“Humph! Yes, I know,” sniffed Amy. “It’s the way she uses it.”
Jessie entered heartily into the scheme she had herself suggested by which Darry and Burd were to escape the wiles of Belle and her particular chum, Sally Moon. With the help of Alma, her mother’s good-natured cook, Jessie arranged a dainty and tasty lunch for herself and Darry. Amy said she was prepared with a big square hatbox of sandwiches and cake for Burd.
“I bet you eat your share,” said the stocky fellow, grinning. “A gnat’s table d’hote never would satisfy you, Miss Amy.”
Of course, Jessie and Amy had not merely “declared themselves in” on the moonlight box party. It was something that Belle and her clique had been planning for some time and practically everybody had been invited.
The day wore to a soft and lovely evening, and at eight o’clock there were many boats on the lake. Roselawn folk for the most part used a public boathouse not far from the Norwood landing. But Darry Drew kept his Water Thrush under a little hut near by. He had been so busy with the Marigold since commencement that he had scarcely touched the little launch. But Bill, the Norwoods’ gardener’s boy, had polished up the engine and kept the launch in good trim.
The quartette found the Water Thrush ready for them. Burd staggered down to the landing with the hatbox, apparently scarcely able to bear the weight of the lunch Amy had packed for Burd Alling and herself.
“I’m hungry now,” declared the stocky youth, putting down the box carefully. “When do we eat?”
“We don’t eat at all till we go ashore at Carter’s,” said Jessie, with severity. “We heard to-day that somebody had been down there and had swept and garnished the old kitchen.”
“I hope they went upstairs and cleared out the snakes,” giggled Amy.
“I hope so, too,” agreed her chum. There had been an occasion when the Roselawn radio girls had had a rather thrilling experience with some black snakes that had preëmpted the old Carter house. “If those snakes ever came tumbling down into the kitchen while this bunch of girls and fellows were eating, mercy! what a row there would be!”