"Wish I was on her!" murmured the boy. "If I was maybe mother'd let me have a dog. There's most always a dog on a ship. Oh, why can't I have a dog?"
No one answered Rick Dalton. There was no one there to speak, unless, perhaps, it was the fish hawk, and, if he could have talked Rick's language he might have told the small boy what he thought about him for having spoiled his dinner. For the dinner of the osprey depended on his catch of fish—and, not only his dinner, but the dinner of the hungry, little whistling birds in the dead pine tree farther inland.
But all the boy heard was the swish of the waves as they whispered among the bits of shell and white pebbles—that and the whistle of the wind in the rank grass that grew atop the sand dunes.
"Tide's coming in," mused Rick. "Four o'clock, and I've got to go to the store. If I had a dog he could carry the things for me. Oh, I wish I had a dog!"
Rick dug the toe of his shoe into the sand, turned for a last look at the ocean and then trudged over the little hills that bordered the shore and soon was on his way to the village. It was when he was at home again, after having gone to the store, as his mother had told him to do at 4 o'clock—when the tide turned—it was then that Rick again voiced his wish.
"Why can't I have a dog, mother?" he asked. "I'm old enough now, and lots of the boys have 'em! Henry Blake, he's got a dog he says I can have. Why can't I have him?"
"Doesn't Henry want his dog any more?" asked Mrs. Dalton, as she took the bundle of groceries Rick had brought.
"No!" was the eager answer, and Rick seemed to seize on the question as a ray of hope. "Oh, can I have his dog?"
"No, Richard, dear," answered his mother gently. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but, really I don't want you to have a dog—just yet."
"But when may I have one?" he asked.