“Well, don’t let Tom go,” laughed Nelson.
“If only there was some sort of a restaurant in this idiotic place!” sighed Bob.
“I tell you!” cried Dan. “We’ll go to a store and buy some grub, pitch a camp, and cook it ourselves! We can get a lot for fifty cents!”
“Good scheme!” said Bob.
“Fine!” said Nelson.
“Swell!” agreed Tom. “Come on!”
They sought the main street and the stores. At a market they purchased a pound of round steak for twenty-five cents, and, in response to Dan’s hints, the man threw in a good-sized bone for Barry. Farther on they found a grocery store and spent five cents for a loaf of bread, seven cents for a quarter of a pound of butter, six cents for a quart of milk—the groceryman good-naturedly supplying a bottle for it—and five cents for half a dozen cookies. Thus armed they sought a place to pitch their camp. Five minutes of walking took them out of the village, and they soon espied a knoll which promised a suitable spot. They crossed a field, climbed the knoll, and found an ideal location on the western side of it. The trees were sparse, but, there was enough undergrowth here and there to serve as wind-break during the night. The four were once more themselves and in the highest spirits. Bob took command, and under his direction the others were set to finding fuel, whittling sticks for forks, and building the fireplace. By five o’clock the flames were sending a column of purple smoke up into the still evening air, and the slice of steak, cut into four portions, was sizzling over the fire on as many pointed sticks. And Barry was busy with his bone. In short, life was worth living again.
Now, if you have never spent the day out of doors and supped at night in the open with the wood smoke floating about you, you can have no very definite idea of how good that meal tasted to the Four. The steak was done to a turn, brown and crisp outside, burned a little about the edges as every camper’s steak should be, and inside slightly pink and so full of juice that a napkin, had one happened along, would have done a land-office business! And then the bread! Well, I suppose it was just an ordinary loaf, but—it didn’t taste so! There was a beautiful golden-brown crust all over the outside that broke with a brittle and appetizing sound. And under the crust was the whitest, softest, freshest, sweetest bread that ever made the thought of butter a sacrilege. I don’t mean by that that the butter wasn’t used; it was, lavishly as long as it lasted; after it was gone it was never missed. The cookies, too, and the milk, ridiculously rich milk it was, were simply marvelous. Really, it was astonishing how much better Long Island food was than any other! And Barry, flat on the ground, both paws on the big bone and teeth busy, grunted accordantly.
Before them as they sat in a semicircle about the little fire the hill sloped down to a broad pasture, here and there overgrown with bushes and dotted at intervals with low trees. Beyond the pasture was a swamp closed in on its farther side by a line of woods looking dark against the saffron evening sky. To their right, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant, was a farmhouse and buildings, and from the house a thin filament of blue smoke arose. Now and then a voice reached them; sometimes a dog barked afar off and Barry lifted his head and listened; once the chug-chug of an automobile, speeding along the road behind them, disturbed the silence.
Conversation was fitful at the best during that meal, for it must be remembered that they had had no lunch and had done a day’s march. And after the last morsel had disappeared no one complained of being uncomfortably full. But they had fared well and there were no complaints.