It was a dark and stormy night. The wind was roaring, and both wind and rain were buffeting the sides and roof of my little home . . . and I barely took notice of it. I had, by this time, been on Martindale Island for three years, and the storms were a normal occurrence . . . and I was used to them.
A little fire was burning in the cook stove to take the chill out of the air, and I sat there reading from Ecclesiastes:
“The men of old are not remembered, and those who follow will not be remembered by those who follow them.”
Then, I heard what I thought was a cannon shot. I stopped reading, pulled my head up erect, and my senses went into their super-alert status.
I got up, walked over to the front door, stuck my head outside . . . and waited. I heard it again, and this time I was certain it had been the sound of a cannon being fired. A ship was in danger.
As I stood there listening, two more cannon shots were fired . . . and then no more. It was a mournful song, I thought . . . a mournful song followed by a somber silence. I had to wait until morning before I could do anything, though I must admit that a part of me wanted to rush out into the storm . . . having myself been in a similar life-threatening situation.
In the morning I was up early. It was clear, as was almost always the case after a hurricane, and, with two loaded pistols, extra shot and powder, and a spyglass I was out the door. The cannon shots sounded as though they had come from the neighborhood where The Sea Serpent had been shipwrecked, and I headed in that direction. I hadn’t walked far . . . about a half-mile . . . when I spotted a large sailing ship that had been beached about a hundred and fifty feet off shore. I hid myself, and, using the spyglass, I combed the deck of the ship and the immediate inland area for any signs of life. I conducted this search for an hour or so and saw nothing . . . no movement at all.
I went back to the cottage and grabbed the rope ladder and then went down to the raft and poled my way over to the ship. Balancing myself on the raft, I threw the rope ladder up and the hooks grabbed a hold of the ship’s gunwale. I then tied the raft to the rope ladder and began to climb up. I was a little nervous. My own ship’s wreckage was rather comfortable to board, but here I was an intruder.
I climbed over the gunwale and onto the ship’s deck. Before heading down into the ship’s interior I stood and surveyed the scene for a few minutes.
I was stalling . . . and I knew it. I then descended the steps and entered the first cabin I came across. It was in disarray . . . with furniture toppled over, papers and books scattered about, and clothes lying everywhere . . . and, for some reason, I started to rummage through these things.
Who-ever these sailors were they certainly traveled in style. The furniture was well-crafted, the books were leather bound, there was a world globe, a French-made clock, game boards of various kinds, and first-rate nautical equipment. My thoughts ran along the lines of, “These poor fellows, I wonder if any of them survived.”
I found a lantern and lit it. I then explored the rest of the ship . . . slinking from cabin to cabin . . . and found no sign of life and no sign of the loss of life. I headed down the steps that led to the ship’s cargo area. Here the inside hull of the ship was littered with kegs, bundles of cotton, and crates of food stuffs . . . strewn, as it were, by the storm. Holding the lantern out in front of me I edged through and around this cargo as I made my way toward the stern of the ship. I then heard a scratching noise. Something out in the dark ahead of me had moved. I raised the lantern up high to get a better look.
Then, from out of the darkness, it came running at me . . . some sort of animal I thought . . . and before I could react, it had latched onto my leg.
It was a girl. It was a little girl. And she was frightened out of her mind.
My initial shock melted away and now my heart embraced this helpless little girl. We spent those first fifteen minutes together huddling in the light of that lantern, and I did whatever I could to calm her down. I held her hands and kissed the top of her head and I reassured her that everything was all right. “The looting” I said to myself, “would have to wait.”
It should be noted that, from that moment onward, that girl and I have never been apart. And as I write this narrative . . . some twenty years later . . . we are still together. Indeed, she is with me right now.
I: Any comments for posterity?
She: I’m already in the story too much Jim.
I: It would seem to be appropriate.
She: I’ll say something at the end . . . if you still want me to.
Wonderful woman. Wonderful woman. But to return to the story . . .
“It’s time to go.” I said to the little girl and then carefully hoisted her up and held her in my arms. She locked her arms around my neck and
“scissored” her legs around my waist. I grabbed the lantern and we left the darkness of that lower deck. Once we were topside I eased myself . . . and my passenger . . . over the gunwale, down the rope ladder, and onto the raft.
I thought of the opossum and the raccoon and how the female parents of these species carried their young, and I said to myself, “Those animals have nothing over on me.”
I poled the raft directly to shore and made fast . . . which is to say I tied a rope to a tree . . . and, with my rider securely aboard, walked back home.
Once we were inside the cottage . . . using great care . . . I eased my passenger down. I then offered her a cup of water, which she took, and then some grapes, which she also gladly accepted. She then seemed to relax a bit. She was safe now . . . that was the truth . . . and she seemed to sense it.
She was about seven years old with light brown hair and dark brown eyes and she was thin . . . worrisomely thin . . . and spoke not at all. Guessing at the circumstances of her presence on the ship, I thought that perhaps she was an orphan . . . a street urchin . . . abandoned and left to fend for herself at an early age. Perhaps she saw the ship docked at some American port . . .
for her features were those of Americans . . . and thought that her luck might be good if she searched the ship for food, and, with her foraging or perhaps sleeping in the lower deck, the ship embarked. That was my guess.
I spent that first day with the little girl just trying to not startle her. She drowsed quite readily early in the evening and I motioned to her to lie down on my cot, and, in a short while, she was comfortably asleep.
I sat there and watched the little girl sleep. I then got up and went over to my trunk where I searched for and found the sewing tools and thread.
These were sewing tools designed for the repair of sails, but they would serve my present need just fine. Then, after rummaging through all the clothes in the trunk, I picked out two light blue shirts. I had never given much thought to color when selecting clothes, but it seemed to matter now, and I was quite concerned that I should make the correct choice.
I used a tape measure to get the little girl’s length and width, and then sat back down and began unstitching, cutting, and sewing. When the garment was finished it was a nice little sleeveless dress, and I hung it over the back of a chair, a chair I then placed next to the sleeping child’s bed, as it was now . . . and would ever after be . . . her bed.
I then started on the shoes. I selected the best pair of the five or six pairs that inhabited the depths of my trunk and began unstitching. I measured the little girl’s little feet, and, in the course of making the shoes, returned to measure them two more times. I decided that open-toed shoes that could easily be slipped on and off . . . sandals . . . would be best, and when these were finished, I placed them on the seat of the chair.
I now needed to fetch some extra bedding from the storage shed, but as I headed for the backdoor something slowed me and I hesitated for a good thirty seconds before hastening outside to complete this task in record time.
I placed the bedding in the corner of the cottage . . . far from where the child laid sleeping . . . and I stooped down to settle in for the night when a twinge of fear hit me. I looked over at the little girl and then looked down at my bedding, and I knew . . . simply knew . . . that this arrangement would not be at all to the little girl’s liking. So there I camped . . . on the floor . . . next to the sleeping child.
When I awoke the next morning, the little girl was already up . . . and dressed. She was delighted with her new dress and shoes and she chattered quite animatedly, and though I could not understand much of what she was saying, I interjected “Really?” or “Oh my.” where-ever I found an opening.
We ate a light breakfast of banana and water . . . and I showed her my pocket watches. And, as we sat there, it occurred to me that, “She’s needs milk . . . and I know where to get it.”