“It is just nice for you, Frank,” said Kate, “that he does not come, for now you have time to learn the lessons you did not get last night.”
“No lessons until to-morrow,” said Frank. “There is no use studying. Captain Green can never find his way in in this fog, for just before it shut down I saw him off to the east of the island; shouldn’t wonder a bit if the New Haven steamboat ran him down.”
“Frank Hallock!” cried Kate, “you speak just as though you’d be rather glad of it if something did happen to the Captain. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Why not, pray? I hate this study, study all the time. What’s the good of it, anyhow? I don’t want to be what folks call a scholarly man. I’d a great deal rather be a sailor—wish I was out now in this fog. It’s capital jolly getting lost in fogs, and the first you know coming up to land somewhere, and not knowing where in the world you’ve got to. I often think, Kate, I’ll run away and go to sea.”
“O, Frank!” and Kate dropped her book and flew to Frank’s chair, and putting her arms about his neck, began to cry.
“What a little goose you are, Kate,” said Frank. “I wonder if you think a few tears will keep me at home, when I’ve made up my mind to set sail.”
Kate assumed a vast amount of dignity on the instant, and in quite a stately manner for Kate Hallock, groped her way, with eyes foggy with tears, from the room.
“Don’t fall down stairs!” shouted Frank after her. And then Harry Cornwall for the first time looked up from his slate, upon which he was working out the examples of the lesson.
“Frank,” said he, “if I had a sister I don’t think I’d take such delight in teasing her as you do.”
“O, yes, you would. You’d never find out without it whether she loved you or not. Why, it’s just fun to see Kate’s great eyes when the tears are getting together in them. Kate’s tears are always close to her eyes; mine are clear down in my boots, and I’m glad of it; besides, Harry, I’m most ready to be off to sea. I’ll tell you something. There’s a right jolly good fellow working over in the oil mill at the island. His name is Victor—Victor what, I don’t know, for he won’t tell—and he ran away from home in Germany more than two years ago. His folks don’t know where he is. I think it would be good fun not to have it known where I went to or anything. Victor is as jolly as a regular tar: he has the nicest eyes, blue as can be, and the whitest teeth—white as a shark’s; and he says his father is rich, and his mother rides in her own carriage, and everything is in hoity-toity good shape at home. Some day, he says, he will write home, when he gets tired of working in the mill.”