Anne's House of Dreams Index
CAPTAIN JIM
"Old Doctor Dave" and "Mrs. Doctor Dave" had come down
to the little house to greet the bride and groom.
Doctor Dave was a big, jolly, white-whiskered old
fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked,
silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once
to her heart, literally and figuratively.
"I'm so glad to see you, dear. You must be real
tired. We've got a bite of supper ready, and Captain
Jim brought up some trout for you. Captain Jim--where
are you? Oh, he's slipped out to see to the horse, I
suppose. Come upstairs and take your things off."
Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as
she followed Mrs. Doctor Dave upstairs. She liked the
appearance of her new home very much. It seemed to
have the atmosphere of Green Gables and the flavor of
her old traditions.
"I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a
`kindred spirit,'" she murmured when she was alone in
her room. There were two windows in it; the dormer one
looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and the
Four Winds light.
"A magic casement opening on the foam Of
perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn,"
quoted Anne softly. The gable window gave a view of a
little harvest-hued valley through which a brook ran.
Half a mile up the brook was the only house in
sight--an old, rambling, gray one surrounded by huge
willows through which its windows peered, like shy,
seeking eyes, into the dusk. Anne wondered who lived
there; they would be her nearest neighbors and she
hoped they would be nice. She suddenly found herself
thinking of the beautiful girl with the white geese.
"Gilbert thought she didn't belong here," mused Anne,
"
but I feel sure she does. There was something about
her that made her part of the sea and the sky and the
harbor. Four Winds is in her blood."
When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing before
the fireplace talking to a stranger. Both turned as
Anne entered.
"Anne, this is Captain Boyd. Captain Boyd, my wife."
It was the first time Gilbert had said "my wife" to
anybody but Anne, and he narrowly escaped bursting with
the pride of it. The old captain held out a sinewy
hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were
friends from that moment. Kindred spirit flashed
recognition to kindred spirit.
"I'm right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe;
and I hope you'll be as happy as the first bride was
who came here. I can't wish you no better than THAT.
But your husband doesn't introduce me jest exactly
right. `Captain Jim' is my week-a-day name and you
might as well begin as you're sartain to end
up--calling me that. You sartainly are a nice little
bride, Mistress Blythe. Looking at you sorter makes
me feel that I've jest been married myself."
Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged
Captain Jim to stay and have supper with them.
"Thank you kindly. 'Twill be a real treat, Mistress
Doctor. I mostly has to eat my meals alone, with the
reflection of my ugly old phiz in a looking-glass
opposite for company. 'Tisn't often I have a chance to
sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies."
Captain Jim's compliments may look very bald on paper,
but he paid them with such a gracious, gentle deference
of tone and look that the woman upon whom they were
bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen's
tribute in a kingly fashion.
Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man,
with eternal youth in his eyes and heart. He had a
tall, rather ungainly figure, somewhat stooped, yet
suggestive of great strength and endurance; a
clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick
mane of iron-gray hair falling quite to his shoulders,
and a pair of remarkably blue, deep-set eyes, which
sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and
sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in
them, as of one seeking something precious and lost.
Anne was to learn one day what it was for which Captain
Jim looked.
It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely
man. His spare jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow
were not fashioned on the lines of beauty; and he had
passed through many hardships and sorrows which had
marked his body as well as his soul; but though at
first sight Anne thought him plain she never thought
anything more about it--the spirit shining through that
rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.
They gathered gaily around the supper table. The
hearth fire banished the chill of the September
evening, but the window of the dining room was open and
sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. The view
was magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of
low, purple hills beyond. The table was heaped with
Mrs. Doctor's delicacies but the piece de resistance
was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.
"Thought they'd be sorter tasty after travelling,"
said Captain Jim. "They're fresh as trout can be,
Mistress Blythe. Two hours ago they were swimming in
the Glen Pond."
"Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?"
asked Doctor Dave.
"Nephew Alec. He understands it as well as I do.
Well, now, I'm real glad you asked me to stay to
supper. I'm proper hungry--didn't have much of a
dinner today."
"I believe you half starve yourself most of the time
down at that light," said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely.
"
You won't take the trouble to get up a decent meal."
"Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do," protested Captain
Jim. "Why, I live like a king gen'rally. Last night
I was up to the Glen and took home two pounds of steak.
I meant to have a spanking good dinner today."
"And what happened to the steak?" asked Mrs. Doctor
Dave. "Did you lose it on the way home?"
"No." Captain Jim looked sheepish. "Just at bedtime
a poor, ornery sort of dog came along and asked for a
night's lodging. Guess he belonged to some of the
fishermen 'long shore. I couldn't turn the poor cur
out--he had a sore foot. So I shut him in the porch,
with an old bag to lie on, and went to bed. But
somehow I couldn't sleep. Come to think it over, I
sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry."
"And you got up and gave him that steak--ALL that
steak," said Mrs. Doctor Dave, with a kind of
triumphant reproof.
"Well, there wasn't anything else TO give him," said
Captain Jim deprecatingly. "Nothing a dog'd care for,
that is. I reckon he WAS hungry, for he made about two
bites of it. I had a fine sleep the rest of the night
but my dinner had to be sorter scanty--potatoes and
point, as you might say. The dog, he lit out for home
this morning. I reckon HE weren't a vegetarian."
"The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!"
sniffed Mrs. Doctor.
"You don't know but he may be worth a lot to
somebody," protested Captain Jim. "He didn't LOOK of
much account, but you can't go by looks in jedging a
dog. Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside.
The First Mate didn't approve of him, I'll allow. His
language was right down forcible. But the First Mate is
prejudiced. No use in taking a cat's opinion of a dog.
'Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this nice spread in
this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It' s a
great thing to have good neighbors."
"Who lives in the house among the willows up the
brook?" asked Anne.
"Mrs. Dick Moore," said Captain Jim--"and her
husband," he added, as if by way of an afterthought.
Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick
Moore from Captain Jim's way of putting it; evidently a
second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
"You haven't many neighbors, Mistress Blythe," Captain
Jim went on. "This side of the harbor is mighty thinly
settled. Most of the land belongs to Mr. Howard up
yander past the Glen, and he rents it out for pasture.
The other side of the harbor, now, is thick with
folks--'specially MacAllisters. There's a whole
colony of MacAllisters you can't throw a stone but you
hit one. I was talking to old Leon Blacquiere the
other day. He's been working on the harbor all summer.
`Dey're nearly all MacAllisters over thar,' he told me.
`Dare's Neil MacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and
William MacAllister and Alec MacAllister and Angus
MacAllister--and I believe dare's de Devil
MacAllister.'"
"There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords,"
said Doctor Dave, after the laughter had subsided.
"
You know, Gilbert, we folk on this side of Four Winds
have an old saying--`From the conceit of the Elliotts,
the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of the
Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.'"
"There's a plenty of fine people among them, though,"
said Captain Jim. "I sailed with William Crawford for
many a year, and for courage and endurance and truth
that man hadn't an equal. They've got brains over on
that side of Four Winds. Mebbe that's why this side is
sorter inclined to pick on 'em. Strange, ain't it, how
folks seem to resent anyone being born a mite cleverer
than they be."
Doctor Dave, who had a forty years' feud with the
over-harbor people, laughed and subsided.
"Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half
a mile up the road?" asked Gilbert.
Captain Jim smiled delightedly.
"Miss Cornelia Bryant. She'll likely be over to see
you soon, seeing you're Presbyterians. If you were
Methodists she wouldn't come at all. Cornelia has a
holy horror of Methodists."
"She's quite a character," chuckled Doctor Dave. "A
most inveterate man-hater!"
"Sour grapes?" queried Gilbert, laughing.
"No, 'tisn't sour grapes," answered Captain Jim
seriously. "Cornelia could have had her pick when she
was young. Even yet she's only to say the word to see
the old widowers jump. She jest seems to have been
born with a sort of chronic spite agin men and
Methodists. She's got the bitterest tongue and the
kindest heart in Four Winds. Wherever there's any
trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help
in the tenderest way. She never says a harsh word
about another woman, and if she likes to card us poor
scalawags of men down I reckon our tough old hides can
stand it."
"She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim," said
Mrs. Doctor.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. I don't half like it. It makes
me feel as if there must be something sorter unnateral
about me."