“Let’s make them fight!” Richard exclaimed in the midst of it, and for a few moments the color spots flashed across each other like flocks of darting birds. Suddenly Georgina stopped, saying:
“Oh, I forgot. I’m on my way to the grocery, and I must hurry back. But I wanted to ask you two things. One was, tell me all about what the woman said yesterday, and the other was, think of some way for me to earn twenty cents. There isn’t time to hear about the first one now, but think right quick and answer the second question.”
She started down the street, skipping backwards slowly, and Richard walked after her.
“Aw, I don’t know,” he answered in a vague way. “At home when we wanted to make money we always gave a show and charged a penny to get in, or we kept a lemonade stand; but we don’t know enough kids here to make that pay.”
Then he looked out over the water and made a suggestion at random. A boy going along the beach towards one of the summer cottages with a pail in his hand, made him think of it.
“Pick blueberries and sell them.”
“I thought of that,” answered Georgina, still progressing towards the grocery backward. “And it would be a good time now to slip away while Tippy’s busy with the Bazaar. This is the third day. But they’ve done so well they’re going to keep on with it another day, and they’ve thought up a lot of new things to-morrow to draw a crowd. One of them is a kind of talking tableau. I’m to be in it, so it wouldn’t do for me to go and get my hands all stained with berries when I’m to be dressed up as a part of the show for the whole town to come and take a look at me.”
Richard had no more suggestions to offer, so with one more flash of the prism and a cry of “last tag,” Georgina turned and started on a run to the grocery. Richard and the paperweight followed in hot pursuit.
Up at one of the front windows of the bungalow, two interested spectators had been watching the game below. One was Richard’s father, the other was a new guest of Mr. Milford’s who had arrived only the night before. He was the Mr. Locke who was to take Richard and his father and Cousin James away on his yacht next morning. He was also a famous illustrator of juvenile books, and he sometimes wrote the rhymes and fairy tales himself which he illustrated. Everybody in this town of artists who knew anything at all of the world of books and pictures outside, knew of Milford Norris Locke. Now as he watched the graceful passes of the two children darting back and forth on the board-walk below, he asked:
“Who’s the little girl, Moreland? She’s the child of my dreams--the very one I’ve been hunting for weeks. She has not only the sparkle and spirit that I want to put into those pictures I was telling you about, but the grace and the curls and the mischievous eyes as well. Reckon I could get her to pose for me?”