"Yep, that's me. They call me Kitty Scuttle, but Scuttle ain't my name. Boys give me that 'cause I shoo them off the island."
Here was an opening. Louise seized it.
"Sit down and tell us about it, Kitty," she said. "You know we really had no idea of bothering your dove the other day. Did his leg fix up all right?"
"Guess so, but he ain't my bird," and she did actually flop down in the sand, much to their surprise.
"Why don't you like the ocean?" asked Grace.
"The ocean is a coward. It fights women and babies," she said, a queer mocking irony marking her words.
"Yes," agreed Louise, to placate her, "the ocean is treacherous."
"An' cruel," she sort of hissed. "I came from that ocean on a rope once, and I'll never go back on it while I'm alive."
"Oh, you were shipwrecked," ventured Cleo, her mind running to the story of the little girl on the frozen mother's breast, told them by Captain Dave.
"Yes, Mom never spoke to me again, and I hate that ocean ever since."