"You shall! Old Joe Wampers shall fix us one the first time we go out on the river. He can cook as well as he can fish, and some of us fellows had a camp set up on the old Point, last year. I haven't been over there yet, this summer, but it's all mine anyhow. When it came fall and the others had to go back to school they—well, they were short on cash and long on camp, so I bought them out. You like flowers? Ever gather any water lilies?"
"Like them? I just love them, love them! Of course, I never gathered water lilies, for I've always lived in the city. But I've often—I mean, sometimes—bought them out of pails, down by Lexington Market. Five or ten cents a bunch, according to the size. I always tried to save up and get a big bunch for mother Martha on her birthday. I used to envy the boys that had them for sale and wish I could go and pick them for myself. But—but I've seen pictures of them as they really grow," concluded Dorothy C., anxious that Herbert should not consider her too ignorant.
However, it was not the fact that she had never gathered lilies which had caught his attention; it was that one little sentence: "to save up." He really could scarcely imagine a state of things in which anybody would have to "save" the insignificant amount of five or ten cents, in order to buy a parent a bunch of flowers. Instantly, he was filled with keen compassion for this down-trodden little maid who was denied the use of abundant pocket money, and with as great an indignation against the parents who would so mistreat a child—such a pretty child as Dorothy C. Of course, it was because the niggardly creatures were only parents by adoption; and—at that moment there entered the brain of this young gentleman a scheme by which many matters should be righted. The suddenness and beauty of the idea almost took his breath away, but he kept his thought to himself and returned to the practical suggestion of planked shad.
"Well, sir,—I mean, Dorothy,—a planked shad is about the most delicious morsel a fellow ever put in his mouth. First, catch your shad. Old Joe does that in a twinkling. Then while it's still flopping, he scales and cleans it, splits it open, nails it on a board, seasons it well with salt and pepper, and stands it up before a rousing fire we've built on the ground. U'm'm—Yum! In about half or three-quarters of an hour it's done. Then with the potatoes we've roasted in the ashes and plenty of bread and butter and a pot of coffee—Well, words fail. You'll have to taste that feast to know what it means. All the better, too, if you've been rowing for practice all morning. Old Joe Wampers coaches college crews even yet, and once he went over with Columbia to Henley. That's the time he tells about whenever he gets a chance. 'The time of his life' he calls it, and that's not slang, either. Say. What's to hinder our doing it right now? This very afternoon—morning, for that matter, though it's getting rather late to go before lunch, I suppose. I'll tell you! Just you mention to your folks that you're going on the river, this afternoon, and I'll coax mother to make Helena and the Milliken go, too. Then I'll ride right away down to the Landing and get old Joe warmed up to the subject. He's getting a little stiff in the joints of his good nature, but a good dose of flattery'll limber him up considerable. Besides, when he hears it's for that real heroine of a kidnapping story everybody was talking about, he'll be willing enough. I'll tell him you never tasted planked shad nor saw one cooked, and he'll just spread himself. 'Poor as a June shad,' he said yesterday, when I begged for one, though that's all nonsense. They're good yet. Will you?"
He paused for breath, his words having fairly tumbled over each other in their rapidity, and was utterly amazed to hear Dorothy reply:
"No, thank you, I will not. Nothing would tempt me."
"Why, Dorothy Chester! What do you mean?" he asked, incredulous that anybody, least of all an inexperienced girl, should resist the tempting prospect that he had spread before her.
"I wouldn't touch to taste one of those horrible 'flopping' fish! I couldn't. I wouldn't—not for anything. I should feel like a murderer. So there!"
"Whew! George and the cherry tree! You wouldn't? 'Not for anything?' Not even for a chance to sail along over a lovely piece of water, dabbling your hand in it, and pulling out great, sweet-smelling flowers? 'Course, you needn't see the shad 'flop.' I only said that to show how fresh we get them. Why, I coaxed even dad over to camp once and I've always wanted Helena to go. Pshaw! I am disappointed."
"I don't see why nor how you can be much. You didn't know me till an hour ago—or less, even. And I'm disappointed too. You didn't look like a boy who would"—Dorothy paused and gave her new acquaintance a critical glance—"who would kill things!"