportunity for the exercise of honest thinking and intelligent observation.”
“Is Jo superstitious?” asked Ben abruptly.
“Jo is too sensible to be superstitious,” answered his father.
“But Jo is afraid of that boat! I saw his face when we went past. And even Jerry was afraid. He ran.”
Mr. Seymour glanced quickly across the table to where his wife sat between Ann and Helen. Ann saw the look that passed between him and her mother and realized that they both were worried. They did not want Helen and Ben to go on thinking about the boat, nor did they want the children to know that they, too, had felt the strangeness of that gray broken boat and that grinning face.