SECRETS TOLD
For a full ten minutes the three girls appeared to act a perfect scene in
a moving picture. Ruth rowed furiously. Betty sat with eyes fixed on the
receding shoreline. Pearl stared at Ruth and Betty with unbelieving eyes.
At the end of that time Ruth dropped her oars to mop her brow. They were
now well out in the bay. Fishing boats and motor launch dotted the bay.
It was day, bright and fair. No one was pursuing them. To all appearances
they were as safe here as at home.
“Where did you get them?” Pearl was still staring at their silk dresses.
“Why—er—” Ruth began, with mock gravity, “that’s a marvelous place down
there in the old fort. You go in dressed in cotton blouse and knickers
and you come out all togged up in silk.”
“Ruth,” said Betty, “we’ll be arrested!”
“Let ’em try it!” said Ruth. “If we’d taken the whole pile they wouldn’t
dare. They’re trespassers, smugglers, thieves, perhaps. It’s safe enough.
But girls,” her tone grew suddenly sober, “it’s time some one in
authority took a hand. This has been a perfectly glorious adventure,
thrilling, mysterious and all that, but it’s gone quite far enough. Who
shall we tell?”
“My little man at Witches Cove,” said Pearl. “He is a Secret Service man.
Besides, he’s quite wonderful.”
“All right, then. Witches Cove it is,” said Ruth, gripping her oars once
more. “We’ll hug the right shore. That way, anyone that’s watching can’t
tell for sure where we’re going.”
In spite of this precaution some one knew whither they were headed, and
no good came of it.
The little man of Witches Cove had an uncanny way of anticipating the
arrival of visitors to his rugged shores. They found him seated on a
great boulder with his feet dangling perilously near the water.
“Well, now!” he exclaimed. “Here we are all dressed up for a party. Two
sisters and Cinderella. I suppose I am to fit out our little sister with
a silver slipper.”
His round, good humored face grew suddenly sober as Ruth told their
reason for coming. He interrupted her but once. Then he cautioned her to
lower her voice.
“You have truly made a marvelous discovery,” he said when she had
finished. “I’ve been looking for some such thing. It comes a little
sooner than I expected. Three of my men will be on the afternoon boat
from Boston. As soon as they are here we will formulate plans for action.
In the meantime I shall have an eye on the old fort. They cannot remove a
schooner load of silks from under my nose, I assure you.
“As for you,” his gaze swept the circle of three eager faces, “this, I
take it, is going to be a splendid day for fishing. And when you fish,”
his smile broadened, “you keep very still. In other words, mum it is. You
must not breathe a word to another soul.”
“We won’t,” they said in unison.
So the day was well begun. But it was not ended, not by a good deal.
The three girls did not go fishing, at least not at once. They did accept
the little man’s counsel in regard to the earlier happenings of the
morning. Not one word regarding them passed their lips.
They did wish to go fishing, later in the day, but in the meantime there
was work to be done. Summer folks must have their clam chowder. To Ruth
and Pearl fell the lot of digging the clams. All forenoon, under the
boiling sun, ankle deep in mud and sand, they dug and clawed away with
their clam forks until three great baskets were heaped high with
blue-black clams. Then they hurried home to dinner.
By mid-afternoon they were ready for a well-deserved lark.
Betty joined them at the pier. Ruth had drawn the _Flyaway_ alongside,
had put on board their lines, bait and lunch, and was preparing to cast
off the line when her eyes fell upon a woebegone and drooping little
figure on the dock.
“It—it—Well, I never!” she exclaimed. “It’s the little girl I saved from
the surf up at Monhegan.”
“Hey, there!” she called. “I thought you’d gone back to Monhegan.”
“No.” The girl’s head shook slowly.
“Mother got afraid when we sailed away down here in that boat you fixed
up. She thought Monhegan was too wild and dangerous. But it isn’t!” Her
spirit flared up like a torch. “It’s just glorious. It’s dreadfully dull
down here. We—” she looked at the boy at her side, and Ruth saw that it
was her brother, “we’re going to do something terrible pretty soon!”
“Oh, please don’t,” said Ruth. “I say! We’re going fishing. Want to go
along?”
The girl looked up at the boy. “Go ahead.” He pushed her toward the
_Flyaway_.
Ruth recognized this as a generous act. She wanted to ask him to come,
too, but it had been agreed that this was to be a girls’ party.
It was Don who saved the day for her. He was on the _Foolemagin_, busy
mending a lobster trap.
“Going round the island in a little while to lift some traps,” he said,
looking at the boy. “Care to go along?”
“Be glad to.” The boy turned and helped his sister aboard the _Flyaway_.
Ruth cast off the line. The sail went up. She swung about. Then they went
skimming down the bay.
Pearl and the little city girl went forward to lie upon the prow and
watch the water gliding by. Ruth and Betty remained at the wheel.
“Betty,” said Ruth, quite suddenly, “is life a joke?”
“Is life a joke?” Betty gave her a quick look as she suspected her of
playing a trick upon her. “No,” she said slowly when she realized that
her friend was in earnest, “life is not a joke. Life is beautiful,
wonderful. How could anything that is all this be a joke? Why? What made
you ask?”
As the boat glided smoothly over the water, Ruth told her why; told her
of the city boy’s laugh and of his remark about life. She told, too, of
the figured taffeta dress, the alligator shoes and the gay hat.
When she had finished, little Betty, who was so young, yet who had seen
so much of life, of its joys and sorrows, its struggles, pains and
triumphs, sat with half-closed eyes, thinking.
“Do you know what life is?” she said at last. “Life is a struggle, a
glorious, terrible battle. You begin it when you begin life. You end it
when you breathe your last breath. To hope, to dream, to struggle on,”
her slight figure grew suddenly tense, “to fall and rise again. To see a
star, a gleam of hope, to battle toward it, to be beaten back, defeated,
to turn again to hope and dream and win, only to see a fairer light, a
lovelier vision farther on the way, then to hope and dream again. That—”
she ended, throwing her arms wide, “that is life, a beautiful, glorious
thing! No! No! It can’t be a joke! It can’t be!”
“But Ruth,” she said presently, “what have your new dress and shoes and
hat to do with life being a joke?”
“Well,” the flicker of a smile played about the big girl’s face, “I
thought if life were a joke, then one might as well have what she wants.
I’ve always wanted those things, so I—I got them.”
“They spell happiness to you?”
“I—I suppose so.”
“Then you had a right to them. Everyone has a right to happiness. Did you
ever think of that? Every man, woman and little child has a right to
happiness bought at a fair price. And the price of a new dress, shoes and
a hat is not too much. There now!” Betty ended, “I’ve done a lot of
preaching. Here’s Witches Cove. Give me a nice fat clam and a big hook. I
feel lucky to-day.” With a laugh she began unwinding her line.