When Katherine and the Captain became Chiefs the following Monday night, they announced that the Principal Diversion for that week would be a canoe trip up the river they had followed on foot in their search for the moose. This little river flowed into the lake at a point just opposite Ellen’s Isle, running between high, frowning cliffs at its mouth.

“It’s to be a sure enough ‘exploraging’ party,” continued Katherine, “and we won’t come back the same day.” A cheer greeted her words.

“Won’t the war canoe look fine sweeping up the 86 river?” asked Migwan, seeing the picture in her mind’s eye. “This will be a bigger Argonautic Expedition than the other.”

“We won’t be able to take this trip in the war canoe,” spoke up Uncle Teddy. “From what I have seen of that little river it is too shallow in places to float a canoe. If we made the trip in the small canoes we could get out and carry them along the shore when we came to the shallow places, which we couldn’t do with the war canoe very easily.”

“Oh, I’m so glad we’re going in the small canoes,” said Sahwah, delighted. “It’s lots more epic. Of course,” she added hastily, “it’s heavenly in the war canoe, all paddling together, but it isn’t nearly so exciting. There one person does the steering and it’s always Uncle Teddy, but in a small canoe you can do your own steering. And, besides,” she continued in a heartfelt tone, “there’s no chance of the war canoe’s tipping, and there always is in a little one.”

“I take it that upsetting a canoe is one of the chief joys in life for you,” remarked Uncle Teddy. “No trip complete for you without an upset, eh? I must make a note of that, and pack all the valuable cargo in the other canoes. And I shall order the crew of your vessel to wear full dress uniform all the time, namely, your bathing suits.”

The weather was fine and dry and, according to the signs as interpreted by Uncle Teddy, would remain 87 so for the next few days. Orders were given to start immediately after breakfast the next morning. Ponchos had to be rolled for this trip, as they intended camping in the woods somewhere for one or, perhaps, two nights.

“Don’t tell Antha we’re going to sleep on the ground,” Gladys warned the others diplomatically, “or she’ll make a fuss before we start.”

“We’ll save that for a pleasant surprise,” said Sahwah, with a grin over her shoulder.

No special time had been set for the return of the “exploraging” party. They were simply going to paddle up the river as far as they could go and then turn back.

The camp looked like an army preparing to move that Tuesday morning. Blankets were being stripped from beds and spread out on ponchos while their owners raced around hunting for the rest of their belongings which should go in.

“Where’s my toothbrush?” demanded Gladys, having turned the tent upside down in her search for the missing article. “Katherine, if you’ve borrowed it to stir that villainous paint mixture you were daubing Eeny-Meeny with I’ll—”

“What’s that sticking out of the hole in the floor?” interrupted Katherine, pointing to the corner behind the bed.

“Why, that’s it,” said Gladys. “I remember now, I poked it into that hole last night.”

88“Whatever did you put it into that hole for?” asked Hinpoha curiously.

“Why, after I was in bed,” answered Gladys, “I got to thinking about that hole and how spiders and things could come crawling through and walk right into my bed, and I had no peace of mind until I got up and stuffed it. And the only thing I could find to stuff it with was the handle of my toothbrush. Then I went to sleep in peace.”

“As if all the spiders in the world couldn’t walk in at the side of the tent,” jeered Hinpoha.

“I know it,” said Gladys, laughing shamefacedly, “but somehow the spiders that might be coming in at the sides didn’t bother me a bit, while those that might be coming through the hole did.”

“‘Consistency, thou art a jewel,’” quoted Katherine, laughing.

“What are the boys doing?” asked Hinpoha, hearing a commotion outside.

The Captain was running toward the path, waving something over his head, and Slim was hot after him trying to get it away.

“Oh, it’s the thermos bottle,” called Sahwah, who had run out after the two. Ever since Slim had taken the thermos bottle full of hot chocolate with him the time they went on the snowshoe hike, he had never been allowed to forget it. Wherever Slim went that thermos bottle was taken along for his benefit. The Captain had even taken it along to 89 a school party and gravely handed it to Slim when he was trying to appear especially dignified in the presence of a stately young lady. This time Slim caught the Captain and downed him at the head of the path and they struggled for its possession while the onlookers held their breath for fear they would both roll down the hill. Slim finally got it away from the Captain, and succeeded in hiding it where it could not be found in time to take along.

“What’s going to be the order of procession?” asked Aunt Clara when they had finally got all their impedimenta down on the dock.

“You and Uncle Teddy will be in the first canoe,” said Katherine. Since she and the Captain were the Chiefs they had the right to be commanders of the trip, but they willingly agreed to let Uncle Teddy have that responsibility, as he was able to engineer a canoe party and they were not.

“Let Katherine and the Captain go in the canoe with you,” suggested Mr. Evans. “Then they can pretend they are commanding the expedition.” Mr. and Mrs. Evans were not going on this trip.

“No,” said Uncle Teddy, “I would rather have my first aids in the last boat. Then they can watch the whole line of canoes ahead of them and see that everything is all right.”

So Katherine and the Captain had the place of honor at the tail of the line.

When they were nearly ready to start, Katherine, 90 who had returned to the tents for something, came toiling down the hill, carrying in her arms the stiff figure of Eeny-Meeny. “We can’t go without our mascot,” she said. “Didn’t the old Greeks and Romans carry their household gods with them, and didn’t the Indians take their ‘Medicine’ along on all their journeys? As fourth assistant sub-head of this expedition I use my authority to declare that she shall be taken along. There is one canoe left and we can tie that behind mine and tow her. Mayn’t we, Uncle Teddy?”

“You’re the Chief this week,” said Uncle Teddy, throwing up his hands in a helpless gesture. “You have the right to say whether she shall go or not. If you agree to tow her yourself I certainly have no objections to her going along. But remember, towing her will include carrying her overland when we come to the shallow places.”

“Now lie still and be good,” admonished Katherine, when Eeny-Meeny had been laid in the canoe, looking ridiculously undignified with her one arm and foot sticking up in the air.

“All ready there?” shouted Uncle Teddy from up front. “All right, cast off.”

The line of canoes moved forward. Nakwisi was up in the first canoe with Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara, while the Bottomless Pitt made the fourth passenger. After them came Hinpoha and Slim, paddling the second canoe with Antha and Dan as 91 passengers; then Sahwah and the Monkey, paddling Migwan and Anthony; and lastly, Katherine and the Captain with Gladys and Peter Jenkins, and Eeny-Meeny traveling in state behind them.

The lake was smooth and paddling was easy. They sang as they bent to their paddles, as voyageurs of old. Soon they came to the mouth of the narrow river and ran in between the high banks. The current was strong and the paddling immediately became harder work.

“I bet Slim loses five pounds on this trip,” called out the Captain. “See him perspire!”

“I’ll bet he gains five,” answered Katherine. “Working hard will give him such an appetite that he’ll eat twice as much as he usually does. Too bad we didn’t bring that thermos bottle; he will be wanting some nourishment very soon if he keeps up at that rate.”

Slim heard the jokes at his expense being tossed back and forth over his head, but his exertions had rendered him too breathless to say a word of protest.

They passed the place where Uncle Teddy had called the moose with the birchbark trumpet on the occasion of the Calydonian Hunt. “Why don’t you call another moose, Uncle Teddy?” asked Sahwah. “I should think there would be lots of them around.”

“I don’t think so,” replied Uncle Teddy. “This is a bit too far south for them. That other moose 92 probably didn’t live in these woods; he was just traveling here; spending his vacation, probably. And, like a good many of his human brothers, he didn’t take his wife along with him. There were no signs of another.”

“He would have done better to stay at home with his wife,” remarked Aunt Clara, “and then his head and his hide wouldn’t be over in St. Pierre now, getting respectively mounted and tanned.”

“Mercy, but this is hard pulling,” groaned Katherine, as they went farther and farther up against the swift current. Those up in the forward boats thought the same thing and the paddles were not dipping with anywhere near the briskness and regularity with which they started out.

“This won’t do!” shouted Katherine, making a trumpet of her hands. “We look like a row of lame ducks limping along. Get some style into your paddling. Let’s sing and paddle in time to the music.” Her voice cracked as usual and Gladys had to start the chorus:

It is astonishing how much better everything goes 93 to music. The ragged paddling straightened out into steady, rhythmic dipping; drooping backs stiffened up, and aching arms regained their energy.

“That’s the way!” shouted Katherine. “Now we have some style about us. This canoe seems much lighter than it did a few minutes ago. Hurrah for music!”

Just at this moment her alert senses told her that something was wrong. She twisted her head backward and then she saw that the sudden lightening of the canoe was not due to the beneficial effects of music. For the canoe, which they had been towing, was no longer fastened to them. Far behind them they saw it, traveling rapidly back to the lake with the swift current, carrying with it their mascot Eeny-Meeny, her arm visible above the sides of the canoe, stretched out to them in a beseeching gesture.

“Halt!” cried Katherine in a fearful voice, which broke in the middle of the word and leaped up fully two octaves.

“What’s the matter?” shouted Uncle Teddy, looking back in alarm.

“We’ve lost Eeny-Meeny!” screeched Katherine.

A roar of laughter went up from all the canoes, as the occupants, carefully turning their heads so as not to disturb the balance of their frail barks, caught sight of that runaway canoe with the imploring arm visible over the side.

94“I’ll go after her!” said Katherine, bringing her canoe up alongside the bank and unceremoniously inviting Gladys and Peter to get out and lighten the boat. Then she and the Captain headed around into the current and started downstream paddling for dear life. It was so much easier going down than coming up that they fairly flew over the water, and caught up with Eeny-Meeny just before she reached the mouth of the river and went sailing out on the wide bosom of the lake. She was fastened on more firmly this time, and then began the long, hard paddle upstream again to overtake the others. Katherine would have been game to go on paddling all day rather than say Eeny-Meeny was a bother to tow, but she was very glad of the order given by Uncle Teddy, which gave her a chance to sit in the bottom of the canoe and do nothing but look at the scenery and keep an eye on Eeny-Meeny, lest she should give them the slip again.

The change of paddlers brought Anthony to the place of bow paddler in the third canoe. “Now you’ll see some real paddling,” was his gracious remark when he took the seat the Monkey had vacated in his favor.

“Look out you don’t run over any snags,” cautioned the Monkey. “There are some sharp stumps under the surface of the water and they’re ugly customers.”

“You don’t need to tell me about them,” replied 95 Anthony pertly, “I guess I know how to paddle as well as you do. You don’t always need to be handing me directions how to do things.” And he started off with a series of jerky dips, which set the canoe swaying from side to side so that Migwan had an effort to keep it straight in the line of the others.

“Steady there, you third bow paddler,” shouted Uncle Teddy, and Anthony subsided.

In the last canoe Katherine and Gladys were lustily shouting:

The other canoes took up the song and shouted it until Slim, throwing handfuls of water in every direction, sprinkled the singers into silence.

The country through which they were passing was for the most part thick woods. Sometimes there was a narrow meadow on each side of the river with the trees in the distance, sometimes there was a swamp, but more often they were passing between high bluffs crowned with forests. At times it was 96 actually gloomy down there in the narrow passage, for the sun was behind the trees high above them; then again as the banks became low the hot sun shone unmercifully on their heads and made their eyes ache as it sparkled on the ripples.

Just as they had settled down to nice steady paddling and were making good progress upstream, Uncle Teddy called out that he was aground. The river bed seemed suddenly to rise up and strike the bottom of the canoes. A few feet back the water was swift and deep; here a sand bar stretched across their path and brought them to a stop.

“We’ll have to get out and carry the canoes around,” said Uncle Teddy, stepping over the side into the shallow water and pushing his canoe back where it would float.

Then they all had to step ashore and “paddle the canoes with their feet,” as the Bottomless Pitt called it. Slim began carefully lifting the “grub” supplies out of his canoe and piling them on the ground.

“What are you doing that for?” asked Hinpoha.

“So they won’t fall out when we carry it, of course,” replied Slim.

“Just how were you planning to carry it?” asked Hinpoha curiously.

“Why, on our heads, to be sure,” said Slim.

“Silly,” said Hinpoha, “of course we won’t carry them on our heads these few steps. We’ll carry them right side up and leave all the supplies in.”

97“I thought you always had to carry a canoe on your head when you made a portage,” said Slim sheepishly, amid the laughter of the rest. “They always do it that way in the pictures,” he defended himself.

Katherine had double work, for in addition to her own canoe with its cargo, she had Eeny-Meeny to transport. But the Captain gallantly helped her and Eeny-Meeny made her overland journey with perfect ease.

“This is a case of ‘turn about is fair play,’” said Gladys. “First your canoe carries you and then you carry the canoe.”

On the other side of the sand bar the fleet was launched again and the interrupted paddling resumed. They were just going nicely when Uncle Teddy shouted, “Halt! We have to lighten the boats!”

“What for?” shrieked Katherine in alarmed amazement.

“Dinner time!” replied Uncle Teddy, and they all shouted with laughter again. Everybody had been quite frightened at his command to lighten the boats.

They went ashore and cooked dinner over a fire of driftwood and succeeded in lightening the boats considerably. After an hour’s rest in the shade of a large tree they pushed forward again. Only twice during the afternoon did they see any signs of people. 98 In both instances it was a single tent set up among the trees by hardy folks who preferred the wilderness to the fashionable resorts along the lake front. Near one of the tents stood a man and a boy and they waved a friendly greeting to the voyageurs, who raised their paddles all together in salute.

“Quite some style to that salute,” said Katherine, and in her enthusiasm she brought her paddle down flat on the water with a mighty whack, showering those around her.

“Oh, I say,” cried Gladys in protest, “please bottle up your rapture. I’m drenched already. I don’t know what would happen if you ever got really enthusiastic about anything.”

“I’m sorry,” said Katherine apologetically, then with a lapse into her negro dialect, “Ah reahly couldn’t help it. Ah got such protuberant spirits, Ah has! Ah ’clar to goodness—”

“What’s the matter up there? Why don’t you go on?” The clear voice of the Captain cut sharply through Katherine’s nonsense.

“The third canoe has run on a snag,” somebody called in answer.

“Just as I expected,” said the Captain under his breath. “That lobster of an Anthony doesn’t know enough to watch out for snags.”

It was characteristic of the Winnebagos and the Sandwiches that there was no noise or confusion over the mishap. Everybody sat quiet while Uncle 99 Teddy paddled alongside the impaled canoe and gave directions for releasing her. In a minute she was floating clear again, but with an eight-inch rip in the bottom, through which the water began to press rapidly. The snag was the broken stump of a tree, which had pierced the wood like a lance.

“Paddle over to shore,” commanded Uncle Teddy, and the disabled vessel was soon lying up on the sandy bank with her crew standing around inspecting the damage. The others landed also and stood waiting for orders what to do next.

“Will we have to carry the canoe all the way back by land?” asked Slim anxiously, already fearing that he would have to help do the carrying and ready to put up a telling argument why Anthony should carry it all the way back alone, since he had been so clever as to run it on a snag.

“Mercy, no,” said Uncle Teddy. “Here is where traveling in a canoe has the advantage over every other mode of travel. All you have to do is fill the rip with pine pitch, harden it, and she’s as good as ever. Company disperse into the woods and seek pine pitch. Forward march!”

The pitch was procured and Uncle Teddy mixed it with grease. Then he laid a piece of canvas over the hole, smeared it with the pitch mixture and hardened it by searing with a torch. All that took time and the afternoon was gone before they had finished the mending.

100“Company seek sleeping quarters!” commanded Uncle Teddy, after a consultation with Aunt Clara, who was of the opinion that this was as good a place as any to spend the night. The pines were close together and the ground was dry and soft with its thick carpet of needles. As the ground was alike on both sides of the river the boys and Uncle Teddy decided to cross and make their camp on the other side, a little farther up around a bend. The two camps were hidden from each other by the thick bushes that fringed both banks of the river, but were not too far away from each other to be handy in case of emergency.

Sleeping sites were soon picked out and the ponchos and blankets spread out on the ground. Of course, Antha made a fuss when she discovered the mode of sleeping and it took considerable coaxing to get her to consent. She was afraid of snakes; she was afraid of bugs; she was afraid of being carried away bodily. It was only when Katherine promised to be her sleeping partner and keep tight hold of her hand all night that she ceased her fussing.

Great was the laughter as Katherine’s poncho was unrolled and her laundry bag, full of clothes waiting to be washed, tumbled out. In her haphazard and absent-minded packing she had taken it instead of her pillow. Katherine promptly tied the bag shut and declared it was as good as any pillow.

101“You won’t think so by the time the night is over,” warned Hinpoha. “You’ve never slept on the ground before, but after this time you’ll never forget your pillow again. That fact will be firmly fixed even in your forgetful mind.”

While supper was cooking, Hinpoha and the Captain, who had gone exploring on foot on the pretext of gathering firewood, reported a small waterfall a short distance up the river. A waterfall on the premises was too valuable a stage “prop” not to be used, and Hinpoha was soon seized with an inspiration.

“Let’s do our Legend of Niagara stunt here after supper,” she proposed. “It’ll be such fun to send Eeny-Meeny over the falls in the canoe. There isn’t a particle of danger of dashing the boat to pieces on the rocks because there aren’t any rocks below the falls, and even if Eeny-Meeny does fall out en route, we can fish her out again and drain her off. I think a waterproof heroine is the greatest thing that was ever invented!”

In the soft glow of the sunset the great tragedy took place. The spectators sat around on the river banks and cheered the canoe as it appeared above the falls, filled with pine branches on which reposed the lovely form of Eeny-Meeny, her brows crowned with wreaths and a flowering branch in her outstretched hand. With increasing swiftness the canoe approached the falls, poised on the brink a moment, 102 then tilted forward and shot downward, turning over and over and spilling Eeny-Meeny and her piney bed into the river. As the spill occurred, Hinpoha and Gladys and Sahwah and Katherine, who were playing the parts of the bereaved companions of the sacrificed maiden, tore their hair and uttered blood-curdling shrieks of despair.

Just at that moment, with a suddenness which took their breath away, a man appeared on the river bank, coming apparently from the woods, and cried loudly, “Be calm! I will save her!” And, flinging his coat off, he sprang into the water before anyone could say Jack Robinson. He swam out to the form bobbing in the current, her arm thrown up as if for help; grasped that arm and then uttered a long, choking sputter, shoved Eeny-Meeny violently away from him and swam back to shore. They made valiant attempts not to laugh when he crawled out on the bank, dripping and disgusted.

From his appearance he was an Englishman. He was dressed in a sort of golfing suit, with short, baggy trousers and long, checked stockings. He had sandy whiskers which were dripping water in a stream. Such a ludicrous sight he was as he stood there, with his once natty suit all limp and clinging, that, one by one, the boys and girls dissolved into helpless giggles. Uncle Teddy managed to hold on to his composure long enough to explain how it happened that Eeny-Meeny went over the falls in such 103 a spectacular manner. The Englishman stared at him open mouthed.

“Well, really!” he drawled at last in a voice which expressed doubts as to their sanity, and the few who had maintained straight faces so far lost control of themselves.

Uncle Teddy offered the would-be rescuer dry clothing, but he declined, saying he and a friend had pitched a tent only a quarter of a mile up the river and he would hasten back there. The two of them were on a walking trip, he explained, making frequent stops where there was fishing. While his friend had been cooking supper this evening he had strolled off by himself and had come through the woods just in time to see Eeny-Meeny go over the falls. In the failing light he had mistaken her for a real person.

“Oh, I say,” he called back after he had started to take his departure, “if you should happen to run into my friend anywhere would you be so kind as not to mention this–er–mistake of mine? He is something of a joker and I am afraid he would repeat the story where it would cause me some embarrassment.” And he solemnly withdrew, leaving them to indulge their mirth to their hearts’ content.

“Poor old Eeny-Meeny,” said Katherine, “she seems born to be rescued. She must bear a charmed life. It’s a case of ‘Sing Au Revoir but not Good-bye’ 104 when she goes to meet a tragic fate.” She dried Eeny-Meeny off with bunches of grass and stood her up against a tree to guard their “boudoir” for the night.

“Hinpoha,” said Gladys, drawing her aside when they were ready to retire, “what do you think of watching tonight? I’ve never done it and I’m crazy to try it once.”

“You mean sit up all night?” asked Hinpoha.

“Yes,” answered Gladys. “Go off a little way from the others and build a small fire and sit there in the still woods and watch. Nyoda always wanted me to do it some time, and I promised her I would if I got a chance.”

“We’d better ask Aunt Clara about it first,” said Hinpoha.

Aunt Clara said that after such a strenuous day’s paddling, and with the prospect of another one before them it would be out of the question for them to sit up all night, but they might stay up until midnight if they chose and sleep several hours later in the morning.

Everyone else was too dead tired to want to sit up, so the two of them departed quietly into the woods where they could not hear the voices of the others and built a tiny fire. The proper way to keep watch in the woods is to do it all alone, but Hinpoha and Gladys compromised by agreeing not to say one word to each other all the while they sat there, 105 but to think their own thoughts in absolute silence. If the city girl thinks there is not a sound to be heard in the woods at night she should keep the watch some time and listen. Beside the calls of the whippoorwill and the other night birds, there are a hundred little noises that seem to be voices talking to one another in some soft, mysterious language. There are little rustlings, little sighings, little scurryings and patterings among the dry leaves, drowsy chirpings and plaintive croakings. The old workaday world seems to have slipped out of existence and a fairy world to have taken its place. And the girl who truly loves nature and the wide outdoors will not be frightened at being alone in the woods at night. It is like laying her ear against the wide, warm heart of the night and hearing it beat.

And to sit by a lonely watch fire in the woods in the dead of night is to unlock the doors of romance. Strange fancies flitted through the minds of the two girls as they sat there, and thoughts came which would never have come in daylight. Somehow they felt in the calmness of the night the nearness of God and the presence of the Great Mystery. All the petty little daylight perplexities faded from reality; their souls became serene, while their hearts beat high with ambition and resolve. They had no desire to speak to each other; each was planning out her life on a nobler scale; each was steeped in peace profound.

106Without warning they were roused from their reverie by a startled yell that shattered the silence and made the night hideous.

“What’s the matter?” they both shrieked, starting to their feet in great fright.

The yell had come from the direction of the girls’ sleeping place, and, taking to their heels, Gladys and Hinpoha sped through the woods to their friends. There they found everybody up and standing around with their blankets over their shoulders. A fire had been left burning in an open space and beside this, Aunt Clara, looking like an Indian squaw, was talking to a man who looked as if he might be a brother of the man who had jumped into the river after Eeny-Meeny that evening.

“What’s the matter?” they asked of Katherine.

“He ran into Eeny-Meeny,” explained Katherine, “and it scared the wits out of him.”

There was another rush of feet and Uncle Teddy and the Sandwiches came on a dead run. They had heard the yell and were coming to see what was the matter. The strange man in the Norfolk suit, nearly dead from embarrassment, explained that he and his friend were camping some distance up the river and his friend had gone out walking in the early evening and come home with dripping clothes, having accidentally fallen into the river. Here the girls and boys looked at each other and had much ado to keep their faces straight. The friend had gone to 107 bed and later in the evening had been taken with a severe chill. He had happened to mention that he passed a large camping party in his walk. Seeing the light of the fire through the trees and taking it to be this camp which his friend had seen he had taken the liberty of walking over to ask if Uncle Teddy had any brandy. But before he had seen any of the campers or come near enough to hail them he had run into something in the darkness, and upon scratching a match was horrified to see an Indian girl tied to a tree. (Katherine had tied Eeny-Meeny up so she wouldn’t fall over in the night.) In his fright he had cried out, and that was what had aroused the camp. He was very sorry, but he had never come upon an Indian in the woods at night, even a wooden cigar store one, and thought he might be pardoned for being frightened.

His exclamation when Eeny-Meeny was explained to him was just like that of his friend: “Well, really!” And there was that same shade of doubt in his voice as to the sanity of people who carried such a thing along with them on a canoe trip.

“Oh–I say,” he called back, when Uncle Teddy had given him a small flask of brandy and pointed out the nearest route back, “if you should happen to run into my friend anywhere while you are in these woods would you be so kind as not to mention this–er–mistake of mine? He is something of a joker, and I am afraid if this story came to his ears he 108 would repeat it where it would cause me some embarrassment.”

And he departed as solemnly as the other had done, leaving the campers limp with merriment.

The next day they ascended the river as far as they could go, with nothing more exciting than the dropping overboard of Katherine’s poncho. On the return trip the punctured canoe began to leak, so her crew and supplies were transferred to Eeny-Meeny’s canoe and she was towed along in the leaky one, with frequent stops to bail out the water when she seemed in danger of being swamped. They spent the second night in the same place where they had spent the first, and this time there was no disturbance. They mended the leaky canoe again and Eeny-Meeny finished her trip in comparative dryness.

“Oh, dear,” said Katherine, when they were back at Ellen’s Isle once more, and had finished telling Mr. and Mrs. Evans their adventures, “what was there in life worth living for anyway, before we had Eeny-Meeny?”