Ann laughed aloud with him. “I’ve seen them in the fish market. And I’ve eaten them. But I don’t know a thing about catching them.” She looked at him inquiringly. “Is it fun?”

“I’ll take you out with me sometime, if you will promise not to be seasick.”

“I can’t promise that, because I don’t know and of course I couldn’t help it if I had to be seasick, but I shouldn’t care—I can be sure of that!”

“Take me, too,” Helen demanded from the rear seat.

“All right.” Jo nodded and turned to Ben. “And you, if you would like to come.”

“I’ll come if I can help row.” Ben was still feeling strong after his battle with the bags. He wanted to do everything that Jo did.

Jo understood. “You could, but we don’t have to row any more. The boat has a motor. But you can help to pull the lobster pots up; that’s hard work and Miss Ann wouldn’t like to get herself all over wet.”

“Don’t call me Miss Ann,” the girl cried impatiently. “It makes me feel grown up and I hate it! I’m Ann. My gracious, I’ve done nothing but talk of you as Jo ever since my father planned to come up here this summer. I feel as if I’d known you for years.”

“All right,” said Jo. Secretly he was delighted,13 but he did not quite know how to show it and was not quite sure that he cared to let them see. “You will get all messed up with the bait and the water, but perhaps you won’t mind. There’s the house just yonder,” and he pointed around the bend of the road.

13

“Where?” they all shouted. And there it was, outlined against the dark of the forest behind it. It was a small one-storied frame house like those in the village, with the roof at the back sloping almost down to the ground, a white hen with her wings outstretched to cover these children from the city.

The house stood at the extreme edge of a broad meadow that ran from the woods to the high bluff at the foot of which lay a rocky beach; black woods behind and then the smooth stretch of pasture and beyond it the ocean.

The sun had already set, leaving an afterglow that was dimming rapidly, and the Seymours suddenly felt tired and glad that they were to reach shelter before dark. The air grew colder with the setting of the sun and the glimmer of a lamp in the window was welcome.

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