No noon dinner for them, with Larry in workaday clothes and the stove in the tiny kitchen piping its hottest at precisely the hour when its services could best be dispensed with, but a leisurely seven-o'clock dinner, with the lighter anchored off shore, and when, as a rule, Dick also had had time to “tidy up,” and could share the meal with them. And in this, you see, they were not aristocratic at all. Even little black Sylvia had a seat at one side of the table, which she occupied as continuously as her culinary duties would admit.
One night, when Larry stood talking to a friend on the wharf, Courage and Sylvia overheard him say, “They're a darned competent little pair, I can tell you.” Now, of course, this was rather questionable English for a respectable old man like Larry, but he intended it for the highest sort of praise, and the children could hardly help being pleased.
“Larry oughtn't to use such words,” said Courage.
“But den I specs he only mean dat we jes' knows how to do tings,” said Sylvia apologetically; and as that was exactly what Larry did mean, we must forgive him the over-expressive word; besides they were, in point of fact, the most competent pair imaginable.
Early every morning, when near the city, Dick would bring the lighter alongside a wharf, and Courage and Sylvia would set off for the nearest market, Sylvia carrying a basket, and always wearing a square of bright plaid gingham knotted round her head. There was no remembrance for her of father or of mother, or of much that would have proved dear to her warm little heart, but tucked away in a corner of her memory were faint recollections of a Southern fish market, with the red snapper sparkling in the morning sunlight, and the old mammies, in bandana turbans, busy about their master's marketing; and as though to make the best of this shadowy recollection, Sylvia insisted upon the turban accompaniment to the basket.
Then, after the marketing, came the early breakfast; and after that, for Courage, the many nameless duties of every housekeeper, whether big or little; and for Sylvia the homelier tasks of daily recurrence; but fortunately she did not deem them homely. Why should she, when pretty Miss Sylvester, as perfect a lady as could be, herself had taught her how to do them, every one? Nor was this work, so dignified by the manner and method of teaching, performed in silence. Every household task had its appropriate little song, and the occasions were rare on which Sylvia did not make use of them.=