"Yes! it is all fate!" exclaimed Quimby vehemently. "We cannot help ourselves!"
"You believe in fate then? I don"t think I do!" said Cyn, with a glance half-humorous, half-pitying, at its victim on the log; "what incentive would we have to any effort, if we were sure everything was marked out for us in advance?"
"That is a question requiring too much effort for us to discuss on a warm day," said Nattie.
"Certain circ.u.mstances must bring about certain results, you will acknowledge," Clem gravely remarked.
"But, it is said that every soul that is born has a twin somewhere; and if so, that must be fate!" said Mrs. Simonson.
"Miss Kling"s theory, I believe!" laughed Nattie.
"If it is so, the right ones don"t often come together," said Quimby gloomily.
"_We_ are an exception, then, to the general rule!" simpered Celeste.
Quimby groaned, and then murmured something about the toothache.
"Poor fellow!" said Cyn, in a low voice, to Nattie.
"After all, there _is_ something in fate," Nattie sighed.
"Perhaps so," she said.
"Well, we will not get solemn over fate," said Jo, cheerily; then, in a lower voice, as he glanced at Cyn, he added--"yet."
"And do not frighten away what few fish there are here, with your theories," commanded Clem.
Although this mandate was obeyed, and for a time silence reigned, it was not long before they were all singing a gay song, started by Clem himself, even Quimby joining in the chorus with a feeble tenor. But they were tired of fishing by that time, and began to feel as if a little refreshment would not be out of place, and would indeed enhance the loveliness of Nature, so a fire was made, and lunch-baskets unpacked.
"It will take a good many of those fish for a mouthful," declared Clem, who was cook.
"You may have my share, I can"t eat creatures I have seen squirm," said Nattie.
"Ah, you fastidious young woman! what shall I ever do with you, if you are cast away on a desert island with me?" exclaimed Clem, in mock despair.
"Set up a telegraph wire, and then she would need nothing more,"
insinuated Cyn.
"And get snubbed for my pains!" muttered Clem, _sotto voce_. But Nattie caught the words, and an expression of distress pa.s.sed over her face.
"This reminds me of that feast!" Cyn declared, as they sealed themselves wherever convenient, with a dish of whatever was handy.
"Only more so," added Clem.
"What feast?" asked Celeste, curiously.
"One we had once," Cyn replied evasively, glad there was something Celeste did not know about. In fact, in the matter of curiosity, Celeste was an embryo Miss Kling.
"I am sorry we have no _Charlotte Russes_ to-day, Quimby," remarked Clem, with an expression of transparent innocence.
Quimby could only reply with a groan. The recollections awakened were too much.
"What is the matter now, Ralfy?" asked the loving Celeste.
Again Quimby muttered something about "that tooth."
"Oh!" said Celeste, tenderly, "you really must have it out, Ralfy!"
The possibility of being obliged to part with a sound tooth in self-defense, restored him for the time being. But he was not the only one to whom the retrospect brought a momentary pain. Nattie sighed as she looked back to the day that had brought Clem, but not restored as she then supposed, but taken away, her "C."
"The salubrious air and the invigorating odor of the forest adds immeasurably to the natural capacity of the appet.i.te!" commented Jo, gravely, as he pa.s.sed his plate for the seventh fish.
"Ah!" sighed Celeste, who prided herself on her delicacy, "I never could eat more than would satisfy a mouse, and since my engagement,"
simpering, "I cannot swallow enough to scarce keep me alive!"
Quimby looked up eagerly.
"I--I beg pardon, but if the--if the engagement weighs upon you, I--I am willing to release you, you know!" he exclaimed, hopefully.
"You jealous creature!" replied Celeste, archly. "You know, Ralfy, that no consideration could make me release you!"
Quimby knew it only too well, and sighed as he picked a chicken bone.
"A great objection to dining in the woods is that one is apt to find his food unexpectedly seasoned!" said Clem, as he captured a six-legged bug of an adventurous spirit, that had sought to investigate the contents of his plate.
"Isn"t it strange that bugs don"t seem half so bad in our food here as they would at home!" said Mrs. Simonson.
"Oh! we can get used to anything, if we only think so!" said Cyn, bringing her cheery philosophy to the front.
"Yes!" a.s.sented Quimby, mournfully, "I--I am used to it, you know!"
Cyn laughed, and then proposed the health of the betrothed pair, which was drank in lager beer, and to which Quimby, bolstered up by Celeste, attempted to respond, but collapsed in the middle of the third sentence, and with the words,
"Thank you! and I--I am used to it, you know!" sat down, wiped his forehead on his napkin, and looked intensely miserable.
After that they toasted Cyn, and then "Dots and Dashes," and last, Jo with mock solemnity proposed "Fate."
And just then Quimby met with a fresh mishap, and came near ending his sufferings in a watery grave, only the water did not happen to be quite deep enough. Arising from the sharp-pointed rock that had served him for a pivot on which to eat his dinner, he stumbled, fell and rolled over and over down the bank, and into the river, with a tremendous splash.
Every one jumped up in consternation.
"Oh, Clem! Jo!" shrieked Celeste, wringing her hands, and rushing down to the water"s edge. "Save him! Save my darling Ralfy!"
"Ralfy," however, was equal to saving his own life this time. The water was only up to his waist, and he had already picked himself up and was wading ash.o.r.e.
"I--I am all right!" he said looking up at his anxious friends with a rea.s.suring smile. "I--I am used to it, you know!"
As Clem a.s.sisted him up the bank, the thought came into Cyn"s head, why would it not be a good idea to push Nat--accidentally--into the river, so Clem might rescue her, and thus bring about that much to be desired crisis? But remembering that water would run the colors of her dress, and farther, how dreadfully unbecoming it was to be wet--a fact fully demonstrated by the present appearance of Quimby--Cyn rejected the idea as not exactly feasible.