A Little Maid of Province Town Part 16

"Well, well," said Captain Enos, "now I must scold you, Anne. Your Aunt Martha will not be pleased at this."

"But you are not angry?" asked Anne. "I do see little wrinkles about your eyes that mean you will soon smile. And it is long since I have seen my father."

"We must make the best of it now," said the captain, "but I do blame the Starkweather boy for setting you out to the sloop. He should have sent you straight home, and let me know of your plan."

Anne looked at Captain Enos in surprise.

"Jimmie could not help my coming," she said. "I should have found some way to get to the sloop. And he would not tell a secret."

"So you did not mean to run away from us?" said Captain Enos. "I am glad of that, but how I will manage with you in Boston I know not, nor if I can find your father."

Captain Enos's sloop ran safely in among the islands, sailed across Boston Harbor without being noticed, and made fast at a wharf well known to Captain Enos, and where he was welcomed by an old acquaintance. Before dusk he had sold his cargo of fish at a good price, and Anne, wearing her scarlet stockings and new shoes, and holding fast to the captain's hand, walked with him up the street to the house of the man who had been at the wharf when the sloop came in.

"They are good people, born in Wellfleet," said the captain to Anne, as they walked along, "and I shall ask them to keep you over night. I shall sleep in the sloop, and to-morrow we will find out all we can about your father."

The Freemans, for that was the name of Captain Enos's friends, gave Anne a warm welcome Their house seemed very large and grand to the little girl.

There was a carpet on the sitting-room floor, the first Anne had ever seen, and pictures on the walls, and a high mantel with tall bra.s.s candlesticks.

The room in which she slept seemed very wonderful to Anne. The bed was so high that she had to step up from a footstool to get in it, and then down, down she went in billows of feathers. In the morning one of the Freeman girls came in to waken her. She was a girl of about fifteen, with pretty, light, curling hair and blue eyes. She smiled pleasantly at Anne, and told her that there was a basin of warm water for her to bathe her face and hands in.

"I will brush out your hair for you, if you wish," she said kindly.

But Anne said she could brush her own hair. Rose Freeman waited till Anne was quite ready for breakfast and went down the broad flight of stairs with her. Anne watched her new friend admiringly.

"She looks just like her name, just like a rose," she said to herself, and resolved that she would remember and walk just as Rose did, and try and speak in the same pleasant way.

Before breakfast was finished Captain Enos came up from the wharves. He smiled as he looked at Anne's bright face and smooth hair, and nodded approvingly. Then he and Mr. Freeman began to talk about the soldiers, and the best way to find John Nelson.

"Come, Rose," said Mr. Freeman; "the captain and I will walk up near King's Chapel and see what we can find out, and you and the little maid can come with us."

Rose went up-stairs and came down wearing a little brown jacket and a hat of brown silk with a green feather on it. In her hands she brought a blue cape and a blue hat with a broad ribbon bow.

"Mother says you are to wear these," she said to Anne, with a little smile; "'Tis a cape and hat that I wore when I was a little girl, and I would like to have you wear them."

"I never wore a hat before," said Anne.

"It is very becoming," said Rose, and the little party started out.

Mr. Freeman stopped here and there to ask questions, and Anne, holding fast to Rose Freeman's hand, looked wonderingly at the houses and the people. They went into a shop, and Captain Enos bought a fine warm brown shawl to take home to Mrs. Stoddard, and asked Rose Freeman to help Anne select a pretty stuff for a dress. The girls decided upon a small plaid of dark blue and brown, and the stuff was carefully wrapped up and Captain Enos took the package.

"I have news at last," said Mr. Freeman, who had been talking with a man at the door of the shop. "We will walk up to the Common and see if we cannot get sight of your father. He was here yesterday."

Anne listened eagerly, almost forgetting Rose Freeman, whose hand she still held tightly, in the thought that her dear father might be very near and that she would soon see him.

They walked toward the Common, and Mr. Freeman told the others to stand near the big elm while he went to make inquiries. He was gone but a few moments, when Rose Freeman felt Anne's hand slip from her own, and saw the little girl running swiftly across the gra.s.s calling out, "Father!

Father!"

John Nelson heard the voice and stopped.

"Anne, Anne!" he answered, and in a moment the little girl in scarlet stockings and blue cape and hat was gathered into the close clasp of the dark, slender man.

Then how much there was to say! How eagerly Anne told him all the pleasant news! How warmly Captain Enos shook his hand, and called him a brave fellow; and John Nelson tried to thank the captain for all his kindness to Anne.

Anne held fast to his hand as they walked together to the wharf where the sloop lay. Captain Enos said that he must start for home the next morning, and there was a great deal for them all to talk about. Rose Freeman and her father left them at the wharf, after Captain Enos had promised that he would bring Anne to their house in time for supper.

"I have a plan, John," said Captain Enos; "when we have settled with the British, and that must be soon now, you must come to Province Town and live with us. How would you like that, Anne?"

Anne smiled happily.

"Best of anything!" she declared.

"I need help with my fis.h.i.+ng," went on Captain Enos, "and there's an empty loft next to Anne's room, where you can sleep. So think of Anne's home as yours, John. You'd not break Mistress Stoddard's heart by taking away the child?"

"It was good fortune led her to your door," said John Nelson gratefully.

"I can see for myself that she is content and happy. And I'll be a fortunate man to come into your house, Enos Stoddard."

"How soon will you come, father?" asked Anne, hopefully.

"I think 'twill not be longer than another spring before the British leave us in peace," replied her father. "But we need more soldiers to let them know we are ready for war."

Captain Enos nodded. "There's a half dozen good Province Town men ready to come, and as many more from Truro, if a dozen would help," he found a chance to whisper.

"We'll talk of this later," said Anne's father. "I only hope you'll get safe back to Province Town harbor from this trip."

"No fear," laughed Captain Enos. "General Gage is doing his best to starve Boston out. Maybe we Province Town men can do the cause of Liberty good service if we can bring in loads of fish for the people."

"It's hard to have British troops quartered on us," replied Nelson.

"General Gage is taking rough measures with everybody who opposes him. Dr.

Joseph Warren tried to stop the fortifications on Boston Neck, but 'twas no use. And word is being sent to settlements to be ready to furnish men.

We've got supplies in Concord, and Americans have been drilling for some time. We'll be ready for war if war comes. I've a message for the Newburyport men to be ready to join us, but I see no way of getting out of Boston. You're a brave man, Captain Stoddard, to come into harbor."

Captain Enos's face brightened as he listened to John Nelson.

"I'd find no trouble in slipping down the coast to Newburyport," he said eagerly.

"Maybe," responded Nelson, "tho' there's no need for my telling you that there's British craft cruising all about, and a man caught with a message to 'rebels,' as they call us, stands no chance."

"I'd keep my message to myself," answered Captain Enos.

"So you could, a message by word of mouth; but this is written, and has a drawing as well. I have it under the lining of my coat. But there's no way for me to get out of the town. I'm well known by many of the English."

"Let me take it." Captain Stoddard's voice was eager. "'Tis ill-luck that we Province Town men are to have no part in this affair. I'll get the paper safe to Newburyport. Tell me to whom I am to give it."

But John Nelson shook his head. "You'd be caught, and maybe sent to England," he answered.

"I'll not be caught. And if they catch me they'd not find the papers," he promised, and before they parted Nelson had agreed to deliver the package that day. "I'll give it to Anne," he promised. "It will not do for me to meet you again. There are too many eyes about. Let Anne walk along, with that tall girl yonder, about sunset toward the South Meeting House, and I'll give it to her."

Captain Stoddard nodded, and walked away.