“Where on earth did you get so many?” gasped Dan.
“South o’ the road where the river has overflowed its banks. The boys are heaving them out with pitchforks and spears and even bare handed. Take all you want. I’ve three times as many as Sarah Jane and I can eat.”
Nothing loath, I lifted out sufficient for our needs, and as Dan set to cleaning the fish, I collected corn cobs and kindled a tiny fire beneath the rack.
A short, roly-poly woman bustled out of the back door of the small but comfortable farmhouse and approached us.
“Dear me, dear me, a lady tramp!” she exclaimed. “Bless us, if they haven’t gone to running in pairs like animals entering the ark.”
Catching sight of the tandem still loaded with part of our equipment, she paused in amazement, pushing back her red calico sunbonnet and revealing wonderful masses of snow-white curls.
“But you’re not a tramp after all, are you? Tramps don’t ride bicycles. What a disappointment! I’ve always wanted to meet a lady tramp. But what are you up to anyway? Must be something interesting. You look interesting.”
I assured her that we were, indeed, up to something interesting, just how interesting we would probably fully realise later on.
“So you’re really going back to that strange California where it is always summer? What awful monotony. Come fall, I’m always glad, for I feel that summer has been here plenty long enough.”
She seated herself on the wagon tongue.