"My dear boys," he said heartily, "why, you'll be parboiled if you stop here. Come with me, Miss Peggy, and you, Brawn; I'll come back for you, lads. Don't want to upset the dinghy all among the 'gators, see?"
Bill was back again in a quarter of an hour, and the boys were also taken on board the boat.
"She's a right smart little boat as ever was," said Bill; "but if we was agoin' to get 'er lip on to the water, blow me tight, boys, if the 'gators wouldn't board us. They'm mebbe very nice sociable kind o' animals, but bust my buttons if I'd like to enter the next world down a 'gator's gullet."
Beeboo did not mind the steam a bit, and by two o'clock she had as nice a dinner laid in the raft saloon as ever boy or girl sat down to.
But by this time the timbers were dry once more, and although white clouds of fog still lay over the low woods, all was now bright and cheerful. Yet not more so than the hearts of our brave youngsters.
Courage and sprightliness are all a matter of strength of heart, and you cannot make yourself brave if your system is below par. The coward is really more to be pitied than blamed.
Well, it was very delightful, indeed, to sit on deck and talk, build castles in the air, and dream daydreams.
The air was cool and bracing now, and the sun felt warm, but by no means too hot.
The awning was prettily lined with green cloth, the work of Mrs. St. Clair's own hands, assisted by the indefatigable Beeboo, and there was not anything worth doing that she could not put willing, artful hands to.
The awning was scalloped, too, if that be the woman's word for the flaps that hung down a whole foot all round. "Vandyked" is perhaps more correct, but then, you see, the sharp corners of the vandyking were all rounded off. So I think scalloped must stand, though the word reminds me strangely of oysters.