“What you doing Saturday?” asked Ed as they neared their own corner.
“I don’t know,” replied Alice, “is there anything nice to do—special?”
“Well,” answered Frances, “we were afraid you might all be busy—but—well you see, we were going to have a beach party and we thought maybe you folks would like to go along. All of you.”
Now Alice and Mary hadn’t the slightest idea what a beach party was, only of course they knew it must be something about the lake. But there wasn’t time for questions and talk just then for Frances discovered that they had walked so slowly that they must rush on home to lunch.
“We’ll get mother to tell you,” she promised, “and do say you’ll come ’cause it’s a fire and cooking and marshmallows and piles of fun.”
“And we’ve plenty of wires,” added Betty, “and they’re plenty long so you won’t burn your fingers.”
It sounded amazingly puzzling to Alice and Mary Jane, who couldn’t in the least understand what a fire and wires and all that had to do with a beach. But they were to find out before so very long. For that same afternoon, while Alice was still in school, Mrs. Holden and Betty came over to call on Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane and then the beach party was all explained.
“We go over to the lake very often,” said Mrs. Holden. “And on the sandy beach, close by the water, the children build a big fire. Then, when the coals are good, we toast sandwiches and roast ‘weenies’ and toast marshmallows. The children are so anxious to show your girls just how it is done,” she added, “and as the weather promises to be warm and sunny I think we should have an extra fine time.”
So it was settled. And a person would have thought from the excitement and fun of preparation that the party was to be that same day instead of twenty-four hours away. For as soon as Alice and the older Holden children came home from school, they all set to work planning the menu and getting out baskets and cleaning the wires on which, so the Merrill girls learned, marshmallows were held over the coals to be toasted.
But when everything that could be done the day before, was finished, there was still some time for play, so the children went down into the Holden yard and the boys, Ed and John, showed the girls how to run a track meet—how to jump and vault and race in proper track style. Alice and Mary Jane thought the boys wonderfully skilled and the boys, thrilled by such warm admiration, broke all their previous records and had a beautiful time.