‘Aren’t there any little boy mermaids like me?’ asked Andy.
‘There are men,’ said Sally, ‘mermen, you call them, but nobody seems to think much about them. Let’s sail your boat, Andy. Have you a string?’
Indeed, Andy had a string, a long one, tied to the bow of ‘The Mermaid,’ and presently the children were running up and down the beach, the gay little boat sailing bravely along, dipping and bobbing about in the waves for all the world like the big boats anchored near by.
‘The Mermaid’ was a bright little red-and-white sail-boat, with her name standing out strongly in green. The Captain liked gay colors, you see, and so did the little boys who bought his boats. Andy was sure that he had never seen a prettier sight than his little sail-boat dancing on the waves, and he sat alone near the edge of the water letting ‘The Mermaid’ drift in and out long after the little girls had gone back to their sand-digging farther up the beach.
But Andy knew how to dig fully as well as he knew how to sail a boat. He flourished his blue shovel and fell to work with a will when he joined Sally and Alice, who sat cool and comfortable in the shade of the great lighthouse, that towered up and up into the air high above their heads.
They heaped sand piles, they dug deep holes, they built a fort. They made pies and cakes and loaves of bread, enough to stock a bake-shop.
‘We ought to have more brown bread,’ said Alice, who found that by packing her pail with sand and turning it upside-down she made as nice a loaf of bread as could be bought in Boston town.
‘I will make cakes,’ decided Sally, ‘because I like to mark them with a shell. When we have made one more row we will call your mother and Andy’s mother and my mother to come and buy. Shall we?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Alice, beating on the bottom of her pail and turning out a fresh loaf of brown bread with pride.
But Andy shook his head.