“Why, so it is!” cried the girl.
“See there! We told you that checked skirt was the hoodoo,” teased Fred.
“Don’t tell me you believe it would have rained had I worn it?” scoffed Trixie.
“Why not? It brought rain every other day!” laughed Billy.
“Pooh! Elizabeth told me that to-day promised fair, so I know you were only trying to tease me.”
The walk through the woods was enjoyed by all and the boys were delighted to find that they could add enough trees to their lists to make the twenty-five required for a coup. With beech, mountain-ash, aspen-poplar, white-cedar, and three kinds of birches and moose-leaf maple to add to the fir, spruce, and pine found on Sunset Island they were able to finish their collection begun with chestnut, catalpa, and various oaks, found in more southerly latitudes.
That evening, as Fred read aloud the list of trees for a Grand Coup, Elizabeth, the poetess, turned them into rhyme. Trixie watched her scribble and when through, took it and read it aloud to the circle in the living-room.
THE GRAND COUP FOR TREES
I want to know the trees that grow, they’re interesting, you see;
Besides, a woodcraft honour high it may bring now to me.