The great boat lay almost against the road. As the buckboard sped by she loomed above it in the gathering dusk, menacing and mountainous. Her broken bowsprit swung over the wagon and creaked in the breeze that had just sprung up. Directly below the bowsprit was a carved figurehead, larger than life and clearly outlined against the dull gray of the ship. Sea and rain had washed away the figure’s paint and worn the wood bone-white. It represented a demon nailed to the battered prow, its wide ugly grin and blank eyes peering almost into Ann’s face as the buckboard passed beneath. Ann was on the side of the wagon which was closer and could have touched the face if she had reached out her hand to do so. Helen gave a little shriek of fright at sight of the thing and Ann felt the cry echoing in her brain as if she had been the one who called out.

Instinctively she dodged back against Jo, and felt that his muscles were tense against the tightened reins in his hands.

Jerry needed no urging; with his back flattened down he ran, swinging his heavy feet swiftly as he mounted the hill toward the house. Ann glanced up from the strong brown hands holding the reins and saw that Jo was staring straight ahead as though he had not looked at the figurehead as he went by and was determined not to turn and look back at it afterward.

They were past, but as they went up the hill the evening wind suddenly grew stronger and sighed through the weatherworn boards that covered the schooner’s hull, and the rattling of their loose ends was like the sound of clapping hands.

What was this old boat, and why did it impress them so? And yet Ann did not feel like asking Jo about it. She wished that her father would say something to quiet this fear that had come over her so suddenly. She never before had felt anything like this strange impression that the schooner was more than just a plain ordinary boat cast up on a narrow strip of beach. As though Mr. Seymour had read her mind he asked Jo, “Where did that schooner come from? She wasn’t here last summer when I was down.”

“No, sir.” Jo had trouble in making his stiff lips move. “She came in on a blizzard the winter past and stove up on the pond rocks.”

“Whose boat was she? What is her name?”

“She had no cargo on board,” said Jo slowly, as if he did not wish to say anything about it. “She had no log either. And the waves were so heavy that her name plate was gone and never came ashore.”

“But wasn’t there somebody on board to tell you who she was?”

“A man had no chance to live in the sea the day she came in,” explained Jo. “Four of the crew were washed ashore the next day, but they carried no papers and nobody claimed them. None of the folks wanted to bury them down in the village churchyard so pop and I put them up back of the barn where grandpop lies. It didn’t seem right not to give them a bit of ground to lie in, even though we didn’t know what brought them in here.”

Mrs. Seymour exclaimed indignantly, “I never heard of anything so inhuman! Do you really mean that the people in the village refused to bury those poor shipwrecked sailors in the cemetery? Jo! Not here in a civilized land?”

“You couldn’t blame the folks,” apologized Jo. But evidently Mrs. Seymour was quite positive that she could, and Ann agreed with her most thoroughly.

Jerry had stopped running. He was going uphill and besides they were almost home now, but Jo had time to say, “Nobody ever claimed the boat. I guess nobody owns her. And not even the sea wants her you can make that out by the way it threw her away up here by the road, just as if it wanted to be free of her. Only the flood tides reach her now.”

They had reached the house as Jo talked, and he jumped down from his seat with his face still grim and set. And then everything changed, for the house door was flung open with a flood of lamplight over the doorstep and there stood Fred Bailey, Jo’s father.

“Come right in,” he called, striding to meet them. “Don’t mind that stuff, Mr. Seymour. We’ll take it in for you.”

Ann liked Fred Bailey almost as much as she had liked Jo. As soon as she saw him standing there, tall and thin and gangling in his rough clothes, a fisherman and a farmer, all thoughts of the strange wrecked ship were forgotten. Here was some one who made her feel at home, some one who was strong and trustworthy and honest as the good brown earth and the mighty cliffs.

Mr. Seymour had rented the Bailey house and Jo and his father had moved into the barn for the summer. So presently, when the baggage had been brought in and when Mr. Bailey had shown Mrs. Seymour where things were in the pantry and the kitchen and the woodshed and where the linen and blankets were kept, he and Jo went off to their summer quarters leaving the Seymours alone.

Provisions had been sent from the village store and Ann and her mother found the shelves well stocked with all kinds of food, with big barrels of sugar, flour, and potatoes stored under the shelf in the pantry. After they had studied the workings of the kerosene stove they cooked the first meal over it, and Ann loved just such an opportunity to show how much she knew about cooking. Ben was ready to admit that she could boil potatoes expertly when she didn’t forget and let the water boil away. As there was plenty of water this time, and as Mrs. Seymour knew how to cook the steak deliciously in a hot pan, and as Fred Bailey had left them a batch of soft yellow biscuits, the hungry travelers were very well off indeed this evening.

Mr. Seymour was already gloating over the work he meant to do this summer. “That boat is a find I didn’t expect. I’ll start sketching her the first thing in the morning. Just think of having a cottage with a wrecked schooner right in the front yard.”

“I don’t like that boat,” said Helen. Her lips twisted as though she were going to cry. “It has such big round eyes that stare at you.”

Her mother laughed. “You must have been sleepy when you passed the boat. That was only the figure of a man cut out of wood. The eyes didn’t belong to anybody who is actually alive.”

“I don’t know about that, mother,” Ben said soberly. “I saw the eyes, too, and I was wide-awake, for I pinched myself to make sure. Those eyes made little holes right through me when they looked down at me. They were looking at me, really, and not at Helen.”

“They were looking at me!” Helen insisted. “And I don’t like that ship! I want to go home to Boston.”

Mr. Seymour looked at her in astonishment. “Come, come, my dear child, you mustn’t let a thing like that frighten you. It is strange and grotesque but that only makes it more interesting. I’ll tell you about figureheads. The sailors think of the ship’s figurehead as a sort of guardian spirit that watches over the boat and protects it during storms. Even if it were alive it wouldn’t hurt you because it was created only to protect. But it isn’t alive, Helen, it is made out of wood. I’ll go with all of you to-morrow and let you touch it and then you will never be afraid of it again.”

“Do they always put figureheads on big boats, father?” asked Ann. She would not have been willing to admit that she, too, had those eyes upon her and had thought they seemed very much alive.

“No, not always,” Mr. Seymour explained. “Sometimes the portion over the cutwater of a ship is finished off with scrollwork, gilded and painted. Modern steamers don’t have them now, very often, but the deep-sea men who are on a sailing vessel months at a time like to feel that they have a figurehead to watch and care for them while they are asleep. The owners decide what it will be, and give directions to the builders. That is, if they name a boat after a man they will carve a statue of him for the bow, or else they will choose a saint or an old-time god, like Neptune, who was once supposed to rule over the sea. Sometimes they will have a mermaid, because mermaids are gay and dancing and will make the ship travel more swiftly; no sea could drown a mermaid. When a sailing ship makes a safe passage through storm and peril and brings the sailors home happy and well, they are very likely to believe that the figurehead has had as much to do with it as the captain with his real knowledge of navigation and charts.”

“It is a mascot, then?” said Ben.

“Yes, a sort of mascot,” his father assented. “And some of the old figureheads are beautifully made, real works of art. When he retired, many a sea captain took the figurehead from his ship and nailed it over the door of his home, for he felt a real affection for it. Perhaps he thought that since Neptune had taken such good care of the ship at sea he was entitled to the same enjoyment and rest ashore that the captain had earned.”

Mr. Seymour seemed to feel that everything was clear now, but Ann was not satisfied. “This ship did not get home safely,” she said in a half whisper.

“No, it didn’t,” her father assented. He was perfectly frank in admitting that even the best of figureheads failed when storms were too heavy or when sailors made mistakes in calculating the force of wind and currents. “But that would not be the fault of the figurehead. I am sure we shall learn that the captain lost track of where he was and came in too close to shore.”

Ann’s doubts showed in her face. “But the crew and cargo have disappeared.”

“You mustn’t be superstitious, Ann. There is always a logical explanation for everything that seems strange and unnatural. There must be a good reason why that boat had no cargo and probably we shall learn all about her this summer before we go back to Boston. Some of the people about here may know more than they care to admit and have purposely kept it secret from Jo and Mr. Bailey.”

“Wouldn’t it be fun if we could find out all about her!” Her father’s calm confidence had reassured Ann; her father must be right and she didn’t want to be silly and timid. Never before had she felt the least bit afraid of anything.

Ben had been thinking. “Just exactly what does it mean to be superstitious, dad?” he asked.

“If you try to make yourself believe that the wooden figure out there is alive, or if you are willing to accept any one else’s belief in such nonsense, you will be superstitious and not intelligent. For instance, you may think you see something, or hear something, and not be able to explain what it is immediately. If instead of working to learn a true explanation you remember the incident as it first impressed you——”

“Like thinking a mouse at night is a burglar,” Ann interrupted.

“That is it exactly,” said Mr. Seymour. “Take that figurehead of a demon on the boat; we passed by it just at twilight when it couldn’t be seen as plainly as in full sunlight, and because the face was leaning toward us, with shadows moving over it, it gave you the impression that the thing was alive and watching you. To-morrow when the sun comes out you will go back to look at it and see that it is only a wooden statue, while if we should go home to-night, as Helen wishes, you children would remember it all your lives as something evil. And in that case you would be permitting yourselves to grow superstitious instead of taking this as an opportunity for the exercise of honest thinking and intelligent observation.”

“Is Jo superstitious?” asked Ben abruptly.

“Jo is too sensible to be superstitious,” answered his father.

“But Jo is afraid of that boat! I saw his face when we went past. And even Jerry was afraid. He ran.”

Mr. Seymour glanced quickly across the table to where his wife sat between Ann and Helen. Ann saw the look that passed between him and her mother and realized that they both were worried. They did not want Helen and Ben to go on thinking about the boat, nor did they want the children to know that they, too, had felt the strangeness of that gray broken boat and that grinning face.

Ann believed with her father that this was nothing more than an old wooden sailing vessel thrown on the shore by a great storm. Where had it come from, and for what port was it bound? Where were the families who were waiting for their men to come home to them? Were there children who thought that their father would come back in a few weeks, now that good weather had made the seas safe? Were there mothers who believed that their sailor sons would soon be home? How anxious they must be, waiting all this time since last winter. Something ought to be done about letting them know the truth. It was tragic, and it was romantic, too.

And if there was a mystery attached to the ship that mystery could be explained by a detective or by any one else who had the courage and determination to find out what was at the bottom of this strangeness. Her father had said there was a reason for everything that was queer and uncanny. If only she were brave enough to face that grinning demon! Should she be sensible, or should she let herself be weak and unintelligent? Intelligent, that was what father wanted them all to be, it was his favorite expression, “Be intelligent.” The others began to chatter about other things while they were finishing supper and washing the dishes afterward, but although Ann took part in the work and the jokes and laughter and all the anticipations of a great time to-morrow, she could think in the back of her mind of nothing but the ship. If Jo would help them, she and Ben would try to find out all about the wreck. It would be much more fun than hunting imaginary Indians and bears in the woods.

After supper had been cleared away and the sweet old kitchen put in order, all the Seymours trooped through every room in the house, patting the wide soft feather beds that stood so high from the floor that a little flight of steps was needed to climb into them.

“A tiny stepladder beside my bed!” exclaimed Helen. “What fun! I love this house.”

The unaccustomedness of the quaint old furniture, the wide floor boards polished with age, the small-paned windows, the bulky mahogany chests of drawers that smiled so kindly as they waited for the children’s clothes to be unpacked, all these things crowded the ship out of Helen’s mind. She went to bed perfectly happy.

“Don’t you fall out,” called Ben from his room, “because if you should you’d break your leg, probably, you’re so high.”

“I couldn’t fall out,” Helen called back. “You wait until you try your bed. It seemed high before I got in, but I sank away down and down into a nest; I think I’ll pretend I am a baby swan to-night with billows of my mother swan’s feathers all about me to keep me warm. I never slept in such a funny bed, but I like it!”

And then Helen’s voice trailed off into silence.

In each room the Seymours found a lamp trimmed and filled ready for use, with its glass chimney as spotlessly clear as the glass of a lighthouse.

“How kind the Baileys are!” exclaimed Mrs. Seymour gratefully. “I don’t feel as if we were renting this house; Jo and his father seem like old friends already.”

This time it was Ann and her father who exchanged a quick glance, a flash of understanding and satisfaction. Impulsively Ann threw her arms around her mother’s neck and kissed her. Her mother should have a chance to rest here, if Ann’s help could make it possible, dear mother who still looked so pale and tired after the long weeks of nursing Helen and bringing her back to health.

“I knew that you’d like the Baileys,” said Mr. Seymour.

“Jo is an unusually nice boy, isn’t he, father?” Ann had already grown attached to him.

“He certainly is,” Mr. Seymour agreed heartily. “And I know that you will like him even better as you become better acquainted. His father couldn’t get along without Jo. He does a man’s work on the farm and helps bring in the lobsters every morning.”

“I’m going to be just like him,” Ben called from his bed in the next room. Jo’s sturdy strength and the simple unconscious way the boy used it had fired Ben’s imagination.

“Nothing could make me happier than to have you as well and strong as he is, when we go away next fall,” answered Mr. Seymour.

With supper and the lamplight and the homely charm of the old house, the atmosphere of uncanny strangeness had vanished, but after Ann had blown out her lamp, just before she was ready to climb the steps to her bed, she went to the window and peered through the darkness toward the wrecked ship.

And as she looked a flickering light passed across the deck.

She must be mistaken. It was a firefly. No, there it was again, as though a man walked carrying a swinging lantern with its wick no bigger than a candle flame. He passed the bow, and the glow swung across the figure of the demon.

Was it Jo or his father? That was Ann’s first thought, but she wanted to make sure. From a second window in her room, across a corner, she could see the windows of the barn which the Baileys had made into a living room, and she leaned far out to see clearly. Jo was there. He was talking to some one at the back of the room. If Jo and his father were talking together, who could be prowling around the boat? She crossed the room to look again at the schooner. And as she watched, the bright pin prick of light disappeared; the lantern had been carried behind some opaque object that hid it.

“What’s up, Ann?” Ben stirred restlessly in the adjoining room. “It will be morning before you get to bed.”

“Oh, I was looking out of the window. The stars are so bright in Maine!”

“Ann! What do you think about that ship? I feel as if ghosts lived on her.”

Ann climbed her little flight of steps and slid down between upper sheet and feathers.

“Nonsense,” she called to Ben. “Ghosts don’t carry lanterns.”

“What?” Ben’s voice sounded much more awake. “What did you say, Ann?”

“I said I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Ann slid farther into her feather nest and promptly went to sleep.