“I was, in a way. It was rather useless and very rude. However, I won't think of it again until somebody makes me.”
“That's a way of yours. You think too late.”
“I'm afraid I sometimes do so,” Charnock admitted. “Anyhow, to-day, I'm not going to think at all.”
Sadie noted the reckless humor with which he began to talk, but she led him on, and they engaged in cheerful banter until Long Lake began to gleam among the woods ahead. Charnock skirted the trees and pulled up where a number of picketed teams and rigs stood near the water's edge. Farther along, a merry party was gathering wood to build a fire, and Charnock did not find Sadie alone again for some hours after he helped her down.
In summer, Long Lake has no great beauty and shrinks, leaving a white saline crust on its wide margin of sun-baked mud, but it is a picturesque stretch of water when the snow melts in spring and the reflections of the birches quiver on the smooth belt along its windward edge. Farther out, the shadows of flying clouds chase each other across the flashing surface. Two or three leaky canoes generally lie among the trees, and in the afternoon Charnock dragged one down, and helping Sadie on board, paddled up the lake.
As they crept round a point flocks of ducks left the water and the air throbbed with a beat of wings that gradually died away. The fire, round which the others sat, was out of sight, and the rustle of the tossing birches emphasized the quietness. Charnock let the canoe drift, and Sadie looked up at him from her low seat among the wagon robes he had brought.
“What are you going to do about your farm?” she asked.
“I don't know yet, and don't see why I should bore you with my troubles.”
“Pshaw!” said Sadie. “You want to put the thing off; but you know you can't.”
Charnock made a gesture of humorous resignation. “Very well! I expect I won't be able to carry on the farm.”