The two girls, students at Riverview high school, had rented the skiff early that afternoon from Trapper Joe Scoville, a swamper who lived alone in a shack at the swamp’s edge.
For three hours now, they had idled along the entrance channel, gathering water lilies, late-blooming Cherokee roses, yellow jessamine, and iris.
The excursion had been entirely Penny’s idea. That night in a Riverview hotel, her father, Anthony Parker, publisher of the Riverview Star, was acting as host to a state newspapermen’s convention. He had handed Penny twenty dollars, with instructions to buy flowers for the banquet tables.
Penny, with her usual flare for doing things differently, had decided to save the money by gathering swamp blooms.
“These flowers are nicer than anything we could have bought from a florist,” she declared, gazing appreciatively at the mass of blooms which dripped water in the basket at her feet.
“And think what you can do with twenty dollars!” her chum teased.
“Seventeen. Remember, we owe Trapper Joe three dollars for boat rental.”
“It will be four if we don’t call it a day. Let’s get the flowers, if we must, and start home.”
“Fair enough,” Penny agreed.
Squinting at the lowering sun, she guided the skiff to a point of the low-lying island. There she held it steady while her chum stepped out on the spongy ground.