Pat, inspired by the activities of the others and not having been pressed into troop service, busied herself by packing and repacking almost every garment that she and Renée possessed!
"Patsy, dear, you won't need all those things," Aunt Pen had laughed, pointing to the bulging suitcase.
Pat admitted this. "Well, it's fun packing 'em and I just had to do something," she confessed.
The next day eight merry girls boarded the funny little train that puffed off slowly toward the hills. To Renée the picnic was the most exciting of adventures! She had seen little snow--never in her life anything like the great piles, snowy white, through which the train was snorting its way! She had never had on a pair of skates in her life, nor had she ever coasted down a hill! And as Peggy told of Garrett's new bob, "Madcap," and its lightning speed, she shivered with an ecstasy of fear and wondered--if they made her ride on it--what it would feel like to fly over the snow and whether she might not just die outright of terror!
The boys, in rollicking spirits and muffled to the tips of their noses, met them at the station; together they trudged back through the snow to the farmhouse. Logs were crackling merrily in the big fireplaces and a table had been spread ready for an early supper. The girls fell to unpacking the equipment and spreading their blankets over the funny old beds and the cots which had been brought up from the nearby camp. Sheila, who had been appointed officer-in-charge, promptly, in accordance with the custom of scout outings, posted in a conspicuous place, the "standing rules."
"Oh, they're the kind of rules any good scout'll keep," Peggy exclaimed to Pat, who was regarding the slip of paper in amazement with a look on her face that said plainly "this is the funniest picnic I ever knew!" "Come on and find the others!"
For supper they ate many baked potatoes and weiners and hot biscuits, which Mrs. Lee had mixed and baked by magic--"just to have a nice beginning!" At the table the boys announced the schedule for the skating and coasting races which they had planned for the next day and fell to arguing with friendly violence over the speed of their different bobs! Garrett then insisted that the four who had grabbed the last of the biscuits should make up the Kitchen Police, whose duty it would be to clear away the supper dishes! And to the accompaniment of a mighty rattle of china plates and cups the others gathered around the blazing fire and sang.
Pat and Renée slept together in a huge four-posted bed. Gradually the big house had grown very quiet. "Isn't it fun?" Pat giggled into Renée's ear. "I've never been in the country in the winter-time before! And doesn't it feel queer sleeping without sheets?" Then she sighed. "I wish I could skate well!" She was thinking of the races planned for the morrow. Renée was apprehensive, too. "Do you suppose they'll make me go down on one of those dreadful bobs?" and she shuddered at the very thought!
Poor Pat, her pride--cropping up now and then--was her besetting sin! And the next morning, when she should have been gloriously happy, it mastered her! She hated the races, because she was always lagging along in the rear! She declared to herself that the boys were silly, tiresome stupids, because they made such a fuss when Peggy beat them all in a race down the lake and back! Finally, disgusted, she took off the hateful skates and joined Renée near the bank.
"I think they're stupid," she grumbled, digging her heel into the ice and not explaining whether she meant the boys, or the skates or the races!