Now Kate knew the Dobson cornfield just as well as anyone, and off she started, before Mrs. Dobson could take down her sunbonnet and shawl from its peg on the kitchen wall.
Arrived there, she shouted for Harry, who presently appeared out of the corn and hastened to the fence where Kate waited.
It seemed so trivial, this calling Harry away from real, necessary-to-be-done work to go fishing, just because Frank would run into danger, that for an instant, as Harry came forward, she resolved to let Frank go; but the wave of fear returned upon her by the time he reached the fence and she cried out:
“O, Harry, will you do something for me? Tell me ‘yes’ quick!”
“You know I will, Kittie,” said Harry, removing his hat to wipe his forehead—for he had been working fast.
“Then go fishing right off with Frank; it’s the last time he’s going in the Clover, and he would go off to the island. Make haste now and you can catch him at the coal dock. He has gone down the harbor and he is all alone, and if the wind should blow”—she said, with a sudden tremble in her tones—“or if the fog should come and he off there fishing all alone—”
Whether it were the pleading of Kate’s eyes or of her voice, or the arguments she used that influenced Harry, it were impossible to determine; but he went in haste across field and meadow to the coal dock, only to see Frank and the Clover making great speed outside the harbor toward the island.
As he stood there, helpless, on the beach, watching the boat, Kate reached his side, and, seeing her brother in the distance, she burst into tears.
“I’m sure I did everything I could,” she sobbed. “Only if Frank should get lost, I never, never could forgive myself for having told papa!” and Kate sank down on the sand and cried out her sorrow and disappointment, as well as her weariness.
Harry waited patiently until the little storm was over. Then he said: