KATE'S HEAVENLY TIME
ONE evening Kate and Polly went to the front porch to rest until
bedtime and found a shining big new trunk sitting there, with Kate's
initials on the end, her name on the check tag, and a key in the lock.
They unbuckled the straps, turned the key, and lifted the lid. That
trunk contained underclothing, hose, shoes, two hats, a travelling
dress with half a dozen extra waists, and an afternoon and an evening
dress, all selected with especial reference to Kate's colouring, and
made one size larger than Nancy Ellen wore, which fitted Kate
perfectly. There were gloves, a parasol, and a note which read:
DEAR KATE: Here are some clothes. I am going to go North a week after
harvest. You can be spared then as well as not. Come on! Let's run
away and have one good time all by ourselves. It is my treat from
start to finish. The children can manage the farm perfectly well. Any
one of her cousins will stay with Polly, if she will be lonely. Cut
loose and come on, Kate. I am going. Of course Robert couldn't be
pried away from his precious patients; we will have to go alone; but we
do not care. We like it. Shall we start about the tenth, on the night
train, which will be cooler? NANCY ELLEN.
"We shall!" said Kate emphatically, when she finished the note. "I
haven't cut loose and had a good time since I was married; not for
eighteen years. If the children are not big enough to take care of
themselves, they never will be. I can go as well as not."
She handed the note to Polly, while she shook out dresses and gloated
over the contents of the trunk.
"Of course you shall go!" shouted Polly as she finished the note, but
even as she said it she glanced obliquely up the road and waved a hand
behind her mother's back.
"Sure you shall go!" cried Adam, when he finished the note, and sat
beside the trunk seeing all the pretty things over again. "You just bet
you shall go. Polly and I can keep house, fine! We don't need any
cousins hanging around. I'll help Polly with her work, and then we'll
lock the house and she can come out with me. Sure you go! We'll do all
right." Then he glanced obliquely down the road, where a slim little
figure in white moved under the cherry trees of the York front yard,
aimlessly knocking croquet balls here and there.
It was two weeks until time to go, but Kate began taking care of
herself at once, solely because she did not want Nancy Ellen to be
ashamed of her. She rolled her sleeves down to meet her gloves and
used a sunbonnet instead of a sunshade. She washed and brushed her
hair with care she had not used in years. By the time the tenth of
July came, she was in very presentable condition, while the contents of
the trunk did the remainder. As she was getting ready to go, she said
to Polly: "Now do your best while I'm away, and I am sure I can
arrange with Nancy Ellen about school this winter. When I get back,
the very first thing I shall do will be to go to Hartley and buy some
stuff to begin on your clothes. You shall have as nice dresses as the
other girls, too. Nancy Ellen will know exactly what to get you."
But she never caught a glimpse of Polly's flushed, dissatisfied face or
the tightening of her lips that would have suggested to her, had she
seen them, that Miss Polly felt perfectly capable of selecting the
clothing she was to wear herself. Adam took his mother's trunk to the
station in the afternoon. In the evening she held Polly on her knee,
while they drove to Dr. Gray's. Kate thought the children would want
to wait and see them take the train, but Adam said that would make them
very late getting home, they had better leave that to Uncle Robert and
go back soon; so very soon they were duly kissed and unduly cautioned;
then started back down a side street that would not even take them
through the heart of the town. Kate looked after them approvingly:
"Pretty good youngsters," she said. "I told them to go and get some
ice cream; but you see they are saving the money and heading straight
home." She turned to Robert. "Can anything happen to them?" she
asked, in evident anxiety.
"Rest in peace, Kate," laughed the doctor. "You surely know that those
youngsters are going to be eighteen in a few weeks. You've reared them
carefully. Nothing can, or will, happen to them, that would not happen
right under your nose if you were at home. They will go from now on
according to their inclinations."
Kate looked at him sharply: "What do you mean by that?" she demanded.
He laughed: "Nothing serious," he said. "Polly is half Bates, so she
will marry in a year or two, while Adam is all Bates, so he will remain
steady as the Rock of Ages, and strictly on the job. Go have your good
time, and if I possibly can, I'll come after you."
"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Nancy Ellen, with finality. "You
wouldn't leave your patients, and you couldn't leave dear Mrs. Southey."
"If you feel that way about it, why do you leave me?" he asked.
"To show the little fool I'm not afraid of her, for one thing," said
Nancy Ellen with her head high. She was very beautiful in her smart
travelling dress, while her eyes flashed as she spoke. The doctor
looked at her approvingly.
"Good!" he cried. "I like a plucky woman! Go to have a good time,
Nancy Ellen; but don't go for that. I do wish you would believe that
there isn't a thing the matter with the little woman, she's--"
"I can go even farther than that," said Nancy Ellen, dryly. "I KNOW
'there isn't a thing the matter with the little woman,' except that she
wants you to look as if you were running after her. I'd be safe in
wagering a thousand dollars that when she hears I'm gone, she will send
for you before to-morrow evening."
"You may also wager this," he said. "If she does, I shall be very
sorry, but I'm on my way to the country on an emergency call. Nancy
Ellen, I wish you wouldn't!"
"Wouldn't go North, or wouldn't see what every other living soul in
Hartley sees?" she asked curtly. Then she stepped inside to put on her
hat and gloves.
Kate looked at the doctor in dismay. "Oh, Robert!" she said.
"I give you my word of honour, Kate," he said. "If Nancy Ellen only
would be reasonable, the woman would see shortly that my wife is all
the world to me. I never have been, and never shall be, untrue to her.
Does that satisfy you?"
"Of course," said Kate. "I'll do all in my power to talk Nancy Ellen
out of that, on this trip. Oh, if she only had children to occupy her
time!"
"That's the whole trouble in a nutshell," said the doctor; "but you
know there isn't a scarcity of children in the world. Never a day
passes but I see half a dozen who need me, sorely. But with Nancy
Ellen, NO CHILD will do unless she mothers it, and unfortunately, none
comes to her."
"Too bad!" said Kate. "I'm so sorry!"
"Cheer her up, if you can," said the doctor.
An hour later they were speeding north, Nancy Ellen moody and
distraught, Kate as frankly delighted as any child. The spring work
was over; the crops were fine; Adam would surely have the premium wheat
to take to the County Fair in September; he would work unceasingly for
his chance with corn; he and Polly would be all right; she could see
Polly waiting in the stable yard while Adam unharnessed and turned out
the horse.
Kate kept watching Nancy Ellen's discontented face. At last she said:
"Cheer up, child! There isn't a word of truth in it!"
"I know it," said Nancy Ellen.
"Then why take the way of all the world to start, and KEEP people
talking?" asked Kate.
"I'm not doing a thing on earth but attending strictly to my own
business," said Nancy Ellen.
"That's exactly the trouble," said Kate. "You're not. You let the
little heifer have things all her own way. If it were my man, and I
loved him as you do Robert Gray, you can stake your life I should be
doing something, several things, in fact."
"This is interesting," said Nancy Ellen. "For example--?"
Kate had not given such a matter a thought. She looked from the window
a minute, her lips firmly compressed. Then she spoke slowly: "Well,
for one thing, I should become that woman's bosom companion. About
seven times a week I should uncover her most aggravating weakness all
unintentionally before the man in the case, at the same time keeping
myself, strictly myself. I should keep steadily on doing and being
what he first fell in love with. Lastly, since eighteen years have
brought you no fulfillment of the desire of your heart, I should give
it up, and content myself and delight him by taking into my heart and
home a couple of the most attractive tiny babies I could find. Two are
scarcely more trouble than one; you can have all the help you will
accept; the children would never know the difference, if you took them
as babies, and soon you wouldn't either; while Robert would be
delighted. If I were you, I'd give myself something to work for
besides myself, and I'd give him so much to think about at home, that
charming young grass widows could go to grass!"
"I believe you would," said Nancy Ellen, wonderingly. "I believe you
would!"
"You're might right, I would," said Kate. "If I were married to a man
like Robert Gray, I'd fight tooth and nail before I'd let him fall
below his high ideals. It's as much your job to keep him up, as it is
his to keep himself. If God didn't make him a father, I would, and I'd
keep him BUSY on the job, if I had to adopt sixteen."
Nancy Ellen laughed, as they went to their berths. The next morning
they awakened in cool Michigan country and went speeding north among
evergreen forests and clear lakes mirroring the pointed forest tops and
blue sky, past slashing, splashing streams, in which they could almost
see the speckled trout darting over the beds of white sand. By late
afternoon they had reached their destination and were in their rooms,
bathed, dressed, and ready for the dinner hour. In the evening they
went walking, coming back to the hotel tired and happy. After several
days they began talking to people and making friends, going out in
fishing and boating parties in the morning, driving or boating in the
afternoon, and attending concerts or dances at night. Kate did not
dance, but she loved to see Nancy Ellen when she had a sufficiently
tall, graceful partner; while, as she watched the young people and
thought how innocent and happy they seemed, she asked her sister if
they could not possibly arrange for Adam and Polly to go to Hartley a
night or two a week that winter, and join the dancing class. Nancy
Ellen was frankly delighted, so Kate cautiously skirted the school
question in such a manner that she soon had Nancy Ellen asking if it
could not be arranged. When that was decided, Nancy Ellen went to
dance, while Kate stood on the veranda watching her. The lights from
the window fell strongly on Kate. She was wearing her evening dress of
smoky gray, soft fabric, over shining silk, with knots of dull blue
velvet and gold lace here and there. She had dressed her hair
carefully; she appeared what she was, a splendid specimen of healthy,
vigorous, clean womanhood.
"Pardon me, Mrs. Holt," said a voice at her elbow, "but there's only
one head in this world like yours, so this, of course, must be you."
Kate's heart leaped and stood still. She turned slowly, then held out
her hand, smiling at John Jardine, but saying not a word. He took her
hand, and as he gripped it tightly he studied her frankly.
"Thank God for this!" he said, fervently. "For years I've dreamed of
you and hungered for the sight of your face; but you cut me off
squarely, so I dared not intrude on you--only the Lord knows how
delighted I am to see you here, looking like this."
Kate smiled again.
"Come away," he begged. "Come out of this. Come walk a little way
with me, and tell me WHO you are, and HOW you are, and all the things I
think of every day of my life, and now I must know. It's brigandage!
Come, or I shall carry you!"
"Pooh! You couldn't!" laughed Kate. "Of course I'll come! And I
don't own a secret. Ask anything you want to know. How good it is to
see you! Your mother--?"
"At rest, years ago," he said. "She never forgave me for what I did,
in the way I did it. She said it would bring disaster, and she was
right. I thought it was not fair and honest not to let you know the
worst. I thought I was too old, and too busy, and too flourishing, to
repair neglected years at that date, but believe me, Kate, you waked me
up. Try the hardest one you know, and if I can't spell it, I'll pay a
thousand to your pet charity."
Kate laughed spontaneously. "Are you in earnest?" she asked.
"I am incomprehensibly, immeasurably in earnest," he said, guiding her
down a narrow path to a shrub-enclosed, railed-in platform, built on
the steep side of a high hill, where they faced the moon-whitened
waves, rolling softly in a dancing procession across the face of the
great inland sea. Here he found a seat.
"I've nothing to tell," he said. "I lost Mother, so I went on without
her. I learned to spell, and a great many other things, and I'm still
making money. I never forget you for a day; I never have loved and
never shall love any other woman. That's all about me, in a nutshell;
now go on and tell me a volume, tell me all night, about you. Heavens,
woman, I wish you could see yourself, in that dress with the moon on
your hair. Kate, you are the superbest thing! I always shall be mad
about you. Oh, if only you could have had a little patience with me.
I thought I COULDN'T learn, but of course I COULD. But, proceed! I
mustn't let myself go."
Kate leaned back and looked a long time at the shining white waves and
the deep blue sky, then she turned to John Jardine, and began to talk.
She told him simply a few of the most presentable details of her life:
how she had lost her money, then had been given her mother's farm,
about the children, and how she now lived. He listened with deep
interest, often interrupting to ask a question, and when she ceased
talking he said half under his breath: "And you're now free! Oh, the
wonder of it! You're now, free!"
Kate had that night to think about the remainder of her life. She
always sincerely hoped that the moonlight did not bewitch her into
leading the man beside her into saying things he seemed to take delight
in saying.
She had no idea what time it was; in fact, she did not care even what
Nancy Ellen thought or whether she would worry. The night was
wonderful; John Jardine had now made a man of himself worthy of all
consideration; being made love to by him was enchanting. She had been
occupied with the stern business of daily bread for so long that to be
again clothed as other women and frankly adored by such a man as John
Jardine was soul satisfying. What did she care who worried or what
time it was?
"But I'm keeping you here until you will be wet with these mists," John
Jardine cried at last. "Forgive me, Kate, I never did have any sense
where you were concerned! I'll take you back now, but you must promise
me to meet me here in the morning, say at ten o'clock. I'll take you
back now, if you'll agree to that."
"There's no reason why I shouldn't," said Kate.
"And you're free, free!" he repeated.
The veranda, halls, and ballroom were deserted when they returned to
the hotel. As Kate entered her room, Nancy Ellen sat up in bed and
stared at her sleepily, but she was laughing in high good humour. She
drew her watch from under her pillow and looked at it.
"Goodness gracious, Miss!" she cried. "Do you know it's almost three
o'clock?"
"I don't care in the least," said Kate, "if it's four or five. I've had
a perfectly heavenly time. Don't talk to me. I'll put out the light
and be quiet as soon as I get my dress off. I think likely I've ruined
it."
"What's the difference?" demanded Nancy Ellen, largely. "You can ruin
half a dozen a day now, if you want to."
"What do you mean?" asked Kate.
"'Mean?'" laughed Nancy Ellen. "I mean that I saw John Jardine or his
ghost come up to you on the veranda, looking as if he'd eat you alive,
and carry you away about nine o'clock, and you've been gone six hours
and come back having had a 'perfectly heavenly time.' What should I
mean! Go up head, Kate! You have earned your right to a good time.
It isn't everybody who gets a second chance in this world. Tell me one
thing, and I'll go to sleep in peace and leave you to moon the
remainder of the night, if you like. Did he say he still loved you?"
"Still and yet," laughed Kate. "As I remember, his exact words were
that he 'never had loved and never would love any other woman.' Now
are you satisfied?"
Nancy Ellen sprang from the bed and ran to Kate, gathering her in her
strong arms. She hugged and kissed her ecstatically. "Good! Good!
Oh, you darling!" she cried. "There'll be nothing in the world you
can't have! I just know he had gone on making money; he was crazy
about you. Oh, Kate, this is too good! How did I ever think of coming
here, and why didn't I think of it seven years ago? Kate, you must
promise me you'll marry him, before I let you go."
"I'll promise to THINK about it," said Kate, trying to free herself,
for despite the circumstances and the hour, her mind flew back to a
thousand times when only one kind word from Nancy Ellen would have
saved her endless pain. It was endless, for it was burning in her
heart that instant. At the prospect of wealth, position, and power,
Nancy Ellen could smother her with caresses; but poverty, pain, and
disgrace she had endured alone.
"I shan't let you go till you promise," threatened Nancy Ellen. "When
are you to see him again?"
"Ten, this morning," said Kate. "You better let me get to bed, or I'll
look a sight."
"Then promise," said Nancy Ellen.
Kate laid firm hands on the encircling arms. "Now, look here," she
said, shortly, "it's about time to stop this nonsense. There's nothing
I can promise you. I must have time to think. I've got not only
myself, but the children to think for. And I've only got till ten
o'clock, so I better get at it."
Kate's tone made Nancy Ellen step back.
"Kate, you haven't still got that letter in your mind, have you?" she
demanded.
"No!" laughed Kate, "I haven't! He offered me a thousand dollars if I
could pronounce him a word he couldn't spell; and it's perfectly
evident he's studied until he is exactly like anybody else. No, it's
not that!"
"Then what is it? Simpleton, there WAS nothing else!" cried Nancy
Ellen.
"Not so much at that time; but this is nearly twenty years later, and I
have the fate of my children in my hands. I wish you'd go to bed and
let me think!" said Kate.
"Yes, and the longer you think the crazier you will act," cried Nancy
Ellen. "I know you! You better promise me now, and stick to it."
For answer Kate turned off the light; but she did not go to bed. She
sat beside the window and she was still sitting there when dawn crept
across the lake and began to lighten the room. Then she stretched
herself beside Nancy Ellen, who roused and looked at her.
"You just coming to bed?" she cried in wonder.
"At least you can't complain that I didn't think," said Kate, but Nancy
Ellen found no comfort in what she said, or the way she said it. In
fact, she arose when Kate did, feeling distinctly sulky. As they
returned to their room from breakfast, Kate laid out her hat and gloves
and began to get ready to keep her appointment. Nancy Ellen could
endure the suspense no longer.
"Kate," she said in her gentlest tones, "if you have no mercy on
yourself, have some on your children. You've no right, positively no
right, to take such a chance away from them."
"Chance for what?" asked Kate tersely.
"Education, travel, leisure, every opportunity in the world,"
enumerated Nancy Ellen.
Kate was handling her gloves, her forehead wrinkled, her eyes narrowed
in concentration.
"That is one side of it," she said. "The other is that neither my
children nor I have in our blood, breeding, or mental cosmos, the
background that it takes to make one happy with money in unlimited
quantities. So far as I'm concerned personally, I'm happier this
minute as I am, than John Jardine's money ever could make me. I had a
fierce struggle with that question long ago; since I have had nearly
eight years of life I love, that is good for my soul, the struggle to
leave it would be greater now. Polly would be happier and get more
from life as the wife of big gangling Henry Peters, than she would as a
millionaire's daughter. She'd be very suitable in a farmhouse parlour;
she'd be a ridiculous little figure at a ball. As for Adam, he'd turn
this down quick and hard."
"Just you try him!" cried Nancy Ellen.
"For one thing, he won't be here at ten o'clock," said Kate, "and for
another, since it involves my becoming the wife of John Jardine, it
isn't for Adam to decide. This decision is strictly my own. I merely
mention the children, because if I married him, it would have an
inevitable influence on their lives, an influence that I don't in the
least covet either for them or for myself. Nancy Ellen, can't you
remotely conceive of such a thing as one human being in the world who
is SATISFIED THAT HE HAS HIS SHARE, and who believes to the depths of
his soul that no man should be allowed to amass, and to use for his
personal indulgence, the amount of money that John Jardine does?"
"Yes, I can," cried Nancy Ellen, "when I see you, and the way you act!
You have chance after chance, but you seem to think that life requires
of you a steady job of holding your nose to the grindstone. It was
rather stubby to begin with, go on and grind it clear off your face, if
you like."
"All right," said Kate. "Then I'll tell you definitely that I have no
particular desire to marry anybody; I like my life immensely as I'm
living it. I'm free, independent, and my children are in the element
to which they were born, and where they can live naturally, and spend
their lives helping in the great work of feeding, clothing, and housing
their fellow men. I've no desire to leave my job or take them from
theirs, to start a lazy, shiftless life of self-indulgence. I don't
meddle much with the Bible, but I have a profound BELIEF in it, and a
large RESPECT for it, as the greatest book in the world, and it says:
'By the sweat of his brow shall man earn his bread,' or words to that
effect. I was born a sweater, I shall just go on sweating until I die;
I refuse to begin perspiring at my time of life."
"You big fool!" cried Nancy Ellen.
"Look out! You're 'in danger of Hell fire,' when you call me that!"
warned Kate.
"Fire away!" cried Nancy Ellen, with tears in her eyes and voice. "When
I think what you've gone through--"
Kate stared at her fixedly. "What do you know about what I've gone
though?" she demanded in a cold, even voice. "Personally, I think
you're not qualified to MENTION that subject; you better let it rest.
Whatever it has been, it's been of such a nature that I have come out
of it knowing when I have my share and when I'm well off, for me. If
John Jardine wants to marry me, and will sell all he has, and come and
work on the farm with me, I'll consider marrying him. To leave my life
and what I love to go to Chicago with him, I do not feel called on, or
inclined to do. No, I'll not marry him, and in about fifteen minutes
I'll tell him so."
"And go on making a mess of your life such as you did for years," said
Nancy Ellen, drying her red eyes.
"At least it was my life," said Kate. "I didn't mess things for any
one else."
"Except your children," said Nancy Ellen.
"As you will," said Kate, rising. "I'll not marry John Jardine; and
the sooner I tell him so and get it over, the better. Good-bye. I'll
be back in half an hour."
Kate walked slowly to the observation platform, where she had been the
previous evening with John Jardine; and leaning on the railing, she
stood looking out over the water, and down the steep declivity,
thinking how best she could word what she had to say. She was so
absorbed she did not hear steps behind her or turn until a sharp voice
said: "You needn't wait any longer. He's not coming!"
Kate turned and glanced at the speaker, and then around to make sure
she was the person being addressed. She could see no one else. The
woman was small, light haired, her face enamelled, dressed beyond all
reason, and in a manner wholly out of place for morning at a summer
resort in Michigan.
"If you are speaking to me, will you kindly tell me to whom you refer,
and give me the message you bring?" said Kate.
"I refer to Mr. John Jardine, Mrs. Holt," said the little woman and
then Kate saw that she was shaking, and gripping her hands for
self-control.
"Very well," said Kate. "It will save me an unpleasant task if he
doesn't come. Thank you," and she turned back to the water.
"You certainly didn't find anything unpleasant about being with him
half last night," said the little woman.
Kate turned again, and looked narrowly at the speaker. Then she
laughed heartily. "Well done, Jennie!" she cried. "Why, you are such
a fashionable lady, such a Dolly Varden, I never saw who you were. How
do you do? Won't you sit down and have a chat? It's just dawning on
me that very possibly, from your dress and manner, I SHOULD have called
you Mrs. Jardine."
"Didn't he tell you?" cried Jennie.
"He did not," said Kate. "Your name was not mentioned. He said no
word about being married."
"We have been married since a few weeks after Mrs. Jardine died. I
taught him the things you turned him down for not knowing; I have
studied him, and waited on him, and borne his children, and THIS is my
reward. What are you going to do?"
"Go back to the hotel, when I finish with this view," said Kate. "I
find it almost as attractive by day as it was by night."
"Brazen!" cried Mrs. Jardine.
"Choose your words carefully," said Kate. "I was here first; since you
have delivered your message, suppose you go and leave me to my view."
"Not till I get ready," said Mrs. Jardine. "Perhaps it will help you
to know that I was not twenty feet from you at any time last night; and
that I stood where I could have touched you, while my husband made love
to you for hours."
"So?" said Kate. "I'm not at all surprised. That's exactly what I
should have expected of you. But doesn't it clarify the situation any,
at least for me, when I tell you that Mr. Jardine gave me no faintest
hint that he was married? If you heard all we said, you surely
remember that you were not mentioned?"
Mrs. Jardine sat down suddenly and gripped her little hands. Kate
studied her intently. She wondered what she would look like when her
hair was being washed; at this thought she smiled broadly. That made
the other woman frantic.
"You can well LAUGH at me," she said. "I made the banner fool of the
ages of myself when I schemed to marry him. I knew he loved you. He
told me so. He told me, just as he told you last night, that he never
had loved any other woman and he never would. I thought he didn't know
himself as I knew him. He was so grand to his mother, I thought if I
taught him, and helped him back to self-respect, and gave him children,
he must, and would love me. Well, I was mistaken. He does not, and
never will. Every day he thinks of you; not a night but he speaks your
name. He thinks all things can be done with money--"
"So do you, Jennie," interrupted Kate. "Well, I'll show you that this
CAN'T!"
"Didn't you hear him exulting because you are now free?" cried Jennie.
"He thinks he will give me a home, the children, a big income; then
secure his freedom and marry you."
"Oh, don't talk such rot!" cried Kate. "John Jardine thinks no such
thing. He wouldn't insult me by thinking I thought such a thing. That
thought belongs where it sprang from, right in your little cramped,
blonde brain, Jennie."
"You wouldn't? Are you sure you wouldn't?" cried Jennie, leaning
forward with hands clutched closely.
"I should say not!" said Kate. "The last thing on earth I want is some
other woman's husband. Now look here, Jennie, I'll tell you the plain
truth. I thought last night that John Jardine was as free as I was; or
I shouldn't have been here with him. I thought he was asking me again
to marry him, and I was not asleep last night, thinking it over. I
came here to tell him that I would not. Does that satisfy you?"
"Satisfy?" cried Jennie. "I hope no other woman lives in the kind of
Hell I do."
"It's always the way," said Kate, "when people will insist on getting
out of their class. You would have gotten ten times more from life as
the wife of a village merchant, or a farmer, than you have as the wife
of a rich man. Since you're married to him, and there are children,
there's nothing for you to do but finish your job as best you can.
Rest your head easy about me. I wouldn't touch John Jardine married to
you; I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole, divorced from you. Get
that clear in your head, and do please go!"
Kate turned again to the water, but when she was sure Jennie was far
away she sat down suddenly and asked of the lake: "Well, wouldn't that
freeze you?"