But Mr. Bailey’s thoughts could not have been on the approaching storm, for suddenly he looked up at Ann, who was standing near by, watching him as he smoothed the cement with gentle unhurried strokes of his trowel.
“I’ve been thinkin’ about what your father said this mornin’, kinder turnin’ it over in my mind. And I don’t know but what he’s right about that cheese; he was talkin’ to me after dinner an’ he says—an’ he showed ’em to me—that there’s marks of dog teeth on the cheese. But there ain’t any stray dog around here; there couldn’t be, without Jo or me catchin’ sight of it now and then. Maybe it’s a wolf. They’ve been known to come down from the backwoods, now and again. But that old sea demon, I don’t like him at all. Ain’t got no use for him. We would all be better off without him.”
“I don’t like him,” Ann agreed most readily. “But what can you ever do to get rid of him before the wreck breaks up?”
“I’ve made up my mind to fix him,” Fred answered grimly. “I’ll chop him off the boat and burn him up on the beach.”
“Oh!” Ann danced gayly in anticipation. “Won’t that be fun! We’ll have a bonfire and bake potatoes in it. And that will be the end of the old grinning demon.”
“And we’ll roast some of our own corn,” Ben chimed in. “Don’t you suppose, Jo, that we could find a few ears that would be ripe enough?”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” Jo answered. “Lobsters are mighty good cooked in the open, too. After the rocks get hot you put the lobsters under a pile of wet seaweed and steam them. We’d do it to-night only the storm would open right on top of us.”
Mr. Bailey squinted up at the western sky. The clouds were weaving in and out above the tops of the pines. The dropping sun had now tinged their white edges with a line of yellow fire. The squalls out at sea had melted together into one great blot of dark shadow relieved here and there by a bit of foam that showed startlingly white against the somber blackness.
“You two had better skite for the house now,” he said. “Jo and I will hurry and finish this work before the rain comes, and get the critters under cover. The thunder makes them run the pasture.”
“The critters” were Jerry, the horse, waiting with the empty cart, and Maude, the cow, feeding placidly in the pasture near by although she had more than once looked up at the sky as though she understood what was coming.