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Updated: May 15, 2025
"I hope not, or my trouble in bringing it over the long portage will all have been thrown away," said Katherine, who could not help smiling at the bewilderment on the face of Mrs. M'Kree. There was no need to row going down the river; they just sat side by side and let the boat drift on the current, while they talked of the present and the future.
"Get an extra big supper ready for him, then, for I expect you will find his appetite has come back with a bounce," said Jervis, laughing. "You can tell him from me to get on with that new boat as fast as he can, and we will name it the Katherine." "Are you joking?" asked Mrs. M'Kree, who had suddenly become very serious, as she looked from Jervis to Katherine, whose face was a study in blushes.
Then, remembering how solitary was the life of the poor little woman, shut up from month's end to month's end with her babies, Katherine decided to get on as quickly as she could and give Mrs. M'Kree the benefit of her society. Mrs. M'Kree received her literally with open arms, and gave her a hug which nearly took her breath away. "Oh, I am glad you've come yourself!
Although the days were so warm and sunny, the nights and early mornings showed already a touch of frostiness, a chilly reminder of the winter that was coming; and Katherine was glad to wear a coat even while she was rowing, until the second portage had been reached. Astor M'Kree met her himself this morning, his first question being the one she most dreaded to hear.
The head of the barrel came off with a jerk, and then 'Duke answered with an air of studied indifference: "An Englishman, Astor M'Kree said he was; Selincourt or some such name, I think." A burst of eager talk followed this announcement, but, her entries made in the ledger, Katherine slipped away from it all and hurried into the sitting-room, where supper was already beginning.
Who told you? Look here, we want to know," one man burst out impatiently. "Then you had better go up to the second portage and ask Astor M'Kree," rejoined 'Duke Radford slowly. "It was he who told me about it, and he has got the order to build four more boats." "Now that looks like business, anyhow.
"I don't think Katherine knows more about Father than I do, because you see she is not much with him, and I don't think he understands the difference between one person and another," said Mrs. Burton. "He seems to find as much pleasure in talking to Oily Dave as to Astor M'Kree, and that is certainly different from what he used to be.
"I'll tell you, of course, seeing that you make such a point of it, but I'm not specially proud of the business, I can assure you," Mrs. M'Kree said, with a touch of irritability very unusual with her. "Oily Dave was up here about a week ago, and he said that he had some buckets of rough fat that would do for greasing sledge runners, or to mix with caulking pitch.
"What became of Selincourt?" asked Katherine, and was instantly sorry she had spoken, because of the pain in her father's face. "I don't know. I never heard of him from the day he left the counting-house until Astor M'Kree read his name from that letter, but I thought of him a good bit.
Phil reddened, looked dreadfully ashamed of himself for about two minutes, then said in a cheerful tone: "It is rather nice of me to be willing to play round with those sticky M'Kree babies, as if I were a kid myself."
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