Captain June

								


Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ernest Schaal, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Captain June



                                   By



                            Alice Hegan Rice



              Author of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch,"

                           "Lovey Mary," Etc.



                     With Pictures by C. D. Weldon



                             New York

                            The Century Co.

                                  1907

                         Copyright 1906, 1907,

                           by THE CENTURY CO.



                       Published October, 1907

                           THE DE VINNE PRESS

                     TO THE LITTLE BOY I LOVE BEST

                         FRANCIS BARBOUR HEGAN

                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                                PAGE



    "All day long the boys played down by the river"  Frontispiece



    The Tea-party on the Train                                    17



    "'Do you want me to help you?'"                               37



    "'It's a Matsuri--a festival,' Seki explained"                49



    "'Does it spell anything?' June asked"                        75



    "They peeped through the cracks, gravely discussing the

        situation"                                                85



    "It was the old sword-hilt that Monsieur had given him"       97



    "Long after he was asleep she sat beside him"                107



    "June waved good-by to the friends below"                    117

                              CAPTAIN JUNE

                              CAPTAIN JUNE



                               CHAPTER I

JUNE had never sat still so long during the whole six years of his
existence. His slender body usually so restless and noisy was
motionless; his hands too fond of teasing and mischief lay limp in his
lap, even his tongue was still and that was the most wonderful of all.
The only part of him that stirred was a sparkling pair of gray eyes that
were looking out upon the strangest world they had ever seen.
The entire day had been one of enchantment, from the first waking hour
when he discovered that the engines on the big steamer where he had
lived for seventeen days had stopped, and that the boat was actually
lying at anchor just off the coast of Japan. Seki San, his Japanese
nurse who had cared for him ever since he was a baby, had been so eager
to look out of the port-hole that she could scarcely attend to her
duties, and the consequence was that he had to stand on the sofa and
hook his mother's dress and help her with the little pins at the back of
the neck while Seki San finished the packing. June could not dress