The girls were at work bright and early the next morning, for they were to be ready to leave for Blueberry Island by nine. With a great waving of paddles the boys arrived promptly on the dot and jumped out to help stow the empty baskets for berries and the full baskets of lunch into the boats, together with the cups and kettles.
Gladys had been wondering all morning how she should treat Ed Roberts and stood around so quiet and pensive that Nyoda rallied her on her lack of spirits. "Are you so anxious to see your troubadour that you forget to talk?" she asked.
Gladys, suddenly grown weary of all this teasing, said vehemently, "I don't like Ed Roberts and I wish you would stop talking about him to me."
"Don't you really like him?" said Nyoda, grown serious in an instant.
Gladys shook her head. "He thinks I shouldn't talk to any one but himself, and he's forever trying to get me off into corners away from the others. All he talks is nonsense; calls me 'kid' and 'girlie,' and actually tried to hold my hand when we were going down to the canoes that night. It makes me tired! I wish I didn't have to go to-day."
Nyoda puckered her brows, but thought best not to treat the matter too seriously, and merely said, "Stay near me all day and I don't think he will act that way."
There were sixteen of them altogether and only seven canoes, counting the Keewaydin, so one canoe had to carry four. When Nyoda got in with Sherry, Gladys got in right after her, and Ed Roberts, who was trying to get a canoe for himself, either had to get in also or let some one else have the place. He chose the former and was placed as bow paddler with his back to the others and Nyoda between him and Gladys.
The day was perfect and every one in high spirits. The berries were thick on the Island and the baskets were filled with little trouble. Gladys kept close to Nyoda. After a courteous greeting she had paid no further attention to Ed, and during the picking he stayed in the background, sulky and chagrined. When the berries were picked Gladys went to help Nyoda make the blueberry pudding, which was to crown the feast. Sherry sought out Ed Roberts. "You big boob," he said, "why don't you take that Gladys girl away from Miss Kent and keep her entertained? She's sticking so close beside her I have no chance to talk at all. Where are your manners, anyway, leaving her without a partner?" Ed looked at him sourly, and then he brightened at the prospect of having Sherry for an ally.
"If you can manage to lose her somewhere near me I'd be delighted," he said. But Gladys steadfastly refused to be "lost" and Nyoda was constantly requiring her assistance, so the two were never very far away from each other.
Sahwah and Ned were having a glorious time. He was teaching her to shoot her rifle and she was proving a very apt pupil indeed, hitting the paper three times out of five the first round. Not so Hinpoha, who was also being taught. She took aim with her left eye and pulled the trigger with her right hand and the result was that she could not even hit the tree on which the paper was fastened. She screwed her face up into a frightful grimace and turned her head away when she fired, as if she expected the explosion to blow her head off. But Ned gallantly assured her that she would be a good shot in time and never made one remark about "the way girls do such things." Hinpoha persisted until she had hit the paper once and then left to put her slumgullion over the fire, assisted by Lane Allen, who had followed her around since the first night he visited the camp.