“Of course not,” returned Joanne positively. “Any of my friends will be entirely welcome. Cousin Ned has no children and he dotes on me, so if I invite you it is the same as if he did. It is such a dear place. You wouldn’t believe anything so wild could be within twenty miles of Washington; great cliffs and forests and rushing rapids in the river.”
“It sounds perfectly entrancing,” declared Winnie.
“There is a farmhouse where the manager lives,” Joanne went on, “but that isn’t where we would stay. Cousin Ned has built the cunningest fishing lodge, sort of like a bungalow; he and some of his friends did most of it themselves, and you never knew anything so clever. It is built of hewn logs with a huge fireplace made of the stones on the place. They just rolled them down from the top of the hill. The chimneys are made of discarded ice cans, the kind they use in factories where they manufacture ice; they sort of telescoped them together for only a makeshift, and found they served so well they have left them just so. The water comes from a never-failing spring half-way up the hill, such clear, sparkling water; it is piped down into the house which is at the foot of the hill on the border of the canal with the river beyond. Cousin Ned has a canoe and a motor-boat. Sometimes we go part way in his car and the rest of the way in the motor-boat; I like that way best.”
“Do you go up often?” asked Winnie, much interested.
“Well, I’ve been up only twice,” said Joanne truthfully, “and once we went in the motor-boat part of the way.”
Winnie laughed for Joanne had spoken as if her visits were of great frequency. “Could our troop hike up there?” she asked.
“It would be a pretty long hike,” replied Joanne doubtfully, “but we might take a train to the nearest railway station and walk from there. It would be about nine or ten miles and up a lot of hills.”
Winifred considered this, then presently she broke out with: “I have an idea! I tell you what I think would be perfectly great: we could go up on a canal boat and it would be such fun to go through the locks.”
“Wouldn’t it?” returned Joanne enthusiastically. “I have always been crazy to go through those locks. Cousin Ned took me over to the one nearest his place and showed me how they worked. It would take a pretty long time to get up there, I suppose, but we wouldn’t mind that. I’ll find out from Cousin Ned if it would be possible, and let you know. I don’t suppose it would be best to say anything to the other girls till we know whether or not it can be done.”
“No, I suppose not,” agreed Winnie, “but I hope you can find out soon so we won’t have to burden our minds with a secret any longer than necessary.”