POKE ON CANOES
It was shortly after Mr. Hanks’ disconcerting assumption of the rôle of
despot that Jeffrey crossed the hall to Gil and Poke’s room one Friday
evening.
“Are you fellows still grinding?” he asked.
“We are still studying,” responded Poke. “Please try to abstain from
slang, Mr. Latham. I don’t care so much about myself, but it sets a bad
example for my friend across the table. I have to be very careful about
him. His parents have placed him in my charge, you see. Well, what’s on
your mind, old top?”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Jeffrey gravely.
“I know.” Poke nodded sympathetically. “It does make you feel sort of
queer, doesn’t it? Have a glass of water?”
“That might give him water on the brain,” observed Gil, looking up from
his book.
Poke observed him sorrowfully. “Your humor, Gil, is heavy, very heavy.
Go on with your Latin, my poor fellow.”
“How the dickens can I, when you two chaps are talking?” asked Gil
mildly, pushing his book away.
“I thought you’d be through,” said Jeffrey. “I’ll come in again later.”
“Sit still, Jeff. I am through. I was just taking a fall out of
Monday’s stuff. Where’s Jim?”
“Over there; studying math.” Jeffrey indicated his room with a jerk of
his head. “I’ve been thinking――”
“You said that before,” interrupted Poke sweetly.
“Shut up, Poke! Let him think if he wants to. Just because you never do
it――”
“Let him tell it, Gil, can’t you? Always interrupting and annoying
folks with your beastly chatter. Go ahead, Jeff; don’t mind him; you’ve
been thinking; now what’s the rest? Bet you I know the answer!”
Jeff aimed a blow at Poke’s shins with the end of a crutch and Poke
kicked his feet up just in time. “He’s getting crutchity, Gil,” he said
sadly.
Gil threatened him with a book from the table and Poke retired to the
other side of the room.
“You see,” said Jeff, taking advantage of Poke’s retreat to state his
errand, “you see, fellows, I’ve been thinking――”
There was a chuckle from the window seat which turned quickly into a
cough as Gil swung around in that direction, the book still in his
hand. Jeffrey smiled.
“Thinking,” he went on, “about getting a canoe.”
“Gee, but I’m glad you aren’t thinking about getting a steam yacht!”
ejaculated Poke. “You’d have brain fever by this time!”
“They say there’s a man named Sandford up the river who makes corkers.”
“There is; at Riverbend. There are two or three up there who make
canoes,” replied Gil.
“Well, I’ve always heard that Sandford’s were the best. I think――”
“He’s at it again!” groaned Poke, who had fortified himself with half a
dozen cushions. “He’s at it again!”
“I think I’ll buy one. Oughtn’t I get a pretty good one for thirty
dollars, Gil?”
“I really don’t know, Jeff. Never bought a canoe in my life. I would
think so, though. How about it, Poke?”
“Oh, am I to be allowed to speak?” asked Poke in a muffled voice from
behind his breastworks. “Had to come to old Poke when you wanted to
know something, didn’t you?”
“Oh, shut up, you idiot!” laughed Gil. “How much do canoes cost?”
Poke emerged in a shower of cushions. “Canoes?” he asked. “Well now,
what kind of canoes? There are canvas canoes, wooden canoes, paper
canoes, birch-bark canoes, steel canoes, dug-outs――”
“Dug-outs, of course,” replied Gil sarcastically. “Those are what
Sandford makes, I suppose?”
“Irony doesn’t become you,” responded Poke critically. “Irony, Gil,
should be indulged in only by those having an iron constitution.
Returning to the subject of canoes and the cost thereof――”
“Thirty dollars will probably buy you a first-class one, Jeff,” Gil
interrupted. “When are you going to――”
“Thirty dollars will buy a very fair one only,” Poke corrected. “Allow
me, if you please, to speak on this subject. I suppose there is no
one in Crofton who has more knowledge of canoes than I, Jeff. Canoes
are――are an open book to me. I can tell you where to buy them, how
to buy them, when to buy them――and when not to! Also, I have full
knowledge of what to feed them and how to bring them up. I suppose I’ve
brought up more canoes――”
“Honestly, Poke, you’re silly,” said Gil disgustedly. “We’re talking
seriously, so shut up or get out, will you?”
“I can be just as serious as you can, you old Mr. Grouch!” Poke
returned to his chair at the table, wearing an expression of intense
dignity. “Sandford’s eighteen-foot canoe, Jeff, costs forty-two
dollars, but you can get a dandy sixteen-footer for thirty-five. It
isn’t finished quite as nicely, I believe. Sometimes you can pick up a
good second-hand one up there. Perky Wright has one he only paid about
fifteen for. I don’t think it came from Sandford, though. What’s that
other fellow’s name up there, Gil?”
“I don’t know. There are two or three others, aren’t there? Was Perky’s
second-hand when he got it, Poke?”
“Yes, and he had the fellow paint it all up as good as new. You’d
never have known it had been used before he got it, Jeff.”
“I think I’d rather have a brand-new one,” said Jeff doubtfully. “And I
wouldn’t want an eighteen-footer; sixteen is long enough. Couldn’t you
fellows go up there with me in the morning and help me buy it?”
“I guess so,” Gil answered. “We’d have to go early, though; dinner’s at
twelve to-morrow on account of the game.”
“We can go up on the train,” said Poke. “Take the eight-something and
be there in five minutes.”
“I thought we might paddle up,” suggested Jeff. “It wouldn’t take very
long.”
“Hm, and who would do the paddling?” asked Poke with elaborate
carelessness.
“I’d do most of it,” Jeffrey replied, “if some one would take a hand in
the bow.”
“That’s Gil, then. He’s tried it and I never have. How many can we get
in a canoe? Is Jim going along?”
“No, he says he can’t. But I thought we might take Hope if she’d like
to go.”
“Four of us in one frail bark?” demurred Poke.
“Of course; easy as pie.”
“I’ve seen six fellows in some of our canoes here,” said Gil. “But I’m
afraid you and I’ll be a bit tired by the time we reach Riverbend,
Jeff. However, we can come back with the current.”
“Gee,” exclaimed Poke, “I wish we didn’t have a game to-morrow. We
could take some grub with us and have a picnic.”
“Fine! Couldn’t we do it anyway?” Jeff asked eagerly.
“Why not, Poke? Johnny will let us off,” said Gil. “We’ll get Lady to
put us up a nice big basket of grub and we’ll find a place along the
river and have a fine old time! Why can’t Jim come along?”
“He says he has to attend to some things around the house in the
morning,” answered Jeff.
“Shucks! Where is he? I’ll attend to him!” And Poke disappeared across
the hall.
“We’ll have to make sure and be back by one-thirty,” said Gil. “Game’s
at two-thirty to-morrow, you know. We’ll put on our old things so we
can fall overboard if we want to. By the way, Jeff, what would happen
to you if the old thing did upset?”
“I’d swim ashore, I hope,” laughed Jeff.
“Really? Can you swim with――with those?” Gil was looking at the
crutches.
“No, I usually leave these behind when I go in swimming,” replied
Jeffrey with a smile. “Swim is one thing I can do fairly well, Gil.
Funny, though, isn’t it? I suppose I do most of it with my good leg,
although I seem to get some push with the other, too. If we upset, you
look after yourself; don’t worry about me; I dare say I’d be ashore as
soon as you.”
“Here he is!” cried Poke in the doorway. He had Jim by the coat
collar. “Now apologize to Mr. Latham for so rudely refusing his kind
invitation!”
“I apologize,” laughed Jim.
“Then you’ll go with us?” cried Jeffrey.
Jim hesitated. “I oughtn’t to,” he began.
“Oh, feathers!” said Poke, giving him a shake. “Of course you’ll come.
What have you got to do here, I’d like to know?”
“Lots of things; lay a carpet, for one.”
“Lay it after you get back,” suggested Jeffrey.
“I want to see the game, thank you. Maybe, though, I can do it
to-morrow evening.”
“Of course you can; carpets lay better in the evening, anyhow.” And
Poke released his prisoner.
“Will Hope come along?” asked Jeffrey.
“I guess so,” Jim replied. “Want me to find out?”
“Yes, and say, Jim, while you’re about it see if Lady will get up some
sandwiches and things for us, will you?”
“Of course she will.” Jim went out to seek his mother and sister, and
Poke began to chuckle.
“What are you crying about?” asked Gil.
“Oh, nothing much, thank you. I was just wondering which of us, if
Hope comes, is to swim. For I’ll be switched if I want to go five in a
canoe.”
“That’s so,” said Jeff. “I hadn’t thought of that. Couldn’t we take two
canoes, Gil?”
“If we can get them, but some one will have to get to the boat-house
pretty early or they’ll be taken; that is, if it’s a decent day. And
who will paddle the second one?”
“Jim,” replied Jeffrey. “He can paddle very well now. I’ve been showing
him how.”
“And who will take the bow paddle?” asked Poke uneasily.
“You, you lazy dub,” responded Gil promptly. “If you can’t paddle a
canoe it’s time you learned how. You and Jeff can go in one canoe, with
Hope, and Jim and I will take the other.”
“All right, but don’t blame me if something awful happens. I am subject
to cramps, and if I have a cramp I can’t paddle, and if I can’t paddle
we’ll upset, and if we upset――”
“You’ll get wet,” ended Jeffrey. “So I guess we’ll let you and Jim take
care of the luncheon, Gil.”
“I won’t go if you’re going to put the luncheon in his care,” declared
Poke. “Why, there wouldn’t be a smutch of it left by the time we got to
Riverbend. I insist on staying close to the grub!”
“As close as you want, but in another boat, sweet youth,” replied Gil.
“Here’s Jim. What did she say, Jim?”
“Which she? Lady says she will give us all the lunch we want and Hope
says she would like to go very much indeed. To be quite exact, fellows,
she said it would be ‘perfectly jimmy!’”