“Mabel and I have decided to help you, Adelaide,” announced Mary Louise immediately. “We just stopped at all the bungalows to find out how many people we can get to promise to come to the meals. We have sixteen for dinners and thirteen for lunches—besides all of us who will be working.”
“Sixteen!” repeated the young woman in delight. “Oh, Mary Lou, I knew everybody adored you! If I’d asked them myself they would all have refused.”
“Now, dear!” remonstrated her husband, with such an affectionate look at his wife that Mary Louise was surprised. Maybe Horace Ditmar was all right after all!
The girls sat down on the porch and plunged right into the discussion of all the details of carrying out the plan. The young man was surprisingly helpful and resourceful. As Adelaide had said, he was keenly interested. He not only promised to provide the needed tables and chairs, but he drew plans for placing them and for arranging the kitchen to utilize every bit of its space. He knew how to make home-made ice cream, he said, and he would drive over for all the supplies twice a week. In fact, he took so much of the work upon his own shoulders that the girls felt as if there was little for them to do in advance. They were to open for business the day after tomorrow.
“And all we have to do is borrow some silverware and dishes,” remarked Mabel as the girls rose to go.
“And engage Hattie Adams to wash them,” added Adelaide. “But I wish you wouldn’t go home yet, girls. I was hoping we might play a little bridge.” Her tone was wistful. Mary Louise knew how eager she was to make friends.
“We’ll be over tomorrow,” replied Mabel, “but I think we ought to go now, because those Harrisburg boys are over at our bungalow, and I want to see whether I can’t get them to camp over here in the woods and take their meals with us. There are four of them.”
“Good girl!” approved Horace. “Go right after the business!”
So the girls said good-night and hurried off, full of excitement over their new adventure. All the young people who had gathered at the Reeds’ were enthusiastic too: they were tired of dressing up and going to the Royal Hotel, and enjoyed the informal intimacy of a small boarding house like Flicks’. The four young men from Harrisburg were only too glad to adopt Mabel’s suggestion, and planned to borrow the tents and start camping out the same day that the dining room was to open.
During the entire evening the mystery of the fires was not mentioned. Indeed, nobody thought of them until Jane and Mary Louise were alone again, getting ready for bed. Then the former referred to them casually.