Up The Baltic Part 3

"Have you been in a steamer this season?"

"No, sir."

"Then you were in a sailing vessel."

Ole would not say that he had been in any vessel the present season.

"Where is your home now?" asked the princ.i.p.al, breaking the silence again.

"Haven't any."

"Have you a father and mother?"

"Both dead, sir."

"Have you any friends?"

"Friends? I don't believe I have."

"Any one that takes care of you?"

"Takes care of me? No, sir; I'm quite certain I haven't any one that takes care of me. I take care of myself, and it's heavy work I find it, sometimes, I can tell you."

"Do you ever go fis.h.i.+ng?"

"Yes, sir, sometimes."

"Have you been lately?"

Ole was silent again.

"I wish to be your friend, Ole."

"Thank you, sir," added Ole, bowing low.

"But in order to know what to do for you, I must know something about your circ.u.mstances."

"I haven't any circ.u.mstances, sir. I lost 'em all," replied Ole, gravely and sadly, as though he had met with a very serious loss.

Dr. Winstock could not help laughing, but it was impossible to decide whether the boy was ignorant of the meaning of the word, or was trying to perpetrate a joke.

"How did you happen to lose your circ.u.mstances, Ole?" asked Mr.

Lowington.

"When my mother died, Captain Olaf took 'em."

"Indeed; and who is Captain Olaf?"

Ole looked at the princ.i.p.al, and then returned his gaze to the cabin floor, evidently not deeming it prudent to answer the question.

"Is he your brother?"

"No, sir."

"Your uncle?"

"No, sir."

Ole could not be induced to say anything more about Captain Olaf, and doubtless regretted that he had even mentioned his name. The waif plainly confounded "circ.u.mstances" and property. Mr. Lowington several times returned to the main inquiry, but the young man would not even hint at the explanation of the manner in which he had come to be a waif on the North Sea, in an open boat, half full of water. He had told the captain that he was not wrecked, and had not been blown off from the coast. He would make no answer of any kind to any direct question relating to the subject.

"Well, Ole, as you will not tell me how you came in the situation in which we found you, I do not see that I can do anything for you,"

continued Mr. Lowington. "The s.h.i.+p is bound to Christiansand, and when we arrive we must leave you there."

"Don't leave me in Christiansand, sir. I don't want to be left there."

"Why not?"

Ole was silent again. Both the princ.i.p.al and the surgeon pitied him, for he appeared to be a friendless orphan; certainly he had no friends to whom he wished to go, and was only anxious to remain in the s.h.i.+p, and go to America in her.

"You may go into the steerage now, Ole," said the princ.i.p.al, despairing of any further solution of the mystery.

"Thank you, sir," replied Ole, bowing low, and backing out of the cabin as a courtier retires from the presence of a sovereign.

"What do you make of him, doctor?" added Mr. Lowington, as the door closed upon the waif.

"I don't make anything of him," replied Dr. Winstock. "The young rascal evidently don't intend that we should make anything of him.

He's a young Norwegian, about fifteen years old, with neither father nor mother; for I think we may believe what he has said. If he had no regard to the truth, it was just as easy for him to lie as it was to keep silent, and it would have been more plausible."

"I am inclined to believe that he is a runaway, either from the sh.o.r.e or from some vessel," said the princ.i.p.al. "He certainly cannot have been well treated, for his filthy rags scarcely cover his body; and he says that the supper he had to-night was the best he ever ate in his life. It was only coffee, cold ham, and bread and b.u.t.ter; so he cannot have been a high liver. He seems to be honest, and I pity him."

"But he is too filthy to remain on board a single hour. I will attend to his sanitary condition at once," laughed the doctor. "He will breed a leprosy among the boys, if he is not taken care of."

"Let the purser give you a suit of clothes for him, for we can't do less than this for him."

The doctor left the cabin, and Ole was taken to the bath-room by one of the stewards, and compelled to scrub himself with a brush and soap, till he was made into a new creature. He was inclined to rebel at first, for he had his national and inborn prejudice against soap and water in combination; but the sight of the suit of new clothes overcame his const.i.tutional scruples. The steward was faithful to his mission, and Ole left dirt enough in the bath-tub to plant half a dozen hills of potatoes. He looked like a new being, even before he had donned the new clothes. His light hair, cut square across his forehead, was three shades lighter when it had been scrubbed, and deprived of the black earth, grease, and tar, with which it had been matted.

The steward was interested in his work, for it is a pleasure to any decent person to transform such a leper of filth into a clean and wholesome individual. Ole put on the heavy flannel s.h.i.+rt and the blue frock which were handed to him, and smiled with pleasure as he observed the effect. He was fitted to a pair of seaman's blue trousers, and provided with socks and shoes. Then he actually danced with delight, and evidently regarded himself as a finished dandy; for never before had he been clothed in a suit half so good. It was the regular uniform of the crew of the s.h.i.+p.

"Hold on a moment, my lad," said Muggs, the steward, as he produced a pair of barber's shears. "Your barber did not do justice to your figure-head, the last time he cut your hair."

"I cut it myself," replied Ole.

"I should think you did, and with a bush scythe."

"I only hacked off a little, to keep it out of my eyes. Captain Olaf always used to cut it."

"Who's Captain Olaf?" asked Muggs.