“Yo ho, yo ho,
It’s all the same to Wohelo!”
It is astonishing how much better everything goes 93 to music. The ragged paddling straightened out into steady, rhythmic dipping; drooping backs stiffened up, and aching arms regained their energy.
“That’s the way!” shouted Katherine. “Now we have some style about us. This canoe seems much lighter than it did a few minutes ago. Hurrah for music!”
Just at this moment her alert senses told her that something was wrong. She twisted her head backward and then she saw that the sudden lightening of the canoe was not due to the beneficial effects of music. For the canoe, which they had been towing, was no longer fastened to them. Far behind them they saw it, traveling rapidly back to the lake with the swift current, carrying with it their mascot Eeny-Meeny, her arm visible above the sides of the canoe, stretched out to them in a beseeching gesture.
“Halt!” cried Katherine in a fearful voice, which broke in the middle of the word and leaped up fully two octaves.
“What’s the matter?” shouted Uncle Teddy, looking back in alarm.
“We’ve lost Eeny-Meeny!” screeched Katherine.
A roar of laughter went up from all the canoes, as the occupants, carefully turning their heads so as not to disturb the balance of their frail barks, caught sight of that runaway canoe with the imploring arm visible over the side.
94“I’ll go after her!” said Katherine, bringing her canoe up alongside the bank and unceremoniously inviting Gladys and Peter to get out and lighten the boat. Then she and the Captain headed around into the current and started downstream paddling for dear life. It was so much easier going down than coming up that they fairly flew over the water, and caught up with Eeny-Meeny just before she reached the mouth of the river and went sailing out on the wide bosom of the lake. She was fastened on more firmly this time, and then began the long, hard paddle upstream again to overtake the others. Katherine would have been game to go on paddling all day rather than say Eeny-Meeny was a bother to tow, but she was very glad of the order given by Uncle Teddy, which gave her a chance to sit in the bottom of the canoe and do nothing but look at the scenery and keep an eye on Eeny-Meeny, lest she should give them the slip again.
The change of paddlers brought Anthony to the place of bow paddler in the third canoe. “Now you’ll see some real paddling,” was his gracious remark when he took the seat the Monkey had vacated in his favor.