“let some one else start it,” said jim. “i’m not much good at names.”
“all right. you’re next, gil.”
“well, how would ‘crofton’ do?”
“punk!” said poke promptly. “what you want to call it, jeff, is something—”
“kindly await your turn, mr. endicott,” said jeff. “what do you say, hope?”
“i think something like—like ‘dragon fly’ would be pretty.”
“that’s not bad,” said gil.
“now, poke.”
“‘tippy,’” replied poke promptly.
“it isn’t tippy,” denied jeff.
“all canoes are tippy. call this one ‘tippi-canoe,’ only call it ‘tippy’ for short. get me?”
there was a groan of disapproval and jeffrey looked at jim.
“i don’t know,” said jim. “i think what[206] hope suggested is pretty good. or you might call it ‘kingfisher.’”
“yes,” said jeffrey, “or ‘lotus.’”
“yes, or ‘pink carnation,’” jeered poke. “or ‘canary bird.’ why don’t you think of something appropriate? now, ‘tippy’—”
“is idiotic,” interrupted gil. “i think you need a short name, jeff; something with ‘go’ to it—”
“that’s it!” exclaimed jim, almost upsetting his coffee cup.
“what’s it?” they asked.
“‘go to it’!”
“really, that’s not bad,” commented poke.
the others agreed, all save hope. hope said she thought it was a bit slangy.
“but that’s the kind of name you want,” insisted gil. “something snappy, jeff.”
“why not call it ‘poke’?” asked that youth.
“yes, ‘slow poke,’” amended jim. “but i don’t call that snappy. what’s the matter with something indian?”
“that’s the ticket!” cried poke. “jimmy, old boy, you’re coming on. let’s call it ‘laughing water.’”
“or ‘minnehaha.’”
[207]
“or ‘silver heels.’”
“‘rain-in-the-face!’”
“oh, cut it out, poke! be sensible.” this from gil. “i guess all the indian names have been used up, jeff. why not call it ‘hope’?”
hope laughed merrily at that, and poke grinned. “i wish you would,” he said eagerly. “you certainly would get your share of joshing, senator.”
“well, it’s getting on, fellows, and we don’t seem to have found anything very good yet. can’t any one think of anything?”
there was a depressed silence until jim said feebly: “call it ‘noname.’” this met with the reception it deserved. hope knitted her brows and forgot, in her absorption, to finish the slice of cake she held. finally poke broke the stillness. “who’s got a pencil?” he asked.
“give it back?” inquired jeffrey.
“i certainly will,” replied poke, viewing it in disgust. “now who’s got a piece of paper?”
“any other little thing you’d like?” asked gil, tossing him a box-lid. “a twenty-dollar gold piece or a silk hat?”
“yes, i’d like silence,” said poke severely.[208] he began to write on the lid and the others, glad of a respite from thinking, watched him curiously. for a minute poke scribbled and erased and frowned, but finally a satisfied smile dawned over his countenance.
“i’ve got it,” he announced. “gil said all the indian names had been used, my friends, but gil, as usual, was wrong. here, jeff, is the name of your canoe.”
he tossed the box-lid to jeffrey. on it he had printed in big letters:
mi-ka-noo.
“what’s that mean?” asked jeffrey. then it dawned on him and he burst into a laugh and handed the inscription on to jim. “that’s bully, poke! it really does look like indian at first, too!”
“my canoe,” jim translated as he passed it on. “how did you think of it, poke?”
poke waved his hand airily, signifying that the thing was too trivial to be worth attention.
“the only thing,” said gil, with a grin, “is that you’re pretty sure to call it ‘mike’ for short.”
“great!” laughed jim. “you wanted[209] something short and snappy and there it is; mike. you can’t beat it.”
hope was less enthusiastic about the name than the others, and said she thought it would be a shame to call anything as pretty as the crimson canoe, “mike,” but jeffrey was delighted with the suggestion. “it will look bully when it’s painted on,” he declared. “i suppose they’ll do it in gold, won’t they, gil?”
“if you tell them to they will, i guess. let’s get a move on, or we won’t get home before the game begins. toss me another banana, poke.”
“how many have you had already?” asked his chum severely.
“only one; honest.”
“all right; catch. who wants some more cake? there are three bananas left, too. have one, jim? any one else in the audience like a banana? shove the basket over, hope, and i’ll dump these things in. what time is it?”
“after twelve,” replied gil. “we’ll have to hurry a bit.”
“it won’t take us twenty minutes to get back after we’re started,” said jeffrey. “we’ve got the current with us, you know.”
[210]
“that is indeed painful news,” grunted poke. “i hoped to be able to paddle back.”
“jeff,” asked hope as they retraced their steps, “will you teach me to paddle sometime? i’d love to know how. it isn’t hard, is it? it doesn’t look hard, anyway.”
“no, it isn’t hard, except when you’re going against the stream or the wind,” jeffrey answered. “i’ll show you how any day you like after i get ‘mike.’”
hope made a face. “i think that’s a perfectly—perfectly suggy name, jeff.”
“suggy? what’s suggy?”
“horrid, of course.”
“i see; the antonym of jimmy.”
“i guess so,” replied hope. “i don’t believe i know what an-an-anto—what that is, though.”
they returned to the float, and while jeffrey and gil went on to the office to see about having the name put on the canoe, jim and poke launched the craft and made ready for the return trip. then, as the others had not come back, poke excused himself with the vague explanation that he thought he’d just look around a minute, and disappeared up the hill.[211] jeffrey and gil returned presently and after they had waited several minutes for poke that young gentleman sauntered into sight with a huge bag of peanuts from which he was industriously eating.
“pig!” shouted gil scathingly.
“for that,” remarked poke tranquilly, “you get none, my friend. who wants some peanuts?”
it seemed that they all did, for gil and jim captured the bag by main force and made an equal distribution of its contents. as jim remarked a few minutes later, it was a lucky thing that they did not have to paddle going back, for paddling would have interfered seriously with eating the peanuts. as it was, they left a floating trail of shells all the way from riverbend to the boat-house at crofton.
jeffrey and hope returned to sunnywood, but the others remained at school to await the time for the game with st. luke’s academy. poke declared that jeffrey was going home to get more dinner, and showed a strong disposition to accompany him. gil and jim, however, restrained him by force of arms.
“oh, i don’t want anything myself,” he[212] said, “but some one ought to go along and see that those two don’t get any more. my—my motive, gil, was quite disinterested.”
“you’re coming back to see the game, aren’t you, jeff?” called jim.
“yes, indeed. so is hope. and we’re going to bring lady if she will come,” answered jeffrey.
the three seated themselves on the steps of the gymnasium and watched jeffrey go swinging along with the aid of his crutches, hope beside him suiting her steps to his.
“he gets along mighty well, doesn’t he?” observed gil. “gee, if i was in his shoes, fellows, i’d have a grouch all the time. think of knowing that you’ve got to go through life like that! br-r-r!”
“think of not being able to play football or tennis or any of the things we do,” said poke soberly. “that’s what would get me, i guess.”
“he certainly can handle a canoe, though,” said jim.
“and he told me last night that he could swim,” gil added. “in fact he seemed to think he could do that about as well as i can.”
[213]
“i should hope so!” exclaimed poke. “you’re a punk swimmer.”
“am i? i noticed that i had no trouble swimming all around you last summer, pokey.”
“shucks! i wasn’t well that day. you know i’d eaten too much breakfast.”
“you usually do,” replied gil sweetly. “i suppose you can swim like a fish, jim?”
“n-no, i can’t swim much; i mean i can’t do many fancy tricks like fellows i’ve seen. i can keep it up a long time, though. i swam six miles one day last summer.”
“six miles!” poke whistled expressively. “what for?”
“nothing; just to see if i could.”
“weren’t you dead when you got through?”
“a little tired; not much. i swam out to the island first; that’s nearly a mile; and then i went to the breakwater, which is a good two miles, and then back the same way. it makes a good swim.”
“oh, yes,” said poke carelessly, “but a trifle short; what? did you rest any?”
“no, not to speak of. i stayed in the water all the time, but i rested a couple of minutes at the island and about as long as that at the end[214] of the breakwater. i didn’t stop at all coming back.”
“where’s this place you live?” asked gil. “near here, isn’t it?”
“yes, just over there.” jim nodded in the general direction of the coast. “only about thirty miles. essexport, you know.”
“i’ve heard of it. folks go there in summer, don’t they?”
“some, but it isn’t a fashionable summer resort at all. a good many artists go there. you stumble over them all the time on the wharves and around the harbor. they sit under white umbrellas and paint any old thing they can find. they’re rather nice folks, artists.”
“i should think it would be fun,” said poke vaguely. “are you going home in the summer?”
jim shook his head. “i don’t know. you see, we’ve rented our house. we might go back for a little while, i suppose. i dare say it’s pretty hot here in summer.”
“i’ll bet it is!” said gil. “it was so hot last spring at commencement that we nearly died. had to dress up in our best togs, you know, and make a hit with our relatives.”
[215]
“and other fellows’ relatives,” growled poke. “i nearly danced my poor little heart out that night, gil. it was my fatal fascination, jim. the girls simply had to have a dance with me!”
“dance!” scoffed gil. “you don’t call what you do dancing, do you?”
“i certainly do,” replied poke with dignity. “it is the poetry of motion. gil is envious,” he explained, turning to jim. “he dances like a trained bear on the end of a chain. ever see one? like this.” and poke began to revolve around and around on the landing in ludicrous imitation of a bear. even gil had to laugh at the performance. then poke declared that he had to have a drink of water and they sauntered over to memorial, meeting a few late diners on the way. after that it was almost time to think of dressing for the game, and they returned to the gymnasium, loitered awhile on the steps and then descended to the locker-room and leisurely got into their togs.
