Marjorie at Seacote | Page 7

nearly eleven, but she isn't any bigger than Harry."
Harry smiled shyly, and poked at the potatoes with a stick, not knowing
quite what to say.
"You see," King explained, "Midget is the best sort of a girl there is.
She's girly, all right, and yet she's as good as a boy at cutting up jinks
or doing any old kind of stunts."
The three Craigs looked at Marjorie in speechless admiration.
"I never knew that kind," said Tom, thoughtfully. "You see, we go to a
boys' school, and we haven't any girl cousins, or anything; and the only
girls I ever see are at dancing class, or in a summer hotel, and then
they're all frilled up, and sort of airy."
"I love to play with boys," said Marjorie, frankly, "and I guess we'll
have a lot of fun this summer."

"I guess we will! Are you going to stay all summer?"
"Yes, till September, when school begins."
"So are we. Isn't it funny we live next door to each other?"
"Awful funny," agreed Marjorie, pulling a very black potato out of the
red-hot embers. "This is done," she went on, "and I'm going to eat it."
"So say we all of us," cried King. "One done,--all done! Help
yourselves, boys!"
So they all pulled out the black, sooty potatoes, with more delighted
anticipations than would have been roused by the daintiest dish served
at a table.
"Ow!" cried Marjorie, flinging down her potato, and sticking her finger
in her mouth. "Ow! that old thing popped open, and burned me
awfully!"
"Too bad, Mops!" said King, with genuine sympathy, but the Craig
boys were more solicitous.
"Oh, oh! I'm so sorry," cried Tom. "Does it hurt terribly?"
"Yes, it does," said Midget, who was not in the habit of complaining
when she got hurt, but who was really suffering from the sudden burn.
"Let me tie it up," said Dick, shyly.
"Yes, do," said Tom. "Dick is our good boy. He always helps
everybody else."
"But what can we tie it up with?" said Marjorie. "My handkerchief is
all black from wiping off that potato."
"I,--I've got a clean one," and Dick, blushing with embarrassment, took
a neatly folded white square from his pocket.

"Would you look at that!" said Tom. "I declare Dicky always has the
right thing at the right time! Good for you, boy! Fix her up."
Quite deftly Dick wrapped the handkerchief round Marjorie's finger,
and secured it with a bit of string from another pocket.
"You ought to have something on it," he said, gravely. "Kerosene is
good, but as we haven't any, it will help it just to keep the air away
from it, till you go home."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Midget. "You talk like a doctor."
"I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up," said Dick.
"He is," volunteered Harry; "he cured the cat's broken leg, and he
mended a bird's wing once."
"Yes, I did," admitted Dick, modestly blushing at his achievements.
"Are you going right home because of your finger?"
"No, indeed! We never stop for hurts and things, unless they're bad
enough for us to go to bed. Give me another potato, and you open it for
me, won't you, Dick?"
"Yep," and Marjorie was immediately supplied with the best of the
potatoes and apples, carefully prepared for her use.
"Aren't there any other girls in Seacote?" she inquired.
"There's Hester Corey," answered Tom; "but we don't know her very
well. She isn't nice, like you are. And I don't know of any others,
though there may be some. Most of the people in the cottages haven't
any children,--or else they're grown up,--big girls and young ladies.
And there's a few little babies, but not many of our age. So that's why
we're so glad you came."
"And that's why you stole our wood!"
"Yes, truly. We thought that'd be a good way to test your temper."

"It was a risky way," said King, thinking it over.
"Oh, I don't know. I knew, if you were the right sort, you'd take it all
right; and if you weren't the right sort, we didn't care how you took it."
"That's so," agreed Marjorie.

CHAPTER III
THE SAND CLUB
Life at Seacote soon settled down to its groove, and it was a very
pleasant groove. There was always plenty of fun to be had. Bathing
every day in the crashing breakers, digging in the sand, building beach
fires, talking to the old fishermen, were all delightful pursuits. And then
there were long motor rides inland, basket picnics in pine groves, and
excursions to nearby watering-places.
The Craig boys turned out to be jolly playfellows, and they and the
Maynards became inseparable chums. Marjorie often wished one of
them had been a girl,