Billy looked forward to these weekly visits to town with keen delight, so Kitty didn’t have the heart to curtail his enjoyment. They paid their usual visit to the toy department at the dime store, and took a peep at the ducks in Bayshore Park. At noon they ate at a lunch counter, perched on high stools, which Billy adored. Afterward Kitty made her weekly food purchases at the grocery store on Bay Street, opposite where she always left her boat.
When the grocery boy had packed her things into the launch Kitty looked at Billy, gave him a knowing wink and asked, “Want to go exploring?”
“Oh, Kit, where?”
“You’ll see. ’Way into the marshes.”
Billy’s eyes grew round. “Into a cove or somepen, where pirates hide their booty?”
“No telling what we’ll find ’way off in the marshes.”
It was already one-thirty, and at five Vera was to pick Kitty up for the trip to the beach. She would have to do her exploring in that interval of time. She had made a careful note of the location of that smoke smudge on the horizon, as her father pointed it out from his office. However, Kitty didn’t feel sufficiently familiar with the marshy inlets to take a short cut to the spot. She decided the safest course was to return near enough to Palmetto Island to get her bearings from there, and seek out the channel through which the barge from the hospital traveled in going to the dump.
“Aren’t we gonner explore?” Billy asked in a disappointed tone when the smoke stacks of the Marine Base came into view.
“We’re going to turn off into this inlet right here,” Kitty reassured him.
A bit of wind was blowing, making whitecaps dot the deep green water. Though the weather was pleasant enough ashore, there was a sharp tang on the water that brought a glow to their cheeks.