minute, counting the people who were to eat them. Four right here in
the kitchen and five--no, six--out-of-doors. Would two dozen cookies
be enough for ten people? She put her head into the kitchen to ask,
but there was no one in sight, so she had to decide the point by
herself. After nibbling a crumb she thought not, and added another
dozen. And then there was still so much room left that she just filled
up the box, regardless. Afterward she was very glad of it. She
wouldn't have supposed it possible for ten people to eat as many
cookies as those ten people ate after all the other things they had
eaten.

By the time she had finished her calculations with the cookies, Aunt
Jessica and Laura and Priscilla were ready. When Elliott emerged from
the pantry, the little car was at the kitchen door, with a hamper and
two pails of water in it, and on the back seat a long, queer-looking
box that Laura told Elliott was a fireless cooker.

"Home-made," said Laura, "you'd know that to look at it, but it works
just as well. It's the grandest thing, especially when we want to eat
out-of-doors. Saves lots of trouble."

Elliott gasped. "You mean you carry it along to cook the dinner in?"

"Why, the dinner's cooking in it now! Hop on, everybody. Mother, you
take the wheel. Elliott and I will ride on the steps."

Away they sped, bumpity-bump, to the hay-field, picking up the
carrot-hoers as they went. It is astonishing how many people can cling
to one little car, when those people are neither very wide nor, some
of them, very tall. From the hay-field they nosed their way into a
little dell, all ferns and cool white birches, and far above, a canopy
of leaf-traceried blue sky. In the next few minutes it became very
plain to the new cousin that the Camerons were used to doing this kind
of thing. Every one seemed to know exactly what to do. The pails of
water were swung to one side; the fireless cooker took up its position
on a flat gray rock. The hamper yielded loaves of bread--light and
dark, that one cut for oneself on a smooth white board--and a basket
stocked with plates and cups and knives and forks and spoons. Potted
meat and potatoes and two kinds of vegetables, as they were wanted,
came from the fireless cooker, all deliciously tender and piping hot.
It was like a cafeteria in the open, thought Elliott, except that one
had no tray.

And every one laughed and joked and had a good time. Even Elliott had
a fairly good time, tho