“Let’s go down near the lighthouse and look inside.”
“Will they let us?” his sister wanted to know.
“Sure, they will,” Teddy answered. “Captain Oleson told me they would. Come on.”
There was a lighthouse on the point of land that separated the bay from the open ocean. The Martins’ cottage was on the bay and faced the setting sun (that was why the place was called Sunset Beach) but was very near the ocean, too. The lighthouse was a square tower of stone, and in the top, at night, a flashing light burned, to warn ships, out at sea, not to come too near shore, because of a dangerous sand bar.
The lighthouse was not so far from the Martin cottage that Mrs. Martin could not let the children go alone. They would be safe on the beach, she felt sure.
So then, a little later, Ted, Janet and Trouble might have been seen wending their way down the sand. It was a pleasant day, the sun was shining and the waves were sparkling. The sea was quite calm, only low rollers breaking on the beach.
A short distance from the lighthouse, the Curlytops came upon a number of queer, black objects on the beach. They were of wood, and seemed to be made of laths nailed on some half-round pieces of wood, with bits of fish net inside.
“What are they?” asked Janet.
“Lobster pots,” answered her brother. “I guess the man that owns them put them out here on shore to mend them.”
“What are lobster pots?” Janet wanted to know, while she stopped to look at them. Trouble pulled his hand out of his sister’s and began tossing pebbles into the waves.