"By the great jib boom!" exploded the boy for a second time. "Not even Cap'n Ira and Aunt Prudence?"
"Not even them," sighed the girl.
"I bet it's because you don't want to stay there while that other girl is visitin' them. Ain't that it? She's a snippy thing!"
"You must not say so to anybody," urged Sheila. "It will not be wrong for you to say nothing about my being here to your father and mother. Do you understand?"
"I can keep a secret, all right," he assured her proudly.
"I believe you can. And do you think you could get off to go down to the store for me this evening?"
"Going down anyway for mom," he assured her.
Sheila had a dollar and a little change besides. She had already planned just what the dollar would buy in the way of necessaries. There were cooking utensils in the cabin sufficient for her modest needs. She gave little John-Ed the dollar and her list and warned him to hide her purchases safely until the next morning and bring them to her on his way to school.
"What you going to eat to-night?" he asked her bluntly.
"I dug some clams at low water and caught a big horseshoe crab."