“We will put you in natural philosophy, next term, Master Fuller. But what are the longitudinal and lateral extent—the width and length, I mean, of Skanigo?”
“Has none, sir.”
“No length or width?”
“No, sir. Puff Evans told me he’d caught everything there was in that lake. All his fault, sir.”
The Baptist and Presbyterian ministers came to Dr. Dryer’s assistance at that point, for they were both good fishermen, and Zebedee escaped from the remaining geography of Skanigo.
In that brief ten minutes, however, he had won the lasting good-will of Euphemia Dryer and the settled enmity of her stepmother.
On the morning after the bell and heifer mystery, no sooner was breakfast over than Bar and Val gathered together their fishing-gear, and were off to make acquaintance with Skanigo for themselves.
The walk was nothing at all, nor was it difficult to find the way to the curiously constructed dwelling of Puff Evans. The land thereabout was the supposed heritage of a non-resident family of “minor heirs,” and Puff had settled himself in a little cove with no more trouble of mind about his lack of title than a wild Indian or a Western “squatter.”
He did no manner of harm. In fact, he had actually “improved” a few acres, managing to have, as Zeb Fuller said: “The kindest-hearted, best-natured crops in the world; the only potatoes ever heard of that did their own hoeing.”
Between his scanty but “good-natured” acres and the liberal bosom of Skanigo, however, Puff succeeded in providing for the natural wants of himself, his very congenial wife, and a swarm of little Puffs, whose only need of clothing, as remarked by Zebedee, was to conceal their fins and scales.