You had a hard day yesterday. Besides, we don’t want Robin to wake up yet, and he might if I tried to take him. Jerry, are you sure there won’t be people from home down there on their boats? They would be sure to write to somebody they had seen us.”

“I think not. Dad left the boat here because he thought it would be more secluded,” said the boy. “He asked Captain Andy, the man in charge of the harbor, whose boats were here, and there wasn’t a soul he knew. Of course, someone might drift in any day, but it isn’t likely. It’s farther away, and most people don’t want to be bothered going so far from home when they run down just for a day or so. Captain Andy is a swell person. Dad took a notion to him right off the bat. And I thought perhaps we’d just tell him about the accident and say we’d brought the children down here for a few days to get them away from that, and my sister was pretty well broken up and wanted to get away from seeing people who came to call all the time, and ask him not to tell we were here. I think I could work that.”

“Oh, that would be good!” sighed Jennifer wistfully. “If you only could work it! But, Jerry, you know it may come out in the paper, or on the radio, that we are missing, and if it does we’d have to explain somehow.”

“No,” said Jerry, “we’d just beat it and they would think we had gone home. There’s a nice little radio on the boat, and we can keep in touch with things.”

“That’s wonderful!” said the girl, drawing a deep breath of relief. “If people that have died can look back to this earth, ours must be glad they left this boat for us.”

“Sure thing!” said Jeremy.

“Do you believe they can?” she asked after a minute.

Jeremy was still a minute, and then he answered speculatively, “Why, I don’t know. I never thought anything about it. Sure, I guess they must, or else perhaps they’re just asleep. That is, if there is anything afterwards. You see, Jen, I don’t think I ever believed anything one way or the other till this happened. I never thought about things. I just took life as it came, the way other fellows do, I s’pose. Had a good time, and that was all I cared. But now this is different. You’ve got to believe something or you can’t stand it.”

“I know,” said Jennifer thoughtfully. “It’s awful if you can’t. I remember when I was a very little girl and first found out about death, I used to wonder why people stood for it. I wondered why they didn’t do something about it and stop it, drive it out of the world so people would live forever. But, of course, I soon forgot about it. Not many people I knew died. But—now, well, I don’t know what I think. It’s startling.”

“It sure is! I wonder what Dad and Mother think now, if they are so they can think at all.