But Nancy, of a more adventurous spirit in cooking, recklessly dumped all the vegetables together into one pot and set it on the kerosene stove, which had been carried out by the ever-useful Ben and placed at no great distance from the open fire.
“How are the Gypsy cooks? Is the pot boiling? What’s that thing that looks like a pig in a blanket? Or is this a cannibal feast?”
“Run away, Algernon Percival, and don’t ask so many questions,” replied Billie, stirring the pot.
“I’ve brought the dinner horn along,” said Percy in an insinuating tone of voice.
Even the Gypsy cooks laughed at this. Percy was the last person to rise in the morning. He usually appeared with the coffee and eggs, but the moment he waked up, he seized the trumpet from a nail in the wall at the side of his bed and blew a long triumphant aria with variations. Then from the camp fire at a safe distance from the log hut would come shouts of derision from the others who had been up quite an hour. The table had been carried out under the trees, and here in the early morning they had their breakfast. Here also, they had their supper if it was ready before dark and there were no lights to attract the myriads of night-flying insects. But it did look this evening as if they would be obliged to transfer all dishes and stools, table and eatables into the house, unless the potatoes and onions could be impressed with the importance of submitting to the inevitable.
Dr. Hume, just in from a long walk, tired and mortally hungry, now made his appearance, and Miss Helen Campbell in dainty white, and without any traces whatever of her recent experience with Mrs. Lupo, came trailing across the clearing. There was an expectant expression on her face, as of one who is thinking with inward pleasure of dinner. Elinor came with a bowl of Michaelmas daisies and Mary brought up the procession, carrying a platter of bread sliced so as not to destroy the shape of the loaf, an accomplishment she was proud of.
Percy, seeing the gathering of the company, promptly lifted the trumpet to his lips and blew a blast so startling and unexpected that Mary gave a nervous shriek and dropped the bread to the ground.
“Oh, you wretch,” she cried, “see what you have done! And what was the use anyway, since dinner isn’t ready and we are all here?”
“Don’t be so hasty in your judgments, Lady Mary,” answered Percy, composedly gathering up the slices of bread. “That was a song of joy because a beautiful damozel approached with bread for the hungry.”