The boys laughed, for the name struck them as awfully funny for a pig. Then they walked from Anty's pen to the shed, which had a door swung on leather hinges, but it was closed.
"And what sort of scout do you lock up in here?" asked Bob, condescendingly.
"Bob Veal!" retorted Julie, causing every one to roar at the questioner.
Bob flushed, but walked over to the stove where the Captain stood stirring the dumplings in the chicken soup. "That's a fine stove, Captain," ventured he.
"Yes, it is something like the one we built last year in camp. That was so convenient we decided to have another this summer. Wouldn't you boys like to examine it closely?"
Thereupon the Grey Foxes did examine it closely, much to their advantage on useful ideas of kitchen equipment. Then they saw the fireless cooker that was in use for the time being; so they passed on to inspect the various birchbark hanging-baskets filled with flowers; the rustic fern-boxes, and all the useful articles the scouts had manufactured of birchbark and acorns.
"It takes a girl to do fancywork, all right. Now, we boys are not gifted that way, you see, but we can make other things, instead," remarked Alec, bestowing a male's compliments on feminine accomplishments.
"Just what can you make, or have done, that we girls are not able to do?" demanded Julie.
"Oh, I wasn't personal in any way,—I just meant that it is quite natural for women to do the light things while men have to look after the business of life!"
"Well, the quicker you open your eyes to facts, and see that we women of the present age are fast outstripping the men in every calling, the better it will be for your own good!" said Julie.