“We’ve got to unpack our baggage first,” I called, “and then wash up and go and say hello to Uncle Jeb and in about half an hour we’ll get around to eating.”
“After that we don’t know how long we’ll take,” Pee-wee yelled.
“Sure, a scout is thorough,” shouted Westy from my boat.
“What’s that got to do with me?” Hervey asked.
“Oh, positively, absolutely nothing,” I said. “Far be it from me to say you have any——”
“Exterior motives,” shouted Pee-wee.
“Ulterior motives,” I said. “Only I’m just telling you that maybe it will be a large collection of hours before the window of the cooking shack is closed up for the night. So don’t worry about falling into the water—yet. We’ll tell you in time.”
“What do you mean, you’ll tell me in time?” said Hervey, very innocent like.
Jiminy, he looked awful funny sitting up there on that window board with his knees drawn up, staring at us just as if he was puzzled to know what we were driving at. Insulted, kind of. That was him all over. Sort of careless like. You’d never think he had any plans at all. He never broke any rules on purpose—oh, far be it from it!
“Got any new songs this summer?” Warde Hollister shouted at him. Because he always had a lot of crazy stuff that he was always singing and that’s why everybody called him the wandering minstrel. None of us ever knew where he got all the stuff he sang.