“It was just like being an animal,” Jack told her mother; “a fox or a duck or something, for you didn’t have to think of your clothes and you didn’t care how wet you got. It was lovely to feel the rain in your face and trickling down your back.”
“It must have been,” laughed Mrs. Corner, “though the trickles down the back don’t appeal to me materially. That part doesn’t sound very delightful.”
“It was though,” maintained Jack, spreading out her toes to the blaze of her mother’s open fire. “And another thing is,” she went on; “when you get so very wet it’s so nice to be getting dry, just like when you are tired it is nice to get rested, or when you are hungry it is nice to eat. We had a lovely time, Jean. We hollered just as loud as we could, and we saw another porcupine.”
“What was he doing?” asked Jean, immediately interested.
“He was down by a little black pool. Nan said it was ink that was in it and that he had gone there to write a letter with one of his quills. She said he would dip it in and write on a big leaf.”
“How could he when the leaves were all wet?”
“It was Just Like Being a Duck.”
Jack threw back her head and laughed joyously. “Of course he couldn’t do it at all, wet leaves or dry, you silly little goose. Nan just said that, but he did roll himself into a funny ball, all spikey, when he saw us. We were going as far as the beaver dam but most of the girls wanted to come back, so we came.”
“Where are they all?”