“It won’t surprise me,” muttered Judy, in the clutch of the Evil Thought again. She was watching the distant boat now keenly, her eyes hard with suspicion. Jem Three it surely was, and he was rowing slowly away from Judith’s lobster “grounds.” It seemed to her his dory was deep in the water as if heavily weighted. He had been—had been to her traps again. He was whistling—Judith could hear the faint, sweet sound—but that didn’t hide anything. Let him whistle all he wanted to—she knew what he had been up to!
“Ship aho-oy!” came across faintly to them, but it was only Blossom that answered.
“Ahoy! Ship ahoy!” she sent back clearly. Judith bent over her toiling oars.
“He’s going away from us, we sha’n’t meet him,” Blossom said in disappointment.
“Of course he’s going away—of course he won’t meet us,” Judith retorted between her little white teeth.
“An’ I wanted to ‘speak him,’” the disappointed little voice ran on; “I was going to call out, ‘How’s the folks abroad? We’re on our way ’cross, in the Judiana B.,’—this is the Judiana B., Judy, after both of us. B. stands for me.”
“Funny way to spell me!” laughed Judith with an effort. She must hide away her black suspicions. Not for the world would she have Blossom know! Blossom was so fond of Jemmy Three, and she had so few folks to be fond of.
A surprise was waiting for them “out there.” The traps were pretty well loaded! Not full, any of them, but not one of them empty. In all, there were seventeen great, full-grown, glistening, black fellows for Blossom to shudder over as she never failed to do—Blossom was no part of a fisherman.
“He didn’t dare to take them all,” thought Judith, refusing to let the Evil Thought get away from her. “Probably he saw us coming. If he’d let ’em alone there might have been a lot more—perhaps there were fifty!”
“One, two, three,”—counted Blossom slowly. “Why, Judy, there’s seventeen. You didn’t s’pose there’d be as many as seventeen, did you? Isn’t that a splendid lot?”