Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/97

Rh "What's the reward?" called Joan.

"A picnic on Hy Brasail," Elspeth replied.

"I have inside information about that picnic already," said Joan, "but I'll let you in."

Elspeth entered, smiling, as Garth pulled the blanket up over his curly head. But he laughed at the wrong moment, and his mother pounced on him and bore him off, in spite of protest.

"If we want to have any sort of day," she said as she vanished, "We ought to get an early start."

Joan, carrying a picnic-basket down to the landing, found Caleb bailing out the dory.

"Good-morning!" she cried blithely.

Caleb lifted his eyes, momentarily ducked his head, and continued to wield the bailer.

"It's a very fine day, isn't it!" Joan remarked, determined to break his Sphinx-like silence. Another duck of the head answered her.

"Do you think the good weather will last?" she demanded, trying a direct question.

Caleb looked slowly around the entire horizon, up at the sky, down at the water,—and spoke.

"Might," he said. He went at the bailing again, with an air of finality; and Joan was