Chapter 22

BLUEBERRYING

Benny was still unfurling his sail when his party came down to the floating dock the next morning.

Dunham was laden with lunch boxes, pails, and sweaters, and Benny looked somewhat darkly upon him as his laugh rang out in reply to a speech of his companions.

"I was givin' ye half an hour more," said the boy, as they greeted him. "Ye usually"--

"Don't betray me that way, Benny," interrupted Edna. "I'll have to confess, though, that this promptness is all owing to Mr. Dunham. He has pursued and hurried us since eight o'clock."

"I've traveled on my virtuous early rising up to the present moment," remarked Dunham; "but now I'll confess that I wasn't so crazy over the sunrise as I was at it. It was a very unwelcome pageant in my room at 3 A.M."

"Oh, surely!" exclaimed Edna sympathetically. "Those cruelly light windows."

"Did you ever try a black stocking?" asked Sylvia earnestly.

"Well--occasionally," replied Dunham, regarding his feet.

"I mean on your eyes."

"No. Is that the latest? I'm from the country."

"People talk about sunshine in a shady place," said Sylvia. "I think shade in a sunny place is quite as important. Always put a black stocking under your pillow when you go to sleep in a blindless room. The light wakes you, you draw the stocking across your eyes,--and off you go again."

"Yes, but supposing the stocking does the same?" objected Dunham.

The girls laughed, much to Benny's disapproval.

"You shouldn't toss around so, then," said Edna.

"That isn't kind," remarked John. "Benny, I trust there is something black on board to draw across these lunch boxes. It is one hundred in the refrigerator on this dock."

Benny took the lunch stolidly, and stowed it under cover.

He considered Mr. Dunham an entirely superfluous member of this party.

"He's the freshest lobster ever I see," was his mental comment. "I wonder which of 'em he's sweet on?"

The passengers jumped aboard.

"Guess I'll save you the trouble of sailing her, eh, Benny?" asked John.

"You better guess again," drawled the boy, returning to his place and taking possession of the ropes. "I've got to take care of Miss Edna."

"Oh, Benny," said the girl gently, "you know this is Mr. Dunham's vacation."

"Hadn't ought to work in his vacation," returned Benny doggedly.

John was standing undecidedly looking down at him. There was an evident and large thunder cloud across Benny's brow.

"Why the grouch?" asked John _sotto voce_, looking down at Edna. "Is it chronic?"

"There are monsters in this deep, John, with green eyes," she replied mysteriously, smiling. "They're tamable when young, though. Sit down a while."

"He don't know nawthin' 'bout these ledges, does he?" asked Benny defensively.

"No," replied Edna. "That's right. You get us by the ledgy places and out into the middle of the Sound, and then Mr. Dunham will take her."

"Oh, I don't know," remarked John, dropping down in the boat with a sigh of content as the sail filled and they glided forward. "I don't know that I want anything better than this." He leaned against the gunwale and regarded Sylvia, who was sitting beside the mast. The morning stars shone in her eyes. "Miss Sylvia looks as if she agreed with me," he added.

She smiled and glanced away. Neither of these two suspected that she was a spell-bound maiden skimming over the blue waves in an enchanted shallop to some blest island, where waited a magical berry that would set her free. How should they understand that this holiday picnic was in reality a pilgrimage.

John continued to look at her. He wondered if Nat knew what he had lost.

"A penny for your thoughts, Miss Sylvia," he said after a minute.

She shook her head at him. "This isn't bargain day," she returned.

"Are they that precious?"

"They're priceless," she answered.

"Really no use bidding?"

"Not the slightest." Sylvia looked off again.

"Well, one thing about them I know without paying. You've given it away."

"What's that?"

"They're happy."

"Oh, yes." The girl smiled. How impossible it would be for either of her companions to conceive the cause of her happiness. They need not lack one day that which she had craved for weeks.

As they sailed on, Benny Merritt's stolid eyes glanced from time to time toward Edna. He was guiltily aware that they had passed the vicinity of dangerous ledges. The most uncomfortable feature of the situation was that he knew Miss Derwent to be equally aware of it.

"If he was to sail, I don't know what they brought me fer," he reflected gloomily.

He did know that it was necessary for some one to watch the boat and keep her off the rocks while the others were ashore, but Benny's elders have been known thus to fence with facts.

Edna caught his roving glance at last and raised her brows questioningly.

"Well," said the boy reluctantly, "I s'pose Mr. Dunham can sail now if he wants to."

The manner in which John received the sullen permission reminded Edna of many a past occasion when her friend had not contented himself with getting what he wanted, but managed to transform reluctance into grace.

"Dangerous coast around the island, is it, Benny?" asked John without moving.

"How do ye mean?"

"Treacherous. Hidden rocks to look out for and all that?"

"Not now. Ye could set a church, steeple an' all, where we are now."

"Do you carry a chart?"

"Yes, fer Miss Edna. I never look at it."

"Is it much trouble to get at it?" John rose as he spoke, and came over to the sailor, taking a place beside him.

"Dunno as it is," vouchsafed Benny. "It's in the locker." With some further hesitation he allowed John to take the sail, and proceeded to rummage for the chart, which he shortly produced.

"Now let's have a look at this," said Dunham, giving back the boat into Benny's hands, but remaining beside him as he spread the chart out on his knees.

Edna could see that he was making comments and asking questions which Benny answered with increasing detail, and she turned to Sylvia with a smile.

"That is so characteristic."

"What?"

"Why, John wants to sail this boat; but he won't do it till he's made Benny fall in love with him. So few men would care, or even notice, whether Benny liked it or not; but John was never content with merely getting his own way."

Sylvia looked at the speaker wistfully. "Do you admire it in him?" she asked.

Edna smiled. "Well, I like it at all events. The result is so agreeable. You'll see him sail this boat home while Benny chaperons him with all the pride of a doting guardian."

"It makes him very fascinating to people, I suppose," said Sylvia.

"Oh, yes. John has all sorts of equipment for that purpose."

"And does he--does he think right?" asked Sylvia timidly.

"I believe he doesn't look at things from our standpoint exactly, but his nature is fine. I used to consider that it was his vanity that demanded approval of everybody he had dealings with, but it seems to me now more like an instinctive desire to create a right atmosphere. Why should he care to win Benny Merritt?"

"Perhaps he wants to borrow his boat," replied Sylvia naïvely.

Edna's clear laugh rang out.

"I see you won't let me make a hero of him," she said.

"Oh, I will, I will!" exclaimed Sylvia earnestly, coloring. "Only you were speaking of his having his own way, and I wondered if--if he was just as charming to people when he wasn't trying to get it."

"Ah, that would put him on a pedestal, wouldn't it?" replied Edna mischievously. "Let's watch him, and see."