“No, Leslie,” said her brother. “You see, Bill ships fish by boat or rail and he can get these people to work for him for next to nothing. You ought to see the shacks they live in. I bet some of them wish that they’d never come to ’Merica.”
“But at least they have enough to eat, catching fish,” said Sarita.
“I doubt it, if they work for Bill.”
“Come, children, I must hurry,” said Beth. “There is a meal to cook and I promised to meet our boarder at the Eyrie.” Beth put on an expression of great dignity.
“Ha!” exclaimed Dalton. “Do you girls realize what has occurred? Never can we leave our sister unchaperoned again!” Dalton linked his arm in Beth’s and began to stride around the camp with such long and exaggerated strides that Beth, laughing, had to run to keep up with him. But when she told him that the stranger would really arrive by way of the wood, he stopped and more sensibly directed their way into it, while Leslie and Sarita not understanding what that move meant, waved a goodbye.
“I’ll walk with you a little way,” said Beth. “Have you seen anything of Peggy or Jack to-day?”
“Not a thing. Peggy was coming early, too, for I told them that I was taking a day off before my men came to work on the house and that we would take out the Sea Crest.”
“Probably Mr. Ives has come home. Peggy so cherishes coming here, or so she says, that she does not risk him forbidding her to come.”
“He knows all about it, though. Didn’t Peggy relate what he said about disliking the ‘intimacy’ with us?”
“Yes, but that makes Peggy all the more afraid that he will stop it. Possibly he thinks that he will know what we are doing through her, however, though I can’t imagine his getting much out of Peggy unless she wants to tell. Leslie worries about it slightly.”