Ferd had got there early and had a boat ready, all scrubbed out and lined with old carpets. He was just as excited as any of us.
"The trouble with us," he said, as we rowed over to the island, "is that we are all in a rut. We do the same things over and over, at the same places, with the same people. The hoi polloi never make that mistake and they get a lot more out of life. Every now and then the puddlers from the mill come over here and have a great time."
There were two islands, one just above the other, with about a hundred feet of water between them. The upper island was much the nicer and it was there that Ferd had planned the party.
He does things awfully well, really. He had had a decorator out there early in the day and the pavilion was fixed up with plants and vines which looked as if they grew on it. He had the table fixed too, with a mound of roses and the most interesting place cards. Mine had a little jewelled dagger thrust through it, and the card said:
That's as much as to say, they are fools that marry.
He said the quotation was from Shakespeare and the dagger was for Day.
Annette's card said:
She was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three,
which delighted Annette, she being more than twenty-three.
Ferd's own card said:
Another woman now and then Is relished by the best of men.
I have forgotten the others. The dagger was a pin, and each card had something pretty fastened to it.
We sat and gossiped while we waited for the others and then we wandered round. The island was not very pretty—flat and weedy mostly, with a good many cans the campers had left, and a muddy shore where a broken dock, consisting of two planks on poles, was the boat landing. But it was only later that I hated it, really. That afternoon we said it was idyllic, and the very place for a picnic.
The other men arrived soon after, and it was really barrels of fun. We made a rule first. No one was to mention an absent husband or wife; and the person who did had to tell a story or sing a song as a forfeit. I was more than proud of Ferd. He had even had a phonograph sent up, with a lot of new music. We danced the rest of the afternoon and the Lee man danced like an angel. I never had a better time. Jane voiced my feelings perfectly.
"It's not that I'm tired of Bill," she said. "I dote on him, of course; but it is a relief, once in a while, not to have a husband in the offing, isn't it? And the most carping critic could not object to anything we are doing. That's the best of all."
The dinner was really wonderful—trust Ferd for that too. We were almost hilarious. Between courses we got up and changed our own plates, and we danced to the side table and back again. Once we had an alarm, however. An excursion boat came up the river and swung in close to the pavilion. We had not noticed it until it was quite near and there was no time to run; so we all sat down on the floor inside the railing, which was covered with canvas, and had our salad there.
By the time dinner was over it was almost dark; and we took a bottle of champagne down to the dock and drank it there, sitting on the boards, with our feet hanging. Ferd had been growing sentimental for the last hour or two and I had had to keep him down. He sat beside me on the boards and kept talking about how he envied Day, and that Ida was a good wife and better than he deserved; but no one had ever got into him the way I had.
"I'm not trying to flatter you, Fanny," he said. "I've always been honest with you. But there's a woman for every man, and you're my woman."
He had come rather close and, anyhow, he was getting on my nerves; so I gave him just the least little bit of a push and he fell right back into the water. I was never so astonished in my life.
The way Jane Henderson told it later was criminally false. I did not push him with all my strength and he had not tried to kiss me. Nobody had had too much to drink. It was a perfectly proper party, and my own mother could not have found a single thing to criticise.
Well, Ferd was wet through and not very agreeable. He said, however, that he had merely overbalanced, and that he would dry out somehow. The only thing was that he had to get back home and he felt he was not looking his best.
The moon came up and was perfectly lovely; but about the time we had settled down to singing soft little songs and the Lee man was saying what a good lot of sports we were, and that he was going to take the idea back home, a lot of puddlers and their wives rowed out from the shore and started toward our island. Ferd was awfully annoyed. He stood up and shouted at them.
"You can't come here!" he called. "This place is taken. Go to the other island."
"Go to the devil!" one of the puddlers bellowed from the boat; nevertheless they turned the boat's nose round and went to the other island. We could hear them yelling and laughing there, and singing in the commonest fashion. It ruined the moonlight for us. From that time the bloom was off, as one may say, and things went from bad to worse.
The last car went at ten o'clock, and at half-past nine we commenced to pack up. Annette insisted on taking the roses; and there was the phonograph and the club's silver and dishes, and almost a boat-load of stuff. We could not all get in, of course, so Ferd and Emerson Riley agreed to wait; but just as I got into the boat I dropped my gold bag overboard.
I would not go without the bag. It was set with diamonds and I did not know when I should get another. I just got out of the boat and refused to stir until it had been fished out.
There was a great deal of excitement. The last car had come and was waiting on the bank for its return trip, and every one was anxious to get off. Ferd, who was wet anyway, waded in, but he could not locate it immediately, and Jane grew hysterical.
"Come on and leave it, Fan!" she begged. "What's a bag compared with one's reputation? That car's moving now!"
"Go on!" I said coldly. "I shall stay here until Ferd finds it. Go on, all of you! You can send a man back with the boat, I dare say."
They did it! I never was more astounded in my life; but they all piled in except Ferd and me, and made for the shore as fast as they could. They said it was all well enough for me, with Day out of town; but the rest of them never had any luck and they had to get that car.
"They're terribly nervous, all at once!" I said. "If that car goes without me, Ferd, I shall jump into the river!"
It was moonlight, but not very bright. I sat on the dock and Ferd fished for the gold bag. He brought up an empty bottle, two tin cans and an old shoe.
"Look here, Fan," he said finally, "I'll buy you a new bag. I'll do anything—only let's get out of this."
"Try once more."
"I'll get neuralgia," he said. "I have to be awfully careful, Fanny. Ida has to watch me like a hawk."
"I should imagine so," I replied coldly.
"I mean about the neuralgia."
"Humph! Day never has anything the matter with him—that's one thing. Try again, Ferd."
He stooped again, and this time he got it. He straightened
