n't, Miss Smartie!" snapped back the castaway. "You
don't catch me so easy. I wasn't born yesterday, Miss! My folks don't
live in New York. Maybe I haven't any folks. I came from clear way
out West, anyway--so now! I thought 'way down East must be the finest
place in the world. But it isn't."

"Did you run away to come East?" asked Ruth, quietly.

"Well--I came here, anyway. And I don't much like it, I can tell you."

"Ah-ha!" cried Mercy Curtis, chuckling to herself. "I know. She
thought Yankee Land was just flowing in milk and honey. Listen! here's
what she said to herself before she ran away from home:

"I wish I'd lived away Down East,
Where codfish salt the sea,
And where the folks have apple sass
And punkin pie fer tea!"

"That's the 'Western Girl's Lament,'" pursued Mercy. "So you found
'way down East nothing like what you thought it was?"

The castaway scowled at the sharp-tongued lame girl for a moment. Then
she nodded. "It's the folks," she said. "You're all so afraid of a
stranger. Do I look like I'd _bite_?"

"Maybe not ordinarily," said Helen, laughing softly. "But you do not
look very pleasant just now."

"Well, people haven't been nice to me," grumbled the Western girl. "I
thought there were lots of rich men in the East, and that a girl could
make friends 'most anywhere, and get into nice families----"

"To _work?_" asked Ruth, curiously.

"No, no! You know, you read a lot about rich folks taking up girls and
doing everything for them--dressing them fine, and sending them to fancy
schools, and all that."

"I never read of any such thing in my life!" declared Mary Cox. "I
guess you've been reading funny books."

"Huh!" sniffed the castaway, who was evidently a runaway and was not
made sorry for her escapade even by being wrecked at sea. "Huh! I
like a story with some life in it, I do! Jib Pottoway had some dandy
paper-covered novels in his locker and he let me read 'em----"

"Who under the sun is Jib Pottoway?" gasped Helen. "That isn't a real
name; is it?"

"It's ugly enough to be real; isn't it?" retorted the strange
girl, chuckling. "Yep. That's Jib's real name. 'Jibbeway
Pottoway'--that's the whole of it."

"Oh, oh!" cried Heavy, with her hand to her face. "It makes my jaw
ache to even try to say it."

"What is he?" asked Madge, curiously.

"Injun," returned the Western girl, laconically. "Or, part Injun. He
comes from 'way up Canada way. His folks had Jibbewa