Free Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock Page B

upstairs on the after deck there were Lilian Drone and Miss Lawson, the high school teacher, with a book of German poetry,—Gothey I think it was,—and the bank teller and the younger men.
    In the centre, standing beside the rail, were Dean Drone and Dr. Gallagher, looking through binocular glasses at the shore.
    Up in front on the little deck forward of the pilot house was a group of the older men, Mullins and Duff and Mr. Smith in a deck chair, and beside him Mr. Golgotha Gingham, the undertaker of Mariposa, on a stool. It was part of Mr. Gingham’s principles to take in an outing of this sort, a business matter, more or less,—for you never know what may happen at these water parties. At any rate, he was there in a neat suit of black, not, of course, his heavier or professional suit, but a soft clinging effect as of burnt paper that combined gaiety and decorum to a nicety.
    “Y ES ,” SAID MR. GINGHAM , waving his black glove in a general way towards the shore, “I know the lake well, very well. I’ve been pretty much all over it in my time.”
    “Canoeing?” asked somebody.
    “No,” said Mr. Gingham, “not in a canoe.” There seemed a peculiar and quiet meaning in his tone.
    “Sailing, I suppose,” said somebody else.
    “No,” said Mr. Gingham. “I don’t understand it.”
    “I never knowed that you went on to the water at all, Gol,” said Mr. Smith, breaking in.
    “Ah, not now,” explained Mr. Gingham; “it was years ago, the first summer I came to Mariposa. I was on the water practically all day. Nothing like it to give a man an appetite and keep him in shape.”
    “Was you camping?” asked Mr. Smith.
    “We camped at night,” assented the undertaker, “but we put in practically the whole day on the water. You see we were after a party that had come up here from the city on his vacation and gone out in a sailing canoe. We were dragging. We were up every morning at sunrise, lit a fire on the beach and cooked breakfast, and then we’d light our pipes and be off with the net for a whole day. It’s a great life,” concluded Mr. Gingham wistfully.
    “Did you get him?” asked two or three together.
    There was a pause before Mr. Gingham answered.
    “We did,” he said—“down in the reeds past Horseshoe Point. But it was no use. He turned blue on me right away.”
    After which Mr. Gingham fell into such a deep reverie that the boat had steamed another half-mile down the lake before anybody broke the silence again.
    Talk of this sort,—and after all what more suitable for a day on the water?—beguiled the way.
    D OWN THE LAKE , mile by mile over the calm water, steamed the Mariposa Belle. They passed Poplar Point where the high sand-banks are with all the swallows’ nests in them, and Dean Drone and Dr. Gallagher looked at them alternately through the binocular glasses, and it was wonderful how plainly one could see the swallows and the banks and the shrubs,—just as plainly as with the naked eye.
    And a little further down they passed the Shingle Beach, and Dr. Gallagher, who knew Canadian history, said to Dean Drone that it was strange to think that Champlain had landed there with his French explorers three hundred years ago; and Dean Drone, who didn’t know Canadian history, said it was stranger still to think that the hand of the Almighty had piled up the hills and rocks long before that; and Dr. Gallagher said it was wonderful how the French had found their way through such a pathless wilderness; and Dean Drone said that it was wonderful also to think that the Almighty had placed even the smallest shrub in its appointed place. Dr. Gallagher said it filled him with admiration. Dean Drone said it filled him with awe. Dr. Gallagher said he’d been full of it ever since he was a boy; and Dean Drone said so had he.
    Then a little further, as the Mariposa Belle steamed on down the lake, they passed the Old Indian Portage where the great grey rocks are; and Dr. Gallagher drew Dean