"Pshaw!" said Rob: "I wonder what's the reason girls get hungry so much sooner than boys."
"They don't," said Nelly, doggedly: "they've got stomachs just alike. You're as hungry as you can be; only you won't say so. I know you are."
Rob did not deny it; in fact, as soon as Nelly had said the word "hungry," he had begun to feel a dreadful gnawing in the region of his stomach.
"I'll tell you, Nell," he exclaimed: "we'll cook a trout on a hot stone. I know how. Billy did it one day last summer. You just get a lot of dried sticks and things, and pile them up; and I'll find a flat stone."
In a few minutes, they had a big fire, and a large flat stone standing up in the hottest part of the blaze.
"There!" said Rob, rubbing his hands: "now you'll see a dinner fit for a king. We'll have a trout apiece."
"Good big ones!" said Nelly. "How do you tell when the stone is hot enough?"
"Oh! if it burns a stick to hold it on it, it's too hot, and you let it cool a while," replied Rob, with a patronizing tone; as much as to say, "Girls did not know much about cooking on hot stones."
Girls knew more about getting hot stones out of fires, however, than boys did, in this instance. Poor Rob burnt his fingers badly, trying to pull the stone out by taking hold of it with a handful of thick green leaves.
"Oh, Rob! Rob!" screamed Nelly: "you'll burn you!"