“Look!” Babs clutched Virginia in real terror. “The door of that queer hut opened a crack. I’m just ever so sure it did, and I know that I saw eyes peering out at us.”
“What if it’s some shipwrecked sailor who has gone crazy from living so long alone?” Sally began, frightening herself more than her listeners with her fancy.
“Sh! The door is opening again.” Betsy walked boldly toward the hut and then she smiled and nodded as though she were talking to someone, as indeed she was. “Don’t be afraid of us!” Could the girls believe their ears. “We won’t hurt you. Come out and get acquainted.” That was what Betsy was actually saying.
The door again opened, and this time it did not close and out of the house stepped the queerest little creature imaginable.
“It’s a dwarf,” Sally began, but Virginia was hurrying forward.
“It’s a little child,” she said; and indeed it was. A small girl with a mat of long tangled hair and a dress made of a burlap bag with openings that had been haggled in it for arms. Her eyes were dark and very bright.
“I’m not scared of you,” she said, as she walked toward the girls. “I saw you long ago when you first came ashore. I was over there looking for May apples. I followed after you part of the way, then I darted down here to hoist the flag up there on the rocks. That’s to tell my brother to come ashore quick. He won’t know what’s happened. He’ll think something has scared me and so he’ll come in a hurry.”
Virginia decided that the girl was older than she had at first supposed, and in answer to the question usually put to small children, she unhesitatingly answered, “I’m eight, going on nine.” Then gleefully, “Won’t brother be surprised though. He’s catching fish for our dinner.” She started running toward the shore, then turned to inform them. “Here he comes now. Oho, Winston! Here’s some girls.”
A small raft had appeared and on it a tall graceful lad was standing. With a long stout pole he was pushing his craft toward the beach. There he made it fast, by driving other stout sticks through the two corners that were high and dry, then taking up a long reed on which fish were strung, he shouldered a pole and started on a light run toward the wondering group.