The way to Sally Shute’s had seemed pleasant enough the day he had walked it with her two weeks ago. But now it was quite different; the tall pine-trunks looked stiff and forbidding, the slender white Indian pipes, pale and ghostly in the dense shadows. Very little sunshine filtered down through the heavy branches, and presently even that was gone. He walked quickly; then, he hardly knew why, began to run.
It was a most breathless, tired boy that arrived finally at the end of the lane and ran across the Shutes’ garden. He stepped on some of Mrs. Shute’s precious purple geraniums but he could not stop to go around them. The house had a silent, shut-up air that made his heart go down the moment he looked at it. Suppose they were all away; suppose there was no help to be had! He jangled loudly at the big bell, then, almost before it had stopped vibrating, jangled loudly and impatiently again. There was absolute silence inside at first; then, oh, what a relief; footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs, along the hall; there was an irritating pause as some one fumbled at the lock. The door opened and Billy made no attempt to restrain a shout of delight, for there stood Sally.
Sally Shute with her round cheeks and her fat yellow braids and her pink gingham dress looked a very real and wholesome person after all the half-seen terrors and half-felt dangers that had seemed to be around him. Still standing on the doorstep he began hastily to tell her all about what had happened and had got nearly half-way through his tale before she interrupted him.
“Come in,” she ordered, “and begin again and tell me that all over. I have not understood one word of what you are talking about.”
She took him out into the kitchen, such a warm, bright, cheerful place that he felt his spirits reviving at once.
“Sit down there,” she said, pointing to the red-covered table, “and now tell me how long it is since you had anything to eat.”
Billy had breakfasted on the ship, but that had been exceedingly early, and he had eaten nothing since. That, he thought, must be part of what made him feel so queer. Sally flatly refused to let him talk any more until he had begun his supper.
“You can tell me about it while you are eating, even if you have to speak with your mouth full,” she said. “It seems as though Captain Saulsby was sick and you want me to go somewhere with you, so I’ll have to be getting things together anyway. There won’t be any time wasted.”
“Aren’t your father and mother here?” asked Billy anxiously.
“No; they took Jacky and went over to the mainland on the afternoon boat, and won’t be back tonight. There’s no one here but my grandmother, and she is lame and deaf, so she can’t go with us. Don’t worry though; I’ll know what to do.”