“Thank goodness we’ve remembered the salt this time,” Rosie said to Arthur as they mounted their wheels, “I took care of that myself.”
It was a beautiful day, cool as it was sunny, brisk as it was warm. The winding road led through South Satuit and then over a long stretch of scrub-pine country, straight to the beach.
Just as they emerged from the Westabrook estate into South Satuit, Maida’s bicycle made a sudden swerve. “Why I just saw Silva Burle!” she called in a whisper to Rosie. “She was walking along the trail towards the Little House. I wonder what she is doing there?”
“Well you may be very sure she isn’t calling on us,” Rosie declared, “and if she is I’m delighted to think that Granny will say, ‘Not at home!’”
“Still,” Maida said thoughtfully, “that trail leads directly to the Little House. She must be going there for some reason.”
“Probably,” Laura remarked scornfully, “she’s hoping she’ll meet some of us, so’s she can make faces at us.”
The automobile arrived at the beach first and the cyclists came straggling in one after another. Crescent Moon Beach was like a deeply cut silver crescent, furred at each tip of the crescent with a tight grove of scrub-pines which grew down to the very water’s edge. Beyond it, except for a single island, stretched unbroken the vast heaving blue of the Atlantic. Under the lee of the southern tip of the crescent was a line of half-a-dozen bath houses.
“What a wonderful, wonderful beach!” Laura commented.
“And there’s that island,” Dicky said, “that we see from the Tree House—Spectacles Island, didn’t you say—oh no, I remember, Tom Tiddler’s Ground. How I wish I could swim out to it. I have never been on an island in my life. Could you swim as far as that, Arthur?”
Arthur laughed. “I should say not. Nobody but a professional could do that—and perhaps he’d find it some pull. It’s much longer than it looks, Dicky. Distances on the water are very deceiving.”