et myself go! I don't care
much how, but just go! I'd like to take a ship out to sea, not the bay
but the open, middle ocean, and go just where I pleased."

"Ye'd get wrecked fust thing!" broke in Davy.

"But I'd be doing something big until I got wrecked. Or I'd like to be
alone on a great desert where I could shout and dance and sing, and no
one would be there to call me mad."

"But ye'd be mad, jest the same." Davy was watching the flashing face
uneasily. The gossip that had drifted to him had but strengthened his
love and care for Billy's girl. He was a hardy support now, protecting
this free nature from outer harm and inward hurt.

"No, no, Janet! Don't hanker arter the ocean nor the desert till ye know
how t' handle yerself. Oceans an' deserts ain't no jokes fur
greenhorns. I heard Mark say the bay was froze over. That don't happen
often, so early as this."

"I'm going to get my ice boat out to-morrow, Davy. Life on an ice boat
is life! A sailboat is not bad with a good wind, but you always have to
take the _water_ into your reckoning then. But the ice--ah! There is
nothing there but you and the wind to consider!"

"An' holes!" Davy added.

"You're just an old pessimist, Davy." Janet laughed.

"Like as not!" Davy agreed. He hadn't an idea what a pessimist was, but
he never wasted time inquiring as to the labels others attached to him.

* * * * *

That night, winter, in its grimmest sense, settled upon Quinton. The bay
became a glistening roadway between the mainland and the dunes. Children
on skates or in ice boats filled the short, cold days with laughter and
fun. Sleighing parties flashed hither and yonder with never a fear of a
crack or hole; and beyond the dunes the life crew kept a keener watch
upon the outer bar. Chunky ice formed near shore, and the tides bore it
inward and left it high upon the beach. Day by day it grew in height
like a shining, curving line of alabaster, showing where the high-water
mark had been. And upon a certain threatening day, John Thomas came off
and stopped at the Light to have a word with Davy.

"He didn't want me t' say anythin' t' ye, but it don't settle on my mind
as jest right not t'. Billy's had a spell!"

Davy pulled up his trousers; with him a sure sign of deep emotion.

"What kind?" he asked.

"Sort o' peterin' out. He was peelin' taters in the Station, when all of
a suddint he sot down kinder forcible on a chair, d