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Wherever you listen to podcasts today, we'll be continuing anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Chapter 24 the Life Book of Captain Jim.

I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into a magnificent moth of fulfillment, Anne told Gilbert when she reached home.

He had returned earlier than she had expected and was enjoying Susan's cherry pie.

Susan herself hovered in the background like a rather grim but inefficient guardian spirit and found as much pleasure in watching Gilbert eat pie as he did in eating it.

What is your idea?

He asked.

I can't tell you just yet, not till I see if I can bring this thing about.

What sort of chap is Ford?

Oh, very nice and quite good looking.

Such beautiful ears.

Dr.

Dear interjected Susan with a relish.

He's about 30 or 35, I think, and he meditates writing a novel.

His voice is pleasant and his smile delightful, and he knows how to dress.

He looks as if life hadn't been altogether easy for him somehow.

Owen Ford came over the next evening with a note to Anne from Leslie.

They spent the sunset time in the garden and then went for a moonlit sail on the harbor in the little boat Gilbert had set up for summer outings.

They liked Owen immensely and had that feeling of having known him for many years which distinguishes the freemasonry of the house of Joseph.

He is as nice as his ears.

Mrs.

Dr.

Dear, said Susan.

When he had gone.

He had told Susan that he had never tasted anything like her strawberry shortcake, and Susan's susceptible heart was his forever.

He has got away with him, she.

Reflected as she cleared up the relics of the supper.

It is real clear he's not married for a man like that could have anybody for the asking.

Well, maybe he's like me and has not met the right one yet.

Susan really grew quite romantic in her musings as she washed the supper dishes.

Two nights later, Anne took Owen Ford down to Four Winds Point to introduce him to Captain Jim.

The clover fields along the harbor shore were whitening in the western wind, and Captain Jim had one of his finest sunsets on exhibition.

He himself had just returned from a trip over the harbor.

I had to go over and tell Henry Pollock he was dying.

Everybody else was afraid to tell him.

They expected he'd take on terrible, for he's been dreadful determined to live and been making no end of plans for the fall.

His wife thought he ought to be told, and that I'd be the best one to break it to him that he couldn't get better.

Henry and me are old cronies.

We sailed in the great Gulf for years together.

Well, I went over and sat down by Henry's bed, and I says to him, says I, just write out, plain and simple, for if a thing's got to be told, it may as well be told first as last, says I.

Mate, I reckon you've got your sailing orders this time.

I was sort of quaking inside, for it's an awful thing to have to tell a man who ain't any idea he's dying.

That he is.

But lo and behold, Mistress Blithe, henry looks up at me with those bright old black eyes of his in his wise and face and says says he, tell me something I don't know, Jim Boyd, if you want to give me information.

I've known that for a week.

I was too astonished to speak.

And Henry.

He chuckled.

To see you coming in here, says he, with your face as solemn as a tombstone, and sitting down there with your hands clasped over your stomach, and passing me out a blue mouldy item of nudes like that.

It'd make a cat laugh.

Jim Boyd, says he.

Who told you?

Says I stupid like nobody, says he.

A week ago Tuesday night, I was lying here awake, and I just knew.

I'd suspicioned it before, but then I knew I'd been keeping up for the wife's sake, and I'd like to have got that barn built, for even will never get it right.

But anyhow, now that you've eased your mind, Jim, put on a smile and tell me something interesting.

Well, there it was.

They'd been so scared to tell him, and he knew it all the time.

Strange how nature looks out for us, ain't it?

And lets us know what we should know when the time comes.

Did I never tell you the yarn about Henry getting the fish hook in his nose, Mistress Blithe?

No.

Well, him and me had a laugh over it today.

It happened nigh under 30 years ago.

Him and me and several more were out mackerel fishing one day.

It was a great day.

Never saw such a school of mackerel in the Gulf.

And in the general excitement, henry got quite wild and contrived to stick a fish hook clean through one side of his nose.

Well, there he was.

There was barb on one end and a big piece of lead on the other, so it couldn't be pulled out.

We wanted to take him ashore at once, but Henry was game.

He said he'd be jiggered if he'd leave a school like that for anything short of lockjaw.

Then he kept fishing away, hauling in hand over fist and groaning between times.

Finally, the school passed, and we come in with a load.

I got a file and begun to try to file through that hook.

I tried to be as easy as I could, but you should have heard Henry.

No, you shouldn't either.

It was well, no ladies were around.

Henry wasn't a swearing man, but he'd heard some few matters of that sort along shore in his time, and he'd fished them all out of his recollection and hurled him at me.

Finally, he declared he couldn't stand it, and I had no bells of compassion.

So we hitched up, and I drove him to a doctor in Charlottetown.

35 miles.

There weren't none nearer in them days with that blessed hook still hanging from his nose.

When we got there, old Dr.

Crab just took a file and filed that hook just the same as I'd tried to do.

Only he weren't a mite particular about doing it easy.

Captain Jim's visit to his old friend had revived many recollections, and he was now in the full tide of reminiscences.

Henry was asking me today if I remembered the time old Father Chinqui blessed Alexander McAllister's boat.

Another odd yarn, and true his gospel.

I was in the boat myself.

We went out, him and me, in Alexander McAllister's boat one morning at sunrise.

Besides, there was a French boy in the boat catholic, of course, you know, old Father Chinook.

We had turned Protestant, so the Catholics hadn't much use for him.

Well, we sat out in the Gulf in the broiling sun till noon, and not a bite did we get when we went ashore.

Old Father Chinook.

We had to go.

So he said in that polite way of his, I'm very sorry I cannot go out with you this afternoon, Mr.

McAllister, but I leave you my blessing.

You will catch a thousand this afternoon.

Well, we did not catch a thousand, but we caught exactly 999, the biggest catch for a small boat on the whole North Shore that summer.

Curious, wasn't it?

Alexander McAllister, he says to Andrew Peters, well, and what do you think of Father Chinookeen now?

Vel, growled Andrew.

I tink the old devil has got a blessing left yet.

Laws.

How Henry did laugh over that today.

Do you know who Mr.

Ford is, captain jim asked Anne, seeing that Captain Jim's Fountain of Reminiscence had run out.

For the present, I want you to guess.

Captain Jim shook his head.

I never was any handed guessing, Mistress Blythe.

And yet somehow when I come in, I thought, where have I seen them eyes before?

For I have seen them.

Think of a September morning many years ago, said Anne softly.

Think of a ship sailing up the harbor, a ship long waited for and despaired of.

Think of the day the Royal William came in and the first look you had at the schoolmaster's bride.

Captain Jim sprang up their purse.

Is selwyn's eyes.

He almost shouted.

You can't be her son.

You must be her grandson.

Yes, I'm Alice, Selwyn's son.

Captain Jim swooped down on Owen Ford and shook his hand over again.

Alice selwyn's son.

Lord, but you're welcome.

Many's the time I've wondered where the descendants of the schoolmaster were living, I knew there was none on the island.

Alice.

Alice.

A first baby ever born in that little house.

No baby ever brought more joy.

I've dandled her a hundred times.

It was from my knee.

She took her first steps alone.

Can I see her mother's face watching her?

And it was near 60 years ago.

Is she living yet?

No.

She died when I was only a boy.

Oh, it doesn't seem right that I should be living to hear that, sighed Captain Jim.

But I'm heart glad to see you.

It's brought back my youth for a little while.

You don't know yet what a boon that is.

Mistress Blithe here has the trick.

She does it quite often for me.

Captain Jim was still more excited when he discovered that Owen Ford was what he called a real riding man.

He gazed at him as at a superior being.

Captain Jim knew that Anne wrote, but he had never taken that fact very seriously.

Captain Jim thought women were delightful creatures who ought to have the vote and everything else they wanted blessed their hearts.

But he did not believe they could write.

Just look at a mad love, he would protest.

A woman wrote that.

And just look at it.

103 chapters, when it could have all been told in ten.

A riding woman never knows when to stop.

That's the trouble.

The bank good of riding is to know when to stop.

Mr.

Ford wants to hear some of your stories, Captain Jim, said Anne.

Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was the Flying Dutchman.

This was Captain Jim's best story.

It was a compound of horror and humor, and though Anne had heard it several times, she laughed as heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Mr.

Ford did.

Other tales followed, for Captain Jim had an audience after his own heart.

He told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer, how he had been boarded by melee pirates, how his ship had caught fire, how he helped a political prisoner escape from a South African Republic, how he had been wrecked one fall on the Magdalenes and stranded there for the winter.

How a tiger had broken loose on board ship.

How his crew had mutined and marooned him on a barren island.

These and many other tales, tragic or humorous or grotesque, did Captain Jim relate the mystery of the sea, the fascination of far lands, the lure of adventure, the laughter of the world?

His hearers felt and realized them all.

Owen Ford listened with his head on his hand and the first mate purring on his knee.

His brilliant eyes fastened on Captain Jim's rugged, eloquent face.

Won't you let Mr.

Ford see your life book, Captain Jim asked Anne when Captain Jim finally declared that yarn spinning must end for the time.

Oh, you don't want to be bothered with that, protested Captain Jim, who was.

Secretly dying to show it.

I should like nothing better than to see it, Captain Boyd, said Owen.

If it is half as wonderful as your tales, it will be worth seeing.

With pretended reluctance, captain Jim dug his life book out of his old chest and handed it to Owen.

I reckon you won't care to wrestle along with my old hand.

A right.

I never had much schooling, he observed carelessly.

Just wrote that there to amuse my nephew Joe.

He always won in stories.

Comes here yesterday and says to me reproachful like as I was lifting a 20 pound codfish out of my boat uncle Jim ain't a codfish, a dumb animal.

I'd been a telling him, you see, that he must be a real kind to dumb animals and never heard him in any way.

I got out of the scrape by saying a codfish was dumb enough, but it wasn't an animal.

But Joe didn't look satisfied, and I wasn't satisfied myself.

You've got to be mighty careful what you tell them, little critters.

They can see through you.

While talking.

Captain Jim watched Owen Ford from the corner of his eye as the latter examined the life book and presently observing that his guest was lost in its pages, he turned smilingly to his cupboard and proceeded to make a pot of tea.

Owen Ford separated himself from the lifebook with as much reluctance as a miser, wrenches himself from his gold long enough to drink his tea and then returns to it hungrily.

Oh, you can take that thing home with you if you want to, said.

Captain Jim, as if the thing were not his most treasured possession.

I must go down and pull my boat up a bit on the skids.

There's a wind coming.

Did you notice the sky tonight?

Mackerel skies and mares tales make tall ships carry short sails.

Owen Ford accepted the offer of the lifebook gladly.

On their way home, Anne told him the story of lost Margaret.

That old captain is a wonderful old fellow.

He said what a life he has led.

Why, the man had more adventures in one week of his life than most of us have in a lifetime.

Do you really think his tales are all true?

I certainly do.

I am sure Captain Jim could not tell a lie.

And besides, all the people about here say that everything happened as he relates it.

There used to be plenty of his old shipmates alive to corroborate him.

He's one of the last of the old type of PE Island sea captains.

They are almost extinct now.

Thank you for joining Bite at a Time books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of Anne's House of Dreams.

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Some many adventures, mountains we can climb.