Voyage of the Dreadnaught: Four Stella Madison Capers (23 page)

She smiled the sweetest smile of
satisfaction (that girl really did have a good heart!) and finally
went to sit down next to her little family, while the colonel
opened the box and looked inside. It was several folded sheets of
paper. Stella leaned over his shoulder to see and, as he unfolded
them, a check fluttered onto his lap.

“
What? What's this...” He
grabbed Stella's hand and leapt to his feet, pulling her up with
him. “It's—good heavens, girl—it's for twenty-five thousand
dollars! Where did—”

“
Read the papers!” Lou
laughed out loud.

Soon everyone had up, too, and crowded
around him.

“
Dear Colonel Henry, Thank you for your
decision to become one of our authors of fine literature for
boys...
But I only sent them a query, halfway
through Canada.”

“
Keep reading.” prompted
Lou.

“
It is a privilege to have someone of
your distinction to work with, who is willing to take on this
special calling, to help raise the standards of today's young
people.
I don't recall any such—”

“
Go on, go on,” Now it
was Gerald who interrupted. “I say, the suspense is excruciating. A
bona fide advance—it's simply splendid!”

“
Enclosed, you will find the advance
against royalties we agreed upon...
But I
never did!”

“
I'll explain later,” the
girl insisted.

“
...with the final installment to be
paid on submission of the completed first manuscript,
First manuscript?
...previously
discussed,
Now, I know I never discussed
anything
... and spelled out in your copy of the
contract.”
He flipped to the next page (it
was certainly a contract), then back, again, to hurry through the
final words.
“Welcome to you and these wonderful
characters you have created. We will look forward to many years of
adventures, together.
Many years—good
Lord—did you hear that, Stella?”

“
I certainly did—many
years!”

“
Sincerely, E.F. Coffman, Editor in
Chief...”
He turned to the last page and
looked at the signature that he definitely recognized as his own.
“I'm thunderstruck! In a wonderful sort of way, but this is
entirely impossible. I never in my life signed such a
thing!”

“
I signed it for
you.”

“
Lou—Edna—DeForio!”
Millie gasped, then reached into the pocket of her robe for her
heart pills. “You. Of all people... should know what forgery
is!”

“
It's a felony. But
Millie, only if someone presses charges, and I knew—under the
circumstances— he would want me to! Now, everybody just listen.
First thing I did after we got to Ketchikan, was get a P.O. Box and
get our mail started up, again. That was on the list, remember?
After a couple weeks a big batch of it came through.”

“
It's against the law to
read other people's mail, too,” Mason pointed out. “Under any
circumstances.”

“
But there was important
stuff in there, Pop. A lot of it had to be dealt with right away,
and Cap needed four more weeks of therapy. Four weeks! With no way
to get hold of any of you. Besides that, we were getting ready to
go looking for the lodge, and who knows how long that would take?
We didn't even know when we'd get back to Ketchikan, again, much
less, all the way back here. Millie, if I hadn't ordered you more
heart pills, right then? They never would have got there before we
left.”

“
I have been running low
on those. I was thinking about that, last week.”

“
There was lots of stuff
like that. But this thing with the colonel—it was time sensitive. I
mean, who knows how much paperwork had to go back and forth, or if
he took too long to answer, and they filled up those slots with
somebody else's books?”

“
Most definitely could
have occurred if I never showed up, again,” conceded the
colonel.

“
See? You did need
somebody to handle things for you. That's what agents do. Right? It
was sort of like one of those. So, I went ahead and made the deal.
A pretty good one, too. If you ask me.”

“
It's an excellent deal,”
he agreed. “As long as I don't have to write six books in a
year.”

“
Six books in
two.”

“
It's tight, but I can
manage it.” He put an arm around Stella and hugged her close. “ Now
that I have Stel.”

“
Whew. That's the only
part I was a little worried about.”

“
Well...” Then he laughed
at the sheer relief and pleasure of it all. “Lou Edna, I can't
thank you enough!”

“
Enough to give me
fifteen percent? That's what agents get, I looked it
up.”

“
I'll give you
ten.”

“
Woo—hoo!” She looked
over her shoulder, where her husband was standing behind her. “See,
Cole? I told you he would!”

He wrapped his arms around her, more as if
holding her still than giving her a hug. “All I could see was
having to come up with bail money.” Then he leaned his forehead
against the back of her hair, with sigh of relief. “Girl, you
gotta—quit this kinda stuff!”

“
But, now we can start
saving for our fishing license.” It was a piece of news that had
obviously slipped out, and she quickly scanned the circle of
questioning faces around them. “It takes a whole lot of money to
fish in this state,” she explained.

Cole tightened his hold on her.

“
Which we are going to
earn every penny of. Ourselves,” she assured. At which point she
caught Mason's doubtful eye and insisted, “I really mean it,
Pop.”

“
Meanwhile, what happens
when the colonel has to sign his real signature on something?”
Millie suddenly wanted to know.

“
Not a problem, Mil. I've
been signing everybody's signatures for years.”

Millie automatically reached for the
toddler who was pulling at her bathrobe, and lifted him onto her
hip before giving an exasperated sigh. “Lou Edna, it'll be a
miracle—an out and out miracle—if I even live to seventy, trying to
figure you out!”

“
You got-the best family
I ever saw, Gerry,” Sarie observed out loud.

“
They're always like
this,” he replied. “You're going to love it here!”

Exactly the way I have, Stella thought to
herself, as she looked around the happy room. It was the first
Christmas she hadn't spent alone in many years. Then it occurred to
her how her new life had started during the holiday season, exactly
one year ago. Goodness, the Lord had brought her a long way on one
simple prayer! She looked up at the colonel, who had risked
everything he owned (to rescue her, way back then), and wondered if
he had any idea...

It had been his finest
hour.

***

Author's Note

Winston Churchill
(who was quoted at
the beginning of this story) had to overcome many obstacles in his
life. More than the average person. Born into a wealthy family,
with a long line of ancestors who had significantly contributed to
England's history, he felt—from an early age—the burden to do
something significant, too. However, he was often in trouble at
school, did not excel in most of his classes, and also had a speech
impediment. He was overly emotional, as well, and fought bouts of
depression throughout his entire life.

When his father died at the age of
forty-five, and seeing that many of the men in his family had a
tendency to die young, he assumed the same thing would happen to
himself. Which led him to believe that if he was going to make any
mark in life, it would have to be while he was young. And the only
place to do that, was in the military. So, he joined the rifle
corps at the age of fourteen, went to military school (he had to
try three times before passing the entrance exam), and for the next
twenty-nine years, volunteered for every battlefield he heard
about.

During this time, he also became a war
correspondent for several newspapers, and—having been deployed to
Cuba, India, the Middle East, Africa, and the Western Front (during
World War I)—also wrote books about those campaigns. By the age of
twenty-six, he had seen action fifty times, been captured as a
prisoner of war and escaped, and become popular all over the
country both for his bravery, as well as for his accurate
descriptions and insights of these battlefields. It was also at
this age that he campaigned for—and won—his first seat in
Parliament. Throughout the following years, Churchill was involved
both in politics and wars, during which he made some significant
gains... and many equally significant mistakes. When he finally
retired, he was at the lowest ebb of his life.

A period which was later to become known as
his “wilderness years.”

He retreated to his country home to quietly
continue his writing. He had done some good. And he had lived
nearly twenty years longer than his father. He was done. Finished.
However, when the country slipped into crisis, then the Great
Depression—and finally—stood on the very brink of another World
War... he was offered the post of Prime Minister. England's highest
and most powerful office. Something of an accomplishment in itself,
except the country was already in a state that was almost too
desperate to survive. So, suddenly—when he least expected
it—Winston Churchill was faced with his own “finest hour.”

And he was up to it.

Today, he is remembered for his steadfast
refusal to consider defeat, surrender, or a compromised peace.
Ideals which helped inspire British resistance during the difficult
early days of the war, when Britain stood alone against Hitler. He
is particularly noted for his speeches and radio broadcasts, which
continued to inspire them, until victory over Nazi Germany was
secured. Named the Greatest Briton of all time in a 2002 poll,
Churchill is still widely regarded as being among the most
influential people in British history. One of the best paid writers
of his time, he was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature,
"for his mastery of historical and biographical description as
well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human
values."

He lived to the age of ninety.

You can read more about this inspiring man,
over at:

http://www.WinstonChurchill.org

A Word
About The Stella Madison Capers...

Dear Readers...

I have known Stella Madison for some
years, now. In fact, she has been hanging around the edges of my
writing thoughts so long her personality and chatter have become
quite real to me. I didn't want to write her story (not then,
anyway) because it was such a common one. Where was the adventure?
After all, an inspirational adventure novelist needs to stick with
writing adventures.

But haven't I always declared that
life was an adventure? Of course, I have. I even wrote it on my
logo. So, I sent Stella off with a wisp of a story, along with a
piece of my mind. Just some little thing for an hour's
entertainment, and then went back to working on novels. Oddly
enough, I began missing that piece of my mind as soon as she was
gone.

There was more to her story, I could
tell by the hole that was left when she walked away with it. The
truth is, I knew just what would happen if I didn't at least get
her settled somewhere. After all, it was me that created her, and I
felt responsible. Now, there are six Stella Madison Capers (I'm
pretty sure that's all of them).

But the thing is this.

Not only has she turned
into something of an adventurer, herself, she has also managed to
tag along on mine. Because I had to continue writing this little
"mini-series" as I was on my own true-life adventure, headed north
to Alaska, with my captain husband, aboard a sailboat called
the
Glory B.
Which is probably why Stella ended up taking the same route.
Anyway, somewhere along the line our paths crossed and became
entangled.

But I will leave it to
readers to decide where and when that happened, since I have given
up trying to figure it out, myself. I have other stories to write.
Meanwhile, thank you so very much for reading this collection of
four Stella Madison Capers, which make up
The Voyage of the Dreadnaught
... you
are truly the reason I write them!

Lilly Maytree

Aboard the
Glory B.

Summer, 2014

Our Own
Great Alaskan Adventure...