Caught near Riverbank by the cold weather, he recalled Lone Tree Lake, where the duck hunters usually had a shack or a shanty-boat, vacant at this season, and he left the main road only to find nothing but the scant shelter of the duck blind. Peter's boat, when it appeared, had seemed a gift from the gods.
The shore against which the boat now lay was a thicket of willows so close of growth that it was almost impossible to fight through them, and while most were no larger than whips some were as large as a man's wrist. Against the low bank the boat lay broadside and so close that the willow branches reached over her roof, and as soon as Booge had brought his valise inside Peter reached far under the bunk and brought forth an ax.
“Now, Booge ain't going to have time to sing songs to you daytimes, Buddy, because everybody that lives in this boat has work to do,” said Peter, “and as I've got to make some spoons, Booge is going to take this ax and clear away a path through the willows. And you want to cut them off close down to the roots,” he warned Booge, “or you'll have to do it over again. You cut a path from the front door through that willow clump, so we can pass in and out and get fire-wood, and when you 've got the path you can fetch the fire-wood. I'm going to stay in to-day and make spoons.”
Booge took the ax and looked at it quizzically.
“Well, if this ain't my old friend wood-splitter I've been dodging for years and years,” he said good naturedly. “How-do, wood-splitter? How's your cousin buck saw? Is all the little saw-bucks well?”
“You'd better get at them willows,” said Peter.
“I just wanted to enquire about them old friends of mine,” said Booge.
“You'll have time enough to talk to Mr. Wood-ax before you get done with him,” said Peter dryly, and Booge laughed and went out.
That evening, when Buddy was in bed Peter put down his jack-knife long enough to scribble down the new variations of the “Tell the Little Baby” song.
“Writin' a book?” Booge asked.