The five miles were quickly covered by machine and as the spot chosen was a picnic resort on the river, it was not difficult to dispose of the supplies which they had brought. They arrived at about the same time as Miss Fox and more of the committee in two other cars, and while they were unloading, here came the Murchison car and its colored chauffeur in uniform.
Miss Fox was not only not annoyed at the presence of the boys but was glad to accept their services. “We need some camp-boys,” said she laughingly. “It isn’t going to take our hikers so long to cover five miles, though I told them to take their time and see whatever there was to see on the way.”
“Don’t worry, Miss Fox,” said Chauncey with a chuckle. “They’ll wait till they hike back to see things, and believe me they’ll have an appetite for breakfast!”
“All right, Chauncey. I shouldn’t be surprised but you’re right. By the way, you are invited for breakfast with the other boys, and you might just consider yourselves added to the refreshment committee. Yes, girls, all the milk and stuff can be carried to those picnic tables under the shelter house. We’ll mix the cocoa there and open up the buns. Careful to wipe off the tables and put papers under everything, girls. If we eat our peck o’ dirt we’ll do it without germs, I hope.”
Pans, stacks of buns, paper plates, pickles (so appropriate for a breakfast, Dotty said), eggs to be scrambled, bacon to be cooked, and great sacks of apples and bananas were sorted and arranged under the direction of Betty, who sprang to the fore when she saw that Miss Fox was going to leave it to her. Betty had learned that summer that orderly arrangement was half the battle in getting a meal. Quickly, from her little note-book, in which she had carefully written the names of the committee assigned to the various tasks, she told each one her duty and divided the supplies accordingly. Fun was held in abeyance for a little, till things were fairly started. Oh, it would work out all right, Betty told herself. The girls would select each a plate and visit “each pot and pan,” in due order.
The sun was up and it grew hot near the fires, but sweaters could be thrown aside. The cooks were adorned with a pointed head-dress of white with G. A. A. in blue letters printed upon it. Dotty called it the G. A. A. crown and fastened one around Betty’s locks, saying that she was chief cook and bottle-washer and must have one whether she really cooked or not.
“I’m floor-walker, Dotty, but I’m going to oversee the scrambled egg business, because if we have ’em at all they want to be good. I’ve practiced at home several days under Mother, so I’m going to do the mixing up. Gracious, did we bring the salt!”
For a minute Betty looked blank, while Dotty consolingly remarked that the bacon would be salty enough anyhow. But the salt was discovered in one of the cars, a whole container of it, and Betty’s moment of panic was over. This was to be a real breakfast, Dotty declared, and several little squirrels dashing up and down the trees nearby were doubtless hoping that they would be invited.
[CHAPTER IX: WITH LUCIA AND MATHILDE]
Meanwhile the hikers were having a good time of it. Scattered in little groups of two or three or more, they were steadily advancing over hill and dale in the beautiful country surrounding the city, striking through in a direction not so closely built up in suburbs, for the high school was one in an outlying suburb, where beautiful homes and large estates were the rule as soon as one passed beyond its center.