“Where do those purple places come from?” asked Katherine, with a rapturous sigh for the sheer loveliness of it. “There isn’t a cloud in the sky to throw a shadow.” To Katherine’s eyes, accustomed to unending stretches of prairie, browning under a scorching sun, this blue, cool lake was like a dream of Eden.
“Maybe the color comes from below,” said Slim, 76 yawning as the light on the water made him sleepy again. “Wouldn’t I like to go down underneath the water and lie there, though,” he continued dreamily. “On a bed of nice soft sand that the fellows couldn’t make collapse, and where you couldn’t come along and shove burrs down my neck.”
“It was an acorn,” corrected Katherine serenely.
“Wouldn’t I have a grand sleep, though,” continued Slim, not heeding her interruption. “I’d stay there a week; maybe a month.”
“Yes,” said Katherine, “and come up all covered with moss and with binnacles hanging all over you.”
Slim suddenly sat upright and shouted. “Binnacles!” he repeated. “That’s good. You mean barnacles, don’t you? Glory! Wouldn’t I look great with binnacles hanging all over me!” And Slim leaned against the tree at his back and laughed until he was red in the face.
“Well, take whichever you please,” said Katherine with dignity, and turned her back on his mirth.
Slim saw his dream of fudge fading and realized that he had made a misstep in laughing so loudly. “Don’t get mad,” he said pleadingly to the back of her head, “I won’t tell any of the others what you said. But it was so funny I had to laugh,” he said in self-defense.
Katherine kept her head turned the other way and remained deaf to his apologies. Slim sat back and looked sad. He hadn’t meant to offend Katherine 77 and he wanted her to make fudge. He cudgelled his fat brain for something to say, which would appease her. “Oh, I say—” he began when Katherine turned around so suddenly he almost jumped.
“What’s that floating out there in the lake?” she said abruptly.