The discomfited We are Sevens returned to their seats, and a moment later there came the sound of spoons being vigorously thumped on the table.
"We want dinner!" came imperiously from the hungry girls.
Amanda looked imploringly at her partner. "What shall we do?"
Blue Bonnet thought hard for a moment. All at once her brow cleared. "Here, take the meat, go find a gopher-hole and push that bone down into it as far as it will go. The potatoes can't be burned all the way through,—we'll scrape what's left into a bowl. And I'll tell Uncle Joe I've changed my mind,—we'll have the trout for dinner. And, Amanda, you'll hurry back, won't you, and put the fish in the pan—I simply can't touch 'em!"
Each sped to fulfil her allotted task, and in an incredibly short space of time a family of gophers was sniffing about a strange object blocking their front door; and a pan of fragrant trout sputtered on top of the little stove. As Blue Bonnet set the great platter of perfectly browned fish in front of her grandmother, there was a flattering "ah!" of anticipation that repaid—almost repaid, her for the previous bad quarter of an hour. Canned pears and the cookies that should have been saved for future emergencies, completed a dinner which was voted "not half bad" by the other girls, who secretly marvelled at getting any dinner at all. No one noticed that neither Blue Bonnet nor Amanda partook of potatoes, and there proved to be ample for the rest.
"I'll wash the dishes, Amanda," Blue Bonnet offered, when at last that night-mare of a dinner was over. "I ought to walk over red-hot plowshares, or wear a hair-shirt or something as a penance for my sins of this day. Lacking both plowshares and shirt, I'll substitute dish-washing. And you may bear me witness—I'd take the hair-shirt if I had my choice!"
It was a very weary Blue Bonnet who turned the dishpan upside down and hung the dish-cloth on a bush to dry. The long tramp of the morning, the preparations for the bonfire party, and then the exhausting experience of getting dinner, had tired even her physique, which had seldom known fatigue.
"I wish we could dis-invite the company," she said to Amanda.
"So do I," groaned her partner. "Fancy having to sit around a bonfire and sing 'merrily we roll along'—! It makes me ache all over."
Later, when the inmates of both camps were gathered in a great circle about the fire, singing, jesting and story-telling, both girls forgot their weariness and might have been heard singing the same "merrily we roll along" with great zest and vocal strength.