apron, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and an insinuating spot of batter in the dimple of her left cheek.
‘There!’ she cried, joyfully, as she deposited a heaping plate in front of her mother, and set the tin can of maple syrup by its side. ‘Begin on those, and I’ll fry like lightning on two griddles to keep up with you,’ and she rushed to the brush kitchen to turn her next instalments that had been left to brown. Hop Yet had retired to a distant spot by the brook, and was washing dish-towels. All Chinese cooks are alike in their horror of a woman in the kitchen; but some of them will unbend so far as to allow her to amuse herself so long as they are not required to witness the disagreeable spectacle.
Bell delicately inserted the cake-turner under the curled edges of the flapjacks and turned them over deftly, using a little too much force, perhaps, in the downward stroke when she flung them back on the griddle.
‘Seems to me they come down with considerable of a thud,’ she said, reflectively. ‘I hope they’re not tough, for I should never hear the last of it. Guess I’ll punch one with the handle of this tin shovel, and see how it acts. Goodness! it’s sort of—elastic. That’s funny. Well, perhaps it’s the way they ought to look.’ Here she transferred the smoking mysteries to her plate, passed a bit of pork over the griddles, and, after ladling out eight more, flew off to the group at the table.
‘Are they good?’ she was beginning to ask, when the words were frozen on her lips by the sight of a significant tableau.
The four boys were standing on the bench that served instead of dining-chairs, each with a plate and a pancake on the table in front of them. Jack held a hammer and spike, Scott Burton a hatchet, Geoffrey a saw, and Philip a rifle. Bell was nothing if not intuitive. No elaborate explanations ever were needed to show her a fact. Without a word she flung the plate of flapjacks she held as far into a thicket as she had force to fling it, and then dropped on her knees.
“‘Shoot, if you must, this old grey head,
But spare my flapjacks, sirs,” she said!
‘What’s the matter with them? Tough? I refuse to believe it. Your tools are too dull,—that’s all. Use more energy! Nothing in this world can be accomplished without effort.’
‘They’re a lovely brown,’ began Mrs. Winship, sympathetically.
‘And they have a very good flavour,’ added Elsie.
‘Don’t touch them, dearest!’ cried Bell, snatching the plate from under Elsie’s very nose. ‘I won’t have you made ill by my failures. But as for the boys, I don’t care a fig for them. Let them make flapjacks more to their taste, the odious things! Polly Oliver, did you put in that baking powder, as I told you, while I went for the pork?’
Polly blanched. ‘Baking powder?’ she faltered.
‘Yes, baking powder! B-A-K-I-N-G P-O-W-D-E-R! Do I make myself plain?’
‘Oh, baking powder, to be sure. Well, now that you mention the matter, I do remember that Dicky called me away just as I was getting it; and now that I think of it, Elsie came just afterwards, and—and—’
‘And that’s the whole of my story, O,’ sang Jack. ‘I recommend the criminal to the mercy of the court.’
‘A case of too many cooks,’ laughed Dr. Winship. ‘Cheer up, girls; better fortune next time.’
‘There are eight more of them burning on the griddles this moment, Polly,’ said Bell, scathingly; ‘and as they are yours, not mine, I advise you to throw them in the brook, with the rest of the batter, so that Hop Yet won’t know that there has been a failure.’
‘Some people blight everything they touch,’ sighed Polly, gloomily, as she departed for the kitchen.
‘But when I lie in the green kirkyard—
‘Oh, Polly, dear,’ interrupted Margery, ‘that apology will not serve any longer; you’ve used it too often.’
‘This is going to be entirely different,’ continued Polly, tragically.
‘But when I lie in the green kirkyard,
With the mould upon my breasts
Say not that she made flapjacks well,
Only, she did her best.’
‘We promise!’ cried Bell.
Chapter VII.
Polly’s Birthday: First Half in Which She Rejoices at the Mere Fact of Her Existence
‘“O frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.’
Polly’s birthday dawned auspiciously. At six o’clock she was kissed out of a sound sleep by Bell and Margery, and the three girls slipped on their wrappers, and prepared to run through the trees for a morning plunge in Mirror Pool. Although it was August there was still water enough in Minnehaha Brook to give one a refreshing dip. Mirror Pool was a quarter of a mile distant and well guarded with rocks and deep hidden in trees; but a little pathway had been made to the water’s edge, and thus the girls had easy access to what they called The Mermaid’s Bath. A bay-tree was adorned with a little redwood sign, which bore a picture of a mermaid, drawn by Margery, and below the name these lines in rustic letters:—
‘A hidden brook,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.’
Laura had not lived long enough in the woods to enjoy these cold plunges; and, as her ideal was a marble tub, with scented water, and a French maid to apply the same with a velvet sponge, it is not much wonder. She insisted that, though it was doubtless a very romantic proceeding, the bottom and sides of the natural tub were quite too rocky and rough for her taste, and that she should be in constant terror of snakes curling round her toes.
‘I’ve a great mind to wake Laura, just for once,’ said Bell, opening the tent door. ‘There never was such a morning! (I believe I’ve said that regularly every day; but I simply never can get used to it.) There must have been a wonderful sunrise, dears, for the glow hasn’t faded yet. Not a bit of morning fog—that’s good for Elsie. And what a lovely day for a birthday! Did they use to give you anything like this in Vermont, Polly?’
‘Hardly,’ said Polly, peering over Bell’s shoulder. ‘Let’s see. What did they give us in Vermont this month? Why, I can’t think of anything but dog-days, hot nights, and hay fever; but that sounds ungrateful. Why, Geoff’s up already! There’s Elsie’s bunch of vines, and twigs, and pretty things hanging on her tent-door. He’s been off on horseback. Just my luck to have him get up first. Jack always does, you know; and last night I sewed up the tent-opening with carpet-thread, good and tight, overhand—stitches I wouldn’t be ashamed of at a sewing-school.’
‘Oh you naughty girl!’ laughed Bell. ‘The boys could rip it open with a knife in half the time it took you to sew it.’
‘Certainly.
