“For de mercy sakes alive, he’s got me by mah toe!”
Sue was the first to grasp the situation, and she made a frantic dash for the door.
“It’s my pet crab,” she exclaimed. “I found him down on the rocks after you girls had gone away, and I brought him back and put him into a tin can in the kitchen so we could tame him.”
“Tame a crab, you goose,” cried Polly, and she followed at headlong speed, for Aunty’s wails rose higher and higher.
The crab had managed to wriggle out of the tin can where Sue had left him to meditate, and had started on a leisurely examination of the kitchen floor. Aunty Welcome’s big toe had proved a happy diversion, as she was going to bed, and he had caught at it instantly. Polly disconnected him with difficulty, took him down the beach, and threw him out into the water.
“Now, you stay there, you family crab,” she cried.
“Oh, Polly, how cruel, when I wanted to tame him and study his construction,” Sue protested.
“I reckon that was what he was trying to do to Aunty, study her construction,” laughed Polly. “Let’s turn in now. And, say, girls,” she paused a minute, her face suddenly sober and earnest. “I don’t know just what it is, but doesn’t it truly seem as if we were nearer Heaven away out here? I wonder why? And didn’t you notice that the Captain and Tom speak of God as if they almost knew Him, instead of just worshiping Him? Did you hear them singing ‘Pull for the Shore,’ as they walked down the shore road to-night? While we are all here, let’s say our evening prayer together out on the porch, and put in the one about ‘all perils and dangers of this night.’ You know, Ruth.”
So out there in the darkness the girls knelt, with their heads bent on the railing looking seaward, while Ruth’s voice led them in the beautiful old evening prayer.
“‘Lighten our darkness we beseech Thee, O Lord, and of Thy great mercy save and defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of Thy only son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.’”