Fifteen minutes later she arrived at the Parker home to find Penny, garbed in an apron, working industriously in the kitchen.
“Say, what is this?” Louise demanded suspiciously. “If you tricked me into helping you with the dishes, I’m going straight home!”
“Oh, relax,” Penny laughed. “The dishes were done hours ago. We’re going to help out the Old Wishing Well.”
“I wish you would explain what you mean.”
“It’s this way, Lou. The Breens are as poor as church mice, and they need food. At the Marborough place this afternoon Rhoda made a wish—that her family would have more to eat. Well, it’s up to us to make that wish come true.”
“You’re preparing a basket of food to take out to the camp?”
“That’s the general idea. We can leave it on the doorstep of the trailer and slip away without revealing our identity.”
“Why, your idea is a splendid one!” Louise suddenly approved. “Of course Mrs. Weems said it would be all right to fix the basket of food?”
“Oh, she won’t mind. I know she would want me to do it if she were here.”
Swinging open the porcelain door of the ice box, Penny peered into the illuminated shelves. The refrigerator was unusually well stocked, for Mrs. Weems had baked that day in anticipation of week-end appetites. Without hesitation, Penny handed out a meat loaf, a plum pudding, bunches of radishes, scrubbed carrots, celery, and a dozen fresh eggs.