Thus having the whole day before him where he had counted only on the afternoon, he swallowed his breakfast—which was a go-as-you-please meal that kept the cook and butler busy from eight to ten-thirty—took his fishing kit and paddled the lurid dugout into the channel.
He glanced back at a piercing whistle from ashore. The distance was too great for words to carry, but not for Rod to make out the signaller as Grove. He waved a paddle and kept on.
"Probably wants to wish somebody on me to go fishing," Rod grunted. "He knows I'd much rather go alone. No chance, old cockatoo. This is my party."
He bounded light-footed as a cougar up the steps to a porch floor pricked full of innumerable tiny holes from the sharp calks of logging boots, walked without ceremony into a rather bare front room, and when he found no one there to answer his casual "hello," passed on to the kitchen. Mary and her mother were cleaning up the breakfast things.
"I'm headed for the Granite Pool," he announced. "Can Mary come along, Mrs. Thorn?"
"I expect she can," the girl's mother answered placidly, "if she wants to."
But Mary shook her head. "You're too early. Lots of work to do yet."
"You can work when you can't do anything else," Rod said. "Come on. Don't be a piker. You're only in Mrs. Thorn's way. Isn't she, Mrs. Thorn? Isn't a girl a nuisance around a house? I'm sure you'd much rather have a boy."
"I don't know about that," Mrs. Thorn smiled gently. "Mary's about as good at most things as a boy. Isn't she?"
"Oh, sure—that's why I want her to go fishing," Rod grinned. "Come along, Mary."