To this, perceiving easily enough that we had some surprise in store for my father, and not wishing to spoil the fun, my mother merely replied:
“Oh, would they? Well, I’m afraid I couldn’t come anyhow: I must go in and prepare supper. So, be off with you at once, and don’t be late. You can tell me all about it this evening.”
“One minute, father!” I cried; and thereupon I ran to the house, reappearing in a few seconds with his rubber boots, which I thrust into the back of the buggy, and then, climbing in on one side while Joe scrambled in on the other, I called out:
“Now, father, go ahead!”
“Where to?” he asked, laughing.
“Oh, I forgot,” said I. “Up to our stone-quarry.”
If we had expected my father to be surprised, we were not disappointed. At first he rather demurred at going down our carefully prepared ladders, not seeing sufficient reason, as he declared, to risk his neck; but the moment we called his attention to the sound of water down below, and he began to understand what the presence of the rubber boots meant, he became as eager as either Joe or I had been.
In short, he went with us over the whole ground, even down to the pool; and so interested was he in the matter that he quite forgot the flight of time, until, having reascended the ladders and followed with us our line on the surface down to the heap of stones with which we had marked the thousand-foot point, he—and we, too—were recalled to our duties by my mother, who, seeing us standing there talking, came to the back-door of the kitchen and called to us to come in at once if we wanted any supper.
Long was the discussion that ensued that evening as we sat around the fire in the big stone fireplace; but long as it was, it ended as it had begun with a remark made by my father.