James Brendan Connolly – The Major Collection

James Brendan Connolly – The Major Collection Sonnie-Boy's People The Seiners The Trawler The U-boat hunters Wide Courses Sonnie-Boy's People, by James B. Connolly SONNIE-BOY'S PEOPLE BY JAMES B. CONNOLLY SONNIE-BOY'S PEOPLE The man with the gold-headed cane had been headed for the cottage, but espying the boy at the water's edge, he changed his course. He crept to within a few paces of the lad before he hailed: "Halloo, little boy! I'll bet I know who your papa is." The boy looked casually around. Seeing that it was a stranger, he faced about and stood respectfully erect. "Mr. Welkie's little boy, aren't you?" "Yes, sir. But I'm 'most six." "Oh-h, I see--a big boy now. But what have you got there?" The boy held up the toy steamer with which he had been playing. "Oh-h, I see now. What are you going to do with it?" The boy looked sidewise out to where in the bay a fleet of battle-ships were lying to anchor. "Load it with sugar and pineapples, and ship 'em to the States, are you?" "But it's a gun-ship. See--where the turrets 'n' the fighting-tops will be when papa makes them." "Oh! and so you want to be a great merchant?" "I want to be a fighter"--articulating slowly and distinctly--"on a big gun-ship." "Well, if ever you do, little man, I'll bet you'll be a game one, too. Is your papa home?" "No, sir, but Aunt Marie is." "And is Aunt Marie busy, do you think?" "I don't know, sir, but she's making a battle-flag for my gun-ship." "That so? I think I will call on Aunt Marie, then." Swinging his cane and advancing leisurely, the stranger headed for the screened veranda door. Marie Welkie, because of having to keep an eye on her nephew from the veranda, could not avoid noticing the stranger. The clothing, the jewelry, the air of assurance, had disturbed and half amused her; but the kindly tone with the boy, the parting pat of his head, were more pleasing. She answered his knock herself. "Good evening--Miss Welkie?" That Southern "good evening" in the middle of the afternoon likewise pleased her. "Miss Welkie, yes." "I'm Mr. Necker." From a gold-mounted case he drew out a card. "I'm looking for your brother." "He won't be home for some time yet. But won't you step in, Mr. Necker, from out of the sun?" "Thank you. It is warm, isn't it? Warmer than ordinary?" "No, I shouldn't say so. It's usually hot here." "Then it must be hot here when it is hot. It wasn't so bad out in the Gulf. I just got in--from Key West. Not many passengers come here, Miss Welkie?" "Only somebody especially interested in the works--usually from Washington. Do you mind if I go ahead with this ensign for my nephew, Mr. Necker?" She held up a partly finished American ensign. Above the top of it the visitor could see part of the very white forehead and a front of dark straight hair. "I promised to have it ready for my nephew surely by morning, and after my brother gets home there probably won't be much spare time. But were you the only passenger for here, Mr. Necker?" "There was one other. He got off at the new fortification landing. Twenty-nine or thirty perhaps he was--a well-made, easy-moving kind." His voice was casual, but his gaze was keen enough. It never left her face. "A tall man came running down to meet him," he resumed. "They seemed terribly glad to see each other." "That must have been my brother to meet--Mr. Balfe, was it?--your fellow-passenger." He hesitated a moment. "Mr. Balfe--yes, that was it. The captain--or was it the captain?--said that there was a Mr. Balfe who went on special missions for the government, but whether this was the Mr. Balfe or not he could not say." She sewed serenely on. "I've heard that that steamer captain is developing into a great gossip. Our Mr. Balfe is my brother's dearest friend and godfather to my brother's boy--the boy you were speaking to on the beach--and if he ever found himself in this part of the world without calling on us, I don't know what my brother would think." This time Miss Welkie looked up, and Necker smiled with her. Also he peered smilingly through the veranda vine. "So that is your brother's boy out there? Well, well! And a fine boy, too! A beautifully shaped head. Bright, I'll bet?" "Naturally"--with a tender smile--"we think so." "I'll bet he is. And of course your brother is laying great plans to assure his future?" "I'm afraid you are not well acquainted with my brother, Mr. Necker." [Illustration: "And of course your brother is laying great plans to assure his future?"] "Not personally, Miss Welkie, but surely he won't neglect his own child's future?" "I'm afraid that would not be his way of looking at it." "And his way is a fine way, no doubt, Miss Welkie--if a man had only himself to think of. But can, or should, his family--" he paused. "His family? Young Greg and I are his family, Mr. Necker, and I'm sure we're not worrying about the future." Her head bent lower to her sewing, but not too low for Necker to see the little smile, half of humor, half of something else, hovering on her lips. "Because you're too young--and too unselfish." This time her head came up and the smile developed into a soft laugh. "No, no, nothing quite so fine as that, nor quite so awfully young. At twenty-three----" Necker tried to meet her eyes; but the eyes were not for him, nor for the boy on the beach this time, nor for the brave war-ships at anchor. Her eyes were for something farther away. Necker, twisting in his chair, could distinguish through the haze the fortification walls on the other side of the little bay. There was another little smile hovering. Necker waited hopefully. She, catching his eye, flushed and returned to her sewing. "We're all very happy here," she added after a moment, and, still flushing, resumed her needle. Presently he pointed his cane at the boy on the beach. "A great deal of your brother in him, isn't there?" "Very much. Our older friends back home say that it is like Greg--that is, my brother--being born all over." "A fine boy, yes, Miss Welkie, and ought to be a great man some day. But I'll be running along now, Miss Welkie." "You won't wait for him? He will be glad to see you, I know." "Thank you; but after a man's been out there under that sun all day is no time for a friend to bother him. And I am a friend of your brother's, believe me, Miss Welkie. It is because I am a friend and an admirer of his that I'm here." "But you will return later?" "I will, thank you--after he's had time to clean up and eat and smoke, and a chat with his friend, I'll drop in for a little talk, and in that little talk, Miss Welkie, I hope you won't be against me, for I mean it for his best. So until eight o'clock to-night, Miss Welkie-- adios ." Necker, swishing his gold-headed cane, strolled leisurely away. "I wonder what he wants of Greg," murmured Marie Welkie. And until his pea-green suit was lost to sight she speculated on his probable errand. By and by her eyes, now less speculative, detected the smudge against the concrete walls. She took down a pair of glasses from the wall. It was the towboat leaving the wharf. The glasses took the place of her sewing, and they were still to her eyes when a sharp "Auntie!" came to her ears. "Tention, auntie! Colors!" warned the voice. Lowering the glasses, Marie came obediently to attention. The sun was cutting the edge of the sea. The last level light lay on the long, slow, swelling waters like a rolling, flaming carpet, and in that flaming path the gray war-ships bobbed to anchor; and on the quarter-deck of every ship a red-coated band was drawn up, and from the jack-staff of every ship an American ensign was slowly dropping down. The boy stood with his back to her, but Marie knew how his heart was thumping, and she knew the light that would be on his face. "O say! can you see--" came the swelling notes over the gently heaving bay. Marie could feel that young Greg was ready to burst; but she could not detect a move, not a quiver, out of him until the last note of the last bugle had ceased to re-echo. Then he saluted reverently, executed an about-face, and called out excitedly: "Auntie, auntie, there's papa now! Look!" Marie pretended to see for the first time the towboat which, a hundred yards or so down the beach, was making a landing. "Sure enough, Greg!" "And somebody else!" "No; is there?" "Why, don't you see--godfather, auntie! O papa! Godfather!" He was off. When he returned he was clinging on the one hand to a tall, brown, lean-cheeked, and rather slender man of thirty four or five, in dusty corduroy coat and trousers, mud-caked shoes and leggings, khaki shirt, and a hard-looking, low-blocked Panama hat; and on the other hand to a man also sun-tanned, but less tall and not so lean--a muscular, active man who may have lived the thirty years which Necker ascribed to him, but who surely did not look it now. At sight of Marie Welkie stepping down from the screened veranda he bounded like sixteen years across the beach. "Marie Welkie--at last!" "Andie Balfe!" She took his hands within hers and drew them up in front of her bosom. The smile which Necker had so wanted to see again was there now, and now not to vanish in a moment. Balfe brushed her finger tips with his lips. "How far this time, Andie?" "From half the world around, Marie." "And are you glad?" "And I would come it twice again to see your dear eyes smile." "Could eyes be made so dull as not to light to your poetic touch, Andie?" And then, in a low voice, "Wait for the sunset." She stood upon her toes for her brother's kiss. "Another hard, hot day, Greg?" "No, no, a fine day, Marie. Pedro"--he motioned to the n***o at their rear--"put Mr. Balfe's suit-case in the corner of the veranda there. That'll be all to-night, except to see that Mr. Balfe's trunks come up from the towboat." He paused on the veranda steps to get a view of the bay. As he stood there in silence, the lively notes of a dozen buglers came sharply to them. He still held the boy's hand. "Mess call, papa?" "Getting so you know them all, aren't you, Sonnie-Boy? One minute from now ten thousand husky lads out there will be doing awful things to the commissary grub. But look there! Andie, did any of your kings or presidents ever offer you sights more gorgeous than that to view from their palace walls?" It was the afterglow of the sunset, a red-and-orange glory fading into the blue-black velvet of a Caribbean twilight. "It's by way of greeting to the far traveller. This may be the last place on earth here, Andie, but we warrant our sunsets to be the best on the market. But let's go inside and make ready to eat. What do you say, Sonnie-Boy?" "But, papa, you said that when godfather came you would have the Little Men sing you a song for the steam-engine he sent me from Japan!" "That's right, I did. But where is it?" "Right here, papa." From the veranda corner he picked up a toy locomotive. "Look! Lightning , I've named it." "A fine name for it, too. Well, let me see. How was it? Oh, yes! Lunch-time to-day it was, and your papa was smoking his cigar and looking out to sea all by himself. It was very quiet, with all the donkey-engines stopped and the men eating inside the walls. On the bluff beyond the fort I was sitting, with my feet hanging over the edge, and the mango-tree I've told you so often about was shading me from the sun. The wind was blowing just a wee mite, and every time the wind would blow and the tree would wave, a mango would drop into the bay. Plump! it would go into the ocean below, and every time a mango dropped down a Little Man in a green coat popped up."