Chapter 9 THE GIRL ON THE ISLAND

"Phil, it looks like only a little more than half a mile over to the island. Do you think we can make it?" asked Madge, casting speculative eyes toward the distant island.

"Of course we can," declared Phyllis. "I'm sorry that Eleanor and Miss Jones did not come with us. But they have become so domestic that they can't be persuaded to leave the houseboat. Nelly told me she positively loved to polish kettles and things," Phil replied.

Lillian, Phyllis and Madge were in their own rowboat, the "Water Witch," which had been expressed to them from Harborpoint. They were no longer in the quiet inlet of the bay, where their houseboat was anchored, but rowing out toward the more open water. On one side of them they could see the beach in front of a large summer hotel. Across from it lay a small island, to which they were rowing.

"Miss Jones doesn't like to have us start off alone this way. She has grown dreadfully nervous about us since our experience in the cabin," remarked Lillian. "That is why she didn't approve of Madge's plan this morning."

"I thought Madge was going to fly into little bits when Miss Jones suggested it was not safe for us to row about here in our own little 'Water Witch,'" teased Phil.

"Phil, please don't discuss my temper," answered Madge crossly. "If there is one thing I hate worse than another, it is to hear people talk about my faults. Of course, I know I have a perfectly detestable temper, but I hardly said a word to Miss Jenny Ann. Please tell me what fun we could have on our holiday if we never dared to go ten feet away from the houseboat?"

"None whatever," answered Lillian, "only you needn't be so cross with Phil and me. We were not discussing your faults. You are altogether too ready to become angry over a trifle." There was indignation and reproof in Lillian's tone.

Madge plied her oars in silence. She knew that she had behaved badly. "Isn't it exactly like me?" she thought to herself. "If I am sweet and agreeable one minute, and feel pleased with myself, I can surely count on doing something disagreeable the next. Now I have made Lillian and Phil cross with me and probably have hurt Miss Jenny Ann's feelings and spoiled this beautiful day for us all."

Eleanor's soft voice broke in upon her self-arraignment. "Don't squabble, girls. The day is altogether too perfect. None of you are really cross. Now, are you?"

Three pairs of eyes met hers, then the little dispute ended in a general laugh.

Madge and Phil rowed faster than ever after this little falling out. They could see the shores of Fisherman's Island not far ahead, with several dories and small fishing craft anchored along the banks. They were heading toward an open beach, where there was no sign of life.

"Girls, look out!" warned Lillian. She was sitting in the bow of their skiff, and could see another rowboat moving toward them, the two pairs of oars rising and falling in perfect accord. The boat was so close to them that Lillian was afraid Phil and Madge might cross oars with it. But as the other boat glided smoothly up alongside of their skiff, the oars were drawn swiftly inboard, almost before the girls knew what had happened.

"I suppose you don't speak to people on the water whom you might be persuaded to notice on land," called Tom Curtis reproachfully.

"O Mr. Curtis! how do you do?" laughed Madge. "You see, we are not possessed with eyes in the backs of our heads, or we should have recognized you. Goodness gracious! If there isn't my cousin, Jack Bolling! I never dreamed you knew him. Why didn't you tell me? Jack, where did you come from?"

Tom looked at Jack, and Jack looked at Tom. "Age before beauty, Mr. Curtis," bowed Jack. "You answer first."

"To tell you the solemn truth, I did not know your cousin until this morning," Tom explained. "But when I saw a not specially bad-looking fellow mooning about our hotel as though lost I went over and spoke to him. It wasn't long before I found out he knew you young ladies. I told him about meeting you in the woods the other day, and we shook hands on it. Now, Bolling, it is your turn. How did you happen to turn up in this particular place?"

Jack was apparently looking at Lillian and Madge, but he had really glanced first at Phyllis Alden, to see how she had borne the shock of his presence. Jack had guessed correctly that Phyllis did not like him. To tell the truth, she looked anything but pleased. She did not like boys. She could do most of the things they could, and they were, to her mind, a nuisance. They were always on hand, trying to help and to pretend that girls were weaker than they were in order to domineer over them. The worst of it was, Madge, Lillian and Eleanor might think the newcomers would add to the fun. So, though Phyllis did not mean to be rude either to Tom or to Jack, she was far from enthusiastic, and could not help showing it.

"Of course, I had to come down to see what your houseboat looked like after I got your note telling me where you were," explained Jack. "I knew there was a hotel near here, so, as soon as school closed, I ran down for a few days to see how you were getting on. You see, I was really very much interested in the houseboat." Jack made this last remark directly to Phyllis. She merely glanced carelessly away in the opposite direction.

"We rowed up from the hotel to the houseboat, but we couldn't see a soul aboard. 'The ship was still as still could be,'" declared Tom. "Then we started for a row and found you." There was no doubt that Tom was looking straight at Madge.

"We are rowing over to the island," remarked Lillian graciously.

"How strange! We were going over there, too, weren't we, Mr. Bolling?" quizzed Tom.

"Then catch us if you can!" challenged Phyllis. With a sign to Madge the two girls began rowing their boat through the water with the speed of an arrow. The first spurt told, for the island was not far away, and the girls' boat grated on the beach before the boys had time to land. But Tom and Jack did jump out and run through the water to pull the "Water Witch" ashore, much to Phil's disgust.

"I really have an errand to do on this island, Miss Morton," continued Tom, as the party started up the beach. "I wanted first to ask you if I could bring my mother to call on you and your chaperon this afternoon? I am awfully anxious to have an all-day sailing party to-morrow. And I thought perhaps you and your friends and chaperon would go with us? There is an old fellow over here who takes people out sailing, and I am anxious to have a talk with him. Don't think I am such a duffer that I can't sail a boat myself, but my mother is so nervous about the water that I take a professional sailor along to keep her from worrying. She has had a great deal to make her nervous," Tom ended. "I wonder if you and your friends would mind walking over to the other side of the island with me to see this man? It is not a long walk."

The party started off, Phyllis keeping strictly in the background. Madge walked with Tom and Lillian with Jack, so she felt a little out of it.

"If you don't mind," she proposed, after the party had walked a few yards, "I will sit down here on the beach and wait until you come back from your talk with the sailor man. I will stay right here, so you can find me when you return."

Phil found herself a comfortable, flat rock, and sat looking idly out over the bay. Gradually she fell into a little reverie.

A sudden cry of pain roused Phil from her daydream. Springing to her feet, she rushed down the beach, seeing nothing, but following the direction of the cry. Rounding a curve of the beach she came upon a dirty, half-tumbled down tent. In front of it stood a burly man with both hands on the shoulders of a young girl, whom he was shaking violently. So intent was he upon what he was doing, he did not notice Phil approaching. She saw him shove the girl inside the tent and close the outside flap. "Now, stay in there till you git tired of it," he growled as he turned and walked away.

A sound of low sobbing greeted Phil's ears as she came up in front of the tent and stood waiting, hardly knowing what to do. The sobs continued, with a note of pain in them that went straight to Phil's tender heart. The sight or sound of physical suffering made a special appeal to her. It was Phyllis's secret ambition some day to study medicine, an ambition which she had confided to no one save Madge. Although the figure she had seen was almost that of a woman, the sobbing sounded like that of a child. There was no other noise in the tent, so Phil knew the girl was alone.

"Won't you please come out?" she called softly, not knowing what else to do or say. "Tell me what is grieving you so. I am only a girl like yourself, and I would like to help you."

"I dare not come out," the other girl answered. "My father said I must stay in here."

Phil opened the flap of the old tent and walked inside. "What is the matter?" she inquired gently, bending over the figure lying on the ground and trying to lift her.

The girl sat up and pushed back her unkempt hair. She had a deep, glowing scar just over her temple. But her hair was a wonderful color, and only once before Phil remembered having seen eyes so deeply blue.

"Why," Phil exclaimed with a start of surprise, "I have seen you somewhere before. Don't you remember me?"

The girl shook her head. "I do not remember anything," she answered quietly.

"But I saw you on the canal boat. Your father was the man who helped us secure our houseboat. What are you doing here?"

"We have come here for many years, I think," the girl answered confusedly. "In the early spring my father catches shad along the bay. Then all summer he takes people out sailing from the big place over there." She pointed across the water in the direction of the hotel. "Our boat is on the other side of the island." The girl clasped her head in her long, sun-burned hands. "It is there that it hurts," she declared, touching the ugly, jagged scar.

Phil gave a little, sympathetic cry and put her hand on the girl's shoulder.

"When I work a long time in the sun my head hurts," the girl went on listlessly. "I have been washing all day on the beach. I came up here to hide, and my father found me. He was angry because I had stopped work."

"Did he strike you?" Phil cried in horror, gazing at the slender, delicate creature and thinking of the rough, coarse man.

"Not this time," the girl replied. "Sometimes they strike me and then I am afraid. Only there is one thing I shall never, never do, no matter how much they beat me. I can not remember everything, but I know that I will not do this one thing."

"What is it?" asked Phil. "Whom do you mean by 'they,' and what do 'they' wish you to do?"

The girl shook her head. "I can not tell you." She shuddered, and Phil felt she had no right to insist on knowing.

"I like to hide in this tent," the girl went on sorrowfully. "I come here whenever I can get away from the others. I would like to stay here always. But, now he has found me, there is no place where I can rest."

"Have you a mother, or brothers and sisters?" Phil asked.

"There is the man's second wife, but she is not my mother. She has many little children. I think I must be very old. I seem to have lived such a long time."

"Can't you remember your own mother?" Phil inquired.

The girl shook her head mournfully. "I can remember nothing," she said again. "Don't go," she begged, as Phil rose to leave her. "I have never known a girl like you before."

"I must go," answered Phil regretfully. "My friends will be waiting for me up the beach, and they will not know where to find me. Won't you come to see me and my friends? We are spending our holiday on a houseboat not very far from here. We would love to have you come."

"I am not allowed to leave the island or to go among people," the girl replied. "My father says I have no sense. So, if I wander away, or talk to strangers, people will think that I am crazy and shut me up in some dreadful, dark place."

Tears of sympathy rose to Phyllis's eyes. She wished Madge and the other girls were with her. It was too dreadful to think of this lovely creature frightened into submission by her cruel father. "We will come to see you, then," she said gently. "And I will bring you something to keep your head from aching. My father is a physician, and he will tell me what I must give you. I will bring my friends to the island with me. Whenever you can get away, come to this tent and we will try to find you. We shall have good times together, and some day we may be able to help you. You know how to write, don't you? Then, if you are ever in trouble or danger, leave a note under this old piece of carpet. Now good-bye."

The girl stood in the door of her tent to watch Phyllis on her way. She stared intently after her until her visitor turned the curve of the beach and was lost to view, then, leaning her head against the side of the tent, she burst forth into low, despairing sobs.