“Oh, well, but see what a fine man he’s turned out, and I’m sure no own son could be better to you,” for Mrs. Huzzard was one of the large, comfortable bodies, who 71 never see any but the brightest side of affairs, and a good deal of a peacemaker in the little circle where she had taken up her abode. “Indeed, now, captain, you’ll not meet many such fine fellows in a day’s tramp.”
“If she’d even been a real Indian,” he continued, discontentedly, “it would have been easier to manage her—to—to put her in some position where she could earn her own living; for by Dan’s words (few enough, too!) I gather that she has no money back of her. She’ll be a dead weight on his hands, that’s what she’ll be, and an expensive savage he’ll find her, I’ll prophesy.”
“Like enough. Young ones of any sort do take a heap of looking after. But she’s smart, as I said before, and I do think it’s a sight better to make room for a likely young girl than to be scared most to death with young wolves and bears tied around for pets. I was all of a shiver at night on account of them. I’ll take the girl every time. She won’t scratch an’ claw at folks, anyway.”
“Maybe not,” added the captain, who was too contented with his discontent to let go of it at once. “But no telling what a young animal like that may develop into. She has no idea whatever of duty, Mrs. Huzzard, or of—of veneration. She contradicted me squarely this morning when I made some comment about those beastly redskins; actually set up her ignorance against my years of service under the American flag, Mrs. Huzzard. Yes, madame! she did that,” and Captain Leek arose in his wrath and tramped twice across the room, halting again near her table and staring at her as though defying her to justify that.
When he arose, one could see by the slight unsteadiness in his gait that the cane in his hand was for 72 practical use. His limp was not a deformity—in fact, it made him rather more interesting because of it; people would notice or remember him when nothing else in his personality would cause them to do so.
For Captain Alphonso Leek was not a striking-looking personage. His blue eyes had a washed-out, querulous expression. His sandy whiskers had the appearance of having been blown back from his chin, and lodged just in front of his ears. An endeavor had been made to train the outlying portions of his mustache in line with the lengthy, undulating “mutton chops;” but they had, for well-grounded reasons, failed to connect, and the effect was somewhat spoiled by those straggling skirmishers, bristling with importance but waiting in vain for recruits. The top of his head had got above timber line and glistened in the sun of early summer that streamed through the clear windows of Mrs. Huzzard’s back room.
But as that head was generally covered by a hat that sported a cord and tassel, and as his bulging breastbone was covered by a dark-blue coat and vest, on which the brass buttons shone in real military fashion—well, all those things had their weight in a community where few men wore a coat at all in warm weather.
Mrs. Huzzard, in the depths of her being, thought it would be a fine thing to go back to Pennsylvania as “Mrs. Captain,” even if the captain wasn’t as forehanded as she’d seen men.
Even the elegant way in which he could do nothing and yet diffuse an air of importance, was impressive to her admiring soul. The clerical whiskers and the military dress completed the conquest.
But Mrs. Huzzard, having a bit of native wisdom still 73 left, knew he was a man who would need managing, and that the best way was not to let his opinion rule her in all things; therefore, she only laughed cheerily at his indignation.