"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.
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