Captain Grif’s was the warmest of welcomes.
“Well, well, well,” he said, rising from his rocker on the front porch as we mounted the steps, “and here you be, the two of ye—and better than a crowd, I say! By golly, s-ship-mate, you’re a sight for sore eyes. You looked peaked, too, and Wanza ain’t at her best. But sit right down—Wanza, there’s the hammock—the hammock I slept in many a night at sea—plump into that now.”
He beamed at his daughter. It was good to see his pride and delight in her.
“Dad,” Wanza said, wagging her bright head at him, “something told us you was pining for chicken—chicken with dumpling, Dad. It’s in this pail. You sit here with Mr. Dale, and I’ll get out the chessmen, and while you’re playing I’ll warm up the stew. Then when you’ve had your bite with us, I’ll play on the melodeon—I’ll play ‘Bell Mahone’—and you and Mr. Dale can sit on the porch and watch the moon come up, and you can tell him stories; and pretty soon I’ll come out, after I have tidied up, and go to sleep in the hammock.”
It all fell out as Wanza planned. We had our bite together; I helped carry the dishes to the sink in the kitchen while Captain Grif filled his pipe; and then Wanza played on the melodeon and sang “Bell Mahone,” and “Wait for the Wagon,” and “Bonnie Eloise,” while Captain Grif and I chatted on the porch. The moon came up later, and Wanza swung in the hammock and dozed, or pretended to, while her father told me one story after another. The central figure of many of his tales was Dockery—the ship’s steward—whom he described as a bald-pated, middle-aged man, with a round face, a Mephistophelean smile, and the helpless frown of a baby. “A curious m-mixture that feller! I was some time readin’ him—but I read him. He wa’n’t very sharp—that was his trouble mostly. It’s a trouble lots of us is afflicted with. Them as knows it I have a sort o’ respect for—them as don’t I ’bominate, I sure do, s-ship-mate. Ignorance itself is bad enough, but when it’s mixed proper with conceit, they’s no standin’ it.” In this wise old Grif would discourse much to our edification.
To-night he was hugely interested in dissecting the big man’s character from bits concerning him Wanza and I had dropped.
“I don’t take no stock in him, boy—I’ve told Wanza so from the first—with all his nightshirts embroidered like an old lady’s antimacassar! And when he gets to settin’ up, and needs waitin’ on, I want Wanza should make herself scarce. The gal tells me she thinks he is a rich man. Well, may be—may be; that don’t mend matters if he’s a rascal.”
At this juncture Wanza yawned, tossed her arms abroad, and said sleepily:
“He’s a gentleman, Dad.”
Old Grif chuckled.