Winona of the Camp Fire Part 49

Winona came running down the back stairs.

"Did you keep him?" she said. "I couldn't find where I'd put the change."

"It wasn't the ice-man," said Louise, "it was Tom."

"Tom?" asked Winona. "But he was gone for the day."

"Anyway, he's back. And-Winona Merriam, we'll have to make more sandwiches for supper, or dinner or whatever it is. Two ministers and one wife are coming here to dinner to-night."

Winona sprang to her feet and snapped her book shut.

"_Sandwiches!_" she said scornfully. "Don't you know you have to _feed_ convention people? Mother would die, and the Ladies' Aid faint in a body, if we gave them sandwiches for dinner. No. They have to have a course dinner!"

"Where are you going to get it?" asked Louise meekly.

"Here!" said Winona. "I found one in a magazine the other day. Let's see what we can do with it."

Louise looked at Winona with respect. "Do you often rise to occasions this way?" she asked.

"This is the almost human intelligence that I have sometimes," said Winona.

"Sure it's intelligence?" asked Louise doubtfully.

Winona led the way upstairs toward her sc.r.a.pbook without deigning to reply. Both girls bent eagerly over the course dinner she had pasted in on the last page.

"Sh.e.l.lfish, soup, fish, salad, roast, entrees, vegetables, dessert, black coffee, cheese, nuts and raisins," she read. "These, in the order named, const.i.tute a simple dinner."

"I'd like to know who brought up the woman who wrote that," commented Louise. "The Emperor of Russia, I should think."

"Anyway, I am going to try to have it," said Winona. "We can have oysters to begin with, because Tom always has some around for bait."

"That kind mayn't be good to eat," objected Louise.

"Never mind. Perhaps these people won't know the difference, just think they're a brand-new kind."

"You don't open them till the very last thing, and then you serve them with ice on their heads to keep them cool, and lemon slices. I know that much," said Louise, following Winona downstairs again.

"Then we won't open them till the very last thing, and forget all about them till Tom comes downstairs again," said Winona with decision.

"Soup-let's see. Oh, I know! Mother had me make some bouillon this morning, for old Mrs. Johnson down in Hallam's Alley. We'll serve that in the bouillon cups, and make Mrs. Johnson some more to-morrow, or take her chewing-tobacco instead. She'd much rather have it, she says."

"All right. And Tom brought some fish in," supplied Louise.

They went out to inspect the fish, and found that there would be plenty, if it was carefully distributed.

"Doesn't everything dovetail beautifully?" said Winona thankfully.

"What's next?"

"Salad," said Louise, consulting the sc.r.a.pbook. "Haven't you any lettuce in the garden?"

"Of course we have!" said Winona. "All there is to do is to pick it."

"Well-the roast?"

But here there was a deadlock.

"There isn't a thing in the house to roast," said Winona, "and this time of year you have to telephone early to get things." She moved to the telephone, and pulled herself back in dismay. "This is Wednesday!" she said. "And all the shops are closed Wednesday afternoon!"

"It isn't afternoon, yet," said Louise.

"Look at the clock," said Winona.

And it was afternoon-one o'clock.

"Perhaps that's a stray butcher," said Louise, as they heard a long, loud knock at the kitchen door.

But it was only Billy Lee, who explained that he had tried every door but this in vain. He had a note to Winona from his sister. He perched himself on the stationary tubs while she read it, on the chance that she might want to write an answer.

"Come over and stay with me this afternoon," it said. "I have a headache."

"Oh, I can't, Billy!" explained Winona, looking up from the note. "We have dinner to get for two ministers and their wife, and-Billy, you have a great deal of steady common sense. I heard father say so. What would you do if there wasn't any meat, or any time to get any, or any place to get it?"

Billy tucked his foot under him, and looked serious, mechanically taking a sandwich as he thought. The girls were eating them, too, for it had been silently agreed that that would be all the lunch they would bother with.

"Why not try Puppums?" he suggested. "If they're missionaries they're used to roast dog. Every missionary has to learn to like it in the last year of his course."

"Yes, or we might roast Clay," said Louise scornfully. "Why don't you suggest that? He isn't any use, goodness knows, and they may have been missionaries to the cannibals!" She glanced at the small darky, who was sitting on the cellar door in happy idleness, singing fragments of popular songs to himself.

"You ought to make him useful," said Billy. "Here, Clay, get up and help your young ladies."

"Ah _is_ helpin' 'em," said Clay with dignity; nevertheless he rose and came in for further orders.

"Down home," continued Billy, "we always kill a chicken when we expect a minister."

"But we haven't so much as a papier-mache Easter chick," objected Louise.

"The people next door but one have," said Winona excitedly, starting up.

"It's against the law to keep chickens within the city limits, but they do it. But they're away for the day."

"They're always getting into your garden and tempting poor old Puppums to chase them," said Billy sympathetically.

Winona, acting on his suggestion, went to the door and looked out.

"Yes," she said. "There's one there now. There nearly always is."

Louise lifted one eyebrow. "Well?" said she.

"Very well," said Winona. "Come on, ladies and gentlemen. We are going to catch a next-door-but-one chicken, and pay the Janeways for him to-morrow."

"When Puppums caught one last week," said Florence, appearing suddenly, evidently in full possession of the conversation, "you tied it round his neck!"