Yes, Roy was right; the Skybrows did not do these things by halves. Here indeed was a haven for the famished; here rescue awaited the starving scout. In the center stood a pyramid of triangular sandwiches, rivalling in magnitude the pyramids of Egypt. This was flanked by two gorgeous icing cakes, one white and one brown. A bowl of chicken salad overflowed its cut glass confines, the same as Pee-wee's island had overflowed its trusty scow.
It is true that the much feared salted almonds were there but they crouched in shame under the spreading sides of a wooden hash-bowl camouflaged with crepe paper and piled with jellied doughnuts. If there were any lady fingers they did not show their faces (if lady fingers have faces) but the jovial raspberry tart was there in all its glory a hundred strong.
"Oh, I think everything is perfectly _scrumptious_," said Minerva Skybrow, completing a tour of inspection at this culinary paradise and allowing herself an olive or two.
"Goodness gracious, let them alone or there won't be any left," said Miss Dora Dane Daring.
"Silly!" said Minerva. "There are _oceans_ of them. Doesn't the river look perfectly lovely in the moonlight?"
"Oh, I think everything is _perfectly adorable_," said another friend; "and the weather is just _heavenly_. For goodness' sakes, let the candy alone; that's the fourth piece you took."
"Listen," said Minerva. "I'm not going to let a _single one_ of them come out here till they have all arrived. We're going to have the concert in the house first and they've _just got_ to listen to Mrs. Wild speak about the Camp-fire movement, because she's just _perfectly wonderful_. Do you know, I wish I had put the refreshments in the summer house. No, I don't either--yes, I do. It would have been more romantic--_rustic_."
"Oh, I think this tent is _perfect_," said another girl, slyly helping herself to a salted almond.
"I know," said Minerva, her hand stealing unconsciously toward a box of marshmallows, "I know, but what I wanted was something unusual--symbolic. A rustic platform in one of the big trees would have been nice; it would have been sort of--sort of _scoutish_. I want to have things _different_. That's why boys always make fun of the Camp-fire Girls, they think we're _tame_. Think how Roy Blakeley and his friends actually camped in that adorable old railroad car while it was traveling, goodness knows where. When I went to the Aero Club reception with Harold Fall they had the refreshments in a great balloon; we had to go up to it on a ladder--_shh_, listen! Did you hear a noise?"