21“I refuse to fritter away my time,” said Uncle Teddy, hungrily helping himself to hominy.
The rest made a grand rush for the frying pans and in a few minutes the fryers were retiring to the sidelines with golden brown cakes on their plates.
“How do they taste?” asked Katherine modestly of the Bottomless Pitt, who had his mouth full.
“A bit thick,” replied Pitt, “but bully.”
“They don’t taste just like those Aunt Clara made the other day,” said Gladys, chewing her mouthful somewhat doubtfully.
Aunt Clara hastily took an experimental bite. “Why, Katherine!” she exclaimed with a little shriek of laughter, “you haven’t put any baking powder in them. I thought mine looked awfully flat when I was frying it. Did you think the dough would rise of itself, like the sun?”
And then they all laughed uproariously at Katherine’s cooking, but she didn’t mind at all, and calmly mixed the baking powder with a little more flour and stirred it into the batter, whereupon it blossomed out into the most delicious corn fritters they had ever eaten.
“Too bad Harry had to miss this,” said the Captain, looking around at the family sitting on stumps and eating their second and improved edition of fritters. Harry Raymond was the only one of the Sandwich boys who could not come along on this camping trip. All the rest were there; the Captain, Slim, 22 the Bottomless Pitt, Munson McKee, popularly known as the Monkey, Dan Porter and Peter Jenkins, all ready for the time of their lives. The Winnebagos were also six in number: Gladys, Hinpoha, Sahwah, Migwan, Katherine and Nakwisi.
Last but not least of the campers was Sandhelo, the “symbolic” donkey. He had been brought along because they thought he might be useful for carrying supplies if they should want to go on a long hike. He was so small and nimble that he could go up and down the path to the beach without any trouble. It was not necessary to tie him, as it was impossible for him to run away, and the first night he wandered into the boys’ tent and brayed into Slim’s ear, who gave such a startled jump that his bed went down over the side of the flooring, and Slim landed on the ground outside. After that Sandhelo was tied at night, but allowed to roam the island by day.
After breakfast the campers scattered to amuse themselves in various ways, but it was not long before they heard the sound of the tom-tom, which one of the boys had made to be beaten as a signal to call them all together. Uncle Teddy was beating the tom-tom and he stood on a large, flat rock close to the edge of the bluff. This rock had been named the Council Rock by the Winnebagos as soon as they laid eyes on it.