The moping owl——’”
“That’ll be about all of that,” interrupted Nick. “If you don’t know anything cheerful, ’Ighness, dry up. ‘The moping owl’! Where do you get that stuff, anyway?”
“Chap name of Gray wrote it,” replied Hugh meekly.
“Thought so! Same fellow who did that ‘Elegy on a Country Cemetery,’ or whatever it is. He was a jovial old Johnnie, wasn’t he? Bet you he’d have been swell company at a funeral!”
“If you want something bright and sparkling,” offered Jimmy, “I know a nice little poem about a hanging! It begins——”
“Never mind how it begins! Want to spoil a perfectly good appetite? I say, you fellows, we’ll race you to the willows. Dig, ’Ighness!”
Followed a spirited race around the last bend to where a group of willows leaned out over the shadowed water. Victory was claimed by both crews, and the matter was never finally settled, for Nick tactfully introduced the subject of supper in the middle of the argument and leaped ashore with the brown-paper package that contained the precious viands. Dried marsh grass and the paper from the bundle started a fire at the foot of one gnarled willow, and small pieces of driftwood, deposited by some winter flood, were piled on. Meanwhile Hugh made the discovery that they had failed to provide salt for the chops and that Nick had neglected to bring his folding cup. Jimmy helpfully reminded them that it was an ancient custom, or so he had read, to substitute gunpowder for salt when the latter was not to be had, and so that was all right! Nick called him an idiot and borrowed his knife to sharpen a stick on which to broil the chops. In payment Jimmy helped himself to a doughnut.
CHAPTER XIII
CONFESSION
A quarter of an hour later they were sitting around the bed of glowing coals busily concerned with the chops and bread and butter. The chops were decidedly underdone in the middle although beautifully crisp outside, and Nick came in for some criticism as a cook. But each of the four ate his share—it had proved rather a problem to divide three chops into four equal portions!—and so, if the proof of “the pudding is in the eating,” Nick was vindicated. They had also brought four potatoes to roast, but it was decided that life was too short and appetites too impatient to wait for them, and so Jimmy buried them in the ground, after carefully cutting them into quarters, and agreed to share the proceeds of the crop in September with the others, estimating the yield at two pecks. When they were thirsty they went down the bank, climbed into a canoe and leaned their heads into the river, thus, as Nick pointed out, getting not only a drink but a bath.