Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/111

 work alone for fear the news of what he is trying to make will get about before he is ready. But I know you well enough to be certain that you will give away no secrets."

Elizabeth drew her dripping hand from the water and took up one of the pyramids.

"I never thought I could understand it so clearly," she said, "and now if I could only remember about the Barbary pirates and the merchant marine, I really could be almost sure of going to college."

"Barbary pirates?" repeated Miss Miranda. "I happen to know something of them, myself. How do they come to trouble you when they have all been dead so long?"

"Oh, I just don't seem to be able to remember when they lived, or what they did," Betsey sighed. "They seem to come in that dull middle period in the history, between the Revolution and the Civil War, when nothing particular ever seemed to happen and most of the Presidents were men whose names you never heard before. It's all very difficult."

"Do you remember," returned Miss Miranda, "that little green tree that you saw in my toy cupboard, the first day that you came? It was put there by my great-grandfather, who fought against those self-same pirates and helped to put an end to their wrongdoing. If I should tell you how he came into