A small island thirty miles out to sea, brave folk who lived by hunting the whale, but who lived proudly, prosperously, in what is perhaps the most interesting of all New England villages, Nantucket. Such is the scene of this story one hundred years ago.

Dencey's debt is incurred when she throws a stone and hurts Sammy Jetsam, a poor waif of a boy. She is horrified at her own deed and to get the boy's forgiveness she runs away from home and goes far out on the Common to find him.

Jetsam demands, as the price of his forgiveness, Dencey's only story book, and, moreover, that she teach him to read it.

How she runs away many times to teach Jetsam—how Jetsam saves her life and has an adventure of his own—this is the human story that happens on quaint Nantucket to this lovable boy and girl. Mrs. Snedeker knows Nantucket, and gathered her material there; so does Maginel Wright Barney, who has captured the strength and peace of old New England in her lovely illustrations.

From the dust jacket