you any good for me to come back through the
woods in the dark. The boat wouldn't get over to you any faster. You
see, if there'd been any good at all in it, I would have come back--but
there wasn't."

All this might have been very true, but I remembered how I had sat and
walked and thought and worried about Rectus, and his explanation did me
no good.

When I reached the house, I found that our landlady, who was one of the
very best women in all Florida, had saved me a splendid supper--hot and
smoking. I was hungry enough, and I enjoyed this meal until there didn't
seem to be a thing left. I felt in a better humor then, and I hunted up
Rectus, and we talked along as if nothing had happened. It wasn't easy
to keep mad with Rectus, because he didn't get mad himself. And,
besides, he had a good deal of reason on his side.

It was a lovely evening, and pretty nearly all the people of the town
were out-of-doors. Rectus and I took a walk around the "Plaza,"--a
public square planted thick with live-oak and pride-of-India trees, and
with a monument in the centre with a Spanish inscription on it, stating
how the king of Spain once gave a very satisfactory charter to the town.
Rectus and I agreed, however, that we would rather have a pride-of-India
tree than a charter, as far as we were concerned. These trees have on
them long bunches of blossoms, which smell deliciously.

"Now, then," said I, "I think it's about time for us to be moving along.
I'm beginning to feel about that Corny family as you do."

"Oh, I only objected to the girl," said Rectus, in an off-hand way.

"Well, I object to the father," said I. "I think we've had enough,
anyway, of fathers and daughters. I hope the next couple we fall in with
will be a mother and a son."

"What's the next place on the bill?" asked Rectus.

"Well," said I, "we ought to take a trip up the Oclawaha River. That's
one of the things to do. It will take us two or three days, and we can
leave our baggage here and come back again. Then, if we want to stay, we
can, and if we don't, we needn't."

"All right," said Rectus. "Let's be off to-morrow."

The next morning, I went to buy the Oclawaha tickets, while Rectus staid
home to pack up our handbags, and, I believe, to sew some buttons on his
clothes. He could sew buttons on so strongly that they would never come
off again without bringing the piece out with them.

The ticket-office was in a small store, where you could get any kin