Janet of the Dunes | Page 2

threaten, a grayness brooded, a grayness quite capable of changing to ominous black.
Cap'n Billy, trained to watching for storms and danger, knew the signals, and now, for safety, lay low.
The eyes were mild and sun-filled, the face bewitchingly friendly; but when Janet took to wheedling, Billy hugged the shore.
"You don't really mean it, Cap'n, now, do you?"
"I do that!" muttered Billy, and he pulled the twine energetically.
"What, send your own Janet off to the mainland to stay--except when she runs back?" This last in a tone that might have moved a rock to pity.
"Yes, that, Janet; and ye mustn't come on too often, nuther."
"Oh! Cap'n, and just when we've got the blessed beach to ourselves! Mrs. Jo G. and her kind gone; only the crew and us! Why, Cap'n, this is life!"
"Now, Janet, 'tain't no use fur ye t' coax. Ye're goin' on seventeen, ain't ye?"
"Seventeen, Cap'n, and eleven months!"
"It's distractin' the way ye've shot up. Clar distractin'; an' I ain't been an' done my duty by ye, nuther." Billy yanked a strand of cord vigorously.
"Yes, you have, Cap'n," Janet's tone was dangerously soft; "I'm the very properest girl at the Station. Look at me, Cap'n Daddy!"
But Billy steeled himself, and rigidly attended to the net. "Well," he admitted, "ye're proper enough 'long some lines. I've taught ye t' conquer yer 'tarnal bad temper--"
"You've taught me to know its power, Cap'n Daddy," warned Janet with a glint of darkness in the laughing serenity of her gaze; "the temper is here just the same, and powerful bad, upon provocation!"
A smile moved the corners of Billy's humorous lips.
"An' the bedpost is here, too, Janet. Lordy! I can see ye now as I used t' tie ye up till the storm was over. What a 'tarnal little rascal ye war! The waves of tantrums rolled over ye, one by one, yer yells growin' less an' less; an' bime by ye called out 'tween squalls, 'Cap'n Daddy, it's most past!'" There was a mist over Billy's eyes. "Ye 'tarnal little specimint!" he added.
"But, Cap'n, dear!" Janet was growing more and more dangerous; "I've been so good. Just think how I've gone across the bay, to the Corners, to school. My! how educated I am! Storm or ice, I leave it to you, Daddy, did I ever complain?"
"Never, Janet. I've stood on the dock and watched yer sail comin' 'fore the gale, till it seemed like I would bust with fear. An' the way ye handled yer ice boat in the pursuit of knowledge-gettin' was simple miraculous! No, I ain't a-frettin' over yer larnin'-gettin'; it's the us'n' of the same as is stirrin' me now. With such edication as ye've got in spite of storm an' danger, ye ought to be shinin' over on the mainland 'mong the boarders!"
"Boarders!" sniffed Janet, tossing her ruddy mane; "boarders! Folks have gone crazy-mad over the city folks who have swooped down upon us, like a--a--hawk! Every house full of those raving lunatics going on about the views, and the--the artistic desolation! That's what those dirty, spotty looking things on the Hills call it. Cap'n, you just ought to see them going about in checked kitchen aprons, with daubs all over them--sunbonnets adangling on their heads, little wagons full of truck for painting pictures--and such pictures! Lorzy! if I lived in a place that looked like those--sketches, they call them--I'd--I'd go to sea, Cap'n Daddy--to sea!"
"But they be folks, Janet, an' it's a new life an' a chance, an' it ain't decint fur ye, with all yer good pints, t' be on the beach along with the crew, all alone!"
"Cap'n, I do believe you want to marry me off! get rid of me! oh, Daddy!" Janet plunged her head in her lap and was the picture of outraged maidenhood.
"'T ain't so! An' ye know it!" cried Billy. "But Mrs. Jo G., 'fore they sailed off, opened my eyes."
"Mrs. Jo G.!" snapped Janet, raising her head and flashing a look of resentment, "I thought so! What did she suggest--that I might come to her house and wait--wait, just think of it, Cap'n, wait upon those boarders?" She had suggested that, and something even worse, so Billy held his peace.
"It's simply outrageous the way our people are going on," the girl continued; "they are bent upon beggaring the city folks! Beggaring them, really! they have no consciences about the methods they take to--to rob them!"
"Janet, hold yer tiller close!"
"Oh! I know, Cap'n, but I do not want to take part in it all. I want to stay alone with you. Think of the patrols, Cap'n Daddy! I'll take them all with you. Sunset, midnight, and morning! You and I, Daddy, dear, under the stars, or through storm! Ah, I've ached for just this!"
Billy felt his determination growing weak.
"I've made 'rangements, Janet;