“Dear me,” sighed Winnie, “there are so many lovely things to do one doesn’t know where to begin, and we’ll never get them all done.”
“Of course not,” returned Joanne, “not in one trip, but we mean there shall be more than one.”
“I devoutly hope so. Me, oh me! Joanne, but I am glad you joined our troop.”
Joanne laughed, then came the summons to supper and the girls trooped into the dining-room to be regaled upon the famous griddle cakes and honey.
It was only when it was too dark to see that they were ready to come indoors after supper, then they gathered around a crackling fire in the big stone fireplace to tell stories, sing songs and have a good time generally till an old-fashioned clock on the mantel told them it was bedtime.
It was perhaps an hour later that Joanne, turning on her pillow, waked sufficiently to hear a boatman’s horn. She touched Winnie who was sleeping peacefully by her side. “Tirra lirra by the river,” whispered Joanne, but Winnie slept on and Joanne snuggled down again on her pillow.
CHAPTER VIII
“SMILE, SMILE, SMILE”
IT was incredible what a variety of activities the girls were able to get into their three days’ stay. They went canoeing down the canal, they rode, they went for long hikes, they studied the birds; they gathered wild flowers, they cleaned house, they cooked, washed and ironed, and started off on Saturday morning, feeling that there was still much of which they had not availed themselves.
But they did not, as Winnie remarked, “mourn as those without hope,” for before they started for the station who should appear upon the scene but Mr. Pattison, who announced that he had come up ahead of his friends in order to see if there was anything left for them to come to.
“With a lot of scatter-brained girls on hand,” he said, “I didn’t know but I should find the house burned down.”