Mr. Littlefield hopped down sprily, having halted Worry and Trouble before the main entrance of the hotel, and lifted down Carolyn. There was a sprinkling of guests on the porch who showed the usual vague interest of summering people in the arrival of additional guests. The little girl and the dog perhaps attracted rather unfavourable comment in some quarters. Other people's children and dogs are generally considered a nuisance. A brisk young man, bare-headed, came out to greet Mrs. Cameron, whom he helped descend with her bag from the bus. He nodded coolly to the salesman and said to the lady: "Your rooms are ready for you, Mrs. Cameron. I understand from your husband that he will be with us on Saturday?" "If he is permitted," Carolyn's mother agreed, following Mr. Ben Truefelt, who had relieved her of the bag. The little girl and Prince lingered. Carolyn was watching the wooden-legged man climbing back to the driver's seat. "He couldn't have been _born_ with it," Carolyn May murmured. "I wonder where he got it?" CHAPTER XIII WOODEN LEGS Really, there was a great deal at and about the Truefelt House besides wooden legs for Carolyn May to be interested in; but it must be confessed that her mind was more set on Captain Ozias Littlefield's artificial limb than upon the soughing of the surf along the beaches, the salt tang of the breeze, the passing in continual procession off shore of sail and steam vessels, or the lovely view of rolling country from the windows of her mother's room on the second floor of the hotel. They went down to dinner, and Carolyn listened for the _step, clump! step, clump!_ of Mr. Littlefield's passage through the hall and out on the porch more faithfully than she attended to her meal. The wooden-legged man not only "bussed," as he called it, for the Truefelt House, but he acted as handy man. He cleaned the porches early in the morning, Carolyn learned; and at the dinner hour he put on a white apron and a black coat, and served those guests who lingered on the porch and desired refreshments from the café. The Truefelt House, indeed, was short-handed. "Part the crew mutinied a week ago an' desarted the ship," Mr. Littlefield was heard to say to a group of guests on the porch after dinner. "Mr. Ben has to act as his own clerk as well as checker at the kitchen door. And the Good Book does say that a man can't sarve two masters--not an' suit both on 'em." Mrs. Truefelt bustled about making her guests welcome. She was a motherly but shrewd-faced, woman. She clipped her words when she spoke and had the true island intonation, although she had been a "foreigner" when she married Ben's father. She had a kindly pat on the head for Prince, hugged Carolyn, and expressed herself in most friendly fashion to Mrs. Cameron.