"In the chest, of course. What do you—" Her voice died away in a husky, bewildered squeak. The rest of the party came closer, followed the direction of her glance, and gasped. The hamper full of stuffed squabs was gone!
"Well, of all things!" cried Gwynne, when the silence was becoming oppressive. "How could it have happened?"
"With Myra sitting on it!" chorused the girls.
"Didn't you miss it?"
"N-o."
"Ha, ha, that's one on you, Miss Haskell," laughed Mr. Carson. "Sitting on the lunch box and never missed it when it tumbled overboard. How did you manage to stick on?"
"How did the other machines manage to come along behind us and never find it?" retorted Myra, nettled at the hilarity of her companions. "That is the question!"
"We must have lost it in the river," suggested Tabitha.
"Of course! When we were trying to pull out the other machine and I shaved Dad's nose. Didn't I do a good job, Mumsie? Must we go hungry now because I lost all your little stuffed scrubs,—I mean squabs?" Anxiously she turned toward her mother and scanned that sober face, for her eighteen hour fast had left her half famished, and there were at least eleven other girls in the same boat, all because of her stupid attempt at joking.
"We-ll, I have cooked a kettle of new potatoes and another of green corn,—plenty of both. But it looks as if you must go without meat."