Billy laughed and shook his head. “Poor old clock,” he said. “It struck twenty times in a row, and then it never ticked again.”
They started back down to the cottage for breakfast. There were pancakes and syrup, and cold milk, and a big bowl of fresh strawberries. They ate at a long narrow table placed in front of the open windows at the west end of the porch. Old-fashioned moss roses were in bloom beneath the windows. The lake lay out in front of them, smooth and blue, and a family of tiny wild canaries were very busy with a piece of string in the willow tree.
After breakfast Janie made her bed, and then walked out in the back yard again. The boys were doing their share of the gardening, and with her eyes closed Janie could have guessed what was going on. Any strong interest in gardening usually lasted until a worm was turned over, and then someone would say, “Let’s go fishing.” Whatever cultivation the garden got from there on was accidental.
The pattern was slightly different this morning. Davey turned over a flat stepping stone, and found part of an ant colony. He called, “Hey, fellows, look at this,” and hoeing was cheerfully suspended while the boys traced the progress of the ants by turning over stone after stone in the garden path. They lay flat on their stomachs, marveling at the intricate tunnels, and the clever way the little creatures maneuvered loads much larger than themselves.
Janie felt very virtuous, with her share of the weeding finished. “Now,” she said. “If you boys would work as hard as those ants do, we’d have a beautiful garden.” Billy rolled on his back and grinned lazily as he squinted up at the sun.
“Aw,” he said, “it’s too hot to work. Let’s go swimming.”
The four children trailed down through the front yard toward the bathhouse.
“Oh, Mom,” called Janie. “Do you want to come swimming with us?”
Mom came to the screen door. Her hair was tied up in a turban, and she had work gloves on her hands and smudges on her face. “Look at me,” she said. “I’ve been waxing floors, and I don’t have enough ambition left to swim as far as the raft. I’ll sit on the beach and play lifeguard.”
The boys splashed noisily off in the row boat, but Janie walked out to the raft. On a quiet day like this you could see all sorts of interesting things in the water. A large school of minnows swam ahead of her as she waded. There were clams on the floor of the lake, and colored rocks. Daddy said that some of these rocks had the imprint of tropical plants, fernlike tracings from the time when the world was still being made. There were turtles sometimes, but no sign of them this morning.