Pat was the last one to get in with the big box of fishing tackle in his left hand and a huge picnic hamper packed with good food in his right hand. Ann Mary had seen to it that they would eat well the first day they started out. For the rest of the week they had the back of the Bronc well stocked with canned foods which they expected to supplement with the fish they caught.
They were all in the best of spirits. This was to be a real adventure. Pat was taking them into the woods to a fishing camp where Jimmy’s Uncle John Allen used to go every summer. Alf Powell and Jimmy were the chief mechanics in case anything went wrong with the car, and Brook and Pat were to be the cooks.
Marjorie and Judy had their noses slightly out of joint because they had been hoping right up until the last minute before the boys left, that perhaps they too would be allowed to go along. But the boys would not even hear of it, and Penny thought it would not be a good idea, either.
“Never mind,” Judy said in a consoling whisper to Marjorie. “Maybe we’ll find the buried treasure while they’re gone.”
Just then Ann Mary came running out with an armful of freshly ironed shirts for the boys.
“Mr. Taggart brought these,” she panted, “early this morning. I told him he had to get them here before you left. Theresa just finished ironing them.”
“Thanks,” Jimmy said, “but they needn’t have been ironed. For the next week we aren’t going to care how we look.”
“Lucky dogs,” Marjorie said in an aside to Judy. “Do you know what Penny said to me last night? She said, ‘From now on you and I ought to change before dinner into something besides blue jeans.’”
“I guess she’s right,” Judy said reluctantly. “Mother has had the same idea all along.”