Sheila of Big Wreck Cove | Page 6

Wharf. 'Rion Latham, a
red-headed, pimply faced young man, sidled up to Horace Newbegin.
"Well, what do you think of the hoodoo ship, Horrors?" he hoarsely
whispered.
Newbegin stared at him unwaveringly, and the red-haired one repeated
the question. The old salt finally batted one eye, slowly and
impressively.
"D'you know what answer the little boy got that asked the quahog the
time o' day?" he drawled. "Not a word. Not a derned word, 'Rion."
Landing at the fish wharf, Tunis Latham walked up the straggling street
of the district inhabited for the most part by smiling brown men and
women. Fayal and Cape Cod are strangely analogous, especially upon a
summer's day. The houses he passed had one room; they were little
more than shacks. But there were gay colors everywhere in the dress of
both men and women. It was believed that these Portygee fishermen
would have their seines dyed red and yellow if the fish would swim
into them.
A young woman sitting upon a doorstep, nursing a little, bald,
brown-headed baby, dropped a gay handkerchief over her bared bosom
but nodded and smiled at the captain of the Seamew with right good
fellowship. He knew all these people, and most of them, the young
women at least, admired Tunis; but he was too self-centered and busied

with his own thoughts and affairs to comprehend this.
At the corner of one of the houses a girl stood--a tall, lean-flanked, but
deep-bosomed creature, as graceful as a well-grown sapling. Her calico
frock clung to the lines of her matured figure as though she had just
stepped up out of the sea itself. Around her head she had banded a
crimson bandanna, but it allowed the escape of glossy black hair that
waved prettily. Her lips were as red as poppies, full, voluptuous; her
eyes were sloe-black and as soft as a cow's. Fortunately for the
languishing girl's peace of mind--she had placed herself there at the
corner of the house to wait for Tunis since the moment the Seamew had
dropped anchor--she did not know that the young captain had noticed
her only as "that cow" as he swung by on his way to the road that
wound up the slope of Wreckers' Head.
Neither Eunez Pareta--nor any other girl of the port, Portygee or
Yankee--had ever made Tunis Latham's heart flutter. He was not
impervious to the blandishments of all feminine beauty. As Cap'n Ira
Ball would have said, Tunis was "a general admirer of the sect." And as
the young man passed the languishing Eunez with a cheerful nod and
smile there flashed into his memory an entirely different picture, but
one of a girl nevertheless. Somehow the memory of that girl in Scollay
Square kept coming back to his mind.
He had gone up by train for the Seamew and her crew, and naturally he
had spent one night in Boston. Coming up out of the North End after a
late supper, he had stopped upon one side of the square to watch the
passing throng, some hurrying home from work, some hurrying to
theaters and other places of amusement, but all hurrying. Nowhere did
he see the slow, but carrying, stride of a man used to open spaces. And
the narrow-skirted girls could scarcely hobble.
A narrow skirt, however, had not led Tunis Latham to give particular
note to one certain girl in the throng. She had stepped through the door
of a cheap but garish restaurant. Somebody had thrown a peeling on the
sidewalk, and she had slipped on it. Tunis had leaped and caught her
before she measured her length. She looked up into his face with
startled, violet eyes that seemed, in that one moment, to hold in them a

fascination and power that the Cape man had never dreamed a woman's
eyes could possess.
"You're all right, ma'am," he said, confused, setting her firmly on her
feet.
"My skirt!" She almost whispered it. There seemed to be not a shyness,
but a terrified timidity in her voice and manner. Tunis saw that the
shabby skirt was torn widely at the hem.
"Let's go somewhere and get that fixed," he suggested awkwardly.
"Thank you, sir. I will go back into the restaurant. I work there. I can
get a pin or two."
He had to let her go, of course. Nor could he follow her. He lacked the
boldness that might have led another man to enter the restaurant and
order something to eat for the sake of seeing what became of the girl
with the violet eyes and colorless velvet cheeks. There had been an
appeal in her countenance that called Tunis more and more as he
dreamed about her.
And standing there on Scollay Square dreaming about her had done the