"I don't about everything, but one's nose is mighty close to one, somehow."
"So it is," he laughed, "and I am so sorry to have been the means of injuring that touchy member. I can't help feeling kind of happy, though, that it was the awning you were loath to leave and not some one of those boys. Here's a nice linen handkerchief; why don't you tie that over your nose?"
Mr. Tucker always had the nicest linen handkerchiefs I ever saw, and he seemed to have clean, folded ones ready to produce for every emergency. I accepted his offer and tied it over the lower part of my face.
"Now you look like a little Turkish lady. Please say you are glad you came in the little brown boat," and my boatman shipped his oars and drifted with the current.
It was a very easy thing to say because I was very glad. Now that my poor little nose was protected, I was perfectly happy. I always enjoyed being with Zebedee. We never talked out and we seldom had a disagreement; not that we agreed on every subject by any means, but we could disagree without having a disagreement. We talked about everything under the sun from Shakespeare to the musical glasses. I couldn't help comparing this boat ride to the one I had been overpersuaded to take with Wink only a few days before. We had started out with the best of intentions on my part to avoid all shoals in conversation, but before we had been out ten minutes Wink was gnawing his little moustache in fury and I was wishing I had stayed on shore. A row with Wink was sure to end in a row (pronounced rou).
The launch arrived at Croxton's Ford long before we did, but we came as fast as the current allowed, having drifted a good part of the way. The party had landed and had begun to make the camp for the day. It was a wonderful spot chosen for the picnic. A large creek, flowing into the river, broadened out almost into a lake, and in the mouth of this creek were innumerable small islands. Some of them had large trees growing on them, lovely sandy beaches and strips of verdure; others were too young to have trees but were covered with grass. The camp was pitched on the largest island, right at the mouth of the creek that afforded a landing for the launch. There was a famous spring on this island that was thought by the county people to have some great curative power. What it cured you of I don't know, but it tasted too good to be much good as a medicine, I imagine.
Aunt Milly, who had proven herself to be an ideal chaperone, having slept during the entire journey, was now ensconced under a water oak on a warm sand bank with nothing to do but enjoy herself. This she did immediately by falling asleep again.
"Whin I ain't a-wuckin', I's a-sleepin'," she droned as slumber enfolded her.
Of course the camp fire must be made and potatoes and corn put to roast and the coffee-pot filled with the sparkling spring water. The trip down had made everybody hungry, whether accomplished without exertion as by those in the launch; or with the sweat of the brow as by Mary and Shorty in the canoe, or Dum and Billy Somers in the red skiff; or with just enough work to keep the boat in the current which was Zebedee's and my method of locomotion: one and all were hungry.
"While dinner is cooking, let's have a swim," suggested Harvie. "You girls take this side of the island for a dressing-room and we'll take the other. Here are some low willows that make splendid walls."