"I shall be glad to be at work again," Netta said. "Now that Walter is found, there is certainly nothing to keep us any longer in town."
"I know that it must have been horribly dull for you, Netta, but you see that you are partly to blame yourself for refusing to go out with me."
"That would have been duller still," Netta laughed. "I should have been a long time before I got to know people, and there is no good in knowing people when you are going right away from them in a short time, and may never meet them again."
At last the men said that there would be water enough to get up the creek.
"We shan't be able to sail up, miss; you see, the wind will be right in our teeth. But that don't matter; we can pole her up. The tide will take us along, and we shall only have to keep her straight and get her round the corners."
"Are you sure that there will be water enough?"
"Yes, miss. You see, she is empty, and doesn't draw much more than a foot of water."
As they entered the haven the head sails were dropped and the mainsail brailed up. The tide was running in strong, and, as the men had said, they had nothing to do but to keep the barge in the deepest part of the channel.
"How do you think they will be coming, Bill?" Betsy Nibson said, as she joined her husband, who was standing on the bank dressed in his Sunday clothes.