She held it in her own hands. “Poor thing! You did look so melancholy swashing about on this lonely beach.”
When they returned to the house they carried the bucket with them.
Pats had his own misgivings, however. One or two other objects he had discerned floating on the water farther out, too far away to distinguish what they were. And the fact that no search had been made for Elinor was in itself disquieting. But as his chief aim at present was to bring contentment to the girl beside him, he carefully refrained from any betrayal of these doubts. Nothing else, however, that might cause alarm was washed ashore.
And Pats, all this time, was growing fat. His increasing plumpness was perceptible from day to day, and it proved a constant source of mirth to his companion. One morning he appeared in a pair of checkered trousers purchased in South Africa during his skeleton period. They seemed on the verge of exploding from the outward pressure of the legs within. Elinor made no effort to suppress her merriment. She called him “Fatsy.” And to the dog, who 138regarded the trousers with his usual solemnity, she remarked:
“O, Solomon!
See him grow fat!
Our erstwhile skinny,
Diaphanous Pat.”
But with “Fatsy’s” flesh came increase of strength, and he proved a hard worker. As soon as he was strong enough he began to build the raft by which they hoped to cross the river. But progress was slow for his endurance had limits, and he could work but an hour or two each day. Their plan was to paddle across the river on this raft as they floated down. Owing to the swiftness of the current they built the raft nearly a mile farther up the stream. With the walk to and fro, which also taxed the builder’s strength, the month of July brought little progress. One afternoon, they sauntered home, the broad, swift, silent river on their right, the sun just above the trees on the opposite bank. Close at hand, on their own side of the river the nearest pines stood forth in strong relief against the mysterious depths behind. Near the river’s bank long shadows from these towering trunks lay in purple bars across the smooth, brown carpet. It was about 139half-way home that the man, with an air of weariness, seated himself upon a fallen tree. Elinor regarded him with an anxious face.
“Patsy, you have done too much again.” As he looked up, she saw in his eyes an expression she had learned to associate with levity and foolishness. “Be serious. You are very tired, now aren’t you?”
“Just pleasantly tired. But if I were suddenly kissed by a popular belle it would give me new strength.”
When, a moment later, he arose, fresh life and vigor seemed certainly to have been acquired. Catching her by the waist, he hummed a waltz and away they floated, over the pine-needles, he in gray and she in white, like wingless spirits of the wood. When the waltz had ended and they were walking hand in hand, and a little out of breath, the lady remarked:
“When I am frivolous in these woods I feel very wicked. They are so silent and reserved themselves, so solemn and so very high-minded that it seems a desecration.”