"And I want to work on my music," cried Keineth, suddenly conscience-smitten.
"Mother says that to-morrow night we'll wind up with a supper on the beach. It's lots jollier than the dinner dance at the Club and we're too young to go to that, anyway. Barb could go if she wanted to, but she'd rather have the fun at the beach. We fry bacon and roast corn and mother makes cocoa and then we sing. Oh, dear, won't it be awful to grow old and not do those things?"
Together they sighed mightily at such a prospect!
For the last day of the Sports Week there was a program of fun that began immediately after breakfast and lasted through the day. All the club members gathered on the beach where gaily-decorated booths had been built. From these lemonade and sandwiches were served continuously. The motor boats, canoes and skiffs, their flags flying, made bright splashes of color against the green water. Stakes, topped with flags, marked the course for the swimming races. The judges were taken out on one of the larger motor boats.
Keineth had never seen anything quite like it. To her it seemed like a chapter from some story and a story strange and exciting!
The committee had arranged games and races for the very little youngsters so that during the morning the beach front was astir with them--bright-eyed, bobbed-haired, starched little girls and tanned, bare-legged boys, trying vainly to elude the watchful care of the mothers and nurse-girls, who made a background for the pretty scene.
The life-saving contest followed the swimming races. Four others besides Peggy had entered: Molly Sawyer, Helen Downer, Mary Freeman and Gladys Day.
Keineth had never watched a contest of this sort before. She cried out in alarm when she saw a man, fully dressed, at a signal totter off the deck of the judges' motor boat. Someone next to her laughed.
"That's just pretend--he's an expert swimmer! It's Mary Freeman's turn! Watch her!"
Keineth saw Mary detach herself from a small group, rush into the water tearing off her blouse as she did so. Then something went wrong--Mary seemed to make no headway toward the man, the judges blew a whistle, the man who had jumped overboard climbed back into the boat; there was some laughter which others quickly frowned down.