Dried beef went with the potatoes, also dill pickles, and while Cora kept the electric toaster going, and saw to it that the “kitchen” did not run out of hot water from a reserve tank, the other girls took turns eating their own lunches. Of course, as the boys were guests, it was important their wants should be first supplied, a matter not easily managed, as the girls soon found out.
“More! More!” called Ed, who was eating the browned potato skin, or bark, with unmistakable relish. “Potatoes are good for the nerves!”
“Robber!” shouted Jack, grabbing a second supply that had just been adjusted on Ed’s plate. “Potatoes are good for the lungs, and I am—winded.”
“I should like just a tiny bit more crab,” simpered Dray. “Fish is good for——”
“We have something more,” Cora announced, “don’t each too much solid stuff.”
“We couldn’t,” declared Belle, “not if we kept eating for the rest of our mortal lives, it wouldn’t be too much.”
“There are the ‘Likes’!” announced Lottie, indicating a canoe gliding up the bay, in which were two members of the “We-like-it” camp. “Now we will have to hide things.”
“Hide things!” Belle tossed her sweater over her plate as she saw the canoe. “We are lost!”
“Oh, let us invite them alongside,” suggested Lottie, who, up to that moment had been so busy with setting out plates that she had scarcely spoken to the visitors. “We have plenty of stuff.”
“Nix, nary, not much!” cried Ed, in protest. “That’s ‘Dainty’ there, the stroke, and if he gets in here he’ll eat the dish pan and the cooker. I say, young ladies should be most careful what sort of fellows they associate with.”