Well, that was how it was up to the time I'm telling about, just before school closed, in June, and the weather was bully and warm. It made you want to do things. So on Saturday me and Swatty and Bony was sitting in my barn and talking about what we would do that afternoon. We thought of a lot of things, and said them, but, every time, Swatty said: “Aw! no, let's don't!” So we didn't. So then I said:
“I'll tell you what!”
“What?” Swatty asked.
“Pshaw, no!” I said. “It ain't no use. We couldn't get any. It ain't time for them yet.”
“Aw! what are you talking about?” Swatty asked. “What ain't it time for?”
“Water-lilies,” I said. “If it was time for waterlilies we could row up to the water-lily pond and get some water-lilies.”
So then Swatty he talked up.
“Well, we could row up the river anyway, couldn't we?” he said—only he said “rowr” instead of “row,” like he always does. “We could rowr up the river and get some pond-lily roots and sell them.”
“Aw! who would buy old pond-lily roots?” Bony wanted to know.
Well, I thought at first that the reason Swatty said we could sell pond-lily roots was because once I had told him about a man or somebody who had made money getting pond-lily roots and selling them to people who wanted to raise pond-lilies in a tub in their gardens. But that was n't why he said it.