Friendship -- Juvenile fiction; Houseboats -- Juvenile fiction; Vacations -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
"You must forgive my pet," he remarked kindly. "My little Madge is
jealous. She doesn't like strangers and we don't often have young lady
visitors."
"Madge!" exclaimed the little captain, smiling as she tried to re-arrange
her hair. "What a funny name for a monkey. Why, that is my name!"
After a few advances the monkey became very friendly with the other
girls, but she would have nothing to do with Madge. She would fly into a
perfect tempest of rage whenever Madge approached her or tried to talk to
her. The monkey even deserted her master to perch in Tania's arms. The
animal put its little, scrawny arms about the queer child's neck, and
there was almost the same elfish, wistful look in both pairs of dark
eyes.
"Do you catch many fish in these waters?" inquired Eleanor, whose
housewifely soul was interested in the big basket of lobsters that she
saw crawling about, writhing and twisting as though they were in agony.
"Almost every kind that lives in temperate waters," answered the sailor,
"but there is nothing like the variety one finds in the tropics."
"Were you once a sea captain?" asked Lillian curiously.
The man shook his head. "I'm not a captain in the United States service,"
he returned. "I am called captain in these parts, 'Captain Jules,' but I
have only commanded a freight schooner."
"I know I have no right to be so curious," interposed Madge, "but I
dearly love everything about the sea. Were you ever a deep sea diver?
Somehow you look like one."
"I was a pearl-fisher for many years," the seaman answered as calmly as
though diving for pearls was one of the most ordinary trades in the
world. But his eyes twinkled as he heard Madge's gasp of admiration and
caught the expression on the faces of the other girls.
"You were looking for pearls in those oysters and mussel shells when our
boat came along, weren't you?" divined Madge, regarding him with large
eyes.
The man nodded a smiling answer.
"Yes, but I didn't expect to find any pearls," he answered. "It is
strange how a man's old occupation will cling to him, even after he has
long ago given it up. There are very few pearls to be found now in the
Delaware Bay or the waters around here."
Captain Jules was gravely removing lobsters from his basket for Tania's
entertainment while he talked to Madge. Tania was watching him,
breathless with admiration and terror. The captain would take hold of one
of the great, crawling things, rub it softly on its horned head as one
would rub a tabby cat to make it purr. He would then set the lobster up
on its hind claws and the funny crustacean would fall quietly asleep, as
though it were nodding in a chair.
"I never saw anything so queer in my life," chuckled Phil. "You hypnotize
the lobsters, don't you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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