The tide had turned. Each wave came higher up on shore, and already an eager bather or two had waded out into the rising water.
Soon a boy bather, gay in his red bathing-suit, saw the objects at which three pairs of hands were pointing and waving wildly. He paddled toward them, as they bobbed about, red and blue, and then with a laugh that made the children laugh, too, he set them bounding faster than ever over the waves toward the spot where Alice and Sally and Andy stood.
‘What are they? Oh, what do you think they are?’ asked Alice over and over again. ‘Do you think they can be whales?’
‘No, I don’t,’ replied Sally, wisely shaking her head. ‘They don’t look like whales to me. Why, I know what they are. They are balls!’
‘Balls?’ echoed Andy in a shout. ‘Oh, I love balls!’
And balls they were, great red and blue rubber balls, and what they were doing, sailing alone over the ocean, was a question hard for any one to answer.
The merry little boy bather waded back and caught the balls as they came bounding in to shore. He handed them up to the children, a red ball each to Andy and Sally, a big red ball, hard and full of bounce, you could see, while Alice wanted the blue ball so badly that she couldn’t help holding out her hands for it, so of course the boy gave the blue ball to her.
‘Where did they come from?’ asked Sally and Andy in a breath.
As for Alice, she didn’t ask any questions. She was rubbing her blue ball dry on her dress, with an extra loving little pat every now and then.
‘I am sure I can’t guess,’ was Father’s answer. ‘Perhaps I shall hear something about it later on. Play with them at any rate and have a good time.’