Janet of the Dunes | Page 8

control."
"Oh! Cap'n Billy, my poor old Daddy! And I've been a wild, uncaring girl, David. Never taking hold like the others! Just following Daddy about, and being a burden! And to think it was--it was boarders that aroused me! Oh! Davy, it makes me sick."
"Now see here, Janet!" David got up and walked twice around the little gallery. "I ain't a-sayin' but what ye ought t' be helpin' yerself an' takin' anxiety off o' Billy: but I do say that it ain't goin' t' ease Billy any, if ye go gallivantin' off to the Hills with any fool notion that good looks is goin' t' help ye."
"They always help, Cap'n David, always!" Janet's assertion came through a muffled sob. "You mustn't think I care for my looks myself. I'd just as soon be as peaked and blue-white as Mrs. Jo G.'s Maud, but I know pretty looks are just so much to the good--"
"Or bad!" broke in David.
"Well, have it that way. But it is according to how you use them. I'm going to use my good looks wisely!"
"By gum!" muttered David. This was his escape valve. When other words failed, "by gum" eased the tension. "Ye ain't much on looks, Janet, when ye come to that," he said presently. "Ye ain't tidy, nor tasty; ye ain't a likely promise fur what a handy woman ought t' be. Yer powerful breezy an' uncertain, an' yer unlike what folks is use t'."
"Davy!" Janet came in front of him and the light fell full upon her. "Davy, you just listen and see how wise I am! Do you know why the city folks have come to Quinton? We never, at least not many of us, saw anything very splendid about the Hills, the dunes and the bay, now did we?"
"The fact is, we didn't!"
"Well, these people are wild about them because they are unlike the common things they are used to. I am like Quinton, Davy; I know it way down in my heart. You won't catch me fixing up like city folks and looking queer enough to turn you dizzy. Quinton and I are going to be true to ourselves, Davy, and you'll soon see if my looks do not help!"
"By gum!" sighed David; and remembering his vow to Billy to watch over this girl, he sighed again and ordered her below in no very gentle voice.
CHAPTER III
Janet was aroused the next morning by hearing Captain David creaking across the floor of the living room with his daily burden in his arms. The girl was neither deep asleep nor wide awake. She was never uncertain of her whereabouts or identity, once she had crossed the border land.
The early sun was creeping into the east window of her tiny room on one side of the living room of the lighthouse; on the opposite side was Captain David's sleeping apartment, into which he carried his helpless wife every evening before he had to go up aloft, and out of which he bore her to the chintz covered rocker, every morning after he had come below.
For ten long years David had known this sorrow; and he knew that it was to be his until Death spake the final word.
"It seems to me, David," the querulous voice was saying, "that the sun, up your way, rose mighty late to-day."
"There, there, Susan Jane, 't is the same old sun as rises an' sets fur all. Had a bad night, Susan Jane?"
"Bad night! that shows what sympathy you have for me, David. All my nights are bad. Bad as bad can be, unless they be worse!"
"Well, Susan Jane, let's hope that a bad night argers a good day. There! are ye fixed, reasonably comfortable? P'r'aps the pillers ought' be a mite higher. How's that? An' now, if you want t' read a bit I'll fix the brekfus. I sot some biscuits overnight."
"Give me the Bible, David, an' my money box! There, open t' the same old chapter. Thank the Lord, that chapter is all on one page! Since He thought wise to take the usefulness from my members, I'm glad He made folks print my favorite chapter so there's no need of turnin' over. Land knows, who'd ever think of waitin' on me!"
"Come now, Susan Jane, I'm always willin', when I ain't on government duty."
"Government duty or sleep! Men is all alike. How would you feel if you was stricken like me?"
"Powerful bad, Susan Jane, powerful bad. Ye bear yer lot uncommon patient, Susan Jane; I'm never overlookin' that. But if ye put yer mind to it, wife, ye'll see that if I do my duty, I must sleep--some. Howsomever, Mark Tapkins will have his turn to-night, same as usual; an' I can set with ye this evenin'. The government is powerful generous, Susan Jane, t' give