She came over to him, and stood for a while silently. Then she turned
and said suddenly in a shy, low voice:
"Oh, Ken, I don't know how you feel about it, but--but, I think,
whatever awful is going to happen, we must try to keep things beautiful
for Kirk."
"I guess we must," Ken said, staring out. "I'd trust you to do it, old
Phil. Cut along now to bed," he added gruffly; "we'll have to be up like
larks to-morrow."
CHAPTER IV
THE FINE OLD FARM-HOUSE
Asquam proper is an old fishing-village on the bayside. The new Asquam
has intruded with its narrow-eaved frame cottages among the gray old
houses, and has shouldered away the colonial Merchants' Hall with a
moving-picture theater, garish with playbills and posters. Two large and
well-patronized summer hotels flourish on the highest elevation (Asquam
people say that their town is "flatter'n a johnny cake"), from which a
view of the open sea can be had, as well as of the peninsulas and
islands which crowd the bay.
On the third day of April the hotels and many of the cottages were
closed, with weathered shutters at the windows and a general air of
desolation about their windy piazzas. Asquam, both new and old,
presented a rather bleak and dismal appearance to three persons who
alighted thankfully from the big trolley-car in which they had lurched
through miles of flat, mist-hung country for the past forty minutes.
The station-agent sat on a tilted-up box and discussed the new arrivals
with one of his ever-present cronies.
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