“Yes,” remarked the other, with a puff of unconscious pride, while his eyes fairly sparkled with pleasure at receiving such a compliment, “I suppose a fellow can’t be up head in everything; where one excels, another fails to hit the mark. And perhaps it’s just as well that I have a knack for the noble culinary art.”
Perk went back to camp with the others, as though for the time being his desire to look around had received a decided setback.
“I’ll come out and put the ugly thing underground later on,” he said; “for such trash ought to be buried deep, so as to keep the air around the camp sweet and pure. I burned some insect powder inside the cabin, you may have noticed, just to get rid of that stale odor we took to come from rank tobacco. It’s a disinfectant in the bargain.”
“That’s right, Perk,” assented Wee Willie, promptly; “anyway, it almost disinfected me when I poked my head indoors a while back, to see if there might be any cavity we’d overlooked. Made the tears come, too, so that Elmer he asked me, when I got back on the roof, if I’d had any bad news from home. But then I left the door wide open, so it’ll gradually pass away, let’s hope.”
The two menders of leaky roofs were soon at their old job, while Perk readily found something else to occupy his time and attention. He had pounded nails galore in the wall near the cavity which was used as a fireplace, and on these he hung such cooking utensils as they had fetched along with them, consisting of a large sized coffeepot; a generous frying pan; some kettles in which grits or rice or oatmeal might be cooked; likewise a little teapot, for Perk was a regular old maid when it came to the question of drinking a decoction of the fragrant herb at lunch or supper, preferring it to Java at any time.
Along about half-past-ten by Elmer’s little nickel watch who should come in but Amos, with a look of eager expectation on his face.
“Guess you struck oil somewhere, didn’t you, brother?” asked Wee Willie, as if able rightly to interpret this expression of anticipated triumph.
“Would you believe it,” crowed Amos, “I had the great good luck to scare a bird out of the thicket where the berries are growing that partridges like to feed on early in the Fall; and on investigating there was a nest, with some eggs in it, and warm at that? Of course it’s a silly bird that hopes to fetch up a flock of nestlings hatched out so near frost time, but it was pie to me!”
“What did you do?” demanded Perk, looking deeply interested.
“Well, I fixed my camera so it focussed on the nest, with the proper effect of light,” explained Amos. “Then I crept away to some little distance, keeping in tabs with it all, so I’d know when to pull the string that would free the trigger of the camera, and expose the plate in a jiffy.”