“Twenty-two minutes before five.”
“A.M., I judge. Sorry you didn’t let me wind it?”
“Not a bit. I was just curious to see when it stopped, that was all.”
“Well, now you know. Hereafter the official time for the camp is [4:38]—A.M. or P.M., according to taste. Come along. The bacon’s done, and I’m blest if I want to drop in the eggs.”
Dropping an egg will never, I fear, be one of Jonathan’s most finished performances. He watched me do it with generous admiration. “If you could just get over being scared of them,” I suggested, as the last one plumped into the pan and set up its gentle sizzle.
“No use. I am scared of the things. I tap and tap, and nothing happens, and then I get mad and tap hard, and they’re all over the place.”
By the time breakfast was over, even the coolness under the hemlocks was beginning to grow warm and aromatic. The birds in the shore woods were quieter, though out at the sunny end of our island, where the hemlocks gave place to low scrub growth, the song sparrow sang gayly now and then.
“Now,” said Jonathan, “what about fishing?”
“Well—let’s fish!”
“One up stream and one down, or keep together?”