“Are you going away, Joe?” he asked in surprise.
“No—yes—that is, I don’t know,” was Johann’s rather startling answer. He had a worried, hunted look that troubled Billy.
Johann walked down to the steamer’s gangway, turned back once, then finally stepped resolutely aboard. Yet a little later, when Billy looked back over his shoulder at the wharf, he saw the boat steaming away and Johann sitting on his suitcase gazing after her, an odd and forlorn figure.
“I wonder what’s the matter with him,” Billy thought; but he did not have time to reflect very deeply upon the matter. He could not wait to inquire whether the hotel was open; he merely set down his bag and sped along the beach path toward Captain Saulsby’s point. He could see the red roof peeping out among the trees, he could even see some one moving in the garden; therefore he could not wait. The crooked old willow trees were a mass of new yellow-green, and a blackbird sang very loud to him as he hurried through the gap in the wall.
The old sailor was digging in the garden when Billy came swinging down the path. His pipe and a folded newspaper lay upon the bench, he seemed to be working very busily and to be talking angrily to himself. He greeted Billy as calmly as though they had parted only the evening before.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve come back, have you? I thought you would.”
His smile of welcome was a warm and friendly one, but it disappeared almost instantly. Plainly something was weighing very heavily on Captain Saulsby’s mind.
“Did you bring an evening paper?” he demanded almost at once, and took eagerly the one that Billy drew from his pocket. The announcement that war had been declared blazed in huge headlines across the first page.
“It’s no surprise,” commented the old man as he sat down on the bench to read. He growled with impatience because he tried to make out the smaller print without his spectacles, could not manage it, but had to take time to search through his pockets, find them and set them laboriously on his nose. He read greedily for some minutes, then put the paper down and sat on gazing moodily out to sea.
“They are recruiting for the Navy over at Piscataqua,” Billy remarked at last, merely for the sake of saying something.