Kit of Danger Cove. H.R. Langdale

have to go,” said Kit.

      Andrew didn’t get up. “Glad you came,” he said pleasantly. “Come again.”

      Kit, when he had gone, looked back. Andrew, still sifting sand, was gazing thoughtfully after him.

      “What I do need is that boat,” said Kit to himself, as he made the long tramp back to town and supper. “I need it more than ever.” With a boat he could visit the Cove with less chance of being seen by Andrew, since the waters of the Cove were not visible from his shack. Yet he knew it was bound to be many a long week before he would have enough money to buy one and who knew what Andrew, with his poking around, was up to? There was just one thing to do, and that was to earn more money as quickly as possible.

      The news which his great-aunt had for him when he reached home was, under the circumstances, highly gratifying.

      Aunt Thany, as her friends said of her, “got around.” In spite of her nearly eighty years, she went regularly to the post-office, to Crocker’s General Store, to mid-week and Sunday church services, and to the monthly Singing School concerts at the Academy. Almost daily she was in and out of some one of the pleasant little homes of the workmen and of the large, square, more pretentious houses of the paymaster, the superintendent, and the owners. As a result she frequently picked up scraps of information about the town’s one industry almost as soon as the informers dropped them.

      Tonight, over quahog chowder, fried ham, and beach plum conserve, she had a great deal to tell Kit.

      “It seems, Christopher, that Mr. Jarves is going to put up a new building with another furnace and ten pots. Seems they have more orders than they can handle. Seems they could double the weekly melt and still not turn out all the glassware there’s a call for. Meanwhile the shops are going on two shifts, with Fridays and Saturdays, along with Sundays, off. And there’s to be plenty of overtime. Had you heard of all this?”

      Kit shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not a thing.”

      But he was so elated he could hardly finish the meal. If what Aunt Thany said was true — why it meant both overtime and extra time! Overtime in which to earn more money, and extra time in which to look around for a boat. Not certain just what his great-aunt would think of buying a boat, he tried to conceal his delight, but some of it must have been evident.

      “’Twill affect you, I expect,” said Aunt Thany shortly. “You’ll have more week-end to fritter away.”

      Kit could hardly wait to get down to the factory and find out if the rumors were true. Perhaps, after all, they were nothing but talk. When morning came he bolted his breakfast, dashed out without remembering his lunch and had to go back for it, but reached the Glass Works several minutes before the whistle.

      Much to his surprise, the Polly, not regularly scheduled for another trip until the first part of the coming week, was at the wharf. The tide was nearing the turn, and Skipper Barney, one eye on the Creek, was standing on the wharf’s edge talking to Deming Jarves. Kit could not hear what he was saying, but the instant he was seen by the owner of the Glass Works, Mr Jarves beckoned to him, and Kit heard him say, “Will he do, Skipper?”

      Skipper Barney nodded, jumped aboard the Polly, and began unfurling the mainsail.

      “You are Christopher Freeman,” said Mr. Jarves pleasantly, and Kit recalled how the proprietor was said to know the names of all his workmen, of their children, and how those children were doing in school. “You have a new job this morning. Ten gross of diamond thumbprint goblets must reach Boston today. The Skipper’s short a hand. I’ll see that your job — you’re a wood-drier, aren’t you? — is filled, and your great-aunt told you won’t be back until tomorrow. Good trip, Skipper. Much obliged, Christopher, for helping us out.”

      Long before Kit could have said “Jack Robinson,” had he been so minded, he was aboard the Polly, the mooring lines had been cast, and she was flying down the Creek like a brig chased by pirates. Kit’s immediate reaction was the realization that unless Skipper Barney had learned what was going on it would now be at least two whole days before he, Kit, could check the accuracy of Aunt Thany’s gossip. He made up his mind to sound out the skipper at the first opportunity.

      For the present there was the fun of going on a journey unexpectedly. And, of course, he would spend the night with his parents.

      The skies were unclouded, the wind was fair. Kit was surprised to see that more than once Skipper Barney appeared to be casting a weather eye westward as if looking for something and being astonished when he didn’t find it.

      “I daresay Steve Fisher had no idea there was a special order come in by stage,” he grumbled, settling down at the tiller as the sloop nosed out of the Creek into the dancing waters of the Bay. “Otherwise he’d never have sent that message he did.”

      Kit’s puzzled expression showed his ignorance of what the other was talking about.

      “’Spose you don’t know to what I’m referring. Well, Steve Fisher was a-digging his potatoes last evening over to his home in Cedarville, when John Sprague druv by in his buggy, and Steve hailed him. ‘You tell ’em over to the Works, John Sprague,’ says he, ‘not to plan any suddenlike v’yage to Boston ’till I get my potatoes dug. Besides,’ says he, ‘it’s agoing to blow.’ Those were his very words, and I fancy he’d of kept his mouth shut if he’d known D. J. would be down to the Works early with a special shipment. Made me mighty short-handed in an emergency.”

      Kit started curiously around the horizon. “He was certainly wrong about the weather,” he said.

      “Seems so,” agreed Skipper Barney cheerfully. “Could be there’ll come a time when he’ll make a wrong guess. Never has yet though, so far as I know. Why I’ve known Steve Fisher sniff out a so’ easter three weeks afore it arrived! Got a good guesser Steve has, but he’s just too independent. Some day D. J.’ll fire him for sure.”