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the older children held the hand of his particular younger charge, and carried a suitcase. Martha discouraged eager porters, who came running to meet us, by telling them we were too poor to afford them.
    By the time we single-filed up the gangplank, which Martha negotiated almost on her knees, the rails were lined with grinning spectators. Anne and Ernestine looked straight ahead, pretending not to notice, but the rest of us waved and grinned back.
    "Carry your bags?" said a porter who was coming down the gangplank from the ship.
    "No," shouted Frank, who sometimes read College Humor , "let them walk."
    That was the sort of joke that appealed to Tom, and he laughed deafeningly, through his nose as always. "Henc, henc, henc, henc," he cackled. "That's a hot one."
    The purser was so engrossed by our entrance that he made no pretense of checking to see whether we had enough full-fare tickets. He did insist, though, that Mr. Chairman and Fourteen be checked with the freight, down in the hold. All through the night you could hear Mr. Chairman complaining about that.
    We were allowed to keep the birds, and they ended up in Anne's stateroom, where she shared the lower berth with Jane, while Fred and Dan shared the upper. Anne wouldn't let either Jane or Dan drink any liquids after six o'clock, but the inevitable occurred anyway.
    It wasn't until the following morning, when we had transferred at New Bedford to the Nantucket boat, that Anne discovered Morton Dykes.
    Morton was an Amherst man, and a sheik whom Anne rated high on her hit caravan. He was very tall—six feet seven or eight—and thin, but quite good looking in his patent-leather hair and Oxford bags. He and Anne had had a good many dates that spring, while she was at Smith. We had often heard her talk about him, but never had seen him before.
    It wasn't necessary to check animals with the freight on the Nantucket boat. Morton bumped into Anne on the upper deck, where all of us—including the birds, dog, and cat—were gathered.
    Bumped is the word, because it soon became apparent that, so far as Morton was concerned, the meeting was not only unpremeditated and unrehearsed, but undesired.
    "For goodness' sake," said Anne, trying to straighten out her dress, which had been rumpled beyond repair by Jane, "Look who's here. Hello, Morton."
    "Hello," Morton almost whispered, edging away as if Anne had something he didn't want to catch. "Good to see you."
    "Good to see you, too," said Anne enthusiastically. When Anne was enthused, her voice had all the modulation of a cheer leader's in the last minutes of the final quarter. Morton edged still further away. "I knew you and your Mother were coming to Nantucket," she added, "but I had no idea we'd be on the same boat."
    "We were on the night boat with you, too," Morton reported resentfully. "We saw you come aboard."
    "Oh, you did?" was all Anne could manage.
    "Was that your dog that howled all night?"
    "I didn't hear anything," Anne said.
    Morton edged some more, and Anne finally realized that he didn't want to be mistaken for one of our group. The realization made her furious.
    "Come on over," she said, "and meet everybody. Pull up a chair and make yourself at home."
    "No thanks. I've got to run."
    "Why don't you bring your Mother up here, and we'll all sit together?"
    The suggestion caused Morton to drop all pretense of edging, and to break into an open retreat.
    "See you around," he whispered over his shoulder.
    "Or," Anne hollered after him, "we could all come and sit with you."
    Morton disappeared down a ladder to the lower decks.
    "So that's Morton Dykes," Ernestine said. "Gee, he's cute—and so tall. The least you could have done was introduce me."
    "I tried," Anne told her bitterly. "You heard me try."
    "The whole boat heard you," Martha said. "If you ask me, he's a beanpole and a wet smack."
    "You're just judging him as a potential book carrier,'' Ernestine grinned. "You know those tall, thin ones get tired easily."
    "He