"What kind of pies shall it be?" asked Helen.
"Something not too squashy!" pleaded Dum. "Nan and I have found the most adorable spot for a picnic: a fallen tree about half a mile around the mountain--not a freshly fallen one but one that must have fallen ages and ages ago as it has decided just to grow horizontally. Any old person could climb up it, just walk up it in fact--such seats were never imagined--the limbs all twisted into armchairs."
"Of course if we are going to eat up a tree we had better have mighty solid pies," laughed Page. "How about fried turnovers like Mammy Susan makes?"
"Yes, apple," laughed Helen, amused at Dum's enthusiasm, "also some lemon pies, don't you think? I mean cheese cakes."
The girls went to work, Page on the fried turnovers and Helen on the cheese cakes. Such a merry time they were having, all busy and all talking! Oscar sat outside picking chickens and of necessity Susan was driven to the extreme corner of the kitchen with her heap of washing and ironing.
"I think you are awfully clever, Helen, to learn to make pastry so quickly. How did you do it?" said Page, deftly forming a turnover.
"I don't know--I just did it. It seems to me as though anyone can cook who will follow a recipe. I had a few lessons at the Y. W. C. A. in the spring and I learned a lot there. How did you learn?"
"Well, when I was a kiddie I had no one to play with but Mammy Susan, so I used to stay in the kitchen and play cooking. I've been making thimble biscuit and eggshell cake ever since I could walk."
"Just put the left-over scrapings of batter in the eggshells and bake it. It cooks in a minute and then you peel off the shell. Scrumptious!"
Dee came running in with the mail, having been to the post office at Greendale with Josh and Bobby and the faithful Josephus.
"A letter from Zebedee and he will be up for sure this evening! Ain't that grand? But guess who is coming with him--old Hiram G. Parker! I believe Zebedee must have lost his mind. I am really uneasy about him."
"Why, what is the matter with Mr. Parker?" asked Helen, who had been much interested in what she had heard of that gentleman's charms and graces.
"'No matter, no matter, only ideas!' as the idealist said when the materialist saw him falling down stairs, bumping his head at every step, and asked him what was the matter," laughed Dee. "Didn't you ever meet Mr. Parker?"