“If we can get them, but some one will have to get to the boat-house pretty early or they’ll be taken; that is, if it’s a decent day. And who will paddle the second one?”
“Jim,” replied Jeffrey. “He can paddle very well now. I’ve been showing him how.”
“And who will take the bow paddle?” asked Poke uneasily.
“You, you lazy dub,” responded Gil promptly. “If you can’t paddle a canoe it’s time you learned how. You and Jeff can go in one canoe, with Hope, and Jim and I will take the other.”
“All right, but don’t blame me if something awful happens. I am subject to cramps, and if I have a cramp I can’t paddle, and if I can’t paddle we’ll upset, and if we upset—”
“You’ll get wet,” ended Jeffrey. “So I guess we’ll let you and Jim take care of the luncheon, Gil.”
“I won’t go if you’re going to put the luncheon in his care,” declared Poke. “Why, there wouldn’t be a smutch of it left by the time we got to Riverbend. I insist on staying close to the grub!”
“As close as you want, but in another boat, sweet youth,” replied Gil. “Here’s Jim. What did she say, Jim?”
“Which she? Lady says she will give us all the lunch we want and Hope says she would like to go very much indeed. To be quite exact, fellows, she said it would be ‘perfectly jimmy!’”