“I want to come,” Penny answered eagerly. “If Mr. and Mrs. Gandiss wouldn’t mind. Wait and I’ll ask.”
Darting to the house, she talked over the matter with her father and then with her hostess. “By all means go,” the latter urged. “I imagine you will enjoy the experience. Jack can pick you up in the motorboat in the morning.”
Packing her pajamas and a few toilet articles into a tight roll, Penny ran back to the dock. Jack and Sally were arguing about details of the afternoon race, but they abandoned the battle as she hurried up.
“Jack, you’re to pick me up tomorrow morning,” she advised him as she climbed aboard the Cat’s Paw, “Don’t forget.”
The River Queen already had been anchored for the night in a quiet cove half a mile down river. With darkness approaching, lights were winking all along the shore. Across the river, the Gandiss factory was a blaze of white illumination. Farther downstream, the colored lights of an amusement park with a high roller coaster, cut a bright pattern in the sky.
Sally glanced for a moment toward the factory but made no mention of her unpleasant experience there. “Pop and I stay alone at night on the Queen,” she explained as they approached the ferry. “Our crew is made up of men who live in town, so usually they go home after the six o’clock run.”
Skillfully bringing the Cat’s Paw alongside the anchored Queen, she shouted for her father to help Penny up the ladder. Making the smaller craft secure for the night, she followed her to the deck.
“What’s cooking, Pop?” she asked, sniffing the air.
“Catfish,” the captain answered as he went aft. “Better get to the galley and tend to it, or we may not have any supper.”
The catfish, sizzling in butter, was on the verge of scorching. Sally jerked the pan from the stove, and then with Penny’s help, set a little built-in table which swung down from the cabin wall, and prepared the remainder of the meal.