And then everybody set to work. So busy were they that Linn had to tend the fire all by himself and Ed forgot he was hungry.

Before very long that beach looked like a picture book. Towers and ditches and castles and bridges were where flat sand had been a few minutes before. The Holden children had made many a sand house and they knew just how to pack the damp sand so it would stay in place and just how to put a small board here and there to hold a second story or a tower straight and tall.

But with all their experience, Alice's castle was as pretty as theirs, or at any rate she thought it was, and Mary Jane's was quite wonderful. She smoothed off the "garden" in front of her palace, stuck in a few sticks for flowers, made a pebbly path down to the tiny lake she had scooped out at one side and then shouted, "Mine's done! Look at mine!" and stepped aside so all could see her handiwork.

[Ill.u.s.tration: And then, sliding in the wet sand, she sat right down in the lake and sent a wave of ripples right over her castle _Page 61_]

But Mary Jane wasn't used to working so close to the water and she forgot entirely where she was! Instead of stepping to one side, as she should have done, she stepped backwards--straight into the big lake! And then, sliding in the wet sand, she sat right down in the lake and sent a big wave of ripples--right over her castle and garden and lake and everything and washed it all away, every bit!

THE BEACH SUPPER

A minute before Mary Jane slid into the lake, the beach was a scene of busy building and fun. Linn tended the fire, the grown folks gathered wood and visited and guarded baskets and the children all were intent on their sand castles. But with Mary Jane's tumble everything changed.

Sand flew helter skelter as the children jumped hastily and ran to Mary Jane's a.s.sistance; castles were trampled on as though they didn't exist and fire wood and baskets were all forgotten.

"Don't be afraid, you're all right!" called Mrs. Merrill as she ran toward her little girl.

"Coming! Coming! Here!" shouted Mr. Merrill rea.s.suringly as he dashed over to his little daughter, picked her up by the shoulders and set her, safe and sound, on dry sand just in time to miss a fair sized wave.

"I guess I'm wet!" said Mary Jane.

"I guess you are," laughed Mr. Merrill, "but I guess things will dry and you're not so very awfully too wet--not enough to spoil the party, is she, mother?"

Mrs. Merrill looked thoughtful and all the children waited anxiously for her answer. Would Mary Jane have to go clear off home and miss the party and everything! But it wasn't to be as bad as all that. Mrs. Merrill remembered the warm day, the glowing sun that was still bright and warm and she also remembered the hot fire Linn had underway and the warm sand all around the fire.

"Of course she isn't wet enough to spoil the party," said Mrs. Merrill, much to every one's relief. "Only she'll have to stay close by the fire till she gets warm and dry. Suppose we appoint her head cook and make her stay right there where it's hot?"

"She'll get dry then!" exclaimed Ed, so fervently that they all knew he had had many a hot face from working by the fire at previous picnics.

"But how about your castles?" asked Mr. Holden, "weren't we to have an exhibit?"

But the castles! Dear me! In the excitement of Mary Jane's tumble, no one had given a thought to the castles. They were stepped on, and trampled down and all matted down into the sand.

"That's just too bad!" said Mrs. Merrill.

"Pooh!" exclaimed John, dismissing the whole question of castles with one wave of the hand, "who cares about castles! _We're_ going to have supper."

And every one set to work.

Mary Jane was supposed to be head cook, but as she had never before been to a beach party, she really didn't know what to do. So she simply stayed close by the hot fire while the boys brought three benches and made them in a triangle around the fire--a little way back of course. Then Mrs.

Holden and Mrs. Merrill unpacked the baskets and fixed a place on the bench for each person. To be sure n.o.body was expected to sit on the bench--that would be quite too proper for a beach party meal. But the mothers put a paper plate and a cup for each person on the benches and then they put on the plate as many sandwiches and pickles and cookies and everything as each person was ent.i.tled to.

While they were doing this, Linn raked down the hot coals, set in place a light wire rack he had made and spread a couple of dozen weenies out to roast.

"Now then, Mary Jane," he said to the head cook, "you take this long fork.

And as soon as a weenie begins to sputter and brown, turn it over so it browns on the other side too."

That was a very important job, Mary Jane could easily see, and she determined that every weenie _she_ cooked would be done just to a turn.

She bent over the fire till her back got a crook in it; then she sat down on the hot sand close to the coals and by the time the weenies were done ready to eat she was so dry and hot that she felt sure she had never slipped into the lake--never!

And all the time Mary Jane was cook, Linn and Mr. Merrill stayed close to see that the coals kept evenly hot and that no bit of flame started up to burn the head cook.

At last the weenies were ready. Each one was beautifully brown and was sizzling and sputtering and sending a most tempting odor to hungry folks.

"Form a line, folks," said Mrs. Holden, "ladies first!"

With much laughter, each person got their own roll, which had been split and b.u.t.tered, and filed pa.s.sed Mary Jane. And Mary Jane, instructed by Linn just how to do her job, picked up one weenie after another on the long fork and dropped each one in an open roll held out before her. It was a scary job, for the sand was close below and Mary Jane knew that weenies dropped into the sand wouldn't taste very good. But she took her time--too much time, John thought.

"Don't be 'fraid of any old sand," he a.s.sured her when she put his weenie in his roll so very carefully, "I eat 'em any way--sand or not."

Betty eyed Mary Jane a bit enviously. This being chief cook and having a chance to fill the rolls of each person must surely be fun.

"Next time we have a beach party," she announced between bites, "_I'm_ going to fall into the lake too!"

"I'll save you the trouble," replied Mr. Holden understandingly, "I'll let you be chief cook without getting wet."

Betty needn't have worried about Mary Jane's being willing to give up her job. For there was one disadvantage in that position Miss Betty hadn't thought of and Mary Jane had just discovered--the head cook had no time to eat. And Mary Jane was getting fearfully hungry. She was more than willing to give up the big fork, let Betty fill her roll for her and stand up with the others to eat the good hot morsel.

Did anything ever taste as good as those hot weenie sandwiches, eaten there on the edge of Lake Michigan, with the fine lake air blowing in their faces and the sunshine warming them and making them forget the chill of the long winter? The Merrills thought they had never had so much fun and tasted such good things. Every weenie (and there had seemed to be far too many) was eaten up; every roll disappeared and cookies and pickles and sandwiches just vanished as though a warm breeze had melted them away.

Supper over, the sun going down reminded the children that they must get the fire ready for dark. They scampered up and down the broad beach, gathering together all the pieces of drift wood they could find. Later in the year wood along that beach would be hard to find. But in the early spring, before the driftings of the winter's storms had been burned up by picnickers like themselves, there was plenty to be had.

Linn and Ed put away the cooking rack in the case they had made for it, the two mothers packed up debris and burned it so the beach would be left clean and tidy, and all the others gathered wood. Such a lot as they did find! Linn piled it on high and by the time the sun went to sleep in the west, the fire was so bright that n.o.body noticed the growing darkness.

They all sat around on the warm sand and sang--college songs that the children had learned from the fathers, school songs and popular songs that they all knew. It was fun to sit there close by the big lake, to watch the sparks fly upward, to hear the waves swish against the sand and to sing and sing as loud as they liked.

But when the darkness settled down enough so that mysterious shadows lurked over every shoulder and the stars helped the fire make a light, Ed announced, "Now let's play Indian."

So they did. Playing Indian, the Merrill girls found, meant a queer follow-the-leader game. Ed led off first and everybody had to follow. He ran round and round the fire, prancing and yelling like a wild man. And the point of the game was for everybody to do exactly as he did. They ran and jumped and yelled till everybody was breathless with exercise and laughter and was glad to sit down again and do nothing.

By this time the fire had again died down to a bed of coals.

"_Now_ it's time for the marshmallows, isn't it?" asked Betty. She was right, it was.

The boxes of marshmallows were opened, wires pulled out of the baskets and all the children sat around the fire a-toasting. 'Twas just as Betty had promised. The wires were plenty long enough so that no fingers needed to be burned or dresses scorched and the bed of coals was big enough to make room for all.

Betty and Mary Jane thought they would keep count and see who could eat the most, but after six they lost count, and they ate and ate till they simply couldn't eat any more.

"Let's play still pond," suggested Frances.

She stood up near the fire and announced, "Twenty steps, two jumps, three hops and a roll. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten--STILL POND."

As she said the numbers off, the children began scampering to a place to safety. All but Mary Jane. She wasn't used to playing on the slippery, slidy sand. And though she started off just as big as anybody, she slipped and stumbled and hadn't more than got to her feet when the words, "Still pond!" were called. And after that she couldn't move but just to use the steps, jumps, hops and roll Frances had given them.

To make matters even more exciting, Frances started off exactly in her direction.