On The Blockade | Page 8

I had some interest in her, for the reason that I had done something in picking her up."
"Done something? I should say that you had done it all," added Flint.
"I did my share. The vessels of the navy have generally been named after a system, though it has often been varied. Besides the names of states and cities, the names of rivers have been given to vessels. The Bronx is the name of a small stream, hardly more than a brook, in West Chester County, New York. When I was a small boy, my father had a country place on its banks, and I did my first paddling in the water in the Bronx. I liked the name, and my father recommended it."
"I don't object to the name, though somehow it makes me think of a walnut cracked in your teeth when I hear it pronounced," added Flint. "Now that I know what it is and what it means, I shall take more kindly to it, though I am afraid we shall get to calling her the Bronxy before we have done with her, especially if she gets to be a pet, for the name seems to need another syllable."
"Young men fall in love with girls without regard to their names."
"That's so. A friend of mine in our town in Maine fell in love with a young lady by the name of Leatherbee; but she was a very pretty girl and her name was all the objection I had to her," said Flint, chuckling.
"But that was an objection which your friend evidently intended to remove at no very distant day," suggested Christy.
"Very true; and he did remove it some years ago. What was that noise?" asked the first lieutenant, suddenly rising from his seat.
Christy heard the sounds at the same moment. He and his companion in the cabin had been talking about the Scotian and the Arran, and what his father had said to him about prudence in speaking of his movements came to his mind. The noise was continued, and he hastened to the door of his state room, and threw it open. In the room he found Dave hard at work on the furniture; he had taken out the berth sack, and was brushing out the inside of the berth. The noise had been made by the shaking of the slats on which the mattress rested. Davis Talbot, the cabin steward of the Bronx, had been captured in the vessel when she was run out of Pensacola Bay some months before. As he was a very intelligent colored man, or rather mulatto, though they were all the same at the South, the young commander had selected him for his present service; and he never had occasion to regret the choice. Dave had passed his time since the Teaser arrived at New York at Bonnydale, and he had become a great favorite, not only with Christy, but with all the members of the family.
"What are you about, Dave?" demanded Christy, not a little astonished to find the steward in his room.
"I am putting the room in order for the captain, sir," replied Dave with a cheerful smile, such as he always wore in the presence of his superiors. "I found something in this berth I did not like to see about a bed in which a gentleman is to sleep, and I have been through it with poison and a feather; and I will give you the whole southern Confederacy if you find a single redback in the berth after this."
"I am very glad you have attended to this matter at once, Dave."
"Yes, sir; Captain Folkner never let me attend to it properly, for he was afraid I would read some of his papers on the desk. He was willing to sleep six in a bed with redbacks," chuckled Dave.
"Well, I am not, or even two in a bed with such companions. How long have you been in my room, Dave?" added Christy.
"More than two hours, I think; and I have been mighty busy too."
"Did you hear me when I came into the cabin?"
"No, sir, I did not; but I heard you talking with somebody a while ago."
"What did I say to the other person?"
"I don't know, sir; I could not make out a word, and I didn't stop in my work to listen. I have been very busy, Captain Passford," answered Dave, beginning to think he had been doing something that was not altogether regular.
"Don't you know what we were talking about, Dave?"
"No, sir; I did not make out a single word you said," protested the steward, really troubled to find that he had done something wrong, though he had not the least idea what it was. "I did not mean to do anything out of the way,