Janet of the Dunes | Page 2

this brown ruggedness were Janet's eyes. Like
colorless pools they lay protected by their dark fringes, until emotion
moved them to tint and expression. Did the sky of Janet's day prove
kind, what eyes could be as soft and blue as hers? Did storm threaten, a

grayness brooded, a grayness quite capable of changing to ominous
black.
Cap'n Billy, trained to watching for storms and danger, knew the
signals, and now, for safety, lay low.
The eyes were mild and sun-filled, the face bewitchingly friendly; but
when Janet took to wheedling, Billy hugged the shore.
"You don't really mean it, Cap'n, now, do you?"
"I do that!" muttered Billy, and he pulled the twine energetically.
"What, send your own Janet off to the mainland to stay--except when
she runs back?" This last in a tone that might have moved a rock to
pity.
"Yes, that, Janet; and ye mustn't come on too often, nuther."
"Oh! Cap'n, and just when we've got the blessed beach to ourselves!
Mrs. Jo G. and her kind gone; only the crew and us! Why, Cap'n, this is
life!"
"Now, Janet, 'tain't no use fur ye t' coax. Ye're goin' on seventeen, ain't
ye?"
"Seventeen, Cap'n, and eleven months!"
"It's distractin' the way ye've shot up. Clar distractin'; an' I ain't been an'
done my duty by ye, nuther." Billy yanked a strand of cord vigorously.
"Yes, you have, Cap'n," Janet's tone was dangerously soft; "I'm the
very properest girl at the Station. Look at me, Cap'n Daddy!"
But Billy steeled himself, and rigidly attended to the net. "Well," he
admitted, "ye're proper enough 'long some lines. I've taught ye t'
conquer yer 'tarnal bad temper--"
"You've taught me to know its power, Cap'n Daddy," warned Janet

with a glint of darkness in the laughing serenity of her gaze; "the
temper is here just the same, and powerful bad, upon provocation!"
A smile moved the corners of Billy's humorous lips.
"An' the bedpost is here, too, Janet. Lordy! I can see ye now as I used t'
tie ye up till the storm was over. What a 'tarnal little rascal ye war! The
waves of tantrums rolled over ye, one by one, yer yells growin' less an'
less; an' bime by ye called out 'tween squalls, 'Cap'n Daddy, it's most
past!'" There was a mist over Billy's eyes. "Ye 'tarnal little specimint!"
he added.
"But, Cap'n, dear!" Janet was growing more and more dangerous; "I've
been so good. Just think how I've gone across the bay, to the Corners,
to school. My! how educated I am! Storm or ice, I leave it to you,
Daddy, did I ever complain?"
"Never, Janet. I've stood on the dock and watched yer sail comin' 'fore
the gale, till it seemed like I would bust with fear. An' the way ye
handled yer ice boat in the pursuit of knowledge-gettin' was simple
miraculous! No, I ain't a-frettin' over yer larnin'-gettin'; it's the us'n' of
the same as is stirrin' me now. With such edication as ye've got in spite
of storm an' danger, ye ought to be shinin' over on the mainland 'mong
the boarders!"
"Boarders!" sniffed Janet, tossing her ruddy mane; "boarders! Folks
have gone crazy-mad over the city folks who have swooped down upon
us, like a--a--hawk! Every house full of those raving lunatics going on
about the views, and the--the artistic desolation! That's what those dirty,
spotty looking things on the Hills call it. Cap'n, you just ought to see
them going about in checked kitchen aprons, with daubs all over
them--sunbonnets adangling on their heads, little wagons full of truck
for painting pictures--and such pictures! Lorzy! if I lived in a place that
looked like those--sketches, they call them--I'd--I'd go to sea, Cap'n
Daddy--to sea!"
"But they be folks, Janet, an' it's a new life an' a chance, an' it ain't
decint fur ye, with all yer good pints, t' be on the beach along with the

crew, all alone!"
"Cap'n, I do believe you want to marry me off! get rid of me! oh,
Daddy!" Janet plunged her head in her lap and was the picture of
outraged maidenhood.
"'T ain't so! An' ye know it!" cried Billy. "But Mrs. Jo G., 'fore they
sailed off, opened my eyes."
"Mrs. Jo G.!" snapped Janet, raising her head and flashing a look of
resentment, "I thought so! What did she suggest--that I might come to
her house and wait--wait, just think of it, Cap'n, wait upon those
boarders?" She had suggested that, and something even worse, so Billy
held his peace.
"It's simply outrageous the way our people are going on," the girl
continued; "they are bent upon beggaring the city folks! Beggaring
them, really! they have no consciences about the methods they take
to--to rob them!"
"Janet, hold