But they did no more searching. Had they not already looked everywhere? Besides, as Molly declared:
“We’re more apt to see that man somewhere if we sit right still in one place. Papa told me that was the way to do, if I were ever lost anywhere. I was once, in a big store in New York, but I remembered, I sat right down by the door and just waited and prayed all the time that Auntie Lu would come and find me there. I was a little tacker then, not bigger’n anything. And she came. I don’t know how much the praying did ’cause all I knew then was ‘Now I lay me;’ or how much the waiting. Anyhow she found me. So, maybe, if we keep still as still, the ‘shiny man’ will get around past us sometime. He’s the lost one in the case, isn’t he? And did you ever see how restless the people all do seem? I guess they’re tired of the long sail and anxious to be off the boat.”
“I guess so, too. Let’s do something to pass the time. Count how many girls and women we can see in white shirt-waists—seems if it had rained them, seems if! Or how many people go trapesing up and down the deck. Make up stories about them, too, if you like, and fit names to them. I always do give a name to anybody I see and don’t know. Let’s call that nice looking man yonder ‘Graysie.’ He’s all in gray clothes, hat, gloves, tie, and everything. There’s another might be what Monty’d say was a ‘hayseed.’ I think that’s not a nice name, though, but just call him ‘Green Fields.’ He’s surely come from some farm up the river and looks as if he were enjoying every minute of this sail. I’m beginning to enjoy it too, now; only I’m getting dreadfully hungry. If I had my purse I think I’d go down to that stand in the corner and buy us some sandwiches;” said Dorothy, in response.
Cried Molly, indignantly:
“Don’t talk about sandwiches to a poor, starving girl! Sailing does make a body ravenous, just ravenous, even though we did have a ‘vacation-breakfast’ with something besides cereals and milk. When Miss Rhinelander does ‘treat’ us she does it thoroughly. But, what shall you order when we get to New York and meet Papa and Auntie Lu? You know we’re all to dine at a big hotel, for the Nova Scotia boat doesn’t sail till two o’clock. Two o’clock sharp! Not a minute before nor a minute after, Papa says; and he goes out to that country every year. Sometimes in the hunting season and now just to camp out and fish and get—get fat, I tell him. It’s dreadful wearing to be a Judge. Judge of the Supreme Court. That’s what my father is. He’s a bank president, too, and has lots to do with other people’s money. But he’s something to do with a railway besides, and all these things and his taking care of Aunt Lucretia’s ‘property’ wears him out. She hasn’t any property, really, except the little tumble-down house where she and Papa were born. Papa says it isn’t worth the cost of powder to blow it up; but Auntie loves it and makes more fuss over it than Papa does over all his own things.”
“A Judge is a man that can send a person to jail or not, isn’t he?”
“Worse than that! He can send one to the gallows or the electric chair—if he has to. That’s the wearing part; having to be ‘just’ when he just longs to be ‘generous.’ If it wasn’t that he has the same power to set a person free, too, I guess he’d give up Judging. If he could. I don’t know about such things. What I do know is that he and some other Judges and some more bankers and such men have the greatest fun ever, summer times. They hunt up old clothes and wear them right in the woods. Auntie says she doesn’t know where they find such duds ’cause they certainly never owned them at any other time. Then they sleep on the ground, and cook over a fire they make themselves, and fish and tell stories. ‘Just loaf’ Papa says, and to hear him tell makes me sorrier than ever I’m not a boy. If I were I could go too. But a girl—Pshaw! Girls can’t do a single thing that’s worth while, seems to me!”
“I’m afraid I shall be afraid of a real Judge, Molly. I’m afraid I—”
“The idea! You’ll forget all those ‘afraids’ the minute you see my darling father! But you didn’t say what you’d order for your dinner.”
“How can I order anything if I haven’t the money to pay for it? Or does that all go in with the expenses of the whole trip, that Miss Greatorex has to take care of?” asked Dorothy, who was in real ignorance of some most practical matters, having merely been told that she was to take this journey under Miss Greatorex’s charge.