Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/51

Rh suddenly felt his wish so strong within him that it broke forth into words.

“Captain Saulsby,” he said, “I don’t know the difference between a sloop and a knockabout, either. I don’t know anything about the sea or about boats. I wish you would teach me.”

The sailor’s gnarled old brown hand was laid very gently on his shoulder.

“Bless you, how should you know,” he answered; “you that never saw salt water before today? Sure, I’ll teach you anything I know; sit right down again and listen.”

Miss Mattie Pearson, up at the hotel, must have rocked and knitted and knitted and  rocked a long, long time that day as she  watched for her nephew’s return. The bright red sock that she was making for the Belgians  grew several inches, the other guests went in  to dinner, but still she waited, nor did she seem  impatient. She was spare and elderly and beginning to be white-haired; she might have  answered well enough to Billy’s description  of her as an “old maid aunt” but she had keen  grey eyes that had been able to look pretty  deeply into her nephew’s rebellious young