“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.
“Sunny side up; or with a veil of brown drawn over their beautiful faces, Frankie?” asked Wyn, referring to the sizzling eggs. “How do you like ’em?”
“I like ’em on toast–‘Adam and Eve on a raft’ Brother Ed calls ’em. And when he wants ’em scrambled he says, ‘Wreck ’em!’”
“You’ll get no toast this morning,” declared Wyn. “You’ll be satisfied with crackers–or go without.”