“I can’t promise you that,” said Townsend; “but she’s knocking. I hope it’ll be a five-cent repair, if any. Otherwise we’ll have to use a couple of dozen resources.”
They found a little cottage down by the river, occupied by an old woman who hobbled out with a cane to look at them. She was smoking a pipe and looked very funny. She talked with such an Irish brogue that they could hardly understand her but they made out from what she said that an old punt which was drawn up on the shore belonged to no one in particular.
It had belonged to “Meemon” they gathered, and they supposed that Meemon was her departed husband. She seemed perfectly willing that they should use it and watched them with curious intentness as Townsend rowed out with the pair of old broken oars which had been leaning against a tree nearby. Then she hobbled into the house again, puffing furiously. It seemed as if she were glad for the slight diversion.
They rowed all the way across the river, in sight of the great Poughkeepsie bridge. At the Poughkeepsie wharf, a big Hudson River boat was admitting passengers and the boys rowed about near it while the passengers waved to them, and one man threw an apple which Pee-wee caught. Girls, too, from the security of the mammoth decks, called to the tiny craft below, and giggled and chatted with Townsend as he rested on his oars. He might have looked rather attractive from up there; at all events, the usual pleasantries were exchanged.
“Come on down.”
“No, you come up.”
“No, you come down.”
“No, you come up.”
“Catch this?”
Pee-wee missed a piece of candy.