She played checkers and quoits with the boys, and paper dolls with the girls, and one sunny morning she was invited to join the group under the stairs, where she heard the story of the white prince from beginning to end, and found out why he vanished.
Those were happy days on the big steamer, despite the fact that Howl and Henny haunted her like two hungry little shadows.

Sometimes the captain himself came down and walked with her.

The Shermans sat at his table, and he had grown quite fond of the little Kentucky girl with her soft Southern accent.

As they paced the deck hand in hand, he told her marvellous tales of the sea, till she grew to love the ship and the heaving water world around them, and wished that they might sail on and on, and never come to land until the end of the summer..