The oven to the little range was piping hot so I made so bold as to stir up a pan of batter bread, Mammy Susan's kind with lots of eggs, and I then proceeded to set the table for breakfast.
"See here, this is a shame for you to be slaving so!" exclaimed Zebedee. "I simply won't have it--but gee, what a grand smell of coffee! You don't mean you've got some all made?" and he came through the living room and back into the kitchen in his wet suit, although he was the one who had made the rule the night before that bathers must enter from the rear and leave their wet suits in the bathrooms. I hadn't the heart to remind him; besides, I knew Tweedles would take great joy in doing so. I gave him a cup of steaming coffee and then made him hurry off to get into his clothes by letting him have a peep at my batter bread, which was behaving as batter bread should when it is made with plenty of eggs and the oven is piping hot--that is, it was rising like an omelette and a delicate brown was appearing over the surface.
"It must be eaten hot, so you had better hurry," I said as I put the sliced bacon in the frying pan and then cracked ice for the cantaloupe.
"All right, Mammy Susan, I'll show you what a lightning change artist I can be. I know I can beat Tweedles. They are still in the bathroom. By the way, do you know who the swimmer was we saw out in the bay? None other than our chaperone, Miss Jinny Cox! I just knew I had locked the door. You see, Jinny opened it. She has decided not to let anybody wait on her, after all. Tweedles are quite disconsolate. They have been planning to be so unselfish and here Jinny is refusing to be ill, and here you are, the honored guest, cooking breakfast on this, our first morning at the beach." He started up the steps but came down again, and, taking me impulsively by both hands, he exclaimed: "I am mighty glad you did not succeed in drowning yourself in four feet of water, little friend. You made very beautiful bubbles but I am going to teach you how to swim before the week is out."
"Who is to go over to Norfolk with me to meet the guests, also the cook lady from Keysville?" demanded Zebedee as he scraped the very last vestige of batter bread sticking to the sides of the pan. Annie Pore and Mary Flannagan, our schoolmates, were to arrive on a James River boat and our much needed cook on the train.