The girls rowed nearer the odd cottage. The place was deserted; at least they saw no one about. Over the front door of the house hung a trim little sign inscribed, “The Anchorage.”
“Dear me, here is a boathouse, and we’ve a houseboat!” exclaimed Eleanor. “I wish we dared go ashore and knock at the door, to ask some one to show us over it.”
“I don’t think we had better try it, Eleanor,” remonstrated Phil. “The house probably belongs to some grouchy old sea captain who has built it to get away from people.”
At this moment a man at least six feet tall, wearing old yellow tarpaulins, came around the side of the house of the three sails with a large basket on each arm. He sat down on a rock in front of the house and began lifting mussel and oyster shells out of one of his baskets. He would peer at them earnestly before throwing them over to one side. He was a giant of a man, past middle age. His face was so weather-beaten that his skin was like leather. His eyes were blue as only a sailor’s eyes can be. On one of the man’s shoulders perched a wizened little monkey that every now and then tugged at its master’s grizzled hair or chattered in his ear.
“Good Morning” Shouted Madge.
The man did not observe the girls in the rowboat, although they were only a few yards away.
“Good morning,” sang out Madge cheerfully, forgetting the vow of silence which the girls had made that morning against the Cape Mayites. But then, the girls had never dreamed of seeing such a fascinating seafaring old mariner. Their vow had been taken against the society people.
The sailor, however, did not return Madge’s friendly salutation; he went on examining his oyster and mussel shells.