Grandma Davis was afraid of getting her shoulders sunburned, and she was the first one out of the water. One by one, and two by two, the grownups followed her until only the children were left, and they were the last to leave the raft.
The baby was given a quick rubdown and some dry clothes. Then she was fed her own private lunch of mashed banana and spinach and milk, and she was put to bed for her nap.
The Hansens came, Bob and Dorothy, and their browneyed youngster. The men sat down at the lake front and talked in their deep rumbling voices. The ladies dashed about in a pleasant sort of flurry, getting the dinner ready. Grandma made coffee in the picnic coffee pot. It held two gallons of coffee. It smelled of picnics and hikes and wood fires. Janie never drank coffee, but she loved the memories of a sniff of the fat old coffee pot.
Dorothy and Louise cut cakes and shook fancy salads out of star-shaped molds. Aunt Claire sliced homemade bread and arranged some of her crisp, pungent dill pickles on a tray. Margy cut ham, and Mom opened the oven door now and then to look at a huge roasting pan full of brown baked beans. James stuck his nose against the screen door.
“Mom,” he said. “I’m hungry.”
“In just a minute, chum,” said Louise. “I’m about ready to call you in.” As soon as she called the children hurried in, picked up their heaped up plates, and took them to the terrace. Here they ate and gabbled to their hearts’ content while the grownups stayed on the porch.
After dinner James took a book and two bottles of pop and disappeared.
“I know where he is,” said Bill. “Whenever he gets it into his head that he wants to be alone, he climbs up the rain spout at the back of the cottage and lies on the roof. It’s shady there and no one can find him. Daddy always says that James is the family genius. I think he’s crazy.”
Janie laughed. “They both mean the same thing,” she said, flippantly.
David and Billy volunteered to burn all the used paper dishes, and as soon as this was done tireless Davey demanded: