"Oh, Mr. Kindred—thank you! This has been certainly—the most awfully grand—walk I ever experienced."
"It isn't a walk at all, Aunt Newcomb," said Miss Freak. "It's a clamber, and a climb, and the roughest sort of time. I've ruined my best pair of shoes, and not another this side of New York. And five walks on hand for to-morrow."
"Get an order on the Captain from the Com.," Rig suggested.
"Fit warranted," said Miss Freak, putting her little foot out into the sunlight. "I wonder you don't offer me your own, Mr. McLean, at once, and save what is left of mine."
"You wouldn't need but one," said Rig; "and regulations require me to have two."
"Much you care for regulations, up here."
"Freaky, my dear," said her aunt, "I wish you girls would unpack the baskets, and heat up our coffee. I am just worn out."
"But you must have a fire," said Miss Lane. "Who'll make it?"
Then followed the prettiest, liveliest bustle. The hilltop all around them was covered with a low growth of huckleberry bushes; and here and there, scattered about among this, were twigs and sticks and chips, dry and bleached and just ready to burn.
Choosing with some care a rock whence the fire could not easily spread, a gay little blaze was soon kindled, and the cold coffee put under—or over—its care. Then busy hands unpacked or uncovered the baskets. Sandwiches were in one, cake in another, late peaches filled a third. Miss Freak had a box of Huyler's somewhat luscious sweets; Miss Newcomb an assortment of peanut brittle, cocoanut cakes, and sweet chocolate; and the wind kept still, and did not blow even a napkin away.