Sidney told of the landing of the dory and the man with the iron hook for a hand.
“Oh, that’s only Joe Josephs. He’s a wrecker.”
Mart was catching something of Sidney’s spirit; in truth Mart was unconsciously catching a great deal from Sidney these days.
“Well, he’s certainly doing something besides wrecking. It’s been an awful poor season for wrecks and gran’ma says Joe Josephs’ wife’s been to her sister’s at Plymouth and got a new coat and hat for the trip and she hasn’t had a new thing since Letty Vine give her her blue serge dress and that wasn’t new.”
“You see—” cried Sidney, exulting, “Joe Josephs has divided the spoils!”
“Oh, you girls are crazy! Why everyone in the town knows Jed Starrow. Don’t you think everyone ’ud know if he was a pirate? He’s lived here ever since he was born, I guess.”
“But, Lav, it was so funny for them to say just alike ‘good catch’ when they didn’t have any fish at all! It was a password. Pirates always have passwords.”
“Prob’bly a code,” jeered Lav, rocking with laughter. “You watch the sky anights; mebbe they use rockets to signal one another, too.”
Sidney was still sufficiently stirred by the whole incident as to be able to tolerate Lav’s stupidity.
“Of course I know pirates—even these days—wouldn’t use rockets and codes. I’m not as ignorant as all that. And I am going to watch, day and night. It’ll be easy for me to watch ’cause I’m a girl and no one will suspect what’s in my head.”