Down on the dock, a brother and sister began yelling at each other until the girl ran to their mother crying, “Dan hit me back!”

“Dan has a temper. He takes after me,” said their little brother sagely.

“You mean you take after him” said their mother. “He was here first.”

The baby’s mother picked up a small inflated raft in the shape of a giraffe. She pointed the long spotted neck at her husband and winked at him through the two small holes in the seat. “Imagine being able to fit your legs through these,” she said.

“I thought they were for your breasts,” her husband said.

Bruce’s wife shushed him. We heard the distant, slightly hysterical cry of a loon on the lake.

“People think they’re related to ducks,” said a local for our benefit, “but they’re really much closer to penguins.”

“You go in the lake,” said Mr. Howell, “watch out for leeches. Giant leeches. I had to nudge a moose this morning with my boat—he was eating the lily pads I planted, and he didn’t move when I yelled at him to stop. When you ram a moose from behind, you got to be prepared for more than contact. He had a row of leeches on his butt swung like fringe.”

“You see the fox last night?” a neighbor asked.

“I seen a fox grab a leech off a moose’s butt—” said Mr. Howell before we could shut him up.

In the absence of Tony and Bruce and the steaks, we refilled our glasses and shared the children’s hot dogs. I heard the baby laughing from inside the house, and followed the sound to where he was having his bath. His mother made an ice cream cone of suds and pretended to lick it. “Aaaagh!” she said, and the baby laughed again. I knelt beside the tub and scooped up a handful of suds. I brought it to my mouth and licked. “Aaaagh!” I sputtered to the baby’s delight, squinching my face in dismay.

From outside, someone called us down to see. In the road, beneath a street light, was the young moose the children had named Moosifer. As we watched, the moose went down on its front legs, kneeling in the road like a camel, its tongue slowly rolling across the spot where, earlier, a clump of crows had pecked at the soft parts under the crushed shell of a box turtle someone hadn’t stopped for.

“It’s Moosifer,” one of the children whispered to another.

Moosifer was a female, said our moose-butt expert. You could tell by the absence of antlers.

“Eyes right!” the urgent whisper of our host.

We looked to the woods where something large was making its way through the trees toward the road.

In the moment before Tony and Bruce drove up—the children’s new dog barking in the car—locals and guests, we held our breath as branches broke, the magnificent rack an emblem of need that could not wait another day.