on Wreckers' Head for long. Yet at this season of the
year the men were all busy elsewhere and the women almost never came
down to the beaches. It is a remarkable fact that most longshore
women have little interest in the beauties or wonders to be found
along the beaches, even in the sea itself. Perhaps this is because
the latter is such a hard mistress to their menfolk.

Nevertheless, Sheila could not hide herself away from
everybody--not even on that first day. The Balls made no outcry when
they found that she had disappeared. And no near-port fishing craft
came by. But the smoke from the chimney of the cabin, when she had
swept and made comfortable its interior and built a fire of
driftwood in the rusty pot stove, attracted at least one sharp eye.

Down the bank, along with a small avalanche of sand and gravel,
plunged little John-Ed and his freckled face appeared at the
doorway.

"By the great jib boom!" he cried. "What you doing here? Playing
castaway?"

"Yes, John-Ed," said Sheila. "That is it exactly. I am a castaway."

He stared at her. She could not take this boy into her confidence.
But already little John-Ed was a henchman of hers, in spite of the
fact that Sheila often had made him work.

"I am going to stay here for a while," she told him. "But I would
rather nobody but you knew about it."

"By the great jib boom!" exploded the boy for a second time. "Not
even Cap'n Ira and Aunt Prudence?"

"Not even them," sighed the girl.

"I bet it's because you don't want to stay there while that other
girl is visitin' them. Ain't that it? She's a snippy thing!"

"You must not say so to anybody," urged Sheila. "It will not be
wrong for you to say nothing about my being here to your father and
mother. Do you understand?"

"I can keep a secret, all right," he assured her proudly.

"I believe you can. And do you think you could get off to go down to
the store for me this evening?"

"Going down anyway for mom," he assured her.

Sheila had a dollar and a little change besides. She had already
planned just what the dollar would buy in the way of necessaries.
There were cooking utensils in the cabin sufficient for her modest
needs. She gave little John-Ed the dollar and her list and warned
him to hide her purchases safely until the next morning and bring
them to her on his way to school.

"What you going to eat to-night?" he asked her bluntly.

"I dug some clams at low water and caught a big horseshoe cra