"Why, row 'em over. If you don't take the steamboat there ain't no
other way than to be sot over, you see."
"Oh, I see. Thank you. Shall we go to the fish-house now?"
"Why, yes, or you can wait here if you'd rather."
Upon considering, Mary concluded it would be more satisfactory to go,
for perhaps Ellis might give her the slip, or, if the big brother
objected, she might add her persuasions to Ellis's and so clinch the
matter. Yet while she stood waiting for Ellis to make his request for
the boat, she had many compunctions of conscience. She had never
before done so bold and desperate a thing. She had scarcely ever
appeared on the street without her governess, and indeed it was the
strict measures of this same governess which made the child timid about
confessing the loss of the pin. As she thought about the trip to Green
Island with a strange little boy to whom she had never even spoken
before that day, it seemed a monstrous undertaking, and for a moment
she quailed before the prospect. Yet what joy if she should return
with the precious pin and be able to restore it without a word of
censure from any one. This thought decided her to follow when Ellis
beckoned to her. Big Parker Dixon smiled and nodded from where he was
unloading shining mackerel and big gaping cod, and Mary knew his
consent had been given.
"It is a very smelly place," she remarked as she picked her way along
the wet fish-house floor.