"Well, you won"t," said Bert, who had no fear that Bob would be guilty of such a thing, but he wasn"t quite so sure of some of the other boys, and so they stood like a lot of hungry tramps, a little bewildered at the situation and greatly tantalised by the sight of the feast and the odour of steaming coffee.
"Nothing doing," said Bob, at last. "We can"t touch other people"s property, and we might as well go on home. But if the ladies belonging to this church sociable would show themselves, I"d sit up and beg for a bone of that fried chicken over there."
"Maybe we all wouldn"t!" commented several, and then, at a signal from Dolly, the girls sprang from their hiding-places and stood laughing at the crowd of hungry boys.
"Oh, you Dotty Rose!" cried Jack Norris, as he caught Dotty"s dancing black eyes, "I might have known you were at the head of this!"
"No more than Dolly Fayre," cried Dotty, "and all the rest of us. Are you hungry, boys?"
"Are we hungry? We should smile! We"ve been hungry all the while!" came in chorus from the famished tramps.
"_Would_ you care to come to lunch with us?" said Dolly, her blue eyes dancing as she put the question.
"Would we care to!" and Jack grinned at her. "We"re hungry enough to eat you girls; but, alas! kind ladies, we"re obliged to regret your invitation as we"re not in proper society garb."
Suddenly the boys became aware of their flannel shirts and old hats and general fishermanlike appearance.
"We"ll forgive that for once," cried Dotty; "we"ll pretend we"re a rescue party and you"re a lot of starving soldiers, so we won"t mind your tattered uniforms."
"Rescue party!" cried Bob; "I like that! Aren"t you the sly ones who raided our commissariat department? Own up, now!"
"What makes you think so?" And Edith Holmes looked the picture of injured innocence.
"Oh, yes! "What makes us think so!" What makes us think that"s our coffee boiling in our coffee pot! Fair ladies, we invite you to lunch with us, on our coffee and our bacon and eggs. And if you"ll wait a few minutes, we"ll cook our trout for you."
"Well, I"ll tell you what," and golden-haired Dolly settled the question; "we"ll eat our luncheon now, as it"s all ready, and then, if you like, you can cook your fish afterward."
"That suits me," said Bob, "and I"m free to confess that I can"t wait another minute to attack this Ladies"-Own-Cooking-School Lay Out! Take seats, everybody-- I mean you girls sit down, and us chaps will wait on you."
"All right," laughed Dolly; "we resign in your favour. I can tell you girls get hungry, too."
So the girls sat around, and the boys quickly pa.s.sed plates and napkins and then the dishes of delicious food.
Then they served themselves, and sitting down by the girls, rapidly demolished the contents of their well-filled plates.
"I"m not going to rub it in," said Dolly, dimpling with smiles, "but for boys who don"t want girls along on their picnics you seem to enjoy our society fairly well."
"It isn"t our society they"re enjoying," said Nellie North; "it"s our stuffed eggs and cold chicken."
"It"s both, adorable damsels," declared Bob. "Just let us appease our hunger, and goodness knows you"ve enough stuff here for a regiment, and then we"ll show you how we appreciate the blessing of your society.
We"ll entertain you any way you choose."
"That we will," agreed Guy. "We"ll give you a circus performance, a concert, lecture, or song and dance, as you decree."
But it took a long time to satisfy the boys" appet.i.tes. It seemed as if they could never get enough of the various delicacies, and though they pretended to make fun of what they called the fiddly-faddly frills, they thoroughly relished the good things.
"These eggs ought to be shaved," said Bob, as he picked the little fringes of white tissue paper from a devilled egg.
"No critical remarks, please," said Dolly, offering him a rolled up sandwich tied with a narrow white ribbon.
"Oh, my goodness! do I eat ribbon and all? I can do magical stunts for you afterward, like the chap who pulls yards of ribbon out of his mouth, on the stage."
"Anybody who makes fun of our things can"t have any," declared Josie.
"Oh, I"m not making fun," and Bob took half a dozen of the tiny sandwiches. "Why, I always have my meals tied up in ribbons. I have sashes on my griddle-cakes and neckties on my eggs, always."
"I like these orange-peel baskets filled with fruit salad," said Bert, as he helped himself to another; "I think food in baskets is the only real proper way."
But at last, even the hungry fishermen declared they couldn"t eat another bite, and the young people left the feast and sat on the rocks and tree stumps near by, while Long Sam and Ephraim cleared away and packed up the things to take home.
The boys were as good as their word, and entertained the girls by singing college songs and giving gay imitations and stunts, and everybody declared, as the picnic finally broke up, that it had been the very best one of the season.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CAKE CONTEST
"Oh, _do_ go in for it!" Edith Holmes was saying, as she and Maisie Norris sat on the edge of the Rose"s shack and tried to persuade Dotty and Dolly to agree to their plan.
"But I never made a cake in my life," Dolly objected.
"Nor I, either," said Dotty; "I don"t see how we can, Edith. You"re a regular born cook, and that"s different."
"But maybe you"re a regular born cook, too," argued Edith; "you can"t tell if you never have tried."
"Anyway, enter the contest just for fun," urged Maisie. "Everybody will help with the bazaar, and of course you want to be in it; and I want you to be in this contest, because all us girls are."
"I"d just as lieve," said Dolly, "only there"s no chance of our winning the prize."
"Well, never mind if you don"t. You"ll have a lot of fun, and besides it will teach you to make cake, and that"s a good thing to know. That funny old Maria of yours will help you."
"But would it be fair to have her help us?"
"Oh, of course not _make_ the cake; you must do that yourselves. But she can tell you how, or show you how, and you can practise all you like beforehand, of course. And you might win the prize, after all."
"What is the prize?"
"A twenty dollar gold piece!"
"What a grand prize! I didn"t know it was such a big one."
"Well, you see, old Mrs. Van Zandt gives it. She"s a crank on Domestic Science and girls knowing how to cook and all that. And besides there"ll be lots of entries. All the girls all round the lake will send cakes."
"Can anybody send?"
"Any girl under sixteen. They call it the Sweet Sixteen Cake Prize."