All at once upstream they heard somebody whistling. At first it sounded almost like a bird trilling high and clear, but then it suddenly changed to boogie-woogie. The girls sat there on the bank, sheltered from view by the alders, and waited until a flat-bottomed rowboat came into view. Standing at the stern, one bare foot on the back seat and one on the cross seat, with a long punting pole in his hands, was a boy of about fifteen. He looked exactly like Huckleberry Finn, his head protected from the sun by a limp straw hat and his tattered overalls rolled above his knees.
Whistling recklessly, sure of himself and the solitude, he came down the river and guided the boat to shore near where the girls sat scrutinizing him. He hauled it up halfway out of the water, dropped the pole into it, and started up the bank before he caught sight of them.
“That’s Billie Ellis,” Sally said quickly and waved her hand to him. “Hi, Billie.”
“Hi,” Billie returned. “Where’d you come from?”
“Out of the blue,” Doris spoke up merrily. “Got some fish for breakfast?”
Billie hesitated, trying to appear nonchalant, but plainly very much rattled by these girls who had invaded his domain. He rolled down his overalls very slowly and deliberately to gain time, and this gave the others, particularly Doris, a chance to see just what he looked like. He was quite tall, with crew-cut hair of a rather nondescript color, and big brown eyes that were startlingly frank and uncompromising. He was tanned a nice healthy brown, and his smile was eagerly friendly. Altogether, the Craigs approved of Billie at sight. To the others he was more or less familiar, even though none of them knew him well.
“Where you all going?” he asked.
“Just walking over the country,” Abby told him. “Where are you going, Billie?”
Billie flushed at this direct question. “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered lamely. “I come down the river a lot.”
“We fed the owl,” Doris said innocently. “Just some bread and ham. I suppose it thought it was a new kind of mouse.”