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.