But only Ruth heard this. The others were bidding Mother Purling good-bye.
CHAPTER XIV
THE TRAGIC INCIDENT IN A FISHING EXCURSION
The boys had returned when the party drove back to the bungalow from the lighthouse. A lighthouse might be interesting, and it was fine to see twenty-odd miles to the No Man’s Shoal, and Mother Purling might be a dear–but the girls hadn’t done anything, and the boys had. They had fished for halibut and had caught a sixty-five-pound one. Bobbins had got it on his hook; but it took all three of them, with the boatkeeper’s advice, to get the big, flapping fish over the side.
They had part of that fish for supper. Heavy was enraptured, and the other girls had a saltwater appetite that made them enjoy the fish, too. It was decided to try for blackfish off the rocks beyond Sokennet the next morning.
“We’ll go over in the Miraflame”–(that was the name of the motor boat)–“and we’ll take somebody with us to help Phineas,” Heavy declared. Phineas was the boatman who had charge of Mr. Stone’s little fleet. “Phin is a great cook and he’ll get us up a regular fish dinner––”
“Oh, dear, Jennie Stone! how can you?” broke in Helen, with her hands clasped.
“How can I what, Miss?” demanded the stout girl, scenting trouble.
“How can you, when we are eating such a perfect dinner as this, be contemplating any other future occasion when we possibly shall be hungry?”
The others laughed, but Heavy looked at her school friends with growing contempt. “You talk–you talk,” she stammered, “well! you don’t talk English–that I’m sure of! And you needn’t put it all on me. You all eat with good appetites. And you’d better thank me, not quarrel with me. If I didn’t think of getting nice things to eat, you’d miss a lot, now I tell you. You don’t know how I went out in Mammy Laura’s kitchen this very morning, before most of you had your hair out of curl-papers, and just slaved to plan the meals for to-day.”