In winter the Great South Bay is sometimes frozen over, and then it can be crossed very swiftly on a scooter, a better vehicle than the Hudson River iceboat because it will go from ice into water and back again on to ice without a spill. It is also more easily handled and travels faster. But there are days and sometimes weeks when the bay is impassable even for a scooter, which is merely a tiny boat with a pair of runners, after all. Thaw and freeze, freeze and thaw; a bay full of big, floating masses of ice, or so ridged and hillocked that nothing but an airplane will take you over it. And there were no airplanes when Mermaid, all wrapped and mittened, looked out upon the bay that winter of her eighth year.

There was a telephone linking the Coast Guard stations on the beach with one at Quogue on the Island itself, but direct communication with the ordinary system there was none. On one side of the living room of the Quogue Station was the beach phone, on the opposite wall was a “local and long distance.” Members of the Quogue crew, called up on either wire, obligingly relayed messages along the other.

In this manner it was made known to Cap’n Smiley[50] one February morning that his sister wished to see him.

The keeper was privately astounded. So far as a hasty recollection served him, his sister had never before asked to see him about anything. The bay could not be crossed and he sent her word to that effect, thinking that she might disclose her purpose. Her reply, toned down by the drawl of Surfman No. 3, Quogue Station, was merely for him to visit her as soon as possible and to bring the little girl.

While waiting for the bay to freeze smooth, or clear from further thaws, Cap’n Smiley had some uneasy moments. He had never taken Mermaid to his sister’s and he did not like the idea. She had seen the little girl; had met him walking with Mermaid on the streets of Blue Port; had stopped to exchange a frosty word or two and then had walked on, ignoring the child completely. What could she be up to now?

He was so uneasy that he raised the question, in a guarded way, with Ho Ha. He could do this, for Ho Ha knew all about his sister, and without actually saying very much, both could say a good deal.

“My opinion she has some proposition to lay before you,” commented Ho Ha.

“I don’t care to consider propositions,” replied the keeper.

Ho Ha drew his weathered cheek together with his fingers.

[51]“It might advantage Mermaid some way,” he suggested.

The keeper made a motion indicative of distrust.

About a week elapsed before the bay froze hard. Mermaid, in many layers of wool, with a red muffler about her throat, trotted down to the bayside where her Dad put her in the scooter. Then as the odd little craft gathered way, he half reclined so as to steer with her jib and roll about handily to ballast her.

They shot along at a mile a minute or better. The air was like impalpable ice pressing against Mermaid’s small cheeks and roaring in her ears. She could hardly open her eyes for the rush of tears. She shouted, but could barely make herself heard. It was all over in five or six minutes. The five-mile stretch had been crossed; Dad rounded to; the sail, so enormous a top-hamper on so tiny a potbellied body, came down, and they were off Blue Port, with only a little way to walk to tread the reassuring, if rutty, earth.

Mermaid put her hand in Dad’s and they walked to the old-fashioned and heavily shuttered house where Keturah lived. She met them at the door and ushered them into the living room, which was also the kitchen, but very large, so that there was no sense of crowding. A hot fire burned in the stove, and slowly Cap’n Smiley divested Mermaid of her cocoon. It was a little butterfly of an unusual sort that emerged. Keturah, looking with a severe, impassive face at the proceeding, said at[52] last, without altering a muscle of her face or softening her customary tone:

“She looks very much as you would have looked, John, at her age, if you had been a girl.”

Her brother stared at the child with a gentleness in his eyes that left them when he glanced at his sister.

“Are you going to adopt her, John?”

The answer came with decision.

“I think I shall.”

“What about her schooling?”

“I shall arrange for that next year. She knows her letters.”

“I’ll take her here and look after her.”

The keeper was startled, but he had long kept himself in hand in the presence of his sister.

“Thank you,” he paused slightly, “but I shall send her to the Biggleses’.”

Keturah, as if recalling the duties of hospitality, said, “Sit down. I’ll make a cup of tea. Do you like bread and jelly?”

The question was directed at Mermaid. The child had been eyeing the woman with attentiveness. Now she answered politely, though she did not smile:

“I’m fond of it.”

Keturah Smiley entered her pantry and emerged with a brown jar and a loaf. She cut two large slices, spread them, and set a teapot on the stove. She said no more until the tea was brewed. As she poured out two[53] steaming cups of it she remarked, pushing one toward her brother:

“What I leave of Aunt Keturah’s property goes to you. As I am not a spendthrift, in the natural course of events I would leave you more than I inherited. If you die before me it goes to your children. It would go to her.”

John Smiley swallowed too hastily and burnt his throat.

“This is not a matter to discuss before Mermaid,” he said, shortly.

“I sent for her because I wan............