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"Get out, you horrid thing!" cried Bobby. "Calling us hens. We're only pullets, at best." A lantern had been lit in each tent, for the shadows were thickening under the oak trees on the knoll. Lizzie Bean at once began to overhaul the cooking utensils and supplies in the cook-tent. This tent was divided into two parts. Lizzie's own cot was in the rear apartment.
Now come over 'ere by the band section and I'll tell how we'll work it out. Of course, we'll improve it every day. All you needs is confidence. We 'ave dinner at twelve-thirty in the performer's end of the cook-tent. It's all right there. I'll fetch yours into the dressin'-tent for you, so's you won't be seen. There's my daughter over there. Ain't she a stunner? Say, she's a gal as is a gal.
"Yes, directly opposite. We can fix it up snug like our winter camp at the other end of the lake." "Have you two camp?" "Yes a winter camp and a summer camp. But we have stayed comfortably here in the cook-tent until the thermometer went fourteen degrees below zero. We'll sleep in it till we get your house done, and you can take the tent.
They might have warned him by a word, but they did not; for Happy Jack was never eager to heed warnings or to take advice, preferring always to abide by the rule of opposites. Stiff-legged from long riding, the knees of his old, leather chaps bulging out in transient simulation of bowed limbs, he came clanking down upon the cook-tent with no thought but to ease his hunger.
Disenchantment lay in wait for him who strayed close enough to hear the wrangling in the cook-tent, however, or who followed Slim to where he slumped bulkily down into the shade of a willow fifty yards or so from camp a willow where Pink, Weary, Andy Green and Irish were lying sprawled and smoking comfortably. Slim grunted and moved away from a grass-hidden rock that was gouging him in the back.
One amazing thing was happening after another. The girls of Central High could scarcely keep up with the several happenings. On top of Laura's statement the platform before the cook-tent heaved mightily, and a man's head and shoulders appeared. Lil shrieked again. Even Mrs. Morse stepped back in surprise. The young man continued to push his way out, and finally climbed to his feet.
But she did not think it so funny that evening when, as the girls sat about a fire they had made in the open, singing and telling jokes, and Lizzie was washing up the supper dishes, a sudden shrill whoop arose from the cook-tent. "Gee! what's that?" demanded the slangy Bobby. "A mouse!" declared Nellie. "That funny girl must be just as much afraid of them as I am."
"If it does," called Weary, who was branding with a stamp not far away, "if it does, Happy, we'll pack the bossies into the cook-tent and make Patsy heat the irons in the stove. Don't yuh cry, little boy we'll sure manage somehow." "Aw yes you wouldn't see nothing to worry about, not if yuh was being paid for it.
When I come again I shall pay my way at the main entrance. No! Don't ask me to go to the cook-tent! It is impossible. As for my plans, I " He stopped, stilled by a sudden, overwhelming sense of desolation. All this meant that he would have to leave Christine! His days with the show were over. His sweet, throbbing hours with her were at an end.
Which certainly was brilliant of Happy Jack, even if it did take him a full hour to arrive at that conclusion. He got up immediately and started for the cook-tent. "Say, Jakie," he began before he was inside, "ain't there time enough to boil a pot uh beans if I make yuh a good fire? I betche the boys would like a good feed " "A-a-hh!"
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