MARGERY MAKES A CUSTARD
"Oh, dear, but I jutht _do_ wonder what the boyth are going to do!"
lisped Tommy, as the motor boat started once more on its travels.
"There's nothing very uncertain, in their own minds," laughed Harriet.
"Just see how fast they're going. They've decided upon something."
"They're going back to their camp, but I've an idea they're going to
come over soon," guessed Hazel, "and make a regular search for us."
"Something of that sort," agreed Miss Elting.
"Well," said Jane sagely, "from their speed and the comfortable way
they're all sitting, I'm sure the boys are not doing any guessing about
their plans."
"No. They've pathed the guething over to uth," lisped Tommy sagely.
"Anyway," said Jane McCarthy, "if our friends can't find us, then our
enemies can't, either."
"I hadn't thought of that," Harriet nodded.
"I wish I knew what the boys' plan is. At any rate we must begin to
think of outwitting them a second time."
"How?" asked Hazel eagerly.
"Oh, I have the greatest scheme! That is, if they come back again,"
added Harriet. "We will just have those boys so mystified that they
won't know what they are doing."
"What do you propose to do?" asked Hazel.
"That is a dark secret. We won't even whisper it to the little birds
yet, lest they carry it to our friends the tramps. I have an idea that
our friends will be back here to-night. Just what they are going to do I
don't know, but I think they are going to spy on the farmhouse. I wish
they would come over to our Island of Delight. There are a number of
things we could do to puzzle them. And then--"
"And then the wise housekeeper forgot all about her supper," interrupted
Miss Elting, amid a chorus of laughter and many blushes from Harriet,
who, in the excitement of planning to get the better of George Baker and
his friends, had forgotten her household duties.
"Very good. I will confess that I have been dilatory. What do you girls
wish for supper?"
"The same old thing--the old stand-by, bacon and eggs and coffee,
and--"
"I know what I am going to have," interrupted Margery. "I'm going to
have some custard. I haven't had any custard since I left home."
"Can you make it?" asked the guardian.
"Of course I can."
"You are quite sure of that?" teased Harriet.
"I guess I know. I've made it ever so many times. You will like it, if
you get a chance to eat any of it. I am making this for myself."
"Thelfithh," jeered Tommy. "Make me thome plum pudding and thome angel
food while you are about it. I jutht love angel food and plum duff, ath
my father callth it."
"Custard is good enough for you, Tommy Thompson," laughed Margery. "May
I make the custard, Miss Elting?"
The guardian nodded smilingly.
"If you think you can."
"I'll show you. Where are the milk and the eggs and the other things?"
"The milk is in that pail that hangs over the side at the other end of
the boat. The eggs are in the paper box behind the stove. The rest of
your materials are in the supply box. As for water, there is a lake full
of it, enough to make custard for the whole world," remarked Miss
Elting.
"Now you are teasing me--and you, too, Harriet. You will be glad I
thought of it, however, after you have tasted the custard."
"After I have tasted it, yes," returned Harriet significantly.
That there was some hidden meaning in Harriet's remark, Margery well
knew. That was as near as she got to understanding just then. Later on
she understood more fully.
"I am afraid you haven't time to make the custard for supper," added
Harriet.
"It will do for dessert later in the evening. We don't have to eat
everything all at once, you know." Margery was in a flurry of
importance, over the idea of making the custard. Tommy, despite her
apparent indifference, was eagerly waiting for the custard. It was one
of her favorite dishes.
Buster broke the eggs in an agate dish, then added the milk, a cupful
for each person. The eggs, of course, had first been beaten up and the
sugar added. Harriet, with her skirt pinned up, was frying bacon and
potatoes until the smoke in the cabin was so thick as to drive out those
who were not actively engaged in getting the supper. Harriet and Margery
stuck to their posts, Tommy Thompson watched the operations from the
deck, now and then coughing to remind them that she was there.
"There, I think everything is ready," announced Buster. "How soon are
you going to finish with the oil stove?"
"Please do not wait for me. I shall not be done here for some little
time. The coffee isn't ground yet. What part of the stove do you require
for your custard?"
"The oven, of course. Don't you know how to make custard?"
"Oh, yes." Harriet turned her face from her companion, apparently to
avoid the smoke, but in reality that Margery might not observe her
laughter. "Help yourself to the oven."
Margery groped about underneath the oil stove, burned her fingers and
bumped her forehead against the edge of the stove.
"If you please, don't knock the top of the stove off. We are some
distance from another stove," reminded Harriet.
"I--I can't find the oven," wailed Margery.
"Don't you know why?"
"No-o."
"That is strange."
"Where is the oven?"
"There isn't any on this stove. Hadn't you discovered that yet, you
silly?"
"No--oven?" repeated Buster.
"No. No oven."
"Then I've mixed my custard for nothing?"
"I am afraid you have unless you can turn the mixture to some other
purpose."
Margery stared at Harriet in silence, then carefully setting the dish on
the little shelf above the stove she sat down on the floor and burst
into tears.
Harriet left her frying pan, and, taking Buster firmly by an arm, lifted
the girl to her feet and led her out to the after deck.
"Wha--at are you go--oing to do?"
"Bathe your face for you and set you down on the deck to cool off,"
replied Harriet.
"You knew all the time that there wasn't any oven," sobbed Buster.
"Yes, of course I did. So should you have known. I let you go on--"
"Because you are mean," interjected the unhappy Margery.
"No. To teach you to use your eyes. You should learn to be observing.
Didn't you hear us talking about that oven when Jane brought home the
stove?"
"Ye--es. I had forgotten."
"Of course you had. Now get ready for supper. To-morrow I will make an
oven of stones on the shore and you shall make your custard and you
shall have it all to yourself, if you wish, just to punish us for being
so mean to you. Will that satisfy you, Buster?"
"Ye--ye--yes," answered Buster, with three distinct catches in her
voice.
"Come, now, dry your eyes, that's a dear," urged Harriet. "Tommy!"
"Yeth?"
"Will you kindly place the chairs. Supper will be served in the cabin as
soon as the coffee is ready."
Tommy proceeded noisily about her task of putting the chairs in place at
the table. Soon after that Harriet with a dish towel whipped the smoke
out of the cabin and then announced that supper was ready. Margery's
eyes were red and she had little to say, but her appetite was unaffected
by her late bitter disappointment.
"Now tell us of your latest scheme, Harriet," urged the guardian after
they had settled down to their supper.
"My scheme? Which scheme?"
There was a laugh at Harriet's expense.
"There, girls! You see. Harriet has so many schemes and plans in her
head that she doesn't know which is which. I mean your second scheme for
fooling the Tramp Club, Harriet."
"Oh, yes. I know. I am not going to put it into operation until
to-morrow. You may not approve of it, but I hope you will."
"I don't think you have reason to complain of my opposing your plans,
Harriet. To tell the truth, I enjoy them as much as you. But before we
go any further with our discussion, do you not think it would be an
excellent idea to hang a blanket over that rear door. The light might
attract attention from the lake and bring undesirable persons here."
"Thank you. I never thought of it." Harriet rose at once. Selecting a
long blanket, she fastened it over the doorway, after which she drew
down the shades. The door at the other end of the boat opened on to a
solid wall of rock, so that no light could escape from that end. Harriet
was about to resume her seat at the table, when she paused sharply,
raising her hand as a signal for silence.
"What is it, dear?" asked Miss Elting in a low voice.
"I heard a shout. There is it again. Did you hear?"
The guardian and the other girls nodded.
"It isn't far from here. May I go down to the end of the creek and find
out what it means?"
"Wait a moment." The guardian turned down the light, then stepped out to
the after deck, followed by the girls. From the deck they could hear the
shouts much more plainly, but the shouters were too far away to make it
possible to distinguish what they were saying.
"Yes, you may go, but do nothing imprudent," added Miss Elting.
"I will try not to do so."
"May I go with you, Harriet?" asked Jane.
"Perhaps it would be better for me to go alone." Miss Elting agreed with
this, fearing that the girls might begin to laugh or talk and thus
attract attention to themselves. Harriet quickly got the rowboat and
began pushing her way down through the overhanging foliage that smote
her in the face with every move of the oar.
The night was very dark. She had to feel her way along, but even at that
the boat frequently bumped into the bank. Reaching the lake, she paused
to look and listen. Not more than ten rods above she saw lights on the
shore of the island and a light on the water. A motor boat chugged a few
times, the plash of an oar followed, then more shouts.
"I simply must find out what is going on there," muttered Harriet. "I
wonder if it can be--Yes, I'll row a little further along. No one will
see me unless I get within range of the lanterns there."
Taking careful note of the entrance to their secret creek that she might
recognize the spot when she returned, Harriet crept to the stern of the
rowboat and using one oar as a paddle propelled the boat through the
water as quietly as possible.
As she neared the scene of activity the voices of the newcomers grew
louder. Harriet finally ceased paddling and permitted her boat to drift,
steering well into the shadows, hugging the shore of the island until
she could touch it with an oar. Unless she splashed with the oar, she
was reasonably certain of being able to avoid discovery. The
Meadow-Brook girl was now within a few yards of where the operations
were going on. Her eyes were fixed on the outlines of a launch in which
two persons appeared to be working, when all at once and with a
suddenness that nearly brought a cry to her lips, a canoe shot out of
the shadows directly ahead of her and sped noiselessly out into the
lake. The girl did not even remember to have seen any one in the canoe
so quickly had it appeared and disappeared. She wondered, too, at the
skill that enabled one to paddle without noise. A gentle ripple--the
wake of the canoe--splashed against the bows of her own boat.
"Surely, I am not dreaming," whispered the girl. "I must have startled
the man. Who could it have been, and is it possible that he has been
here watching us?" A number of surmises entered the mind of Harriet
Burrell. She collected her thoughts quickly and held her boat with the
oar, for she was drifting perilously close to the launch. She was now in
plain sight of the campers on shore. She could hear every word that was
uttered there.
Harriet listened for fully fifteen minutes. All at once, she swung the
rowboat about, leaning her body to one side to assist in the turning.
The second oar that had been laid across the seats lengthwise of the
boat rolled to the other side with a rumble and a clatter that to her
strained nerves sounded like thunder.
"Who's there?" called a voice from the launch.
There was no reply. Harriet, in her haste to get away, splashed noisily.
She heard a quick exclamation, then the sound of two people jumping into
a rowboat. She knew it was the rowboat she had seen lying alongside the
launch. She knew, too, that the rowers were pursuing her. But even then
Harriet did not lose her presence of mind. Instead of doing so, she
dipped her oars and sent the boat shooting ahead, with the water
rippling away from the bows, making a noise that she feared her pursuers
would hear and thus be able to locate her position accurately. Harriet
had not once glanced over her shoulder, but her ears were on the alert
and by the sense of sound she was able to gauge the distance between
herself and the pursuing boat.
"They're gaining on me!" she muttered. "But I'm going to fool them just
the same."