right there."

"And she stood there all day!"

"Why didn't you swim to shore?" asked Uncle Teddy. "You can keep up
pretty well, and you would have struck shallow water pretty soon."

"Because I had the camera," said Antha, beginning to sob from
exhaustion, "and I had--to--keep--it--dry!"

"You blessed lamb!" said Aunt Clara, and then choked and was unable to
say any more.

"There!" exclaimed Katherine exultantly, when they were back home and
Antha had been put to bed and fussed over. "Didn't I tell you she'd
develop a backbone if the right occasion presented itself? The only
thing she needed to bring it out was responsibility. Responsibility!
That's the last thing anybody would have thought of putting on her.
She's been babied and petted all her life and told what a poor, feeble
creature she was until she believed it. People expected her to be a
cry-baby and so she was one. We made the same mistake here. We've never
asked her to do an equal share of the work, or made her responsible for
a single thing. We were always afraid she couldn't do it. Now you see
Aunt Clara made her responsible for that camera and took it for granted
that she'd keep it dry and, of course, she did. I guess everybody would
be a hero if somebody only expected them to."

CHAPTER XIII

OUT OF THE STORM

"Is there enough blue to make a Dutchman a pair of breeches?" asked
Gladys, anxiously scanning the heavens. "If there is, it will clear up
before noon."

"Well, there's enough to patch a pair, anyway," said Katherine, pointing
to a minute scrap of blue showing through a jagged rent in a gray cloud.

"A patched pair is just as good as a new one," said Gladys with easy
philosophy. "It's all right for us to go for a hike today, isn't it,
Uncle Teddy?"

"Most any day is good for a hike, if you really want to go," answered
Uncle Teddy cheerfully. "Don't I hear you girls singing:

"'We always think the weather's fine in sunshine or in snow?'"

"Oh, goody! I'm glad you think so," said Gladys.

"Mother always wants us to stay at home if it looks the least bit like
rain and when we do it usually clears up after it's too late to start.
We've all set our hearts on cutting those balsam branches today."

Uncle Teddy sniffed the air again and remarked that there was little
rain in it, so with light hearts the expedition started out. Uncle Teddy
took them across to the mainland. On this occasion there was an extra
passenger in the launch