“I don’t know of any merchant named Sun Li,” he said, but he bent once more and studied the crude little drawing in the dirt. “Thee is sure thee has it right, my dear?” “I have every line by heart,” Erica said, proudly. “I’m sorry you don’t know him. Father does some trading with him, I think.” “I don’t know him,” the captain repeated, but his thoughts were suddenly busy. Captain Folger of the _Sea Gull_ was a name synonymous with fast voyages, also with better cargoes, more quickly loaded, than most of the clippers could boast. There had been rumors of special high protection—of favors and concessions shown the Nantucket man. Of course, it may all have been idle gossip of the water front and the bazaars. But Captain Bartlet had certainly seen a seal once before like these few scratched marks in the dirt of his sister’s flower pot. Only he knew of no one named Sun Li. Erica hurried down the brick walk, anxious to find Tommy and report the captain’s genial mood. “I’ll tell Aunt Charity you will both come tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder to Mrs. Macy. The boys and Erica were not permitted to be present at the supper party on the morrow. Aunt Callie was there, of course, and Mr. Presbyn, the Congregational minister, besides Mrs. Macy and the guest of honor, and the table groaned under a load of the good things Aunt Charity’s kitchen was famed for producing—home-cured sugar-baked ham; flaky soda biscuits still smoking from the oven; steaming, fragrant coffee in the old Folger silver pot; thick cream for the coffee and for the deep-apple pie that came afterward; unsalted butter, churned at home; and ginger preserve made from real ginger roots that had been brought across the Pacific in a tea clipper. Erica, invited to keep the twins company at supper in Aunt Callie’s cheerful brick-floored kitchen, made their mouths water cruelly with a vivid account of the feast spread for their elders and betters on Aunt Charity’s side of the fence, meanwhile munching with zest fresh gingerbread and baked apples, washed down with glasses of cold, creamy milk. “You’re awfully glad to be going to sea, Tommy, aren’t you?” she asked, wistfully, later, when the meal was over and the three had washed the supper dishes gayly, and now sat at ease before the huge fireplace, with its swinging crane, and the old Dutch oven at the side. (Aunt Callie still clung, as so many island housewives did, to the custom of cooking over the open fire.) “‘Course I’m glad,” Tommy said, lolling back in his big chair with lazy content. And he added, teasingly: “Don’t you wish you were a boy? Poor Rick!”