“Oh, is it you, miss?” said John, looking for the first time toward Courage, and at once recognizing the little girl who had been so long on the watch. “Well, then, I can tell ye he'll be at this wharf this day week, certain. The Lady Bird's due here on Friday or Saturday, and Larry's under contract to carry part of her cargo down to the stores Monday morning. It's a pity, miss, you hadn't asked me afore, I could a-told you the same any day back for a fortni't. But run down bright and early next Monday morn-in', and take my word for it, you'll find Larry's lighter swinging up to this wharf, as sure as my name's Jack Armstrong.”
Courage, meantime, had grown radiant. “Oh, he'll come sooner than that!” she exclaimed exultingly. “He'll tie up Saturday night and spend Sunday with us. He always does that when he has work at this pier for Monday.” Then, looking up to Big Bob, she said gratefully, “Thank you very much for finding out for me. I will run right home now and tell Mary Duff,” and suiting the action to the word, Courage was at the wharf's end and up the street and out of sight before the slow-moving longshoremen had fairly settled to work again.
Now that Courage was sure that Larry was coming, as sure as though it had been flashed across the blue May sky in letters of silver, all the hours of weary foreboding and waiting were quite forgotten. So true is it, as Celia Thaxter sings in that peerless song of hers, as brave as any bird note, and as sweet:=
```"Dark skies must clear, and when the clouds are past,
```One golden day redeems a weary year."=
CHAPTER III.—LARRY COMES.
Strange as it still may appear to you that a little girl should have Courage for her name, yet, true it is, that she was no sooner named herself than she had a namesake. It was none of your little baby namesakes either, but a stanch and well-built boat, and one that was generally admitted to be the finest craft of her class in the harbor. The Courage Masterson was what is commonly known as a lighter, and to whom of course did she belong but to Larry Starr, Hugh Masterson's best friend; but she was no common lighter, I can assure you. Larry had given his whole mind to her building, and it was unlike any of the other lighters that make their way up and down the river or out on the bay, with their great cumbersome loads. She had a fine little cabin of her own, a cosey, comfortable cabin, with two state-rooms, if you can give them so fine a title, opening out of it, and a tiny kitchen beyond, lighted by a small sky-window. All this, as any one knows, was very luxurious, but Larry had put the savings of many years into that boat, and he meant to have it as he liked it. To be sure, the cabin, occupying as it did some twenty square feet, greatly lessened her carrying capacity, for one square foot on the deck of a lighter stands for innumerable square feet of merchandise, which may be piled to almost any height upon it. Larry was quite willing, however, to lose something from the profits of every trip for the sake of the added comfort. But it was six years now since the lighter had been launched, and so it had happened that all that time, while the little girl Courage had been having a variety of experiences on land, the big boat Courage had been sailing under “fair skies and foul” on the water, and safely transporting many a cargo that netted a comfortable living for Larry. And now Saturday afternoon had come, and Courage was down in her old place at the dock's end with a happy certainty in her eyes, and yet with a sorrowful look overshadowing it, for there was such sad news to be told when at last Larry should come, and at last he came.