Tuckerman smiled. “Ben, I can see you’re a friendly soul. And you must remember that what may not seem very wild to experienced woodsmen like you three may prove very thrilling to a tenderfoot like me.”
They decided on their camp readily; a smooth stretch of turf in a semi-circle of pines on high ground just above a small sandy beach. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile from the pier and from Cotterell Hall. Pine boughs were cut, trimmed, and spread out for bedding, stores were unpacked, driftwood collected for a fire, and the menu determined on for supper.
Tuckerman looked out at the water, a sheet of soft and beautiful opalescent colors in the setting sun. “Is there any reason why we shouldn’t take a bath?” he inquired. “I feel extremely sticky.”
“No reason whatever,” answered Tom. “The first rule of camp-life is, Obey that impulse. There’s plenty of room in that bathtub, but you won’t find much hot water.”
In five minutes they were all in the ocean, frisky as a school of porpoises, making enough noise to scare any wildfowl away. The boys struck out and swam, trying first one stroke and then another. Tuckerman, however, came lumbering along, jerking his arms and legs like an old and stiff-jointed frog. But he enjoyed himself. He was chuckling and gurgling and slapping his thighs with his hands as they all came out of the water.
“Tom, you must teach me to swim,” he begged. “I can see I’m not in your class now, but give me a week or so——”
“Righto. I bet you’ll learn quick.”
In fifteen minutes they were ready for supper. Fried eggs and bacon, grilled sweet potatoes, coffee, bread and butter, and then flapjacks with jam. “I can see,” said Tuckerman, as he finished his third flapjack, “that David’s reputation as a cook has not been exaggerated. I always wondered what it meant when I read that the gods lived on ambrosia and nectar. Now at last I know.”
“You’ll make his head swell,” cautioned Ben, “and it’s large enough already. We took him to a phrenologist last winter, and the man said he’d never felt such big bumps.”
The dishes were washed. The moon rose. Tuckerman lighted his pipe. “Well,” said Ben, “aren’t we going to have a look at the old house? It seems to me we ought.”