It rained all last night and drizzled off and on all morning. As everyone has warned us against muddy roads west of Chicago, we sat with our faces pressed to the windows overlooking the Lake, feeling alternately hopeful and downcast and asking each other questions in circles. Might we try to get on? Had we perhaps better unpack and stay? Twice the sun struggled out and we sent down for the porters to come for our luggage, but both times when they arrived it had begun to rain and we sent them away again. By twelve o’clock, having finally decided to stay over a day, E. M. went to the Saddle and Cycle Club to lunch with some friends. Celia and I were about to go down to the restaurant for our own luncheon when the breadbox caught her attention. I saw her lift the cover and look wistfully at the two neatly tied white paper packages and three brightly shining thermos jars that were on top. Expecting to start early in the morning we had the night before ordered a luncheon put up. And now what were we to do with the food?
“It was so expensive!” she said wistfully. “The pâté sandwiches were sixty cents apiece and they will be horrid and dry tomorrow!”
“And the lobster salad was a dollar and a half—and that certainly won’t keep!”
“And we don’t even know whether it is good or not!” she almost wailed, but quite as quickly she exclaimed happily: “Let’s picnic here!”
“Here?” I said vaguely, looking about at the rose silk hangings and the velvet carpet.
“Why not? It is ever so much more comfortable here than it would have been out on a dusty roadside. Besides, we really ought to see how our commissary department works. We ought to be sure that we haven’t any more caraway seeds!” she shivered.
A few minutes later we had spread our picnic on the floor and were having a perfect time. Also while we were about it we thought we had better sample the various things we had bought the day before.
“There is no use,” said the food expert, “in carting about a lot of stuff that we don’t like!” So we opened and tasted a tin of this and a jar of that until we were surrounded with what looked like the discards of a canning factory. Suppose our New York friends who had exclaimed at our going without any servants could see us now!
I was jabbing a hole in a can of condensed milk with a silver and tortoise-shell nail file when someone knocked at the door. Without a thought of the picture we were presenting to the probable chambermaid, I called, “Come in!” but was too busy to look up until I heard a sort of gasp and a man’s voice stammered:
“I only came to see—to see if Mrs. Post—if there was anything I could do to—serve——”