Gideons Band | Page 7

orange
and magnolia grew plainer to the eye than suburban streets, and the

course changed again, from west to north. Soon on the right, behind a
high levee and backed by a sombre swamp forest, appeared the
live-oaks and gardens of Carrollton, and presently on the left came
Nine-mile Point and another bend of the river westward. As the boat's
prow turned, the waters, from shore to shore, reflected the low sun so
dazzlingly that nearly all the passengers on the roof moved aft, whence,
ravished by the ascending odors of supper, they went below.
But the handsome old man, the sedate youth, the girl, the nurse,
remained. Captain Courteney came along the deck and crossed toward
the four, eyed from head to foot by the girl even after he had stopped
near her. But her gaze drew no glance from him.
"Well, Hugh," he said.
The youth turned with a smile that bettered every meaning in his too
passive countenance: "Well, father?"
"Oh!" breathed the startled girl. She looked eagerly into the three male
faces, beamed round upon her dark attendant, and then looked again at
grandfather, father, and son. "Why, of course!" she softly laughed.
"John," said the older man, "this young lady is a daughter of Gideon
Hayle."
"I thought as much." The benign captain lifted his hat and accepted and
dropped again the dainty hand proffered him with childish readiness.
"Then you're the youngest of seven children."
Her reply was a gay nod. Presently, with a merry glint between her long
lashes, she said: "I'm Ramsey."
The captain's smile grew: "That must be great fun."
The girl looked from one to another, puzzled.
"Why, just to be Ramsey," he explained. "Isn't it?"
She gave him a wary, sidewise glance and looked out over the water.

"My three married sisters all live near this river," she musingly said;
"one in Louisiana, two in Mississippi." Her sidelong glance repeated
itself: "I know who it would be fun to be--for me--or for anybody!" Her
eyes widened as her brother's had done, though in an amiable, elated
way.
"Your father?" asked the captain.
She all but danced: "How'd you know?"
"I saw him--in your eyes," was the placid reply. "Your father and I, and
your grandfather Hayle, and this gentleman here----"
"Ya-ass, ya-ass!" drawled the nurse in worshipping reminiscence, and
Ramsey laughed to Hugh, and all the while the captain persisted:
"We've built and owned rival boats----"
"Fawty yeah'!" murmured the nurse. "Fawty yeah'!"
"Yes, yes!" chirruped the girl. "Pop-a's up the river now, building the
Paragon! We're on our way to join him!"
"Law', missy," gently chid the nurse, made anxious by a new approach
which Ramsey was trying to ignore, "dese gen'lemens knows all dat."
Ramsey twitched her shoulders and waist. Her lips parted for a bright
question, but it was interrupted. The interrupters were the restless twins,
whose tread sounded peremptory even on the painted canvas of the
deck, and the fineness of whose presence was dimmed only by the
hardy lawlessness which, in their own eyes, was their crowning virtue.
"Ramsey," drawled one of them, who somehow seemed the more
forceful of the two. He spoke as if amazed at his own self-restraint. She
whisked round to him. He made his eyes heavy: "Have you had any
proper introduction to these--gentlemen?"
A white-jacket, holding a large hand-bell by its tongue, bowed low
before the captain, received a nod, and minced away. With suspended

breath the girl stared an instant on her brother, then on the captain, and
then on his father; but as her eyes came round to Hugh his solemnity
caught her unprepared, and, with every curl shaking, she broke out in a
tinkling laugh so straight from the heart, so innocent, and so helpless
that even the frightened old woman chuckled. Ramsey wheeled,
snatched the nurse round, and hurried her off to a stair, hanging to her
arm, tiptoeing, dancing, and carolling in the rhythm of the supper-bell
below:
"Ringading tingalingaty, ringadang ding, Ringading tingalingaty,
ringadang ding."
Red and dumb, the questioner glared after them until, near one of the
great paddle-boxes, they vanished below. But his brother, the one who
had the trick of widening his eyes, found words. "Captain Courteney,"
he said, "by what right does your son--or even do you, sir--take the
liberty, on the hurricane-deck of a steamboat, to scrape acquaintance
with an unprotec----?"
The captain had turned his back. "Hugh," he affably said, "will you see
what these young gentlemen want?" And then to the older man: "Come,
father, let's go to supper." They went.

VI
HAYLE'S TWINS
Hugh was grateful for this task in diplomacy, yet wondered what mess
he should make of it.
He was here for just such matters, let loose from tutor and books for the
summer,