Lost Farm Camp Part 41

"I'm glad it did you good," she replied. "But I am sorry you broke your gla.s.ses. You did look funny, though. I saw you start."

"Huh! That wasn't anything. You ought to have seen me finish! But I'd do it again to hear you laugh like that. There goes Davy through those bushes like a full-back through a bunch of subs. It's getting lighter, too. We must be coming to something."

Presently they stood on the sh.o.r.e of the pond, gazing silently at the unbroken phalanx of green that swept round its placid length and breadth.

"It looks good, Davy. I can almost smell 'em."

"They're here-lots of them; and big fellows, too. We might as well have a bite to eat. Can't catch anything now, it's too near noon."

Bas...o...b..surveyed the fragments of the lunch. "By the way, what's the diminutive for dinner, Davy?-Dinnerette?"

"Oh, there'll be enough. That reminds me of the good dean. Remember him, Walt? He used to talk about taking a 'perpendicular lunch,' and he hardly had time to get even that."

"Remember him? Bless his heart. Remember him? Why, there was more character, real good old earthy character in his old brown hat than in half the faces of the faculty. Well, I guess!"

Unclouded the noon sun lay miles deep in the centre of the pond, radiating a dazzling brilliancy. Swickey shaded her eyes with her hand and gazed across the pond.

"There's a deer!" she whispered, "just under those cedars, in the water.

I wonder what it's doing here this time of day?"

"Can't see it," said Bas...o...b.. "Couldn't if he was sitting on this log eating lunch with us."

"It isn't a he, it's a doe, and she has a little fawn near her. I can just see him on the edge of the bank."

David stood up and brushed the crumbs from his clothes. "I'll get the canoe and paddle up there. It's down the sh.o.r.e a bit."

"I'd give anything to have your eyes," said Bas...o...b.. as David departed.

"But seriously, I'd prefer your hand."

"Is that the way you talk to other girls-in Boston, I mean," replied Swickey.

"Sometimes. Depends on-well, the girl, you know."

"Or how well you know the girl? Isn't that it, Mr. Bas...o...b.."

"Not always," said Bas...o...b..uneasily.

Swickey's direct gaze was disconcerting. She had reproved him without a word of reproof.

"You haven't known me very long, have you?" she asked.

"Long enough to want to know you better," he replied, smiling.

"Dave never says such things," she remarked, half to herself.

"Oh, Davy's a clam-a nice clam," he added hastily, as a storm gathered in Swickey's eyes. "He can say things when it's necessary, but he usually does things first, you know, and then it takes dynamite or delirium to get him to talk of them. Now, look at that! He just meandered down and dug up that canoe as though it grew there. Never said a word-"

"Oh, yes, he did. You were looking at me and didn't hear him."

"Well, that lets me out, but I'll bet a strawberry you didn't know he had a canoe hidden up here."

"You'll have to find a strawberry, a nice, ripe, wild one, for it's my canoe. Dave and I hid it there, before the-the-accident. We used to come in here and fish all day. I hope the porcupines haven't chewed it to pieces."

As they embarked, David spoke to Swickey, recalling a former day's fishing on the pond. Bas...o...b..noticed her quick change of manner. "She don't chirrup like that when I talk to her," he thought. They paddled across the pond and down the opposite sh.o.r.e, enjoying the absolute silence of the place, broken only by the soft swish and drip of the paddle-blades. Finally they ceased paddling and sat watching the long sh.o.r.e-line that swam inverted in the clear depths of a placid underworld, where the tree-tops disappeared in a fathomless sky beneath them.

Bas...o...b..accepted cheerfully the limitations imposed by the breaking of his gla.s.ses, and as the canoe shot ahead again he watched Swickey, her moccasined feet tucked beneath the seat, swinging to the dip and lift of the paddles, all unconscious that her every movement was a pleasure to him. Gradually the intensity of noon drew back into the far shadows of the forest, and a light ripple ran scurrying over the water and vanished in the distance.

"I smell air," said Bas...o...b.. "Guess the atmosphere is awake again."

"The trout will be jumping in an hour. What time do you think it is?"

said David.

"About two o'clock."

"Just three forty-five."

"What!" Bas...o...b..turned an incredulous face toward David. "Well, we've all been asleep. It's a caution how the 'forest primeval' can swallow up a couple of hours without a murmur. Let's try a cast or two."

"There's only one place in this lake-for it is really a lake-where you can catch trout. That's a secret, but we'll show you where it is," said Swickey, as she took her rod, drew out a length of line, and reached forward in the bow and pulled a wisp of gra.s.s from a tin can.

"Shades of William Black if it isn't a squirm, and an adult at that!

Won't they take a fly?" asked Bas...o...b.. as Swickey crocheted the hook through a fat angleworm.

"Sometimes," replied David. "Here's the fly-book."

"Well, catch me a.s.sa.s.sinating angleworms when I can use one of these little bedizened bugs," he said, selecting a silver doctor from the fly-book. "I'm a sportsman. No squirms for mine."

David urged the canoe to a spot touched by the shadows of the overhanging trees. "Here's the place, Walt. Cast over there, just this side of those weeds."

Swickey had already made a cast, and she sat watching Bas...o...b..as he whipped the fly here and there, finally letting it settle a few feet from where her line cut the water.

"Nothing doing. I'll try over here." The fly soared across the surface of the pool and dropped gently over the weeds.

"Not at home! Well, we'll call again. Hey! Swickey, look at your rod!"

Swickey's hand was on the reel, and she thrust the b.u.t.t of the rod toward the flash of silver and red that shot from the water and swirled down again with a splash that spattered her arms with flying drops.

"You've got him!" shouted Bas...o...b.. "He's a bird!"

The tense line whipped singing back and forth. The trout whirled up again and shook himself. Then he shot for deeper water, taking the line out with a _bur-r-r_ from the spinning reel. Swickey recovered the line slowly until he was close to the canoe. "He's only pretending," she said. "He'll fight some more."

Suddenly the line swung toward the boat as the trout made a final play for freedom. Her quick fingers flashing, Swickey reeled in, stopping the fish almost under the canoe. "If he gets under, I'll lose him. But he's getting tired. I can feel it."

With cautious deliberation she worked the fish upward and slowly slid her hand down the line. With a quick twist she flopped the trout into the canoe and held him while she extracted the hook.

"Say, he's a whopper! Three pounds if he's a fish. And you did handle him well."

"Now, kill him," said Swickey. "Dave always does-right away."