On the trip back the wind died down, and they lay becalmed for nearly an hour. Then a light wind sprang up from another quarter. The sun sank lower in the west. They were still some miles from home. Bert finally gave up trying to sail, started the auxiliary engine, and they slowly chugged up the bay.
It was dark as they drew abreast the houseboat and there were no lights showing. Bert wrote a note and left it for the Skipper, and carried Kiwi off to his own home for dinner.
The day in the open had made him ravenously hungry, and the meal, served in the wide, cool dining room facing the shore, was doubly welcome for its touch of home.
Bert’s wife, who was waiting as they drew up to the little dock, had embraced Kiwi with a great squeeze as Bert called out, “How about some food for that boy?” She had had only fleeting glimpses of Kiwi since the day of his arrival. He had seemed so busy with the men folks. However, she must have had some experience with small boys, for several times pies, cakes, and doughnuts had been sent out to him. He liked her cheery bustling about the dining room. It called to mind his mother who seemed to be somewhere in his shadowy past. He had missed her terribly after she had gone, and tonight, seeing Bert’s wife so busy about the house, brought it all back to him.
Dinner over, they had gone out on the wide veranda in time to see a new moon climb up from the hills.
Bert had telephoned the field, and came back with the report that Dad’s plane had circled Washington, had wirelessed that all was well, and had started for Norfolk early in the afternoon.
The minutes dragged. More calls to the field brought them little comfort. The plane had been seen over Cape May, but no wireless call had come from it.
About nine-thirty Kiwi was packed off to bed, and as he lay there he heard Bert at the phone still calling the flying field.
Tucked into this strange bed in a spare room at the head of the stairs, he lay thinking about the plane. The cool white sheets, the chintz curtains at the window, the little knick-knacks on the dresser were unaccustomed and almost forgotten niceties. The wind and the sun during the day had made him drowsy, but he could not sleep for wondering what was happening to Dad and Jack.