“Well, you have to take my philosophy along with the rest,” said Keturah, briskly. “I didn’t marry you to bake pancakes every morning of my life, but I guess I’ll have to.”
“There’s a lot of philosophy in pancakes,” asserted Ho Ha. “They go flip-flop, and that’s the way life goes.”
“That’s why these people who can turn somersaults gracefully always get along well, eh?” said Cap’n Smiley with a grin.
“To stick to the subject and not to the griddle,” resumed Keturah, “the child ought to go away this fall. She likes chemistry and she likes cooking and she mixes all sorts of messes in both. I live in constant dread that she’ll serve me some good-tasting poison by accident or that the baked potatoes will explode. I don’t know anything about this scientific cookery you hear so much about, but Mermaid might as well get what there is in it. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, though I must say that the job of filling his stomach is about all a woman could be expected to handle.” She looked at Ho Ha, a notable eater.
“Well, then, I think she might spend this summer on the beach with me--with all of us,” amended Cap’n Smiley. “I’ll be there anyway this year. You and Hosea and Mermaid can take the Biggles house, or something more sizable if you want; there’s plenty of little houses within a quarter of a mile of the station.”
Mermaid, entering, had heard her Dad’s suggestion and clapped her hands in applause.
“That’ll be splendid!” she cried. “Captain Vanton has taken a little bungalow, and Guy is going to be over there; Tommy Lupton and Dickie Hand are going to spend August camping on the beach; so we’ll have company all summer!”
The three adults exchanged amused glances.
Any girl of sixteen fond of chemistry and cooking can have a first-rate time on the Great South Beach in summer. Any girl of sixteen companioned by from one to three youths slightly older than herself, and of nicely differentiated ages and temperaments, can have a good time in summer anywhere. Mermaid was as happy on the beach as if she had been born there as, indeed, for all practical purposes, she had. She was not “as happy as if she had lived there all her life,” because no one can be happy in a place that has not gained some charm by contrast with other places. The girl collected shells and sea creatures, drifting from chemistry into biology and back again; she analyzed sea weed and admired it; she divided with Keturah Smiley the labour of cooking meals to which the salt air gave inimitable savour; she boated, she swam, waded, tramped the dunes, and sunned herself on the sands. She read everything from the habits of jellyfish to the loves of Maurice Hewlett’s heroes and heroines, moving against mediæval backgrounds as rich and varied as the scenes in old tapestries. She flirted; and once she found herself in a game of hearts.