[1] Begun in No. 92 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, August 2.
The question of what was to make up the dinner bill of fare appeared to
be an important one to all, and many were the suggestions made to the
cooks. Some proposed that the work of raising the tent be intrusted to
other hands, so that Bill and Tip could go out and bring in a deer or a
bear; others thought the old hen should be killed at once, and served up
as a roast; while one portion of the party seemed to think it Captain
Jimmy's duty to get his ship under way, and go after some fish for a
chowder.
But Tim and Bobby did not allow any of these remarks to trouble them;
they were the legally elected cooks, and they proposed to do the work in
their own way.
"We'll get the dinner," said Tim, with some dignity, "an' after it's
done, if you fellers don't like it, you can cook one to suit
yourselves."
But the cooks did listen to what Bill had to say, since he was one of
the high officials, and he was strongly in favor of making the first
dinner in camp a "big" one, even going so far as to propose in all
earnestness that the hen be killed.
"We might jest as well eat her," he said, as he looked murderously
toward the unhappy fowl, which was struggling to free herself from her
bonds at the risk of breaking her leg. "'Cause jest as likely as not
she'll get away, an' then we sha'n't so much as have a smell of her."
"It will take us too long to fix her up for dinner," said Tim, who was
just the least bit afraid that he was not cook enough to serve the hen
properly. "We can get enough to eat to-day without havin' so much fuss."
"I don't care how long it takes; what we want is a bang-up dinner, an' I
go in for havin' it now," said Bill, decidedly.
Bobby was on the point of throwing the weight of his opinion against the
proposed feast, when a bark of triumph was heard from Tip, and the
question was settled without further discussion. The dog, which had been
struggling to get free from the time he had been tied so near the hen,
to which he seemed to think he had a perfect right, finally succeeded in
releasing himself. There was a sudden rush on his part, a loud cackling
protest from poor Biddy, and then she was tossed in the air a dead
chicken.
Bill had presence of mind enough, fortunately for the dinner prospects,
to seize his hen before Tip made his lunch from her, and he said, as he
handed her to Tim:
"There, you see Tip knew we ought to kill her, an' so he did it for us.
Now we can have a good dinner."
Tim made no reply, and perhaps for the first time in his life he was
angry with Tip for having meddled in matters which did not concern him.
It was necessary now to cook the hen, and as he stood with her in his
hand the terrible thought came to him that he did not even know enough
to prepare her for cooking.
"Do you think we had better have her roasted or boiled?" he asked, in a
low, reckless way, of Bobby.
Now this other cook was quite as perplexed about the matter as Tim was,
and he was thoroughly well pleased that he had allowed his partner to
take the lead in other matters, so that the latter would now be obliged
to take all the responsibility of the hen's appearance at the dinner
table.
"I think we had better roast her," he said, in a careless sort of way,
as if to him one style of cooking was as easy as another.
Again was Tim disappointed. He had hoped Bobby would propose boiling
her, in which case all he would be obliged to do would be to pop her in
the kettle, letting her stay there until she was done. But since Bobby
was so cruel as to propose the hardest way of cooking the hen, roasted
it must be, or gone was his reputation as cook.
"I'll pick the feathers off," said Bill, gleefully; and Tim handed him
the fowl.
"I don't seem to see how we're goin' to get along," said Tim to Bobby.
"We ain't got any dishes to cook her in."
"We don't want any, do we?" asked his assistant, in some surprise. "I
always thought when folks that were campin' out cooked anything, they
stuck it on a stick in front of the fire an' let it sizzle."
"We can do it so now," he exclaimed; and since this suggestion had been
made, roasting chickens did not appear to be any very hard matter after
all.
He piled the wood on until he had a fire large enough to roast a pig,
cut a long sharp stick on which to spit the hen, and had hardly
completed these preparations when Bill Thompson re-appeared with the now
featherless victim of Tip's blood-thirsty nature.
Bill's work might have been done more neatly; but what did a few
feathers amount to when a dozen hungry boys were waiting to be fed? Tim
was not quite sure whether he had better cut off the head and legs or
not; but as they did not seem to be in the way, he concluded they might
as well be cooked. Neither did he think any cleaning necessary, but
plunged the stick through her, and stuck one end in the ground in front
of the fire with all the grace of an experienced cook.
The remainder of the party watched this work with hungry eagerness; and
when Tim filled the kettle with potatoes, they settled themselves down
contentedly to wait for the "bang-up" dinner, which they in a measure
owed to Tip.
The water in the pot bubbled and boiled merrily; the murdered hen began
to steam and sizzle, until every boy's mouth watered; while Tim and
Bobby bustled around in an important manner, feeling that they were
looked up to as the head men of the party, and enjoying the honor
immensely.
They piled on the wood, stirred the potatoes, as if that was the
important part of cooking that vegetable, while every few moments Tim
would smell of the hen, nearly singeing the hair from his head each
time. They were certainly good cooks, if keeping up a big fire could
make them so.
[Illustration: PREPARING THE GREAT FEAST.]
The hen did not appear to be revengeful at having been so suddenly
deprived of life, for in a short time her rather lean body began to turn
brown, and a most delicious odor arose on the air, even if she was
thickly crusted with ashes.
As Tim turned her carefully, he thought with surprise that he was a
really good cook, and blamed himself for having been so distrustful of
his own ability.
Thus matters went on, successfully but slowly, until some of the boys
showed such plain signs of impatience that Tim thought it necessary to
display more evidences of the dinner, even though the hen was far from
being roasted.
He and Bobby selected from the cooked provisions enough in the way of
pies and cake to make twice as large a party feel very uncomfortable.
They spread this feast at one side of the fire, where it would be out of
the way of the smoke, and Tim was trying to calculate how it would be
possible to cut an apple pie in eleven pieces, and have them all of
equal size, when a sound as of water thrown on fire, accompanied by a
cry of dismay from Bill Thompson, caused him to start violently.
The sight that met his startled gaze was a sad one, and it did not seem
any less so to him than it did to all the others of that hungry party.
The kettle of potatoes had been hung to the pole by a rope, which had
burned slowly, until it broke, letting the potatoes, water, and kettle
into the fire, deluging the half-roasted hen, and basting it with
cinders, until it looked like a huge ball of mud.
The steam and smoke were so dense that it was impossible to attempt any
rescue. All that could be done was to wait a few moments, and Tim spent
that time dancing around the ruins like a crazy Indian.
It was a horror-stricken party that stood around the drowned fire,
watching the cooks as they fished up first the muddy hen, and then the
potatoes, all looking very sorry for their plunge into the ashes.
"Now all you've got to do," said Bill Thompson, with the air of one who
knew, "is to put the potatoes right back, an' wash the hen. They'll cook
jest as well as ever, only it'll take a little longer, that's all."
Surely there was nothing so serious about the accident, if it could be
repaired with so little trouble, and the spirits of that party rose as
rapidly as they had fallen. The hen was given a sea bath, which took
nearly all the ashes off, and those which remained, Bill Thompson
thought, would make her taste the better. The potatoes did not need any
cleansing, so Tim thought, and were put into the pot again, looking
quite dirty, but in very nearly a cooked condition.
Another fire was built, rocks were placed in such a way around it that
the kettle could rest on them, the hen was put on another stick, and
again the chances for dinner looked promising.
The food which had been spread out on the ground looked very tempting to
the idle ones of that hungry party, and every now and then one would try
to get a piece of pie or cake, until Tim, who was determined that no one
should have anything to eat until all could be served, was almost at his
wits' end to prevent them from making a perfect raid on the larder.
Finally, worn out with running from the fire to the table every time he
saw one of the party moving innocently up that way, he told Bobby to
keep strict guard over the food, and that young gentleman wiped the
ashes and perspiration from his face with an air of relief, as he seated
himself near the largest pie, prepared to act the part of watch-dog.
Tip, who had been running about in everybody's way, and seriously
troubling his master, now came toward the fire, and sat down on his
little stubbed tail in such a suspicious manner that Tim felt reasonably
certain it was his purpose to steal the hen whenever a good opportunity
presented itself.
Such base action on Tip's part caused Tim more delay, as he tied him
securely to a tree out of reach of temptation, and by the time the tired
cook got back to his work again, a great commotion was raised by
Captain Jimmy and Bobby.
When Bill Thompson had quelled the tumult, it was learned that Captain
Jim had doubted Bobby's honesty from the first moment he had been
appointed guardian of the food, and had watched him from behind a tree.
He stated positively that he saw Bobby's eyes fixed on the apple-pie in
such a way as no officer of the company should look at a pie, unless the
time had come to eat it, and at a time when he thought no one was
looking, Jim was sure he saw him put his fingers under the crust, pull
out two slices of apple, and eat them.
Of course such a charge as this caused intense excitement, and the
majority of the party thought Bobby ought to be punished in some way as
a warning to others, and more especially to show that the officers of
the party should be above reproach, or, failing in their duty, be
punished severely.
Some of the party proposed that the culprit be condemned to go without
his dinner; others, not quite so blood-thirsty, believed he should be
deprived of his office, while there were those who believed that to
forbid him eating any pie would be punishment enough.
It is hard to say just how Bobby would have been obliged to atone for
the sin if the hand of justice had not been stayed by the dinner itself.
"You'll have to let him go this time, for he must help me," said Tim.
"We'll make him work all the harder to pay for what he's done."
Once more over the smoky fire and amid the flying ashes Bobby labored
for the good of others, working out the punishment for his sin.
The kettle of potatoes was taken from the fire, and while Bobby picked
out the pieces--for they had boiled until they were discouraged, and had
burst their skins--arranging them on two shingles, Tim took the
well-blackened remains of poor Biddy from the spit, laying them on a
short bit of board in great triumph.
Then the hungry party gathered around the place which represented the
table, and waited impatiently to be served to some of the savory roast.
Bill Thompson, with his hunting knife, proceeded to carve the fowl,
which was a work of some time, owing to its exceeding toughness.
In order to show proper respect for the office he held, Bill waited on
Captain Jimmy first, and that young gentleman did not waste much time
before he began to eat.
The roast was quite raw inside, even though it was burned outside, but
that, in Captain Jimmy's hungry condition, made very little difference.
He cut off the first mouthful and began to eat in a ravenous manner,
when suddenly he stopped, looking very queer.
"What is the matter?" asked Tim, anxiously, quick to notice the change
in the Captain's face.
"I dunno," said Jim; "but it tastes kind o' funny."
"That's 'cause you ain't used to hen," said Bill, almost savagely, not
pleased that any one should find fault with his fowl.
Just then another of the party, who had received his portion and begun
eating, laid down his knife and fork with an unmistakable air of
discomfort.
"Perhaps you don't like hen," said Bill, now growing angry that food of
his providing should be refused.
By this time several of the party had shown signs of disliking the
roast, and Bill proceeded to taste and try for himself.
He cut off a large mouthful, and began eating it with the air of one who
thinks he knows just what he is about to taste, and has made up his mind
beforehand to be pleased. But he stopped as suddenly as the others had,
and looking sternly at Tim, he asked,
"What did you put on this hen?"
"Nothin'; perhaps it tastes queer 'cause the taters tipped over on it."
"It don't taste like taters," said Bill; "it tastes a good deal worse."
Then he examined the uncarved portion of the fowl, and the mystery was
explained.
"I know what the matter is, an' I don't think you're much of a cook, Tim
Babbige. You've cooked the hen without cleanin' her, an' of course she's
spoiled."
Tim could make no reply, for as soon as Bill spoke he remembered how
chickens ought to look when ready to be roasted, and he knew he could no
longer hope to be considered a good cook.
That day the party made their dinner of boiled potatoes and pastry,
while Tip feasted on the half-roasted fowl he had so ruthlessly slain.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]