“They’re not dry yet,” said the girl, feeling of them.
“Oh, dear, what can you do? The rest will be here in a moment!” exclaimed her sister, the girl in pink.
“I have it!” Peanut said. He slung off his pack, and produced his pair of extra socks. They were heavy and long, being made to wear with high boots. Alice snatched them from him with a laugh, and, turning her back, sat down to put them on. Then she got up and turned around. Everybody laughed. The toes were too long, and flapped a bit when she walked. Her feet looked huge, for a girl.
“I hope I wear a big hole in ’em,” she was saying, as the rest of the Scouts came up.
But she wasn’t half so mad at Peanut as she had pretended, evidently, for while Art and Lou were taking all the responsibility of cooking the lunch and making the coffee, the two of them walked off together up the stream to the falls, Alice giving little “Ouches!” every minute or two as her shoeless feet stepped on a root or a hard pebble, and they had to be called back by the rest when lunch was ready.
It was certainly a merry meal. The girls made birch bark plates, and they had paper napkins in their baskets, and plenty of doughnuts to go with the coffee. Art used the last of the flour and condensed milk for flapjacks, cooking busily while the rest ate, and looking very happy when the girl in pink said, “It’s too bad. You aren’t getting anything at all.”
“He don’t mind,” said Peanut. “He’d rather cook than eat anything, especially for girls.”
“Does he like girls?” asked Alice, who was seated on the ground, with her feet sticking out, so she could wiggle the dangling toes of Peanut’s socks, which made everybody laugh.
“Does he like girls! You should have heard what he said about ’em this morning!” Peanut replied.
“Shut up—or when I get you to-night——” Art half whispered this at Peanut.