"Now we must all fall to with a will," said Addison. "It is a job to get things fixed up nice for night."
"Addison, you be captain and tell us each what to do," suggested Kate.
"We will all obey and work like good soldiers;--for we all want some supper, I guess."
"Well, then," said Addison, "what do you want for your supper?"
"Poached eggs on toast!" cried Ellen.
"I think some of those partridges would go well," said Kate.
"Would it take long to fricassee them?" Addison asked.
"Oh, not very long," said Theodora.
"I can dress them off in ten minutes," said Willis, "if you don't insist on their being picked and will let me skin them instead; for I can take their skins off, feathers and all, in just one minute apiece."
"Go ahead," exclaimed Addison; "Tom, get dry wood from that drift-heap down by the brook and build a nice camp-fire; and Kate, you and Doad unpack the baskets and get the coffee-pot, tin kettle and frying-pan ready. While you are doing that, the rest of us can throw out those old yellow boughs from the bunks, then cut new ones and make the bunks all up sweet and fresh for night; and after that we will drag up a lot of wood for our camp-fire, through the evening."
"Shall we not keep a camp-fire burning all night?" Theodora asked.
"Oh, yes! let's not let the fire go out!" cried Ellen. "We're a dreadful ways from home, up here in the great woods! How many miles have we come, Ad?"
"About seventeen miles, all told."
"Yes; do let's have a good roaring fire all night," said Kate.
It quite frightened the girls to think how far they were from home, in the forest, now that the sun began to sink behind the tree tops.
"All right!" laughed Addison. "Gather lots of wood. It will take piles of it to burn all night."
But Theodora made a discovery which gave them a good deal of comfort.
"We've got a door to our cabin!" she called out from inside it. "Quite a good door. See," she said, swinging it. "We can shut our cabin up, just like any house, and fasten it, too. Here's a great button on the door-post. Nothing can get in to hurt us after we shut and button our door. Have you got any door to your cabin?"
Investigation of our cabin disclosed no door. There was a _button_ on the door-post; but the door had been removed.
The girls laughed at us. "A fine house you've got!" said Kate. "No door!
You will be carried off before morning by a panther."
"Never mind us," replied Addison. "Fasten up your own door, snug and tight."
"When we get ready to go to bed," said Willis, "we will _turn our button_; I guess that will answer for us.
"But I've got the partridges all dressed," he continued, "and I'm going to cut them up and put them into the tin kettle, to parboil, and then, when they are partly cooked, you can put them into the frying-pan, if you like."
"Can't you thicken up some kind of a flour and butter gravy to go with those partridges, Kate?" said Tom.
"Why, bless you, Thomas, there's no flour!" replied his sister.
"I think I could use Indian meal instead of flour," said Theodora, "though I wouldn't promise it would be as good, since it might taste a little coarse."
"Well, try it, anyway," said Tom; "for I like that kind of a gravy first rate."
"Oh, it just makes me laugh to hear boys talk about cooking," exclaimed Kate. "They do have such droll ideas!"
"Well, I know what I like," said Tom; "and I wouldn't give much for a girl that cannot make a gravy."
"Oh, the nice, agreeable boy! So he should have his gravy on his partridge," teased Kate.
"I've too much regard for the reputation of our family to quarrel with my sister before folks," laughed Thomas. "She's an awful provoking thing, though!"
"Oh, the dear boy!" retorted Kate.
"Somebody give me some cold water to hold in my mouth," groaned Tom.
"She must have the last word, anyway."
That was quite a common kind of encounter between Tom and his sister Kate; yet I never saw brother and sister more attached to each other.
Only about a year and a half younger than her brother, Kate was a match for him in about everything and rather more than a match in repartee.
Meantime Theodora was toasting some squares of bread to put in the partridge fricassee, and looking about for a dish to manufacture Tom's butter and meal gravy in.
There was a copse of little firs, standing about a low, wet piece of ground, a few hundred feet away. To these we had recourse for the material to fill the bunks.
Thomas having collected a woodpile of good proportions, proceeded to put on fourteen potatoes to boil, reckoning two for each member of the party; and as the partridges were boiling briskly, fast progressing to the cooked condition, Catherine made coffee. It was agreed, however, that after that evening, we were to take coffee but once per day; and everybody voted to have it in the morning.
Addison now busied himself devising a "table;" and in this matter he was assisted by the labors of the previous party of deer-hunters who had left a large board behind them, to be set on forked stakes, driven into the ground; there were also two rough benches for seats.
It was not till after dusk had fairly settled over the wilderness that our supper was pronounced ready by the many cooks who had taken a hand in its preparation. The camp-fire was replenished, so that a genial glow and plenty of light was diffused about; and then our meal began. We had the three partridges quite well cooked; and Thomas had his dear gravy.
There were boiled potatoes and some pork, fried crisp, to suit Willis; also boiled eggs for all and plenty of toasted bread with butter. Kate had also brought a lot of "cookies," which went well with coffee.
Addison sat at one end of the table and dished out the partridges.
Theodora presided over the coffee; and Ellen and Kate looked after the toast. The long jaunt had given us fine appetites and we cleared the rude board of the eatables, enjoying it as only a hungry party of campers, who have had their own supper to get and have waited an hour or two for it to cook, can enjoy such a meal.
Dishes had then to be picked up, and water brought and heated; for dishes must needs be washed.
"Oh dear!" sighed Ellen. "I did hope I could get to a place once where there were no dishes to be washed. I always have it to do at home."
"You've got to that place!" exclaimed Thomas. "I'll wash them, if you girls will agree to eat off them next meal and find no fault."
"I'll wipe them if Tom'll wash them!" cried Willis. "'Tis tough for girls always to have to wash dishes."
"I agree to find no fault for one," said Ellen.
"We might do as they are said to do in the lumbering camps," remarked Addison; "that is to eat off the same plates without washing, till we forget what we ate off them last."
"I object to such a plan as that!" cried Theodora. "I would rather wash them all, myself."
Tom and Willis washed the dishes that night, however; and the girls sat back on their bench and smiled and pinched each other, to see the performance.