Mary looked very brief and slim in her scanty blue cotton frock and the
apron far too large for her. The hair, tidily caught in a firm little
knot, was making brave efforts to escape in wild little curls, and the
girl's big eyes had the expression seen in the eyes of an animal that
has been trapped but not conquered.

"Uncle Jed," she said in an awed tone, and planting her sharp elbows on
her knees in order to prop her serious face, "The Ship is on The Rock."

All the morning Jed had been trying to keep his back to the fact.

"Yo' sure is one triflin' child," he muttered.

"All the same, The Ship is there, Uncle Jed, and that means that
something is going to happen. It is going to happen long o' Ridge
House--and nothing has happened here before. Things have just gone
on--and--on and on----"

The girl's voice trailed vaguely--she was looking at The Ship.

Jed began to have that sensation described by him as "shivers in the
spine of his back." Mary was fascinating him. Suddenly she asked:

"Uncle Jed, what are they-all sending you to--fetch?" Mary almost said
"fotch."

"How you know, child, I is goin' to fotch--anything?" Jed's spine was
affecting his moral fibre.

Mary gave her elfish laugh. She rarely smiled, and her laugh was a mere