A minute before Mary Jane slid into the lake, the beach was a scene of
busy building and fun. Linn tended the fire, the grown folks gathered wood
and visited and guarded baskets and the children all were intent on their
sand castles. But with Mary Jane's tumble everything changed.
Sand flew helter skelter as the children jumped hastily and ran to Mary
Jane's assistance; castles were trampled on as though they didn't exist
and fire wood and baskets were all forgotten.
"Don't be afraid, you're all right!" called Mrs. Merrill as she ran toward
her little girl.
"Coming! Coming! Here!" shouted Mr. Merrill reassuringly as he dashed over
to his little daughter, picked her up by the shoulders and set her, safe
and sound, on dry sand just in time to miss a fair sized wave.
"I guess I'm wet!" said Mary Jane.
"I guess you are," laughed Mr. Merrill, "but I guess things will dry and
you're not so very awfully too wet--not enough to spoil the party, is she,
mother?"
Mrs. Merrill looked thoughtful and all the children waited anxiously for
her answer. Would Mary Jane have to go clear off home and miss the party
and everything! But it wasn't to be as bad as all that. Mrs. Merrill
remembered the warm day, the glowing sun that was still bright and warm
and she also remembered the hot fire Linn had underway and the warm sand
all around the fire.
"Of course she isn't wet enough to spoil the party," said Mrs. Merrill,
much to every one's relief. "Only she'll have to stay close by the fire
till she gets warm and dry. Suppose we appoint her head cook and make her
stay right there where it's hot?"
"She'll get dry then!" exclaimed Ed, so fervently that they all knew he
had had many a hot face from working by the fire at previous picnics.
"But how about your castles?" asked Mr. Holden, "weren't we to have an
exhibit?"
But the castles! Dear me! In the excitement of Mary Jane's tumble, no one
had given a thought to the castles. They were stepped on, and trampled
down and all matted down into the sand.
"That's just too bad!" said Mrs. Merrill.
"Pooh!" exclaimed John, dismissing the whole question of castles with one
wave of the hand, "who cares about castles! _We're_ going to have supper."
And every one set to work.
Mary Jane was supposed to be head cook, but as she had never before been
to a beach party, she really didn't know what to do. So she simply stayed
close by the hot fire while the boys brought three benches and made them
in a triangle around the fire--a little way back of course. Then Mrs.
Holden and Mrs. Merrill unpacked the baskets and fixed a place on the
bench for each person. To be sure nobody was expected to sit on the
bench--that would be quite too proper for a beach party meal. But the
mothers put a paper plate and a cup for each person on the benches and
then they put on the plate as many sandwiches and pickles and cookies and
everything as each person was entitled to.
While they were doing this, Linn raked down the hot coals, set in place a
light wire rack he had made and spread a couple of dozen weenies out to
roast.
"Now then, Mary Jane," he said to the head cook, "you take this long fork.
And as soon as a weenie begins to sputter and brown, turn it over so it
browns on the other side too."
That was a very important job, Mary Jane could easily see, and she
determined that every weenie _she_ cooked would be done just to a turn.
She bent over the fire till her back got a crook in it; then she sat down
on the hot sand close to the coals and by the time the weenies were done
ready to eat she was so dry and hot that she felt sure she had never
slipped into the lake--never!
And all the time Mary Jane was cook, Linn and Mr. Merrill stayed close to
see that the coals kept evenly hot and that no bit of flame started up to
burn the head cook.
At last the weenies were ready. Each one was beautifully brown and was
sizzling and sputtering and sending a most tempting odor to hungry folks.
"Form a line, folks," said Mrs. Holden, "ladies first!"
With much laughter, each person got their own roll, which had been split
and buttered, and filed passed Mary Jane. And Mary Jane, instructed by
Linn just how to do her job, picked up one weenie after another on the
long fork and dropped each one in an open roll held out before her. It was
a scary job, for the sand was close below and Mary Jane knew that weenies
dropped into the sand wouldn't taste very good. But she took her time--too
much time, John thought.
"Don't be 'fraid of any old sand," he assured her when she put his weenie
in his roll so very carefully, "I eat 'em any way--sand or not."
Betty eyed Mary Jane a bit enviously. This being chief cook and having a
chance to fill the rolls of each person must surely be fun.
"Next time we have a beach party," she announced between bites, "_I'm_
going to fall into the lake too!"
"I'll save you the trouble," replied Mr. Holden understandingly, "I'll let
you be chief cook without getting wet."
Betty needn't have worried about Mary Jane's being willing to give up her
job. For there was one disadvantage in that position Miss Betty hadn't
thought of and Mary Jane had just discovered--the head cook had no time to
eat. And Mary Jane was getting fearfully hungry. She was more than willing
to give up the big fork, let Betty fill her roll for her and stand up with
the others to eat the good hot morsel.
Did anything ever taste as good as those hot weenie sandwiches, eaten
there on the edge of Lake Michigan, with the fine lake air blowing in
their faces and the sunshine warming them and making them forget the chill
of the long winter? The Merrills thought they had never had so much fun
and tasted such good things. Every weenie (and there had seemed to be far
too many) was eaten up; every roll disappeared and cookies and pickles and
sandwiches just vanished as though a warm breeze had melted them away.
Supper over, the sun going down reminded the children that they must get
the fire ready for dark. They scampered up and down the broad beach,
gathering together all the pieces of drift wood they could find. Later in
the year wood along that beach would be hard to find. But in the early
spring, before the driftings of the winter's storms had been burned up by
picnickers like themselves, there was plenty to be had.
Linn and Ed put away the cooking rack in the case they had made for it,
the two mothers packed up debris and burned it so the beach would be left
clean and tidy, and all the others gathered wood. Such a lot as they did
find! Linn piled it on high and by the time the sun went to sleep in the
west, the fire was so bright that nobody noticed the growing darkness.
They all sat around on the warm sand and sang--college songs that the
children had learned from the fathers, school songs and popular songs that
they all knew. It was fun to sit there close by the big lake, to watch the
sparks fly upward, to hear the waves swish against the sand and to sing
and sing as loud as they liked.
But when the darkness settled down enough so that mysterious shadows
lurked over every shoulder and the stars helped the fire make a light, Ed
announced, "Now let's play Indian."
So they did. Playing Indian, the Merrill girls found, meant a queer
follow-the-leader game. Ed led off first and everybody had to follow. He
ran round and round the fire, prancing and yelling like a wild man. And
the point of the game was for everybody to do exactly as he did. They ran
and jumped and yelled till everybody was breathless with exercise and
laughter and was glad to sit down again and do nothing.
By this time the fire had again died down to a bed of coals.
"_Now_ it's time for the marshmallows, isn't it?" asked Betty. She was
right, it was.
The boxes of marshmallows were opened, wires pulled out of the baskets and
all the children sat around the fire a-toasting. 'Twas just as Betty had
promised. The wires were plenty long enough so that no fingers needed to
be burned or dresses scorched and the bed of coals was big enough to make
room for all.
Betty and Mary Jane thought they would keep count and see who could eat
the most, but after six they lost count, and they ate and ate till they
simply couldn't eat any more.
"Let's play still pond," suggested Frances.
She stood up near the fire and announced, "Twenty steps, two jumps, three
hops and a roll. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten--STILL POND."
As she said the numbers off, the children began scampering to a place to
safety. All but Mary Jane. She wasn't used to playing on the slippery,
slidy sand. And though she started off just as big as anybody, she slipped
and stumbled and hadn't more than got to her feet when the words, "Still
pond!" were called. And after that she couldn't move but just to use the
steps, jumps, hops and roll Frances had given them.
To make matters even more exciting, Frances started off exactly in her
direction.
But Mary Jane hadn't played "Still Pond" in her own yard for nothing.
Perhaps she hadn't learned to run on slippery sand as yet, but she did
know how to play that game. Instead of trying to quietly take her twenty
steps in an effort to get out of Frances' way, she took two quick steps,
dropped down on the sand, gave one little roll, and--was safely hidden
under one of the picnic benches they had used for supper!
Frances passed so close Mary Jane could have touched her. Other folks were
chased and found, but Mary Jane's hiding place was undiscovered. Of course
when she rolled in under the bench, Mary Jane had expected to roll right
out again when somebody else was caught. But when she found that they
couldn't see her; that they went right around close at hand, talking about
her and wondering where she was and all that, she thought it was such a
good joke that she lay very still and watched.
She heard them asking each other where she was seen last; she heard her
father say she couldn't be so very far away; and she saw them all start
off in search of herself. Then, just the minute their backs were turned
but before they had had time to be really frightened, she slipped out from
under her seat, stood up close by the dying fire and shouted, "Here I am,
can't you see me?"
They thought it a very good joke she had played and Mary Jane was sure she
would always remember that the best hiding place is often the nearest
one.
"Time to go home," said Mr. Holden, looking at his watch, "the fire's most
out and the party's over."
"But there'll be another one, won't there?" begged Mary Jane.
"Let's have it next week," said Betty.
The boys loaded up the empty baskets on their wagon--not much of a load
going home! Mr. Merrill raked out the fire so no harm would come to
anything; Mr. Holden gathered the children together and started the line
of march. It was a happy little crowd that wandered homeward and they all
agreed with Mary Jane when she said, "Well, anyway, I think a beach
party's the mostest fun I know. It's more fun than moving!"