CHAPTER XVITHE PICNIC
At eleven they were paddling up the river against a stiff tide with the wind quartering the canoes from across the marshes. There was a big pasteboard box of luncheon in Alf and Tom’s craft, while between Dan and Gerald lay a pile of rugs. Paddling was rather hard work and, although they started off merrily enough, they soon relapsed into silence and saved their breath for their labor. Once past Flat Island it was easier going, for the stream narrows there and the banks are higher and afford more protection from the wind. Half a mile farther Tom protested.
“Isn’t this far enough?” he asked. “What’s the good of killing ourselves.”
“There isn’t a decent place to camp here,” answered Alf. “Let’s go up where we can find some trees to break the wind. It isn’t much farther.” Tom groaned and bent over his paddle again.Gerald had learned paddling the year before and was quite an adept, but his softer muscles soon tired and he was heartily glad when Alf finally called a halt, about a mile and a half from school.
“Here’s a dandy place,” Alf announced, “over here on the left.”
“The other side looks better,” said Tom.
“No, because over here we’ll have the trees between us and the wind. Push her in here, Tom.”
The canoes were nosed up on a yard-wide beach of soft sand and the boys disembarked. The bank was only two or three feet high and they scrambled up it, bearing the provisions and rugs. There was a little plateau of grass here and back of it the land sloped up in a tiny ridge thickly grown with young oaks and stunted, misshapen cedars. The fringe of trees broke to some extent the wind, which blew strongly here across a mile of marsh and meadow. There were no houses near, although farther up stream and on the other side a farm was in sight a half mile distant. There was plenty of wood lying along the bank and Dan discovered dead cedar which he uprooted and added to the fuel pile. Alf found a piece of dry pine wood and splintered it with his knife.
“Who’s got a piece of paper?” he asked.
“You don’t need paper,” said Tom. “Use dry grass.”
So Alf gathered a few handfuls, leaned his whittlings neatly upon it, set some larger pieces on that and felt in his pockets.
“Got a match, Tom?” he inquired.
Tom went through his clothes and shook his head. Dan followed his example and shook his head likewise. Alf began to look anxious.
“Got a match, Gerald?” he cried. Gerald, who was gathering wood at a little distance, answered promptly and cheerfully.
“No, I haven’t, Alf. Will this be enough wood?”
There was no reply for a moment. Then Alf answered dryly: “I think so, Gerald. Yes, I think we have all the wood we can burn—without a match!”
Dan looked about him, his gaze traveling over the landscape. Tom grinned.
“Looking for a match factory, Dan?” he asked pleasantly.
Alf, sitting on his feet, looked ruefully at his neatly arranged pile of grass and splinters and wood. Gerald came up cheerfully with an armful of broken branches.
“There,” he said, “that’s surely enough.There’s a big old log down there, though, if we need it. It was too heavy for me to carry. What—what’s the matter?” He stared wonderingly from one to another of the silent trio.
“Nothing to speak of,” answered Dan. “Only we haven’t any matches.”
“It’s a mere detail, of course,” murmured Tom carelessly.
“Oh!” said Gerald blankly.
“Thank you,” said Alf. “It’s a remark I’ve been trying to think of for some time. It—it does full justice to the situation.”
“Let’s look again,” suggested Dan, probing his pockets. Everyone followed suit, but, although a great variety of articles were discovered, no one found a match.
“We’re a parcel of idiots,” remarked Alf earnestly.
“‘We?’” asked Tom in surprise. “No one told me to bring any matches. If they had I’d have brought them. Why, the table was just strewn with them. I noticed them as I left the room.”
“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t put a few in your pocket,” replied Alf disgustedly.
“I thought you were attending to the arrangements,” said Tom unruffledly. “Well, I shallwrap myself in a rug and go to sleep. I just love these al fresco affairs. I could die picnicking—probably of pneumonia!”
“It is fun, isn’t it?” laughed Dan.
“Absolutely matchless,” replied Tom cheerfully.
Alf sniffed disgustedly.
“As there are only two rugs, Tom, you’ll have to take some one in with you,” said Dan. “We might go home and have our luncheon in the room.”
“Go home after coming all the way up here?” said Alf fretfully. “That would be a silly thing to do!”
“Yes, I’m surprised at you, Mr. Vinton,” said Tom severely. “How much better it would be to stay here comfortably and enjoy the dear little breezes that are wandering caressingly down my spine.”
“I saw a match somewhere,” said Gerald, gazing into space with a deep frown. Tom viewed him in mock alarm.
“It’s hunger and exposure,” he whispered. “He’s raving! He’s seeing matches! It’s a frightful symptom!”
“What do you mean?” demanded Alf anxiously. “Where did you see a match?”
“Yes,” prompted Dan, “tell the ladies and gentlemen where you saw the match. Give all the details, Gerald. What sort of a match was it? Not a football match, I hope?”
Gerald looked at them blankly, trying to remember.
“I—it wassomewhere.”
“Yes, yes! Go on!” cried Tom hoarsely, clutching his hands in an agony of suspense.
“Oh, cut out the comedy!” begged Alf. “What are you talking about, kid?”
“Why, I saw a match somewhere—just now—since we left school,” answered Gerald.
“Where?”
“I can’t think.”
“Look in your pockets again,” said Dan.
“I did.”
“Well, did it again, then.” Gerald obeyed but had to shake his head when the search was over.
“I observe,” remarked Tom, as though speaking to himself, “that yonder lies what looks from here to be a perfectly good farmhouse. I presume that there are matches there and that we might be able to borrow one or two of the priceless things.”
“It’s a half-mile paddle and a half-mile walk after that,” said Alf dejectedly. “Still, youmight try it.” Tom looked pained and surprised.
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of trying it,” he assured them. “I’m not what you’d call an accomplished canoeist, Alf. I haven’t your skill, you know.”
“Well, I’m not going away up there all alone,” said Alf positively. “The wind’s too strong. If one of you fellows will go with me——”
“I know!” cried Gerald. He turned and sprang toward the bank, the others following. He clambered into the nearest canoe and began to peer about. Then he went to the second and repeated the operation and in a moment exhibited what at a few yards away had all the earmarks of a match.
“Hooray!” cried Dan. “Is it a good one?”
Gerald viewed it dubiously as he clambered back.
“I—I think so,” he answered, handing it over for their inspection. Dan examined it and passed it to Alf, and Alf, with a shake of his head, presented it to Tom. It was about two thirds of a sulphur match and had evidently been exposed, if not to rain, at least to dampness, for the head had lost its brilliancy of hue.
“A most dissipated looking article,” ponderedTom. “It looks to me like a match with a sad and eventful past. However”—he returned it to Alf—“see what you can do with it.”
“You light it, Dan,” said Alf carelessly. But Dan shook his head.
“It would go out as sure as Fate if I tried it. You do it, Tom.”
“Never! I decline to assume the terrible responsibility. Let Gerald perform the mystic rite.” But Gerald drew back as though Dan were offering him poison.
“I wouldn’t dare!” he laughed. “Alf, you do it.”
“Well, maybe it won’t light, anyway,” said Alf, accepting the match and the responsibility. He looked about him. “There’s no use trying to light it here in this wind, though.”
“Tom and I’ll hold one of the rugs up,” said Dan.
“All right. But I’ve got to have a piece of paper. That old grass may not light.” Finally Tom sacrificed a half sheet of a letter and the boys gathered anxiously about the little pile of wood and grass, into which Alf had thrust the twisted piece of paper. Tom and Dan held one of the rugs out to form a screen and Alf knelt down and seized the match firmly.
“Wait!” cried Gerald. Alf jumped and dropped the match.
“What’s the matter?” he asked crossly, as he recovered the precious article.
“Don’t scratch it on your trousers,” begged Gerald. “It’s old and the brimstone might come off. Scratch it on a rock.”
“That’s right,” commended Dan. “Get a rock, Gerald.”
So Gerald found one and laid it beside the pile and once more they all held their breath while Alf, with grim determination writ large upon his countenance, drew the match lightly across the stone. There was an anxious moment, for at first there was no flame to be seen. But then the paper blackened at the edge and little yellow tongues began to lick at the dry grass. Four sighs of relief burst simultaneously upon the air.
“Don’t take the rug away yet,” begged Alf, as he watched anxiously with his nose some six inches from the fire. Gerald stood ready with more fuel.
“‘Don’t take the rug away yet,’ begged Alf.”
“‘Don’t take the rug away yet,’ begged Alf.”
“Here’s a fine piece of soft pine,” he whispered. Alf accepted it silently without taking his watchful gaze from the fire and gingerly added it to the pile. Another piece followed, and another.And then, very cautiously, Alf arose, waved aside the rug and smiled beatifically upon his work.
“There!” he said.
Tom and Dan shook hands in much the manner in which two Arctic explorers might congratulate each other at the North Pole. Alf viewed them disgustedly.
“I’d like to know what you chaps are grinning about. Who made this fire?”
“You applied the match,” replied Tom kindly, “but without our skillful and well-performed labor there’d have been no fire. We are the real heroes of the—the conflagration.”
As the flames leaped up, crackling merrily, life looked a good deal more cheerful. They piled on dead branches and driftwood until they were forced to move away to a respectful distance. Then they stood and warmed themselves in the grateful heat. Afterwards they spread the rugs on the ground and Alf opened the luncheon box. It was only half past twelve, but their labors and the keen wind had made them hungry. Gerald filled the two tumblers with water from the river and Alf spread out the repast. There was cold roast beef, crackers, plenty of bread ready sliced, butter, salt, currant jelly, cake, some chow-chow pickles which had leaked out of a jelly glass andgot into everything, including the salt and cake, and four large rosy apples.
“Gee!” said Tom, “you must have made love to the cook, Alf.”
“No,” replied his roommate, who had recovered his spirits, “no, it was just my manly beauty and irresistible attraction. Let’s toast some of the bread, fellows.”
So Alf cut a long branch and sharpened one end and then sat crosslegged as near the flames as he could get with a slice of bread impaled on the end of the improvised toasting fork. It was warm work, but the others encouraged him from time to time, and he stuck it out until he had three slices toasted.
“That first piece is mine,” he finally announced. “And if anyone wants any more he’ll have to toast it himself.”
“I don’t want any more, do you, Tom?” asked Dan.
“No, I don’t think so,” was the cheerful response. Alf looked around suspiciously.
“Here! You’ve eaten my piece, you cheats!”
“I didn’t see any name on the piece I had,” Tom assured him.
“Neither did I,” said Dan. “Are you sure it was marked, Alf?”
“You go to the dickens!” grumbled Alf, as he retired from the fire very red of face and moist of eye. “I’ll give you half of this, Gerald.”
“No, I’ll toast some,” replied Gerald. He took up the stick, produced his knife and sharpened the other end as well. Then he put a piece of bread on one end and stuck the other in the ground at such a slant that the bread was over the hot coals. Then he resumed his seat on the rug.
“What do you think of that!” marveled Tom. “Isn’t he the brainy little Solomon? I suppose your boxing lessons taught you how to do that, Gerald.”
“Oh, you dry up,” said Alf. “And don’t eat quite all the cold meat,ifyou please. Where’s the chow-chow got to?”
“About everywhere,” answered Dan. “I’ve no doubt the river’s yellow with it. Here’s what’s left, though.”
Alf viewed it disgustedly.
“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t eat all the lunch, you chaps, while I work for you and singe my eyebrows off. Your toast’s burning, Gerald.”
There wasn’t a respectable crumb left when they had finished the repast. They built the fire up again and lolled back on the rugs and talkedlazily while the sun traveled westward and the wind whistled through the trees and sent the smoke eddying across the river. They talked the football season all over and played the Broadwood game again from start to finish. And then Tom took up the subject of basket ball and outlined his plans for the season, for he was captain of the Five. Afterwards the talk went on to hockey.
“You’re coming out this year,” said Alf to Dan. “Don’t forget that.”
“But I can’t skate for a hang,” Dan objected.
“You’ll pick it up all right. Besides, you could try for goal. We need a good goal tend and you wouldn’t have to do much skating there.”
“Are you going to play, Tom?” asked Dan. Tom shook his head.
“No, I won’t have time.”
“Here’s one candidate, though,” said Dan. “Gerald says he’s going out for the team, Alf.”
“Good for you, kid!” replied Alf. “The more the merrier.”
“But do you think I’ll have any show?” asked Gerald eagerly.
“Why, I don’t know. Can you skate pretty well?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“He’s a very good skater,” said Dan. “Don’t lie, Gerald.”
“Well, you come out, anyway,” said Alf, “and we’ll see what happens. Meanwhile I think we’d better be getting back if the car is to be there at four. It’s almost three now!”
“Thank goodness we don’t have to paddle back,” muttered Tom as he arose and stretched himself. “I’ll put these glasses in. You fellows bring the rugs. Ought we to put the fire out?”
“No, let it burn out,” said Dan lazily. “It can’t do any harm.”
Tom walked to the bank, stood there a moment and then returned and seated himself again on the rug, the glasses still in his hands.
“What’s the row?” asked Alf, catching sight of Tom’s face.
“I was just thinking,” replied Tom gravely, “how often we say things without thoroughly realizing the deep significance of them. I made the remark, quite casually, a moment ago that we wouldn’t have to paddle back.”
“Well?” demanded Alf sharply, propping himself up on his elbow.
“Well, we won’t.”
“Of course we won’t! The current will take us down, you idiot.”
“Oh, I see. It will be rather wet, though, won’t it?”
“Wet? What are you driving at, Tom?” Dan demanded.
“Me? Nothing at all. If you fellows can stand it I guess I can. But floating down the river in this weather sounds sort of wet and chilly.”
“In the canoes?” inquired Alf uneasily.
“Oh, you meant in the canoes? Well, I don’t think we’ll go in the canoes.”
“Why not?”
“There aren’t any,” said Tom.