“That,” said Don after inspecting the dory fore and aft, and listening to her story, “is a right fine dory, staunch and seaworthy. I’d like to take it to Monhegan.”
“Monhegan?” Pearl’s heart gave a great leap. Monhegan! The dream island of every coast child’s heart. Don was going there.
“Yes,” said Don. “Swordfishing is played out, and the canners have all the horse mackeral they can use this season. I’ve decided to pack my lobster traps on the sloop and go up about there somewhere, mebby only Booth Bay Harbor. All depends. They say lobster catches are fine on the shoals up there.”
“But Don,” Pearl’s eyes shone with a new hope, “if you take my dory, you’ll take me. You won’t spend all your time tending lobster pots. There’s fine fishing up there. I caught a halibut. You’ll take me, won’t you?”
“Well,” said Don, thoughtfully, “I might. You’d get lonesome, though. Nobody but me and you and the sea; that is, nobody that we know.”
“Take Ruth, too,” Pearl said quickly. “You should have heard her talk about Monhegan over there by the old fort. She’ll be wild to go. And she is considerable of a fisherman, good as most men.”
Don considered the proposition. Ruth was his cousin. They had been much together on the sea. Unlike his dreamy little sister, she had always been able and practical.
“Why, yes,” he said at last, “I don’t see why she shouldn’t go, if she wants to.”
Ruth was overjoyed at the prospect. She had no trouble in obtaining permission to go, for, though Don had barely turned twenty, he was known as one of the ablest seamen on all Casco Bay, and no one feared to sail with him.
So, one day when the sky was clear and the water a sheet of blue, they rounded the island and went scudding away toward the island of many dreams.