"Stephenie, Stephenie, are you back?"

"Yes, Mommy."

"Oh, Stephenie, don't go away again like that. You worry your Mommy so."

"O fiddle," murmured Steve, as she and Mary ran after her mother in the night.

For several weeks I drifted up and down the coast with my sketchbook, drawing in the dark pines and the lonesome seagreen waters. And Stevie became my companion. I would

ask her: "Where is your Daddy?"

"Oh, he's in Hong Kong now, or Pago Pago, or Singapore. Last time he left I cried for him to take me with him. He comes back with shells, and jewel-cases and coconut masks, an' sometimes he gets Mommy some real silk blouse s from Tokyo. An he talks about the mos' wonerful things: people dancing under the palm trees in Tahiti, an' awful magic in New Guinea, an' devil-dances, an'.

.

"I bet you'd like to be there.'

·

"I will when I'm grown up for Daddy's teaching me all about ships; he says I'm a first-class seaman already." She grew pensive. "You know, every time I see a seagull I get that fooling. I guess it's 'cause I'm a naturalborn sailor like Daddy says I am. I want to go so far away, to all those funny places I want to feel tho sea-foam stinging my face, and the wind in my hair An' I love that old oreaky sound of the boat as it bucks the water."

·

I looked into her eyes and saw in that far-off expression all the romance of Maui-Maui, Pago Pago, and the other exotic, strange places. "Well, maybe" I said, "when you grow up, you'll buy a yacht and travel to these lands?"

"Bet your boots I will, an' I'll take Mary with me

en!

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