“Dresses the part much better than our hermit does,” Helen said, in comment.
The man met the party from the Stazy with a broad smile that displayed a toothless cavity of a mouth. His red-rimmed eyes were moist looking, not to say bleary. Ruth smelled a distinct alcoholic odor on his breath. A complete drouth had evidently not struck this part of the State of Maine.
“Good day to ye!” said the hermit. “Some o’ you young folks I ain’t never seed before.”
“They are my friends,” Cora hastened to explain, “and they come from Beach Plum Point.”
“Do tell! If you air goin’ back to-night, better make a good v’y’ge of it. We’re due for a blow, I allow. You folks ain’t stoppin’ right on the p’int, be ye?”
Ruth, to whom he addressed this last question, answered that they were, and explained that there was a large camp there this season, and why.
“Wal, wal! I want to know! Somebody did say something to me about a gang of movin’ picture folks comin’ there; but I reckoned they was a-foolin’ me.”
“There is a good sized party of us,” acknowledged Ruth.
“Wal, wal! Mebbe that fella I let my shack to will make out well, then, after all. Warn’t no sign of ye on the beach when I left three weeks ago”.
“Did you live there on the point?” asked Ruth.