began to unfasten the stringer that was tied to the thwart on which he was sitting, working slowly with one hand, holding the body with the other. The children remembered then what they had heard of old Nick sitting on the railing of the Elva, drunk. He had fallen over backward and had gone down at once. The body had not risen. It had happened almost a week before their arrival, when the water in mid-channel must have been like ice.
The Dominie ran the point of the stringer through the coat collar, fastened it in a half hitch, and turned the body over. The coat was unbuttoned, and he buttoned it. When he had finished, the sleeves of his gray flannel shirt were wet halfway to the elbow. He passed the end of the stringer to Scott, who made it fast on his side of the boat as far astern as he could. Then he turned the boat and rowed slowly in the direction of the post office.
The boat moved forward with a gliding, jerking motion. The body, trailing behind to one side, made it slew around, and every so often Scott said to his father, “Hard on your right, sir.”
The rowlocks creaked, paused, creaked to the Dominies short, even stroke, and the burden they were towing raised the water in a ripple that splashed irregularly, sounding like the ripple caused by a stringerful of fish. John turned and looked carefully at his brother for a moment, but Scott was watching the water ahead of them. The Dominie frowned a little as he rowed, and once Edith put out her hand and touched the wet gunwale beside her, as if to reassure herself about something. The wood was cold, and she withdrew her hand quickly and sat on it, to warm it. Beside her feet were the haphazard coils of the anchor line, and the anchor, galvanized metal splashed with pale mud, the flanges upturned. A motion of the poncho had spilled a trickle of water between her bare knees, and she held them close together.
The river behind them widened almost out of sight. Ahead of them it narrowed, the islands drawing close together for the turn at the Point. They passed a channel stake, a big timber painted black with a number in white, and anchored to the bottom of the river. The weight of moving water tipped it to a forty-five-degree angle with the surface of the river, and as it hung there it revolved, first in one direction and then in the other, but the surface of the river was smooth because the water was very deep.
They went on in toward shore where the current was less strong, and then upstream again to the post office dock. The post office and the postmaster’s house stood near the shore. The hill rose abruptly behind the buildings, carrying the dark pines high above. The houses could be entered from the back at the second story by a gallery which ran out level with the hill. A flight of wooden steps came down the hill between the two houses, and from it a boardwalk ran out straight with the line of the dock. A big pile of broken gray rock made a sort of lagoon in front of the dock. It had been dumped there when the channel was being cut and dredged, and no one had ever bothered to take it away. The post office was closed, and the shades were drawn in the house next door. There was no porch to either house, only a straight shingled front with a peaked gable at the top. The wood, that was silvery in dry weather, was black now.
The Dominie hallooed, holding to the edge of the dock with his right hand. A door at the back of the post office opened, and the son of the postmaster came out, bare-headed. He was a big blond fellow. He came down the dock toward them in a half run, lurching with a sort of heavy grace. His feet, in the brown canvas shoes, made little noise, but the planks of the dock sprang slightly under his step. When he saw what they had brought, he drew his breath in between his teeth and lower lip in a whistling sound and swore softly.
He said, “Just moor the old boy to the dock, Perfessor, and I’ll take care of him—telephone the Soo and all that. Think I’d better get into my waders before I try to take him ashore, though.”
“You can keep the stringer,” the Dominie said.
The stone pile hid the dock from sight quickly as they rowed away. The Dominie asked Edith if she was cold, and she said no.
In the cabin they hurried out of their wet clothes and into dry ones. Their shoes were set in a row on the brick hearth to dry, and they all ran around barefoot. The collie puppy got in everyone’s way, his cold nose and soft warm fur touching the bare ankles. He was brown with white feet as if he had just stepped out of a pan of milk. The Dominie decided to make pancakes and the children’s mother turned the kitchen over to him. She sat by the lamp, rocking and knitting, and the Dominie shouted remarks to her from the kitchen. He was very gay and gentle, looking at the children with a sort of whimsical concern and teasing them.
In the morning the sun was out and the world glistened. Edith ran along the sand in her bathing suit. Her feet did not dent the sand, but where she stepped the pressure of her foot brought a film of water to the surface, which shone and disappeared. The sun was high and hot. The boys were already diving from the end of the government dock. The dock and the red-and-yellow warehouse were reflected upside down, almost inch for inch. Edith stood looking into the clear water, letting the ripples nibble at her toes. The Dominie sauntered along the shore, smoking, and kicking at the pale drift of wet rushes. He said gently, “Afraid of the river this morning?”
“No,” she answered, looking up in surprise. “Ought I to be?”
“No,” he said. “I think not.”
Summer Parties
THEY WENT THERE because they liked to go someplace after supper, and because they liked Merle and because Mrs. Butler never seemed to mind how much noise they made or how they mussed up the house. The Butlers were living that summer in the old red cottage with the outside stairway. There were only the three of them—Mrs. Butler, Merle, and Claudine, who was just nine. Merle was eighteen, a drowsy, good-natured girl with a pretty oval face and drooping shoulders. She never seemed quite awake or quite aware of herself except when she was dancing. Even then she danced in a sort of dream. She had soft brown hair that curled about her cheeks and was pinned up in a loose bun at the back of her neck. She didn’t like to fish and not very much to swim. As for hiking, the thought never entered her head. She spent hours in the hammock on the porch, or she helped her mother with the housework. She did anything you asked her to quite willingly, but she almost never thought of anything to do herself. She never got sunburned or tanned, but at the end of the summer the color in her face was a little deeper, a little warmer. She sang all the popular songs, knowing the words about halfway through.
Rummy Blake and the two Atwood boys and Maretta Hotchkiss were the regular gang, and sometimes the young man from the inn whom they called Morpheus.
After supper while Maretta was still doing the dishes Rummy Blake would whistle from the river and come into the house to wait for her, amusing himself by chinning himself on the porch rafters while she washed her hands and smoothed her hair. They’d go in the canoe, not because the Butlers were on the other side of the river, but because it was pleasant to be on the water at that hour.
At the Butlers’ there’d be a fire in the living room, and some new dance records. They punched holes in the old records and put them on off center. The phonograph was an old one with a tin horn like a morning glory. They used the loud steel needles and put a pillow in the horn to muffle the noise. Rummy was learning to stand on his head that summer. They danced some, and when the matting made the floor seem too slow they engaged in acrobatics and pillow fights. The Atwood boys were ex-servicemen, one of them with the Croix de Guerre. They were both very handsome and up on all the latest steps. The Croix de Guerre was the better-looking. He was lithe and dark with a little black mustache, and he used to dance cheek to cheek with Merle, who was exactly the right size and complexion for him. They looked charming together. Rummy was huge and bearlike, with large good-looking features still in an unfinished stage, but roughly blocked out; pleased with being so strong and still
