sharp about it," Jerry said, jingling the money for the
ferry in his pocket.

Greg finally took a Turkish fez thing, and a black-and-orange sash,
and a white brocade waistcoat that Father once had for a masque ball
ages ago. We hadn't time to tell him that it was no sort of outfit
for an explorer, so we bundled the things up with our own and
stuffed them all into the kit-bag on top of the lunch.

Luke Street has a turn in it just beyond our house, so neither Katy
nor Lena could have seen which way we went; anyhow, I think they
were both in the back kitchen, which looks out on the clothes-yard.
I thought perhaps we should have told Katy where we were going after
all, but Jerry said:

"Fiddlesticks, Chris; we're not babies. I suppose you'd like Katy to
take us in a perambulator."

This was horrid of him, but he made up for everything later on.

Our Captain Lewis was not in the pilot-house of the _Wecanicut_.
Instead there was a strange captain, a scraggly, cross-looking
person, staring at a little book and not watching the people who
came on board, the way Captain Lewis does. Jerry and I sat on
campstools on the windy side, and Greg went to watch the
walking-beam, which he thinks will some day knock the top off its
house. It always stops and plunges down just when he thinks it
surely will forget and go smashing on up through the roof. He is
quite disappointed that it never does. It behaved perfectly properly
this time and paddled the old ferry-boat over to Wecanicut as usual.

We went up the hot little road that goes from the landing, and then
ran through a prickly, stony short-cut that leads among wild
rose-bushes and sweet fern to our part of the shore. There were tiny
little wavelets splashing over the rocks, and you couldn't think
which was bluer--the sea or the sky. The first thing we did was to
bury our bottle of root-beer in a pool up to its neck and mark the
place with two white stones. This is something we have learned by
experience, for nothing is nastier than warm root-beer. Then we put
on the costumes and capered about a little. I had a tight,
striped football jersey, and my gym bloomers, and a black,
villainous-looking felt hat; and Jerry had a ruffle pinned on the
front of his shirt, and a wide belt with the big tinfoil-covered
buckle that Mother made for us once, and a felt hat fastened up on
the sides so that it looked like a real three-cornered one. Greg had
arrayed himself in his things, and he d