“To be sure! to be sure!” said Captain January. “That'll be a nice trip for ye, Honeysuckle. Put on your bunnit and go with Bob. He'll take good care of ye, Bob will.”
And so, by what seemed the merest chance, that lovely afternoon, little Star went with Bob Peet, in his old black boat, to see the steamer Huntress aground on a sand-bank off the main shore.
The sea lay all shining and dimpling in the afternoon light, and not a cloud was to be seen overhead. Here and there a white gull was slowly waving his wings through the clear air, and little fish came popping their heads out of the water, just for the pleasure of popping them back again. Star dipped her hands in the blue crystal below, and sang little snatches of song, being light of heart and without a care in the world. They were no nursery songs that she sang, for she considered herself to have outgrown the very few Mother Goose ditties which Captain January had treasured in his mind and heart ever since his mother sang them to him, all the many years ago. She was tired of:
“Jacky Barber's coming to town:
Clear away, gentlemen! clear away, gentlemen!
One foot up and t'other foot down,
Jacky Barber's coming to town.”
But she loved the scraps of sea-song that the old Captain still hummed over his work: “Baltimore,” and “Blow a Man Down,” and half a dozen other salt-water ditties: and it might have been strange to less accustomed ears than Bob Peet's to hear the sweet child-voice carolling merrily:
“Boney was a warrior,
Weigh! heigh! oh!
Boney was a warrior,
John Francois!
Boney whipped the Rooshians,
Weigh! heigh! oh!
Boney whipped the Prooshians,
John Francois!
Boney went to Elba,
Weigh! heigh! oh!” etc.
Bob's oars kept time with the song, and his portentous voice thundered out the refrain with an energy which shook the little skiff from stem to stern. By the time that “Boney” was safely consigned to his grave in sunny France, they were nearing the flats on which the steamer Huntress lay, quietly awaiting the turn of the tide.
Star knew the great white boat well, for twice a day she went thundering past Light Island, churning the quiet blue water into foam with her huge paddles, on her way to and from the gay summer city which all the world came to visit. Nearly every day the child would run out on the south rocks to wave a greeting to some of her acquaintances among the crew; for she knew them all, from the black-bearded captain down to the tiniest cabin-boy; and they, for their part, were always eager—good souls!—for a smile or a nod from the “Star of Light Island.” Not a man of them but envied Bob Peet his privilege of going when he pleased to the lighthouse rock. For Captain January was not fond of visitors, and gave them no encouragement to come, Bob Peet being the single exception to the rule. The Captain liked Bob because he was not “given to clatter,” and “knew how to belay his jaw.”
“I do love to see a man belay his jaw!” said Captain January, unconsciously quoting the words of another and a more famous captain, the beloved David Dodd. So Bob was free to come and go as he liked, and to smoke his pipe in sociable silence for hours at a time, within the walls of Storm Castle.
“Stop here, Bob!” said Star, with an imperious motion of her hand. “I don't want to go any nearer.” The obedient Bob lay on his oars, and both looked up at the great boat, now only a few yards away. The decks were crowded with passengers, who leaned over the railings, idly chatting, or watching the water to see if the tide had turned.