“All right, Eepersip. I won’t.” She looked at him doubtfully. “I promise you I won’t. Goodbye. I like you.”
Eepersip was delighted with her little friend. She waited anxiously for him to come out. Presently he came.
“Eepersip,” he said, “will you swim with me again?”
They went in again, and this time Eepersip showed him how to swim, by holding him up while he kicked with his arms and legs. After a long time he could swim a little bit by himself; and then Eepersip took him to some rather high rocks and showed him how to jump in. At first he wouldn’t do it alone; she took his hand and they jumped in together. After that he did it alone, and screamed with laughter when he came up. Then Eepersip showed him how to go in head first, and he had so much faith in her that he tried it right off. Although he went rather flat, he liked it very much. The next time Eepersip bent him 'way over before he went in, and he straightened out and hit the water clean as an arrow. That was much better, he said.
Eepersip asked him what his mother had said about the fern dress, for he had gone in so quickly that he had forgotten his own clothes. He said that she had asked him about it, and he had said that he found it. Eepersip thanked him for not telling about her.
But she was discovered in spite of her caution. One day when they were playing in the woods, Mrs. Carrenda came out and found them. Eepersip dashed for the waves immediately, in spite of the fact that Toby’s mother called: “Don’t run away, little girl; I won’t hurt you!”
But Toby began to cry bitterly. “Why did you send her away, Mother?”
“I didn’t, Toby. She ran as soon as I came. Who is she?”
That Toby did not answer. There were two instincts equally strong struggling within him—one to obey his mother, and the other to do what the strange girl asked him to with the threat of refusing to play with him if he did not.