“I suppose you’ll be saying next that Captain Judd himself never saw it,” remarked Hattie May. “I suppose he was maybe blind when he buried it!” she added with heavy sarcasm.
“We don’t know that he did bury it,” I remarked. I glanced at Michael for confirmation, but he only shrugged and grinned and said he was going up to dress.
“Wait,” I said, “I’m going to take some pictures first.” Some impulse—for which I was later to thank my lucky stars—had moved me to bring along my kodak. I took several groups and Eve took some more with me in them. Then I finished off the film with some snaps of a fleet of little yachts that were just entering the harbor. Michael said it was the annual cruise of a Boston yacht club and that they came into the harbor every year at this time.
“I used to get a great kick out of them when I was a youngster and first started coming here,” he said. “I was sure I’d be a skipper when I grew up.”
“Why,” exclaimed Eve, “I thought you were a native of Fishers Haven, Michael. Weren’t you born here?”
“Oh, no, my home’s in Connecticut. My folks used to come here for summer vacations. So this summer when I had to get some work, I came up and got me a job on Cousin Al’s farm.”
After we had dressed we all set to work on preparations for supper. The boys built an oven in the sand while we collected firewood. Then we buried potatoes to bake and sharpened long sticks for roasting bacon over the coals. Eve and Hattie May and I made coffee and spread the table.
“Why didn’t your aunt come to the picnic?” Hamish asked unexpectedly, while we all sat about waiting for the potatoes to get done.
“Oh, picnics aren’t in her line I guess,” I said.
“Don’t you suppose she ever went to one—when she was a girl, I mean?” asked Hattie May.