He came out again presently, in a scout shirt and knickers, with stout wading boots, looking younger than in his customary long trousers.
“I had never thought to see your knees again,” said his mother. “I thought they had disappeared into trousers for ever!”
“Father knew what he was about when he made me bring shorts,” said Barry. “They dry in no time after wading—and you can’t fish these creeks without wading half your time. Great pair of knees, aren’t they, Mother?”
“They’re like a cross-word puzzle, with scratches. How do you manage to knock them about so?”
“Oh—blackberries, and wild raspberries, and prickly-Moses, and other affectionate plants,” he said. “They all seem to cling to me. I’m as clumsy as a bear in the bush—never manage to dodge anything. Father says one doesn’t develop the sense of moving in the bush all at once, so I can only hope it will come.”
“But you like it, Barry?”
The boy’s dark face lit up suddenly.
“Oh, I love it,” he said. “It bored me stiff that first day, but now it grows on me more each time I’m out in it. Father’s an awfully good mate, you know: he shows me ever so many things I’d never see for myself. He’s jolly patient too—I make a fool of myself in heaps of ways, but he never seems to mind.”
“He tells me you are developing a good deal of common sense with your gun.”
Barry beamed.