CHAPTER II
THE MILL-CREEK ROAD
Billy’s passage over the causeway was a hasty and somewhat perilous one, for the rocks were overgrown with thick, brown seaweed and still wet from the falling tide. Considering what a hurry he was in and how many times he looked back over his shoulder, it was quite remarkable that he made the crossing without mishap. He walked up a strip of sandy beach, climbed a steep bank and came into the cool, dark pine woods. The faint marks of an old road showed before him, covered with a rusty-brown carpet of fallen needles and leading past the big, grey empty mill of which the Captain had spoken. He followed along it, turned down the lane as directed and tramped some distance straight through the forest, the tall black trees towering above him and the partridge berries, trailing ground pine and slender swinging Indian pines growing thick beneath his feet.
It was more than a mile, perhaps nearly two, that he covered before he observed a clearing ahead of him, and then came suddenly to the edge of the woods and to the shore again. A very neat, brown cottage stood in the open space, with a garden around it, a fence of white palings and a green gate at the end of the lane. Beyond the house he could see grey rocks, a little pier stretching out into the water, a fishing boat at anchor and, as a background to everything, the bright, sunlit sea. He opened the gate and came slowly through the garden.
A little girl was stooping over one of the round flowerbeds, picking pansies into her white apron. She was a short and solid little person, with thick yellow braids, very round pink cheeks and, as she looked up at him, a most cordial welcoming smile.
“I’m Sally Shute,” she announced somewhat abruptly and without a particle of shyness; then, as Billy hesitated, “I believe I would like to know who you are.”
“I’m Billy Wentworth, and I brought these strawberries from Captain Saulsby,” the boy answered, a little abashed at this sudden plunge into the business of getting acquainted.
“The Captain said he was sorry not to send them sooner.”
He could not seem to think of anything else to say, that was of especial importance, so turned to go.
“Wait,” Sally commanded, in the tone of one who is used to having her orders obeyed. “I must take the berries to my mother and have her empty them out, because Captain Saulsby will want his boxes back again. And I think,”—here she looked him over solemnly from head to foot—“I think that you look thirsty.”