"When Annie's hair has just been washed," championed Jeanne, after one of Mrs. Shannon's outbursts against the family's red-gold locks, "it's lovely. And if Sammy ever had a lazy hair in his head, I guess Michael pulled it out that time they had a fight about the fish-pole."
"Where's Sammy now?" asked his grandmother, suspiciously. "'Tain't safe to leave him alone a minute. He's always pryin' into things."
"He and Michael are trying to pull a board off the dock for firewood."
That was one convenient thing about the wharf. You could live on it and use it for firewood, too, provided you were careful not to take portions on which one needed to walk. To anyone but the long-practiced Duvals, however, most of the dock presented a most uninviting surface—a dangerous one, in fact. If you stepped on the end of a plank, it was quite apt to go down like a trap-door, dropping you into the lake below. If you stepped in the middle, just as likely as not your foot would go through the decayed board. But only the long portion running east and west was really dangerous. The section between the Duvals and dry land, owing to the accumulation of cinders and soil, bound together with roots of growing plants, was fairly safe.
"Of course," said Jeanne, who sometimes wished for Patsy's sake that there were fewer holes in the wharf, "if it were a good dock, we wouldn't be allowed to live on it. And if people could walk on it, people would; and that would spoil it for us. As it is, it's just the loveliest spot in the whole world."
CHAPTER VII
A MATTER OF COATS
Mrs. Shannon had been right about Mr. Duval. He was saving money. Also, it was for Jeanne; or, at least, for a purpose that closely concerned that little maiden.
What Mrs. Shannon had not guessed was the fact that Old Captain and Mr. Duval had discovered—or, rather, had been discovered by—two places willing to pay good prices for their excellent whitefish and trout. The chef of a certain hotel noted for planked whitefish gave a standing order for fish of a certain size. And a certain dining-car steward, having once tasted that delicious planked fish, discovered where it was to be obtained in a raw state and, thereafter, twice a week, ordered a supply for his car.