Virginia smiled sweetly at the hurt riverman. "Please take us up in your boat. It will be so much fun." Mr. Quince surrendered. "I'll take the old boat to the grove if I have to wait for the spring freshets to do it." "It won't be dangerous, will it?" cried Virginia, disturbed by the vigor of the mariner's remarks. "The boat won't sink, will it?" "That wouldn't make no odds, nohow," Mr. Quince reassured her. "That bottom of the Lame Moose is so near the top you wouldn't know no difference." It was finally agreed that the _Nancy Jane_ should await the arrival of its passengers at a convenient place below the highway bridge at the hour of ten on the next morning. But, before they left, Mr. Quince, after inspecting the cars upon nearby switch tracks, announced, "I don't seem to have no coal a layin' around handy, so I better have five bucks on account in case I have to buy some." CHAPTER XIV AN OUTING AND AN ACCIDENT The heat wave had not broken in the morning. At eight o'clock South Ridgefield sweltered beneath a rising temperature with no promise of relief. "The poor babies!" thought Virginia. "It is hotter than ever; but the picnic will help them." She remembered how warm it had been at the hospital on the previous day and fell to thinking of Joe Curtis, and her eyes grew soft and dreamy as she wished that he was going on the river trip. The high temperature had caused Obadiah to spend a restless night and he was peevish and irritable when Virginia told him of the plans for the day. "You should not have mixed up in such matters without consulting me," he snapped. "It is indiscreet and may lead to your embarrassment. That hole up the river used to have a most unsavory reputation." He paused as if seeking for other objections, and then went on. "You might get a sun stroke." In a moment she had her arms about his neck and kissed him. "There it is, Daddy. Thinking of me as usual." "How can I help--," he grumbled. She gave a joyous laugh and interrupted him. "I knew that you would want to help, too, Daddy. You may--allow Mr. Jones and Mr. Kelly to come to the picnic. It will be an outing which they will enjoy." Obadiah drew away from her caresses. "Don't interfere with my office," he snarled. "I was greatly embarrassed when I returned on the afternoon of the concert and found no one there. I spoke to them both about it." Virginia flushed with feeling. "Did they tell you that I asked them to come?" she demanded, and when his face admitted it, she continued, "Regardless of the permission you gave me in this very room to ask any one I wished to the concert, you criticised me, Daddy, to your employees. If you objected to my actions, why didn't you come to me?"