By this time every pair of bright eyes was glued on the Captain’s expressive countenance. A dim glimmer of the truth then suddenly dawned upon Fred.
“Oh—not that mola!” gasped he.
“The same—and yet, not the same! Kinder ripenin’ up, it were,” laughed the Captain.
“What did you do with it?” shouted every one.
“Well, as long as I wuz goin’ over to Sat’aday Cove, I tells Mose I’ll snake this dainty along and lose him in the middle of the bay. So, I don’t think you’ll ever see him agin.”
Directly after lunch, Edith, who had finished first and hurried out, ran back to the dining-room in a greatly excited frame of mind.
“Oh, mamma! Some real live Indians are down on our beach.”
In less than a minute every Islander was out of the bungalow. It was ascertained that the Indians had come to the Island on a venture to sell some of their sweet-grass baskets. They had been on the mainland where quite a colony of city folk lived, but did not dispose of all their wares.
While the girls admired the fragrant baskets, Billy took advantage of the unusual visit to ply the Indians with all sorts of questions. Where did they find sweet-grass; how they sewed birch-bark so that it wouldn’t split; where did they hail from, and did they make their own canoe, as other Indians did.
One of the Indians being very agreeable answered all of the boy’s questions, and then turned to invite the Islanders to visit his little camp on the east-side of Isleboro, near Sabbath-Day Harbour.