"I don't want to get fat, like Buthter," replied Tommy scornfully.
In the meantime Harriet and Jane had drawn away from the others and were engaged in a whispered conversation. Then the two girls got into the rowboat dragged the houseboat out into the lake, a few rods, and anchored it. They did not explain their action. The other girls laughed at them, and Miss Elting questioned them with her eyes but said nothing. She knew the two girls had some good reason for anchoring the "Red Rover" a little distance from the shore.
Early on the following morning, Jane and Harriet were out, loading the automobile with the supplies that had been delivered at the hotel the previous night. The car was piled high with bundles of various shapes and sizes. There was room for Jane and Harriet in front, but none for their companions elsewhere.
"We will go down to the dock with the stuff," explained Harriet, "then come back in time to take breakfast with you girls. We shan't try to put the supplies on board. We'll just dump them on the pier."
"You can put them on the boat if you want to. I don't care," answered Grace.
"Tommy is trying to get out of working to-day," scoffed Margery.
"I'm not," protested the little lisping girl indignantly. "If I were ath fat ath you, I might. I'll work after breakfatht, but I won't work before breakfatht."
"Nobody wants you to," flung back Jane, as she started her car ahead. "We'll do all the before-breakfast work, and we'll have the real appetites when we get to the food. You watch us."
They watched her skid around a sharp corner and heard her car for some few moments thereafter, but that was all. They were too well used to Crazy Jane McCarthy, by this time, to be surprised at anything she might do or say.
The drive to Johnson's dock was a short one. The two girls made it in a few moments. As they turned into the street that led down to the river they opened their eyes a little wider, but neither spoke. Nor was there a word said until they had driven out on the pier and halted the car. Then both girls burst out in exclamations of amazement at the same instant.