Catherine explained vaguely as they scrambled up the rounded, slippery rocks to the patch of coarse grass at the top of the small point. Where was Letty? She had been visible from there. Catherine began to run, down to the muddy flats that separated the point from the mainland. Only a few minutes since she had last seen her head, like a bit of bright seaweed. The water was so far out, surely—— Panic nipped at her heels as she flew. "Letty! Let-ty!" There was the pile of shells. "Letty!" A spasm of fear choked her breathing. Then a call, deep and contented.
"Letty here." Around the clump of beach peas and driftwood— The yellow head nodded out of a mud hole left by a clam digger on the beach. "Letty swim."
Catherine picked up her daughter.
"Letty, darling! You little imp——" The gray mud dripped from rompers and sandals.
"Oh, she's all wet." Marian puffed up. "And dirty!"
"Now how are we going to get you home without a cold, young woman!" Catherine stood her on the beach, and sighed. Letty, her fingers full of the soft mud, looked up with bright, unremorseful eyes.
"My sweater's in the dory, Mother." Spencer frowned at his sister. "You haven't any sense, Letty."
Letty's rompers served as a bath towel, and the sweater made a cocoon. She sat beside Marian, while Catherine and Spencer rowed the old dory across the half mile of quiet water. The children chattered about their discoveries, and Catherine listened while her thoughts moved quickly beneath the surface of the talk. Fear like that—it's terrific, unreasoning, overwhelming. How would you bear it if anything happened! You have to be all eyes, and be with them every instant. How can you plan, thinking of anything else? And yet, things happen to children, of any mothers——
"Dark o' the moon—pulls the ole water—away from the earth——" Spencer chanted as he rowed. "Dark o' the moon——"
"What makes you say that all the time, Spencer?" demanded Marian.