Missing at Marshlands Part 5

The girls watched while the swimmer crawled a stroke then sprang upright and shook off water like a happy young animal.

"Why, it's the girl who looked in at the window last night," Terry exclaimed. "She can swim, can't she?"

The girl saw them suddenly and was about to run up the beach and away when she hesitated. Sim saw an old gray sweater on the sand near them. It obviously belonged to the swimmer, and she would have to come quite near them to get it.

Sim smiled at her as she looked at them in an almost frightened way.

"You swim beautifully," Sim remarked to relieve the shy girl. "Did you learn in the ocean?"

"Yeah," she drawled, stooping for her sweater. "I learned in the ocean."

That was all she said.

"Do you live here, at Oceanedge?" Arden asked next.

"Not right here," replied the swimmer. "I live on the other side of the bay with my father, but I come here to swim." After such a long speech she again seemed ready to run away.

"We live up there," Terry volunteered, indicating the house, the roof of which could be seen above low pines. "We're just here for the summer. Do you live here all year?"

"Yes, I'm a native," their new friend went on in a rather bitter tone. "I live, if you can call it that, with my father. He's a crabber and a worn crab himself. What's that oil for?" Arden was dabbing a bit on a rather red arm.

"To make us tan; want some?" asked Sim kindly.

The girl gave a little laugh. "My father would tan me if he caught me using anything like that. He says I'm so homely now, there's no use making me worse."

"Oh, but you're a marvelous swimmer. I wish you'd swim with me some day,"

said the sympathetic Sim. "What's your name? Mine is Bernice Westover, but everyone calls me Sim," she finished affably.

"Melissa Clayton," the girl answered. "That's a pretty thing." She indicated a brilliantly painted wooden bracelet on Sim's arm, the kind sponsored by the large department stores as being just the thing for beach wear because, perhaps, you couldn't forget you had it on.

"Do you like it? You may have it," Sim replied and slipped it off her arm. "Here, I've got lots of things like these, and you might like to have this."

"Oh, can I really? I'd love it! I've never had a pretty thing like this in my whole life. My father thinks such things are no good and only give me wrong ideas. But I'll take care of it always." Melissa took the bracelet and slipped it on her tanned muscular arm, looking at it pathetically.

She wore an old, dark-blue jersey bathing suit, a little too large for her, and a white canvas belt. She had no bathing cap on, and her wet hair was beginning to curl a little as it dried in the sun. She looked at the wooden bracelet as though it were as precious as a diamond circlet, turning it around and around to admire it. A slow smile spread over her tanned face.

"Do you go to school here in the winter, Melissa?" Arden asked. This wild creature who swam like a sea nymph and smiled at a cheap wooden bracelet was something different and "terribly interesting," in Arden's opinion.

"I did go to school, but my father took me out last year when I turned fourteen; said I'd be getting ideas. So I don't go any more," Melissa replied, her white teeth gleaming and sparkling in her darkened face.

"But what do you do all winter when it's cold and there's no crabbing?"

Sim inquired. "We're asking you an awful lot of questions; do you mind?"

"No, I don't mind. I don't very often get a chance to talk to anybody. Pa never says a word, hardly," the girl went on.

Arden, Terry, and Sim watched her sympathetically as she stood first on one foot then on the other in a nervous way, smoothing out the sand beneath her feet. They had never met a girl like her, and pitied her at once when they learned of her lonely life. But, sorry as they were, they realized that there was something about her that was different, a hint of a mind not as keenly alert as theirs. She was so slow to respond to their advances.

"Why did you run away the other night in the storm?" Terry bravely asked.

"We wanted you to come in."

"I was afraid. I just wanted to look at you all in the nice bright room, but when you saw me--"

"Melissa!" thundered a voice behind them.

They all started and turned. A shabbily dressed man was standing back of them on the sand. They had not heard his footsteps. Had he purposely crept up on Melissa?

"What are you doing there?" he asked roughly.

"Nothing, Pa-I was just swimmin'." Melissa seemed to swerve visibly, and she looked nervously down at the bracelet Sim had given her.

"What's that you got? Haven't I told you not to take things?"

"I didn't take it, Pa. She gave it to me. I never even asked."

"Give it back, right away, and come along home! You've been fooling around here long enough. Quick, now!"

Melissa's childish blue eyes pleaded to be allowed to keep the bracelet, but her father, reading her thought, stepped forward and pulled it from her arm.

"Here, miss-I don't allow Melissa to take things," the gruff man growled.

"Oh-but it's nothing," faltered Sim. "Please--"

Clayton ignored her entirely, as he did Arden and Terry. They might not have been there, for all the attention they were given. Their attempt at helping Melissa went for naught.

Melissa pulled the gray sweater on over her still wet bathing suit and, smiling ruefully, followed her father, who had begun plodding up the beach. She did not look back but plodded along herself, trying to keep up with his big steps but, apparently, not intending to walk beside him.

The girls watched the retreating figures. Clayton was talking earnestly, now and then flinging out a hand in gesture and turning to shake his fist at his daughter, watching her closely as he tramped on.

"What a mean man!" Sim exclaimed, fingering the returned bracelet. "That poor child must have a rotten time."

"He certainly was a gruff old fellow," Arden agreed. "But did it strike you there was anything strange about that girl?"

"Only that she seemed so awfully scared. Like a kitten or stray dog. And I imagine she wanted to make friends," Terry replied.

"I hope that man is kind to her. I hate people to be unhappy," Sim remarked. "I'd better not begin to pity her, or I won't enjoy myself, and I so want to do that." She smiled appreciatingly at Terry, and then, taking the cork from the bottle of cocoanut oil, coated her pink skin again before starting for another dip.

CHAPTER V The Stranger

The water was too cold for a long swim, perhaps because of the violent storm of the night before, and the girls did not stay in long. Sim, who loved swimming above all other sports, had to come out reluctantly, as she, too, felt cold. They dried themselves and raced back to the house to dress.

It was late afternoon when they were finally dressed and sitting once more on the porch of "Buckingham Palace."

"It's lovely here, Terry," Arden remarked looking dreamily at the ocean.

"I hope you won't get tired of it. As you know by now, there's really nothing to do. Swimming, rowing, walking, and fis.h.i.+ng if you care for it.