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CHAPTER 1 - TROT AND CAP'N BILL

Nobody," said Cap'n Bill solemnly, "ever sawr a mermaid an' lived to tell the tale."

Why not?" asked Trot, looking earnestly up into the old sailor's face.

They were seated on a bench built around a giant acacia tree that grew just at the

edge of the bluff. Below them rolled the blue waves of the great Pacific. A little

way behind them was the house, a neat frame cottage painted white and

surrounded by huge eucalyptus and pepper trees. Still farther behind that--a

quarter of a mile distant but built upon a bend of the coast--was the village,

overlooking a pretty bay.

Cap'n Bill and Trot came often to this tree to sit and watch the ocean below them.

The sailor man had one "meat leg" and one "hickory leg," and he often said the

wooden one was the best of the two. Once Cap'n Bill had commanded and owned

the "Anemone," a trading schooner that plied along the coast; and in those days

Charlie Griffiths, who was Trot's father, had been the Captain's mate. But ever

since Cap'n Bill's accident, when he lost his leg, Charlie Griffiths had been the

captain of the little schooner while his old master lived peacefully ashore with the

Griffiths family.

This was about the time Trot was born, and the old sailor became very fond of the

baby girl. Her real name was Mayre, but when she grew big enough to walk, she

took so many busy little steps every day that both her mother and Cap'n Bill

nicknamed her "Trot," and so she was thereafter mostly called.

It was the old sailor who taught the child to love the sea, to love it almost as

much as he and her father did, and these two, who represented the "beginning

and the end of life," became firm friends and constant companions.

"Why hasn't anybody seen a mermaid and lived?" asked Trot again.

"'Cause mermaids is fairies, an' ain't meant to be seen by us mortal folk," replied

Cap'n Bill.

"But if anyone happens to see 'em, what then, Cap'n?"

Then," he answered, slowly wagging his head, "the mermaids give 'em a smile an'

a wink, an' they dive into the water an' gets drownded."

"S'pose they knew how to swim, Cap'n Bill?"

The Sea Fairies