“Good! Miss Dodge will go with us, of course.”
“Of course. We might get in nine by a tight squeeze, but I don’t believe we’d better say we can care for any more.”
“It is the most ravishing plan,” exclaimed Winnie, giving Joanne a hug, “and I think it is perfectly dear of your cousin to let us come.”
“I almost learned to make griddle cakes,” Joanne told her, “but I couldn’t get Unc’ Aaron to give me any sort of recipe.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Winnie, “you make me just wild to go to that place of your cousin’s. It is simply adorable to think of that dear old timey darkey and that fascinating Spanish boy. Do you believe we might venture to tell the girls about it this afternoon? About the possibility of our going up there, I mean.”
“I don’t see why not,” answered Joanne, “for we are bound to go sometime or other, if not in one way in another.”
Joanne enjoyed the gymnasium at all times, but particularly when the troop of Girl Scouts met there with their captain, Miss Dodge, or her lieutenant, Miss Chesney. There were informal meetings, too, when Claudia Price, their Patrol leader, read them severe lectures at which some of the girls snickered, for they did not take Claudia seriously, and when she called them down for not paying their dues or for being behindhand in some of the duties imposed upon them, they were more often ready with excuses than with apologies.
A good many of the girls had arrived when Winnie and Joanne entered the room on this special afternoon. Some were sitting on the floor talking. Miriam Overton was “skinning the cat,” Betty Streeter was worming her way along through a series of square spaces at the end of the room. Esther Rhodes was busy with some lessons for the next day. Miss Dodge had not yet come, but presently she was there and the order came to: “Fall in!” The girls scrambled to their feet, gave the salute to their captain, and the pledge to the flag, and the meeting went on.
Joanne loved the military part of it, the marching, the signalling and so on. She had begun to take special exercises and was most ambitious to make a good showing on her measurement card. Already there was more color in her cheeks.
The business part of the meeting over and the regular drills, Winnie and Joanne waited their chance to broach the subject so near to their hearts. This came at last when the question of the next hike came up.