Sarita laughed at this. “She seemed jolly enough on the way.”
“Oh, Beth is jolly and perfectly happy to come; but we did not have any idea how worn out she was, simply doing too much and so afraid we’d have too much to do to get our lessons. Why, when Dal and I waked up to the fact that Elizabeth was almost a goner, we were scared to pieces. She couldn’t get up one morning after Commencement was over,—but you remember about that and how we sent for the doctor in a hurry. My, what a relief when he said that it was just overdoing and that she was to stay in bed and sleep, and eat anything she wanted to!”
“She told me how you wanted to feed her every half hour.”
“Yes,” laughed Leslie, “and I tried all the good recipes in the cook book, almost.”
But the girls walked out on the point a little distance, then returned, while Leslie, from her memory of her father’s plan, pointed out the place behind a windbreak of rocks where Elizabeth thought he intended to build the “Eyrie.” Strolling back from the Point, across an open space partly grown with straggling weeds and grass, the girls entered the pine woods, which was the thing of beauty upon the Secrest land. There Beth was seated upon a box, watching Dalton build a fire.
“Ever and anon that lad shakes a finger at me, girls, to keep me from doing anything,” Beth said, in explanation of her idleness.
“Good for Dal,” said Leslie. “Sarita and I are the chief cooks and bottle-washers around here. Just sit there, Beth, and tell us what to do, if we can’t think of it ourselves. I see that you brought water, Dal. Shall we boil it before drinking?”
“No; this is from the prettiest spring you ever saw. I opened some boxes and set up the tables, so you can go ahead. I’m going to get a supply of wood handy. We’ll fix up our portable stove to-morrow, but I want to have it in good shape, and then I thought that you girls would like a camp fire to-night.”
“Oh, we do!” cried Leslie and Sarita almost with one voice. “We’ll have hot wieners and open a can of beans. They’ll heat in a minute. Dal, that is a fine arrangement, fixing those stones for us to rest our pan on.”
It was Leslie who finished these remarks, as she and Sarita busied themselves with the work of supper and Dalton went back into the woods again for more wood. They heard the sound of his hatchet as they put a cloth on the little folding table and set it in a convenient place outside of the tent. “The table will make a good buffet, but I want to take my plate and sit on the pine needles.”