<SPAN name="chap06"></SPAN>
<h3> CHAPTER 6 </h3>
<h3> CAPTAIN JIM </h3>
<p>"Old Doctor Dave" and "Mrs. Doctor Dave" had come down to the little
house to greet the bride and groom. Doctor Dave was a big, jolly,
white-whiskered old fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked,
silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once to her heart, literally
and figuratively.</p>
<p>"I'm so glad to see you, dear. You must be real tired. We've got a
bite of supper ready, and Captain Jim brought up some trout for you.
Captain Jim—where are you? Oh, he's slipped out to see to the horse,
I suppose. Come upstairs and take your things off."</p>
<p>Anne looked about her with bright, appreciative eyes as she followed
Mrs. Doctor Dave upstairs. She liked the appearance of her new home
very much. It seemed to have the atmosphere of Green Gables and the
flavor of her old traditions.</p>
<p>"I think I would have found Miss Elizabeth Russell a 'kindred spirit,'"
she murmured when she was alone in her room. There were two windows in
it; the dormer one looked out on the lower harbor and the sand-bar and
the Four Winds light.</p>
<p class="poem">
"A magic casement opening on the foam<br/>
Of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn,"<br/></p>
<p>quoted Anne softly. The gable window gave a view of a little
harvest-hued valley through which a brook ran. Half a mile up the
brook was the only house in sight—an old, rambling, gray one
surrounded by huge willows through which its windows peered, like shy,
seeking eyes, into the dusk. Anne wondered who lived there; they would
be her nearest neighbors and she hoped they would be nice. She
suddenly found herself thinking of the beautiful girl with the white
geese.</p>
<p>"Gilbert thought she didn't belong here," mused Anne, "but I feel sure
she does. There was something about her that made her part of the sea
and the sky and the harbor. Four Winds is in her blood."</p>
<p>When Anne went downstairs Gilbert was standing before the fireplace
talking to a stranger. Both turned as Anne entered.</p>
<p>"Anne, this is Captain Boyd. Captain Boyd, my wife."</p>
<p>It was the first time Gilbert had said "my wife" to anybody but Anne,
and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it. The old captain
held out a sinewy hand to Anne; they smiled at each other and were
friends from that moment. Kindred spirit flashed recognition to
kindred spirit.</p>
<p>"I'm right down pleased to meet you, Mistress Blythe; and I hope you'll
be as happy as the first bride was who came here. I can't wish you no
better than THAT. But your husband doesn't introduce me jest exactly
right. 'Captain Jim' is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin
as you're sartain to end up—calling me that. You sartainly are a nice
little bride, Mistress Blythe. Looking at you sorter makes me feel
that I've jest been married myself."</p>
<p>Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim to
stay and have supper with them.</p>
<p>"Thank you kindly. 'Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor. I mostly
has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a
looking-glass opposite for company. 'Tisn't often I have a chance to
sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies."</p>
<p>Captain Jim's compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them
with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen's
tribute in a kingly fashion.</p>
<p>Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal
youth in his eyes and heart. He had a tall, rather ungainly figure,
somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a
clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-gray
hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue,
deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and
sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one
seeking something precious and lost. Anne was to learn one day what it
was for which Captain Jim looked.</p>
<p>It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely man. His spare
jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had
marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Anne
thought him plain she never thought anything more about it—the spirit
shining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.</p>
<p>They gathered gaily around the supper table. The hearth fire banished
the chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining room
was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. The view was
magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills
beyond. The table was heaped with Mrs. Doctor's delicacies but the
piece de resistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.</p>
<p>"Thought they'd be sorter tasty after travelling," said Captain Jim.
"They're fresh as trout can be, Mistress Blythe. Two hours ago they
were swimming in the Glen Pond."</p>
<p>"Who is attending to the light tonight, Captain Jim?" asked Doctor Dave.</p>
<p>"Nephew Alec. He understands it as well as I do. Well, now, I'm real
glad you asked me to stay to supper. I'm proper hungry—didn't have
much of a dinner today."</p>
<p>"I believe you half starve yourself most of the time down at that
light," said Mrs. Doctor Dave severely. "You won't take the trouble to
get up a decent meal."</p>
<p>"Oh, I do, Mistress Doctor, I do," protested Captain Jim. "Why, I live
like a king gen'rally. Last night I was up to the Glen and took home
two pounds of steak. I meant to have a spanking good dinner today."</p>
<p>"And what happened to the steak?" asked Mrs. Doctor Dave. "Did you
lose it on the way home?"</p>
<p>"No." Captain Jim looked sheepish. "Just at bedtime a poor, ornery
sort of dog came along and asked for a night's lodging. Guess he
belonged to some of the fishermen 'long shore. I couldn't turn the
poor cur out—he had a sore foot. So I shut him in the porch, with an
old bag to lie on, and went to bed. But somehow I couldn't sleep.
Come to think it over, I sorter remembered that the dog looked hungry."</p>
<p>"And you got up and gave him that steak—ALL that steak," said Mrs.
Doctor Dave, with a kind of triumphant reproof.</p>
<p>"Well, there wasn't anything else TO give him," said Captain Jim
deprecatingly. "Nothing a dog'd care for, that is. I reckon he WAS
hungry, for he made about two bites of it. I had a fine sleep the rest
of the night but my dinner had to be sorter scanty—potatoes and point,
as you might say. The dog, he lit out for home this morning. I reckon
HE weren't a vegetarian."</p>
<p>"The idea of starving yourself for a worthless dog!" sniffed Mrs.
Doctor.</p>
<p>"You don't know but he may be worth a lot to somebody," protested
Captain Jim. "He didn't LOOK of much account, but you can't go by
looks in jedging a dog. Like meself, he might be a real beauty inside.
The First Mate didn't approve of him, I'll allow. His language was
right down forcible. But the First Mate is prejudiced. No use in
taking a cat's opinion of a dog. 'Tennyrate, I lost my dinner, so this
nice spread in this dee-lightful company is real pleasant. It's a great
thing to have good neighbors."</p>
<p>"Who lives in the house among the willows up the brook?" asked Anne.</p>
<p>"Mrs. Dick Moore," said Captain Jim—"and her husband," he added, as if
by way of an afterthought.</p>
<p>Anne smiled, and deduced a mental picture of Mrs. Dick Moore from
Captain Jim's way of putting it; evidently a second Mrs. Rachel Lynde.</p>
<p>"You haven't many neighbors, Mistress Blythe," Captain Jim went on.
"This side of the harbor is mighty thinly settled. Most of the land
belongs to Mr. Howard up yander past the Glen, and he rents it out for
pasture. The other side of the harbor, now, is thick with
folks—'specially MacAllisters. There's a whole colony of MacAllisters
you can't throw a stone but you hit one. I was talking to old Leon
Blacquiere the other day. He's been working on the harbor all summer.
'Dey're nearly all MacAllisters over thar,' he told me. 'Dare's Neil
MacAllister and Sandy MacAllister and William MacAllister and Alec
MacAllister and Angus MacAllister—and I believe dare's de Devil
MacAllister.'"</p>
<p>"There are nearly as many Elliotts and Crawfords," said Doctor Dave,
after the laughter had subsided. "You know, Gilbert, we folk on this
side of Four Winds have an old saying—'From the conceit of the
Elliotts, the pride of the MacAllisters, and the vainglory of the
Crawfords, good Lord deliver us.'"</p>
<p>"There's a plenty of fine people among them, though," said Captain Jim.
"I sailed with William Crawford for many a year, and for courage and
endurance and truth that man hadn't an equal. They've got brains over
on that side of Four Winds. Mebbe that's why this side is sorter
inclined to pick on 'em. Strange, ain't it, how folks seem to resent
anyone being born a mite cleverer than they be."</p>
<p>Doctor Dave, who had a forty years' feud with the over-harbor people,
laughed and subsided.</p>
<p>"Who lives in that brilliant emerald house about half a mile up the
road?" asked Gilbert.</p>
<p>Captain Jim smiled delightedly.</p>
<p>"Miss Cornelia Bryant. She'll likely be over to see you soon, seeing
you're Presbyterians. If you were Methodists she wouldn't come at all.
Cornelia has a holy horror of Methodists."</p>
<p>"She's quite a character," chuckled Doctor Dave. "A most inveterate
man-hater!"</p>
<p>"Sour grapes?" queried Gilbert, laughing.</p>
<p>"No, 'tisn't sour grapes," answered Captain Jim seriously. "Cornelia
could have had her pick when she was young. Even yet she's only to say
the word to see the old widowers jump. She jest seems to have been
born with a sort of chronic spite agin men and Methodists. She's got
the bitterest tongue and the kindest heart in Four Winds. Wherever
there's any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help in
the tenderest way. She never says a harsh word about another woman,
and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon our
tough old hides can stand it."</p>
<p>"She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim," said Mrs. Doctor.</p>
<p>"Yes, I'm afraid so. I don't half like it. It makes me feel as if
there must be something sorter unnateral about me."</p>
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