"So would I," added Flossie. "It's so nice on the lake, and maybe to-morrow it will rain."
"Well, what if it does?" asked Nan. "You didn't expect to come out on the lake again to-morrow, did you?"
"Maybe," answered Flossie, as she smoothed out the dress of a doll she was holding in her lap.
"I'd like to come out on the lake and have a picnic every day," said Freddie, leaning over the edge of the boat to see if a small ship, to which he had fastened a string, was being pulled safely along.
"Don't do that!" cried Nan quickly. "Do you want to fall in?"
"No," answered Freddie slowly, as though he had been thinking that perhaps a wetting in the lake might not be so bad after all. "No, I don't want to fall in now, 'cause whenever I go in swimming I get terrible hungry, and I don't want to be any hungrier than I am now."
"Oh, so that's the only reason, is it?" asked Bert with a laugh. "Well, just keep inside the boat until we get on shore, and then you can fall out if you want to."
"How am I going to fall out when the boat's on shore?" asked Freddie. "Boats can't go on land anyhow, Bert Bobbsey!"
"That will be something for you to think about, and then maybe you won't lean over and scare Nan," said Bert, smiling.
"Do you want I should land you at your father's lumber dock, or shall I row on down near the house, Bert?" asked a man who was pulling at the oars of the boat. "It won't make any difference to me. I've got lots of time."