Arthur laughed. “I should say not. Nobody but a professional could do that--and perhaps he’d find it some pull. It’s much longer than it looks, Dicky. Distances on the water are very deceiving.” “What’s on the Island, Maida?” Dicky went on curiously. “Have you ever been there?” “Oh yes,” Maida answered, “once. I went on father’s yacht but I was such a little little girl that I have only one impression--of great trees and enormous rocks and thick underbrush.” Dicky sighed. “I wish we could go on a picnic there!” “What’s that over there?” Harold demanded, pointing to a spot far out where a series of poles, connected by webs of fish-net, rose above the water’s surface. “Oh that’s a fish weir,” Maida declared electrically. “I’d forgotten all about that. You see the tide’s going out. It goes out almost two miles here. And if we follow it up, we can get into the weir and come back before the tide overtakes us.” Maida explained the situation to Floribel. Floribel turned to Zeke for advice. Zeke corroborated Maida’s story. He had, he said, been in that weir several times himself. Floribel said she would stay on the beach with the Little Six while Zeke accompanied the Big Six. When they came back, she added, lunch would be all spread out on the beach. “The last bath house,” Maida informed them, “is ours. Now let’s get into our bathing suits at once because we have no time to lose.” It was only partially low tide when they arrived but it almost seemed to the children that they could see the water slipping away towards the horizon. When they emerged from the bath house, a patch of eelgrass, not far off, made a brilliant green spot in the midst of the golden sand. As the Big Six started towards the fish weir, the Little Six were splashing about in the warm shallows near shore. “Oh what fun this is!” Rosie said. “I love salt-water bathing more than fresh water--I don’t know why. But somehow I always feel so much gayer.” The salt water seemed to have an effect of gayety on all of them. They chattered incessantly when they were not laughing or singing. At times they came to hollows between the sand bars where the water was waist-high, but in the main, the water came no farther than their knees; and it continued to recede steadily before them. Sand-bar after sand-bar bared itself to the light of the sun--stretched before them in ridges of solid gold. Eelgrass--patch after patch--lifted above the water; spread around them areas of brilliant green. Above, white clouds and blue ether wove a radiant sky-ceiling. And between, the gulls swooped and soared, circled and dashed, emitting their strange, creaking cries. It seemed an hour at least to the Big Six before they reached the weir, but in fact it had taken little more than half that time.