“To can! how could we can any out here in the woods?”
“I’ll show you. To-morrow when the man comes from Freedom for our Tuesday order, I will tell him to bring us a box of fruit jars. Then we will experiment on the berries. Wild fruit always is much sweeter than the cultivated kind.”
“I’ve been wondering what we can give our visitors for a dinner, should we try to cook for them without asking for supplies from home?” ventured Betty, who had been rather silent during the walk to camp.
“I believe we can find enough good things right in the woods to give them, without falling back upon any store-food at all,” replied Mrs. Vernon.
The girls looked amazed, and Ruth said laughingly: “Then they’ll have to eat grass!”
“You wait and see! When I explain my menu you will be gratified, I think,” said the Captain.
It was found that Eliza had left enough soup in a pan so that, with heating, it was sufficient for supper. That, with the cake and berries, quite satisfied the girls. Then seated about the embers of the night-fire, they planned for work on the morrow.
Monday morning, as soon as the usual work was finished, the campers began to mix the clay cement for the walls. Filling up the crevices kept them busy till noon, and then they were eager to get through with the dinner and start on something new.
“Now that your new abode is finished, I wonder how you would like to fill it with furniture,” suggested Mrs. Vernon.
“Furniture! We haven’t any here, and I doubt if our folks can spare anything they might have,” Joan replied.