ag" of the Mother in the "Swiss Family
Robinson," and seemed to hold almost as great a variety of useful
things. Presently a gay little fire was crackling and snapping against
the face of the rock, and adding its smoke to the blackened stains left
by those other smokes of long ago. The girls stood about, watching the
blaze and listening for the first hiss of the kettle; but Mrs. Gray
informed them that there was still work to be done.

"I want some new potatoes to roast, for one thing," she said. "Maud and
Georgie, you might run up to the farm and ask Mr. Bacon to send me a
few, say eighteen or twenty large ones,--oh, and a couple of dozen fresh
eggs."

While they were absent on this errand, the other girls, under Mrs.
Gray's direction, unpacked the baskets and arranged their contents on
the rock beneath the cedar-tree. Mrs. Gray had taken pains to provide,
as far as was possible, the same sort of food which twenty-odd years
before it had been customary to take to picnics. Out of one basket came
a snow-white table-cloth and napkins; out of another, a chafing-dish, a
loaf of home-made brown bread, and a couple of pats of delicious
Darlington butter. A third basket revealed a large loaf of "Election
Cake," with a thick sugary frosting; a fourth was full of crisp little
jumbles, made after an old family recipe and warranted to melt in the
mouth. There was a pile of thin, beautifully cut sandwiches; plenty of
light-buttered rolls; and a cold fowl, ready carved into portions. By
the time that these provisions were unpacked, Maud and Georgie were seen
descending the hill at a rapid walk, which, at sight of the festive
preparations below, changed to what Julia Prime called "a hungry
gallop." By this time exercise and fresh air had made everybody so
desperately hungry that it seemed impossible to wait another moment; so,
while Mrs. Gray heated the coffee and dropped the large pink potatoes
into their bed of embers to roast, the younger members of the party fell
to work on the sandwiches, just to take off the fine edge of their
appetites till something better was ready.

When the coffee was hot, Mrs. Gray seated herself by the rock, lit the
lamp under her chafing-dish, dropped in a bit of butter, sprinkled with
pepper and salt, and proceeded to "scramble" a great dish of eggs. Did
any of you ever eat hot scrambled eggs under a tree when you were
furiously hungry? If not, you can form no idea of the pleasure which the
"Early D