ON THE RIVER
“You chumps!” growled Jimmy in deep disgust. “What do you think you’re
doing, anyway?”
“It’s a sad story,” murmured Nick. “We were shipwrecked six――seven――how
many days ago was it, Mr. Ordway?”
“Seven, Mr. Blake.”
“Ay, seven days ago, sir, and ever since we have been tossed about in
this tiny boat at the mercy of the sea and tempest and――――”
“Elements,” suggested the voice from under the comic supplement.
“Ay, elephants! At last――at last――――”
“Get that in about no food nor water,” prompted the other in a hoarse
whisper.
“I forgot to say that there was no time to provision the boat. For six
days――――”
“Seven!”
“For seven days we were without food or drink, and at last, weak and
exhausted, we lay down in the bottom of the boat and died.”
“Oh, so you’re dead?” asked Jimmy interestedly.
“Dead as anything,” replied Nick cheerfully. “You dead, Mr. Ordway?”
“Fearfully, thanks.”
“I thought so. When one is dead one’s memory is apt to be a bit
uncertain, though. That’s why I asked. Gentleman here inquired. Very
kind of him, I’m sure. Wasn’t it kind of him, ’Ighness?”
“Extraordinarily kind! Most polite, I’m quite sure!”
“The trouble with you fellows,” said Jimmy solicitously, “is that
you’ve been lying around here in the sun. What you need is a local
application of cold water to the cranium――――”
“Doesn’t he talk beautifully, ’Ighness?”
“It’s wonderful,” sighed the other.
“And it’s my duty to attend to the matter,” concluded Jimmy. Nick
opened his eyes then and the colored supplement quivered emotionally.
“Respect the dead, Jimmy,” warned Nick, “or I’ll forget that I’m a
lifeless corpse and lay you out with a paddle. Who’s there with you?”
“Dud Baker.”
“Ah, the sprightly Baker,” murmured Nick. “Salutations, Baker.”
“Hello,” replied Dud from the further end of the canoe. “Hello, Ordway.”
Hugh cast aside the paper and carefully assumed a sitting position.
“Hello, Baker,” he said. “Nick, I fancy we’re rescued.”
“Too late,” answered his companion in disaster gloomily. “We’re dead.
It’s perfectly silly to come along at this late day and rescue us,
Jimmy.”
“Well, if you’re dead it’s up to us to bury you. Mind if we don’t sew
you up in sacks, Nick? We’re awfully shy of sacks.”
“I mind terribly. I couldn’t think of being buried at sea without a
sack. I suppose you’ll tell me next that you haven’t even a cannon ball
to sink me with!”
“He might use a couple of those doughnuts,” suggested Hugh, poking with
one foot at a bundle in the middle of the canoe.
“Doughnuts?” asked Jimmy eagerly. “Got eats in there, fellows?”
“Yes, sir.” Nick pulled himself up with a groan. “We’re off on a
picnic, Jimmy. And that reminds me, Hugh, that it’s about time we
looked for a picturesque sylvan glade somewhere. Seen any of those
things, Jimmy?”
Jimmy, who had been working the light blue canoe along until it now
rocked companionably beside the white one, shook his head. “No,” he
answered. “Let’s――er――let’s look at one of those doughnuts, Nick.”
Nick viewed him speculatively and then dropped his gaze to the bundle.
“I wouldn’t want to expose them to the air, Jimmy. They get stale so
soon, you see. But I’ll describe them to you. They’re big and fat and
sort of a lovely golden-brown color, and they’ve got sugar sprinkled
on their circumferences, so to speak. Honest, Jimmy, they’re awfully
_tasty_ doughnuts. You’d like ’em, I feel sure.”
“Stingy brute! Come across, Nick. I’m as hungry as a bear. You’ve got
plenty, I’ll bet.”
“Depends,” replied Nick, clasping his hands about his knees, “what you
call plenty. We’ve got only a dozen.”
“You can have a couple of my six,” laughed Hugh, reaching for the
luncheon.
“One moment,” interposed Nick. “Tell you what, ’Ighness. Here we are
with more food than we can eat, and here are two famished mariners
miles from port. What’s the answer?”
“Why, we invite them to dinner, of course.”
“Correct! Turn your old tub around, Jimmy, and paddle back to the
willows and we’ll go ashore and have a banquet. We’ve only got three
chops, but there’s lots of bread and butter and some cheese and a can
of peaches. Only we forgot to bring an opener, and so I don’t just
see―――― You don’t happen to carry a can-opener with you, do you Baker?”
“No, but I think I can-opener without one,” replied Dud.
“Wow!” said Jimmy.
Nick turned with great difficulty and viewed Dud reproachfully. “You
shouldn’t do that,” he said. “I don’t mind for myself. I’m strong. But
Hugh here won’t get that before tomorrow morning at eleven-thirty-nine,
and meanwhile he will puzzle that poor English bean of his and get
faint and dizzy. You shouldn’t, Baker, you shouldn’t!”
“Get what?” asked Hugh innocently.
Jimmy laughed and Nick nodded sorrowfully at him. “Listen, ’Ighness,”
he explained patiently. “It was like this. I asked Baker if he carried
a can-opener with him. Get that?”
“Perfectly. And he said he could open it without one. What’s the joke?”
Nick cast his hands aside hopelessly. “What’s the use? What’s the use?”
he demanded. “Come on and let’s paddle. I’m sta-a-arved!”
“How about getting back for supper?” inquired Jimmy. “It’s ’way after
five now.”
“We get lost or we have an upset or something,” rejoined Nick
carelessly. “We discussed that, but I forget now just what we decided.”
“That’s all right for you,” objected Jimmy as he and Dud swung their
craft around, “but what about us? We can’t all get upset?”
“Why not?” asked Nick, reaching for his paddle. “There’s plenty of
water, isn’t there?”
“But, I say, Nick,” remonstrated Hugh, “if we tell them we were upset
we’ll have to get our clothes wet, eh?”
“Um, that’s so. I hadn’t thought of that. Oh, well, never mind now.
We’ll think up something going back.”
“We might let the canoes get away from us and have to chase them,”
suggested Dud.
“Perfect!” applauded Nick. “Baker, you have a great mind. Tell you
what, my hearties. After we get to the willows we’ll carelessly let the
canoes get away, see? Then we’ll catch ’em further downstream. They
won’t ask us how _far_ we had to chase ’em. Even if they do we can be
vague.”
“Maybe we’d better try to get back on time,” said Hugh.
“Squealer!” Nick, in the stern, reproachfully splashed Hugh’s back.
“There’s no fun picnicking if you have to go home right away and eat
another meal.”
“Oh, all right, old chap,” agreed Hugh. “Only don’t throw any more
water down my neck. It’s beastly cold.”
There was silence then for a few minutes while the two canoes passed
leisurely down the winding stream, side by side. Westward, the sun
was dropping close to the greening summit of the low hills and the
April day was almost at its end. There was a perceptible chill in the
little breeze that crept across the meadows and made catspaws on the
quiet surface of the water. Early blackbirds were fluttering along the
banks ahead of the canoes, uttering their creaky notes and simulating
wild alarm. A fish leaped after a reckless insect and fell back with a
startling splash, sending widening circles away in the amber glow. They
didn’t paddle much, for there was enough current to bear them along.
Jimmy frankly shipped his blade and watched the drops trickle. Nick’s
voice came across the few yards of water.
“Somebody will please say some poetry,” he requested.
“‘Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
“‘Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl――――’”
“That’ll be about all of that,” interrupted Nick. “If you don’t know
anything cheerful, ’Ighness, dry up. ‘The moping owl’! Where do you get
that stuff, anyway?”
“Chap name of Gray wrote it,” replied Hugh meekly.
“Thought so! Same fellow who did that ‘Elegy on a Country Cemetery,’ or
whatever it is. He was a jovial old Johnnie, wasn’t he? Bet you he’d
have been swell company at a funeral!”
“If you want something bright and sparkling,” offered Jimmy, “I know a
nice little poem about a hanging! It begins――――”
“Never mind how it begins! Want to spoil a perfectly good appetite? I
say, you fellows, we’ll race you to the willows. Dig, ’Ighness!”
Followed a spirited race around the last bend to where a group of
willows leaned out over the shadowed water. Victory was claimed by both
crews, and the matter was never finally settled, for Nick tactfully
introduced the subject of supper in the middle of the argument and
leaped ashore with the brown-paper package that contained the precious
viands. Dried marsh grass and the paper from the bundle started a fire
at the foot of one gnarled willow, and small pieces of driftwood,
deposited by some winter flood, were piled on. Meanwhile Hugh made the
discovery that they had failed to provide salt for the chops and that
Nick had neglected to bring his folding cup. Jimmy helpfully reminded
them that it was an ancient custom, or so he had read, to substitute
gunpowder for salt when the latter was not to be had, and so _that_ was
all right! Nick called him an idiot and borrowed his knife to sharpen a
stick on which to broil the chops. In payment Jimmy helped himself to a
doughnut.