It was a fine dinner--coffee, bacon, flap-jacks, soup, ash-bread, stewed
chicken.
The heavy artillery, made ravenous by their journey, required vast
quantities of ammunition. They banqueted largely. I gazed in amazement at
Mrs. Doolittle Batt as she swallowed one flap-jack after another, while
her eyes bulged larger and larger.
Nor was the capacity of Miss Dingleheimer and the Reverend Dr. Jones to
be mocked at by pachyderms.
Brown and I left them eating while we erected the row of little tents.
Every lady had demanded a separate tent.
So we cut saplings, set up the silk, drove pegs, and brought armfuls of
balsam boughs.
I was afraid they'd demand their knitting and other utensils, but they
had eaten to repletion, and were sleepy; and as each toilet case or
reticule contained also a nightgown, they drew the flaps of their several
tents without insisting that we unpack Arthur's panniers.
They all had disappeared within their tents except Miss White, who
insisted on cooking something for us, although we protested that the
scraps of the banquet were all right for mere guides.
She stood beside us for a few minutes, watching us busy with our
delicious dinner.
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