The Promise Keeper: Sea Heroes of Duxbury by Lisa Norato

Author:Lisa Norato [Norato, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-06-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Every year on the morning marked to celebrate the savior’s birth, Iris would wake her sleeping parents by bursting into their room and shouting, “Merry Christmas!”

She padded the length of the keeping room in her red silk cloak to where Johnny slept, but before she could speak the words, he raised his head.

“Captain Moon? Is that you, sir?”

“No, Johnny, it’s Iris.” Of course he would be expecting Father, when it was he who usually checked in on Johnny each morning.

“Iris?” His voice was hoarse with sleep, and Iris heard confusion in it as he threw off his coverings and sat up in his nightshirt. His bare feet hit the scrubbed pine floor with a thud. “What is the matter?”

She hadn’t meant to alarm him. “All is well. Christmas morn shall soon dawn, and I’ve come to wish you blessings of the day. And to give you this.” She entered his room in a few, quick strides and pressed her gift into his hands.

“What is it?”

She watched him turn the soft wool over in his hands, trying to discern its shape. His fingers found the button on top. “I had thought my cap was destroyed in the fire.”

“I believe it was. And that is why I have knitted you another.” Taking the cap from him, she stretched it over his dark head of sleep-tousled hair and positioned it over his ears. “But this one is made from a deep red yarn with warm brown tones.”

“Thank you, Iris,” he said in a voice soft with gratitude and filled with emotion. He reached up to touch the cap. A fond smile graced his lips, and in it Iris saw hope but also sadness.

She had never, would never, presume to be so familiar with a fellow, but then she had never felt so comfortable with a man before. Johnny wasn’t a stranger. He was her friend. She felt like she had known him forever.

He must have many recollections of her family that Iris had been too young to recall. What stories of her mother could he tell? He’d gone silent. Was he thinking of them now?

“I’d like to take you up on the captain’s walk with me, but we must leave quickly.” She spoke with urgency but in hushed tones. “Father and Hetty shall be down soon. And then Alice will arrive with Peter to light the fires. They mustn’t see us, or we’ll be detained by protests of ‘the walk’s far too cold, my reckless girl — windy and slippery, as well,’” she said, mimicking Hetty’s accent with a smile in her voice. “I’ll close the door on my way out, but you must dress swiftly.”

“Any opportunity to do a mischief, eh? Why should I indulge you?”

“Here I believed it was me who was indulging you.”

“Very well. I’ll accompany you, but first you must do me a favor. Will you carve me some bacon slices?”

“Johnny did you not hear me? We’ve no time for breakfast.”

“The bacon isn’t for me, and it is raw bacon slices I need.

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