"I can only answer for myself," declared Wyn, laughing. "They were all
asleep when I came away. But I guess if we have nothing worse to trouble
us than that shower we shall get along all right."
"You're a plucky girl--for a city one," said the woman. "Now, do you
want milk and eggs?"
Wyn told her what she wanted, and paid for the things. Then she started
back to camp, laden with the brimming milk pail and a basket which the
farmer's wife had let her have.
The sun was now mounting swiftly in his course across the sky. Faintly
she heard the sawmill at the Forge blowing a whistle to call the hands,
and knew that it was six o'clock. She hurried her steps and reached the
opening where the tent was pitched just as the first sleepy Go-Ahead was
creeping out to see what manner of day it might be.
"For goodness' sake, Wyn Mallory!" cried this yawning nymph in blue
pajamas. "Have you been up all night?"
"Aren't you cute in those things, Percy?" returned Wyn. "You look just
like a doll in a store window. Come on and dress. It's time you were all
up. Why! the day will be gone before you know it."
"Oh--ow--ouch!" yawned Percy, and then jumped quickly through the
opening of the tent because Grace Hedges pushed her.
"Why! the sun's up!" cried the big girl. "Why! and there's Wyn with
milk--and eggs--and pretty red radishes--and _peas_. Mercy me! Look
at all the things in this basket. Whose garden have you been robbing,
Wyn?"
"Come on!" commanded the captain of the Go-Ahead Club. "I brought a bag
of meal in _my_ canoe. And there is salt, and aluminum bowls, and
spoons. We can make a good breakfast of eggs and mush. Hurry up, all you
lazy folk, and help get breakfast."
"O-o-o! isn't the grass cold!" exclaimed one girl who had just stepped
out from between woolen blankets.
"I--I feel as though I were dressing outdoors," gasped another, with
chattering teeth. "D-don't you suppose anybody can see through this
tent?"
"Nonsense, goosey!" ejaculated Frank. "Hurry up and get into your
clothes. You take up more room than an elephant."
"Did you ever share a dressing room with an elephant, Frank?" demanded
Bess.
"Not before," returned the thin girl, grimly. "But I am preparing for
that experience when I try to dress in the same tent with Gracie."
But they were all eager to get outside when they sniffed the smoke of
the campfire, and, a little later, the odor of eggs "frying in the pan."
Despite the saturated condition of most of the underbrush Wyn knew where
to get dry wood for fuel, Dave had long ago taught her that bit of
woodcraft.
With a small camp hatchet she had attacked the under branches of the
spruce and low pine trees, and soon had a good heap of these dead sticks
near the tent. She turned over a flat stone that lay near by for a
hearth. Before the other girls and Mrs. Havel were dressed and had
washed their faces at the lakeside, Captain Wyn was stirring mush in a
kettle and frying eggs in pork fat in a big aluminum pan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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