“Hurrah for the shortberry strawcakes!” cried Pepper. “Hen, your cousin is a fellow after my own heart.”
“I wanted to keep it a little quiet,” continued Henry Lee. “For I didn’t want to invite too many to the spread. I don’t really know how big the cakes will be—although I know my cousin Dick doesn’t do things by halves.”
“It is half-past nine now,” said Jack, consulting the time-piece he carried.
“I’d like one of you to go out with me, after the cakes,” said Henry. “Each may be in a separate box, you know.”
All volunteered at once, for all loved strawberry shortcake. At last it was decided that Pepper should go with Henry.
“What’s the matter with making some lemonade to go with the cake?” ventured Andy. “I know there is a basket of lemons in the storeroom downstairs, and there is plenty of sugar there, too—and water costs nothing.”
This plan met with instant approval, and Andy and Dale were appointed a committee of two to provide the lemonade. By this time the monitor was coming around, and they had to put out lights. The Hall became very quiet, for all the cadets were supposed to be in bed.
The four boys slipped downstairs by a back way, and while Andy and Dale tiptoed to the store-room, Pepper and Henry slipped out of a side-door. Once outside, the latter put on their shoes, which they had carried in their hands, and hurried across the broad campus in the direction of the apple-tree where the baker was to leave the cakes.
“Perhaps he hasn’t arrived yet,” said Pepper. “If not, I suppose all we can do is to wait.”
When they got to the tree no boxes were there, and they sat down on a small grassy bank to wait. Beside the bank grew a clump of bushes, which screened them from the Hall. It was a fairly clear night, with bright stars shining in the heavens overhead.