"Why, certainly," says the farmer, "not more than forty rods from here." And when Joe finds how very near he has been to a comfortable farmhouse he says he feels "like kickin' hisself."
"But," says the visitor, still eying the camp. "How did it all happen. Are you traveling on foot?"
"No, sar; on tricycles," explains Joe, proudly; "we are de Girls' Tricycle Club, all de way from Sherridoc, wid Mas'r Starrett an' me along to look arter 'em and see 'em safe down to Curtin Harbor. We los' de track back yondah, an' de young gemman an' I jes' rig up dis tent for to keep the young ladies dry an' gib 'em a chance to rest till de shower was ober."
"And so this is a tricycle," he says. "And did the young ladies ride those things all the way from Sherridoc?"
"All de way, sar," answers Joe, proudly, "'cept when we wus stuck in de Sandywiches and had to be carted froo wid a team."
After the good man's curiosity has been satisfied, and Starrett has summoned the girls to appear, the worthy farmer strolls off after his lost cow, first inviting the club to the farm to another supper. One by one, the girls emerge from their camp, but when they hear how near to a house they have been during the rain, great is the laughter.
"I don't care, though," cries Cornelia Hadwin; "we've really had a sort of a camping-out time, and I'm glad of it."
After hearing Joe's report, the club determines to push on at once to Curtin Harbor in the early evening, without accepting the hospitable invitation to supper at the farmhouse.
The two miles to the main road are quickly traversed, and before long the club wheels around a long curve in the road, and the blue expanse of Curtin Harbor lies beneath them. The clouds are gone by this time; the rising moon shoots slantwise through a few thin, dissolving folds, and brings out ripples of gold and silver on the long seas. There seems to be a breeze that stirs the water to darker ruffles beyond the head-land, but where the young folk sit on their tricycles, enjoying the beauty of the scene and the salty damp of the evening air, not a blade of the coarse, silvery beach-grass stirs; every spire and blade stands in sheeny silver in the mellow light.
Below the beach-road branches off a long winding descent to the quiet cottages which lie in the evening glow, seemingly fast asleep.