"I'll wash the dishes, Amanda," Blue Bonnet offered, when at last that night-mare of a dinner was over. "I ought to walk over red-hot plowshares, or wear a hair-shirt or something as a penance for my sins of this day. Lacking both plowshares and shirt, I'll substitute dish-washing. And you may bear me witness--I'd take the hair-shirt if I had my choice!" It was a very weary Blue Bonnet who turned the dishpan upside down and hung the dish-cloth on a bush to dry. The long tramp of the morning, the preparations for the bonfire party, and then the exhausting experience of getting dinner, had tired even her physique, which had seldom known fatigue. "I wish we could dis-invite the company," she said to Amanda. "So do I," groaned her partner. "Fancy having to sit around a bonfire and sing 'merrily we roll along'--! It makes me ache all over." Later, when the inmates of both camps were gathered in a great circle about the fire, singing, jesting and story-telling, both girls forgot their weariness and might have been heard singing the same "merrily we roll along" with great zest and vocal strength. The bonfire did its builders proud and without any preparatory sulking or coaxing burst almost at once into pillars of soaring flame. There was a backing away at first on the part of the spectators as the intense heat began to scorch the circle of faces; then a gradual drawing near again. It was not until the flames had died down and the logs were a mass of glowing coals that Blue Bonnet handed around her willow-wands. Each one was now tipped with a white ball, puffy, round and mysterious. To most of the boys this was an innovation, and they had to be shown how to hold the white globules over the coals until they spluttered and swelled to bursting. "Now eat them!" she commanded. There was a chary tasting and then an ecstatic cry--"Marshmallows!" The rapidity with which the tin boxes were emptied might have appalled a less generous provider than Blue Bonnet; but she had relied upon Uncle Cliff to fill her order for marshmallows, and consequently felt no fear of "going short." When little Bayard had consumed his ninth "moth-ball" as he persisted in calling the sweets, his mother rose to take her brood home. Mr. Judson bent to lift Joe who had fallen asleep in Sarah's arms, and then turned to Blue Bonnet. "Good-night," he said, holding out his free hand and smiling down into the girl's tired face; "this is the first time I ever partook of toasted moonshine, and I've enjoyed my initiation." Carita kissed her impulsively. "It's the loveliest party I've ever been to," she whispered. Blue Bonnet looked wistfully after the departing group. "Aren't families the nicest things in all the world?" she asked Sarah, as she sank on the blanket beside this member of a numerous clan. "The very nicest." And Sarah, whose arms still felt the warmth of little Joe, stared into the fire with eyes that saw in the coals the picture of a family in far-off Woodford.