Tallow Martin lighted a match and held it up so we could see. Sure enough it was a boat—a canoe.
“W-wonder what it’s doing here,” says Mark.
“Let’s ask Uncle Hieronymous,” I says.
So we went off to the house, where uncle was standing over the stove, breaking an egg into a frying-pan.
“’Tain’t ready yet,” says he, as we came into the kitchen.
“We was just out in the barn,” I says, “and we saw a canoe up on the beams. Does it belong to you?”
“Well, now, lemme see. Does that there curi’us leetle boat b’long to me or not? Now, does it? If you was guessin’ how would you guess?”
“I’d guess it did,” I says.
“Then,” says he, “you’d be wrong, for it don’t. At any rate, it didn’t, last time I looked at it. But canoes is peculiar critters—no tellin’ what it’s up and done regardin’ its ownership in nigh onto two months.”
“Can we use it, uncle?”