In response, there was a bright look of sincere pleasure shining out of May Elliott’s face. Through the day, a pair of blue eyes followed Walter in his thoughts, as if intent to overtake him and ask him some question.
“Miss Elliott keeps your school,” he said to Jabez Wherren on the wharf at a little later hour.
“May, you mean? Wall, yes, and she’s a smart leetle critter, not more’n sixteen or seventeen; but she makes them young ones toe the mark, I tell ye. We all think a good deal of May; brought up here amongst us, you know. There’s Woodbury, her brother; a smart feller as ever lived, if he would never tech liquor. He might be a captain of his own craft, jest as easy, jest as easy—as—as—mud.” After this expressive and telling simile, Jabez recovered the breath he had lost in that effort, and continued: “It’s a bright family, the Elliotts is. That little Amy, she’ll beat the whole school a–spellin’—that is, all of her age. Woodbury’s father and mother are well–to–do, forehanded folks. He’s a skipper, and is on this very schooner. What’s that?”
Jabez was now directing his attention to the gangway of the Olive Ann, which had been securely moored to the little wharf. A colored boy in a shabby brown suit was disembarking, carrying a very small bundle in his hand. Springing out upon the wharf, he looked in various directions, as if a stranger, and he was calculating which way he had better go. A choice between two routes offered itself, and he chanced to take that which would lead him to Boardman Blake’s store.
“Who’s that passenger?” asked Jabez of Captain Elliott, a muscular, heavy man of fifty.
“I can’t say. He shipped at New York, and worked for his passage. He wanted to be off soon as I could spare him, and I said he might go now, or stay longer. He’d rather be off now. I’m afeared he won’t pick up any work very soon, but he will probably push on till he finds some sort of a chance.”
Walter went home thinking of this unknown youth, a stranger, homeless, tramping off anywhere. Aunt Lydia met him in the kitchen. A very broad grin was on her face, as if the old lady had found a prize that made her very happy.
“Come into the addition,” said she, beckoning mysteriously. “Step softly, you know. I’ve got suthin’ to show you.”
The “addition” was built on to the rear of the house, and contained two rooms, the lower being a kind of store–room.
“There!” said Aunt Lydia, pointing at the corner.