"What about the feast?" asked Jim. "Weren't you going to say something about that too, Drusie?"
"Oh yes," she said; and after she had drunk a little more water she rose to her feet again. The chairman was always supposed to finish the glass of water, and that was a part of her duties that Drusie did not much relish when the meeting was held before breakfast. Under pretence of moving it out of her way, Jim drew the tumbler towards him, and when she was not looking he filled it up from a jug which he had hidden under the table the evening before.
"The feast," she said earnestly, "is going to be a specially nice one. I am making all the wine myself, and I taste it ever so many times a day to see if it is still good. I won't tell you everything that is in it; but you can guess how lovely it will be when I say that it was made from apples, and pears, and prune juice, and sugar, and some tea that I saved from breakfast. There are lots of other things in it, too," she said, interrupting herself; "but that is a secret. The best of my wine is that it hasn't cost anything, and so we shall have more money to spend on other things. It is pocket-money day to-day, and it must all go towards the feast. My sixpence and yours, Jim, and Helen's and Tommy's threepences make one and sixpence. That is a lot of money, and I am sure Hal will give us his shilling."
"I don't think he will," said Jim, biting his lips to keep from laughing as he saw Drusie look down with mingled surprise and dismay at her nearly full glass; "he is hard up. He borrowed a penny half-penny from me the other day, and hasn't paid it back yet; and he told me that he had got rather a big bill in the village."
"Well," Drusie continued, after she had bravely gulped down some more water, "it doesn't matter very much if he doesn't give anything. We have plenty. And now we must vote." Tearing the sheet of paper into four pieces, she passed them round the table. "If you want to go on preparing for the fight and the feast, you must each write 'yes;' if you don't want to go on, you must write 'no.'"
Then she sat down, feeling rather proud of the clear way in which she had spoken, and made another attempt to finish her glass of water.
Without the slightest hesitation Jim scribbled the word "yes" on his piece of paper, and when Tommy saw what Jim had written he put "yes," too. Helen took longer to make up her mind. She could not help thinking that if they went on with the preparations for the fight, and Hal refused to have anything to do with it, they would look very silly. For at the bottom of her heart Helen was rather impressed by the airs that Hal gave himself, and would have liked very much to imitate them. But knowing well that the other three would vote for going on with the fight, she, too, wrote "yes," and put her folded slip with the others into the hat which Jim passed round.
The chairman opened them hastily.
"They are all 'yeses,' so we must go on with the preparations just the same," she said, rising once more to address the meeting; "and if Hal gives us his shilling after breakfast, it will mean that he is going to defend the fort. That is all, I think. I now declare this meeting ended."
"Hear, hear!" said Jim. "But you must finish your water, Drusie. We shan't think anything of you as a chairman if you leave a drop."