By this time, Jeanne was almost at the end of the dock and her heart was beating fast. The house _was_ shut up; not only that but _boarded_ up, from the outside. It was certainly very strange and disconcerting.
Puzzled Jeanne seated herself on an old keg and reflectively eyed her deserted home.
"They've _moved_," she decided. "They've rented a house somewhere in town so Michael and Sammy can go to school. It's probably more comfortable, but I know the yard isn't half so beautiful. By and by, when I can stop looking at the lake, I'll find something to eat in Old Captain's house. I'm just about starved. I'll have to wait until he comes home to find out about everybody? I _wonder_ why nobody told me."
It was five o'clock when Barney's boat touched at the dock. Old Captain climbed out. Barney followed. Together they picked their way along the crumbling wharf. Something brown--a _warm_ brown that caught the glow from the afternoon sun--was curled on Captain Blossom's doorstep. When you've traveled for two nights and spent a long day outdoors on a breezy wharf, exploring all the haunts of your childhood, sleep comes easily. There was Jeanne, her head on her elbow, sound asleep.
Barney took one good look at the small, brunette face; and then, as if all the bad dreams he had _ever_ had, had gotten after him at once, fled up the steep bank behind Old Captain's car and was gone. The Captain, when he had recognized his sleeping visitor, looked as if he, too, would have been glad to flee.
"So, so," he muttered, helplessly wringing his big hands. "Darned if I--hum, ladies present--dinged if I know what to do."
Suddenly Jeanne sat up and looked at him. Next she had flown at him and had kissed both of his broad red cheeks.
"Well!" she exclaimed. "It's _time_ you were coming home. Where is my father? Where's _everybody_?"
"Well, you see," said Old Captain, patting her gently, "they ain't--well, they ain't exactly _here_."
"I can _see_ that," returned Jeanne, exasperated by the Captain's remarkable slowness, "but where _are_ they?"
"Well, now, Jeannie girl, maybe your father wrote you about Mis' Shannon's son John takin' her away to St. Louis last spring? Well, he done it."
"After--well, after a while--Mollie was took sick. You see there was some sort o' reason for that there laziness of hern. There was something wrong with her inside. Her brother John come--I telegraphed him--and had her took to a hospital. Up at St. Mary's--t'other side of town. She's there yet. She ain't a-goin' to come out, they say."