"Yes," returned Old Captain, sorrowfully. "They went and they didn't come back. That's all."
"They went and they didn't come back--they went and they didn't come back"--Jeanne's feet kept time to the words as the pair walked up the dock. "They went and they didn't come back."
Jeanne couldn't believe it. Yet, somehow, she had known it. All that summer, in spite of her brave assurances to herself, she had felt--fatherless. The fatherless feeling had been justified. Yet she _couldn't_ believe it. Her precious father--and poor little Michael!
"Maybe--maybe you'd want to go inside and cry a bit," suggested the worried Captain. "Shall I--just hang about outside?"
Jeanne dropped to the bench outside the car. Her eyes, very wide open but perfectly tearless, were fixed on Old Captain. Her cheeks were white. Even her lips were colorless.
Captain Blossom didn't know _what_ to do. A crying child could be soothed and comforted with kind words; but this frozen image--this little white girl with wide black eyes staring through him at the lake--what _could_ a rough old sailorman do to help her?
Suddenly, a lanky, bowlegged boy, with big, red ears that almost flopped, came 'round the corner of the car.
"Say," said he, "I'm looking for a party named 'Devil'--Jane et a Hungry Devil, looks like."
"Right here," returned Old Captain. "It's Jeannette Huntington _Duval_."
Every inch of that boy was funny. Even his queer voice was provocative of mirth. Jeanne _laughed_.
But the boy had barely turned the corner before surprised Jeanne, a little heap on the bench, was sobbing sobs a great many sizes too large for her small body.
"It's soaked in," said the Captain, patting her ponderously. "There, there, Jeannie girl. There, there. Just cry all ye want to. I cried some myself, when I heard about it."
Presently the big Old Captain went inside his old car and there was a great clatter among the cooking utensils, mingled with a sort of muffled roar. He was working off his overcharged feelings.
Jeanne's sobs, having gradually subsided, she began to be conscious of the unusual disturbance inside the car. Next, she listened--and _hoped_ that Old Captain wasn't saying bad words, but--
"Hum! Ladies present," rose suddenly above the clatter of dishes. The silence, followed by: "Dumbed if she hasn't eaten all the bread!"