There was always a glass on the table, and a bottle of home-made root beer was always forthcoming, and though I was not over fond of this drink a glass of it had a grateful tang, when I drank with Old Grif Lyttle, the captain of the bonny brig Wanderer, in the small cubby hole he called his cabin.
The captain invariably wore a blue jacket with brass buttons. His nether garments might be what one would call shabby and uncouth, but the jacket was always neatly brushed, the buttons burnished. Wanza was like the Hebe in Pinafore—she kept his buttons bright. And had he owned a sword to polish I am well satisfied it would have been immaculate. Wanza’s pride in her father was unbounded. It was equaled only by his pride in her.
“The smartest gal—and the prettiest,” he would say, “you’ll f-find in the whole state. Jest like her dead mother, Mr. Dale, jest like her. Smart as a s-sand piper. Named herself—she did. Did I ever tell you about that now?” Here he would pause and look at me sharply. And though the tale was a familiar one to me I would always affect deep interest and bid him proceed. “It was this a-way,” he would continue, “when her mother was my sweetheart, being of a fanciful turn, and with a decided hankerin’ after me,—as was to be expected, when I was gone for months on the sea and everything uncertain like,—she called me her wanderer. I was her wanderer, and her wandering boy, and finally her wandering husband. So when I got my ship at last it was natural—although I was in favor of naming the craft after her—for us to decide that the name should be The Wanderer. In due time Wanza was born. Well, it had been easy enough naming the ship, but there warnt no name good enough for the babe! ‘Let her alone,’ I used to say, ‘she’s a s-smart child, she’ll name herself.’ And sure enough when she was old enough to prattle she began calling herself Wanzer, from hearing her mother and me speak of the craft, sir. I reckon sometimes hearing us call it endearin’ titles she thought we was referrin’ to her babyship. At least my wife she allowed as much. Howsoever, from Wanzer she got it changed to Wanza, and my wife allowed that Wanza was a genteel enough name, so we stuck by it.”
The small, four-roomed cottage where Wanza and her father lived was at the edge of the village. It stood on a slight rise of ground, overlooking the lake. From the narrow front porch one could look abroad and see fertile fields, stretches of smooth, glossy meadow-land, and the craggy grey-blue mountains in the distance. In summer Grif Lyttle could be found customarily on his porch. And it was here I discovered him, when in my new restlessness I thought of him and wondering how he fared, sought him out.
He made me welcome. His ruddy face broke into smiles at the sight of me, and he rose from his rocker, and shoved me, with a playful poke in the ribs, into the seat he had vacated, saying:
“By golly, ship-mate, I thought you’d passed me up for good and all.”
He sat down in a red-cushioned Boston rocker opposite me. A small table stood between us, and as he spoke he gave me a sly wink, and whisked off a white cloth that covered a tray that reposed there. A bottle and two glasses stood revealed, a plate of pretzels, and one of cheese cakes.
“My lunch,” he explained. “That is to say—our lunch, boy.”
“But you thought I had passed you by. The extra glass is not for the likes of me. Come now—whom do I rob?”
“It’s Father O’Shan from the Mission. Here’s to him! He’s an hour late, and the man who is an hour late had better not come at all.”