“You only—only say so to comfort us,” sobbed Agnes.
“Oh, Ag! stop being a ‘leaky vessel’!” cried Neale, with a boy’s exasperation at a girl’s tears. “Crying won’t help you any.”
Ruth had been examining the cedar boat, carefully. There was a little water in the bottom of it. She knew it did not leak. And floating on the water was a tiny russet leather slipper.
“That belongs to Dot’s Alice-doll!” she cried, leaning over the gunwale and fishing for the slipper. “They were in the boat.”
“We knew that before. The clam man said so,” sniffed Agnes.
“But they got out in a hurry. Otherwise Dot would have noticed that the doll had lost her slipper.”
“That seems reasonable,” admitted Neale O’Neil. “But what’s become of them? Where did they go? Where are they now?”
He was staring all about the river, while the two boats gently rubbed together, bobbing and courtesying on the tide.
“Don’t see anybody on the shores—and not another boat in sight,” the boy added.
“Maybe they went ashore on the island?” suggested Agnes, looking back.