“Give it back, right away, and come along home! You’ve been fooling around here long enough. Quick, now!”
Melissa’s childish blue eyes pleaded to be allowed to keep the bracelet, but her father, reading her thought, stepped forward and pulled it from her arm.
“Here, miss—I don’t allow Melissa to take things,” the gruff man growled.
“Oh—but it’s nothing,” faltered Sim. “Please——”
Clayton ignored her entirely, as he did Arden and Terry. They might not have been there, for all the attention they were given. Their attempt at helping Melissa went for naught.
Melissa pulled the gray sweater on over her still wet bathing suit and, smiling ruefully, followed her father, who had begun plodding up the beach. She did not look back but plodded along herself, trying to keep up with his big steps but, apparently, not intending to walk beside him.
The girls watched the retreating figures. Clayton was talking earnestly, now and then flinging out a hand in gesture and turning to shake his fist at his daughter, watching her closely as he tramped on.
“What a mean man!” Sim exclaimed, fingering the returned bracelet. “That poor child must have a rotten time.”
“He certainly was a gruff old fellow,” Arden agreed. “But did it strike you there was anything strange about that girl?”
“Only that she seemed so awfully scared. Like a kitten or stray dog. And I imagine she wanted to make friends,” Terry replied.