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[Illustration: THE CREATURE SPRANG TO ITS FEET]

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A LITTLE MAID OF PROVINCE TOWN

By
ALICE TURNER CURTIS

Author Of
A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony
A Little Maid of Narragansett Bay
A Little Maid of Bunker Hill
A Little Maid of Ticonderoga
A Little Maid of Old Connecticut
A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia

Illustrated by Wuanita Smith

THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
Philadelphia

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COPYRIGHT
1913 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER                          PAGE
     I.  Anne Nelson                1
    II.  Anne Wins a Friend        14
   III.  Anne's Secret             27
    IV.  Anne and the Wolf         39
     V.  Scarlet Stockings         51
    VI.  Captured by Indians       62
   VII.  Out to Sea                73
  VIII.  On the Island             86
    IX.  The Castaways             97
     X.  Safe at Home             107
    XI.  Captain Enos's Secrets   119
   XII.  An Unexpected Journey    129
  XIII.  Anne Finds Her Father    143
   XIV.  A Candy Party            157
    XV.  A Spring Picnic          177
   XVI.  The May Party            186
  XVII.  The Sloop, "Peggy"       195

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ILLUSTRATIONS

                                 PAGE
The Creature Sprang to Its Feet     1
A Blanket Fell Over Her Head       65
She Worked Steadily               111
"This Is From Boston"             162
The Boat Began to Tip             194

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A Little Maid of Province Town

CHAPTER I

ANNE NELSON


"I don't know what I can do with you, I'm sure!" declared Mistress
Stoddard, looking down at the small girl who stood on her door-step gazing
wistfully up at her.

"A man at the wharf said that you didn't have any little girls," responded
the child, "and so I thought----"

"'Twas Joe Starkweather told you, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Stoddard.
"Well, he's seven of his own to fend for."

"Seven little girls?" said Anne Nelson, in an almost terror-stricken
voice, her dark eyes looking earnestly into the stern face that frowned
down upon her. "And what would become of them if their mother should die,
and their father be lost at sea?"

"Sure enough. You have sense, child. But the Starkweathers are all boys.
Well, come in. You can take your bundle to the loft and leave it, and
we'll see what I can find for you to do. How old are you?"

"Eight last March," responded Anne.

"Well, a child of eight isn't much use in a house, but maybe you can save
me steps."

"Yes, indeed, Mistress Stoddard; I did a deal to help my father about the
house. He said I could do as much as a woman. I can sweep out for you, and
lay the table and wash the dishes, and bring in the wood and water,
and----" there came a break in the little girl's voice, and the woman
reached out a kindly hand and took the child's bundle.

"Come in," she said, and Anne instantly felt the tenderness of her voice.
"We are poor enough, but you'll be welcome to food and shelter, child,
till such time as some of your own kinsfolk send for thee."

"I have no kinsfolk," declared Anne; "my father told me that."

"Come you in; you'll have a bed and a crust while I have them to give
you," declared the woman, and Anne Nelson went across the threshold and up
to the bare loft, where she put her bundle down on a wooden stool and
looked about the room.

There was but a narrow bed in the corner, covered with a patchwork quilt,
and the wooden stool where Anne had put her bundle. The one narrow window
looked off across the sandy cart tracks which served as a road toward the
blue waters of Cape Cod Bay. It was early June, and the strong breath of
the sea filled the rough little house, bringing with it the fragrance of
the wild cherry blossoms and an odor of pine from the scrubby growths on
the low line of hills back of the little settlement.

It was just a year ago, Anne remembered, as she unwrapped her bundle, that
she and her father had sailed across the harbor from Ipswich, where her
mother had died.

"We will live here, at the very end of the world, where a man may think as
he pleases," her father had said, and had moved their few household
possessions into a three-roomed house near the shore. Then he had given
his time to fishing, leaving Anne alone in the little house to do as she
pleased.

She was a quiet child, and found entertainment in building sand houses on
the beach, in wandering along the shore searching for bright shells and
smooth pebbles, and in doing such simple household tasks as her youth
admitted. A week before her appearance at Mrs. Stoddard's door, John
Nelson had gone out in his fishing-boat, and now he had been given up as
lost. No sign of him had been seen by the other fishermen, and it was
generally believed by his neighbors that his sloop had foundered and that
John Nelson had perished.

Some there were, however, who declared John Nelson to be a British spy,
and hesitated not to say that he had sailed away to join some vessel of
the British fleet with information as to the convenience of the harbor of
Province Town, and with such other news as he had brought from Ipswich and
the settlements nearer Boston. For it was just before the war of the
American Revolution, when men were watched sharply and taken to task
speedily for any lack of loyalty to the American colonies. And John Nelson
had many a time declared that he believed England meant well by her
American possessions,--a statement which set many of his neighbors against
him.

"'Mean well,' indeed!" Joseph Starkweather had replied to his neighbor's
remark. "When they have closed the port of Boston, so that no ship but the
king's war-ships dare go in and out? Even our fishing-boats are closely
watched. Already the Boston people are beginning to need many things.
Americans are not going to submit to feeding British soldiers while their
own men go hungry."

But now Joseph Starkweather was the only man who interested himself in the
lonely child. Day after day of that first week of her father's absence
Anne had stayed close to the little house, looking hopefully out across
the harbor for a sight of his boat; and day after day Joseph Starkweather
had come lounging down the beach to speak with the child, to ask her what
she had for breakfast, and if she slept safe and unafraid.

"The meal is gone," she told him one morning, "and I do not sleep now--I
wait and listen for my father;" and then it was that he told her she must
seek another home.

"You are too young to stay alone," he said; "pick up a bundle of your
clothes and go to Mrs. Stoddard on the hill. She hasn't a chick or child
of her own. Like as not you'll be a blessing to her." And Anne, used to
obedience and sorrow, obeyed.

There was nothing of much value in the small house, but on the day after
Anne's entrance as a member of the Stoddard family, Captain Stoddard
loaded the poor sticks of furniture on a handcart, and pulled it through
the sandy tracks to his cottage door.

"It's the child of an English spy you're giving shelter to," he had said,
when Martha Stoddard had told him that Anne was to live with them, "and
she'll