n the flowing river. Ina cut her hand opening the
condensed milk and was obliged to sit under a tree and nurse the wound.
Monona spilled all the salt and sought diligently to recover it. So Lulu
did all the work. As for Di and Bobby, they had taken the pail and gone
for water, discouraging Monona from accompanying them, discouraging her
to the point of tears. But the two were gone for so long that on their
return Dwight was hungry and cross and majestic.

"Those who disregard the comfort of other people," he enunciated, "can
not expect consideration for themselves in the future."

He did not say on what ethical tenet this dictum was based, but he
delivered it with extreme authority. Ina caught her lower lip with her
teeth, dipped her head, and looked at Di. And Monona laughed like a
little demon.

As soon as Lulu had all in readiness, and cold corned beef and salad had
begun their orderly progression, Dwight became the immemorial dweller in
green fastnesses. He began:

"This is ideal. I tell you, people don't half know life if they don't
get out and eat in the open. It's better than any tonic at a dollar the
bottle. Nature's tonic--eh? Free as the air. Look at that sky. See that
water. Could anything be more pleasant?"

He smiled at his wife. This man's face was glowing with simple pleasure.
He loved the out-of-doors with a love which could not explain itself.
But he now lost a definite climax when his wife's comment was heard to
be:

"Monona! Now it's all over both ruffles. And mamma does try so hard...."

After supper some boys arrived with a boat which they beached, and
Dwight, with enthusiasm, gave the boys ten cents for a half hour's use
of that boat and invited to the waters his wife, his brother and his
younger daughter. Ina was timid----not because she was afraid but because
she was congenitally timid--with her this was not a belief or an
emotion, it was a disease.

"Dwight darling, are you sure there's no danger?"

Why, none. None in the world. Whoever heard of drowning in a river.

"But you're not so very used----"

Oh, wasn't he? Who was it that had lived in a boat throughout youth if
not he?

Ninian refused out-of-hand, lighted a cigar, and sat on a log in a
permanent fashion. Ina's plump figure was fitted in the stern, the
child Monona affixed, and the boat put off, bow well out of water. On
this pleasure ride the face of the wife was as the face of the damned.
It was true that she revered he