"I want to learn to iron as nicely as Sheila can," announced Pat with her accustomed enthusiasm. "And cook, too--make tarts and things! Why, Aunt Pen, all that is what we'll need to be second-class scouts!" The thought suddenly brought concern to her face. "Will we have time, Aunt Pen, to study for the tenderfoot test? Peggy Lee and Keineth Randolph are going to teach us to tie knots and, you know," she added hastily, "that is important! Everybody should be able to tie all sorts of knots--it's very useful, lots of times!"
Aunt Pen nodded. "Of course! You shall have a chance to learn all that!"
"Peggy says her brother will teach us how to semaphore, too! Oh, we'll be so busy, Renée! I think I'll write to Angeline all about it!"
She ran to the spinnet desk across the room and pulled out paper and pen. Her head was whirling with Aunt Pen's delightful plans! She wrote furiously for a few moments, with a loud scratching of her point. But as she wrote into her mind slowly crept a vivid picture of the girls at Miss Prindle's and of the life there! With the page half written she stopped. Then she caught up the paper and tore it across, dropping the pieces one by one into the waste-basket. From the divan before the fire Aunt Pen was watching her, wondering at the fleeting shadow that had crossed the brightness of her face.
"What is it, Pat?" she asked gently.
Pat hesitated. "Oh--nothing!" There was a note of defiance in her voice. She did not add that into her heart had suddenly come the illuminating conviction that the girls she had known at Miss Prindle's would laugh at Aunt Pen's "school!"
"There was just so much to write about that I couldn't seem to begin!"
CHAPTER VIII
BREADWINNERS
A perplexing problem confronted Pat. Her scout uniform must be bought out of money she had earned herself. And she had never earned a penny in her life!