She went down under the tubs to extract the wronged animal and sympathize with him on the injustice of life. But only Puppums heard her, for Billy and Winona, hindered by Clay, were careering wildly about after a vociferous, very agile fowl. It was finally captured with a crab-net, and led away to execution by Clay. It appeared that he, also, had had experience in chicken-killing for clergymen. He had often done it, he said, very artistically.

As he and the rooster pa.s.sed on their way to the scaffold, Winona ran into the kitchen, and out again with a scream.

"It's Henry!" she said wildly. "It's Henry! We've caught the Janeways's pet rooster! Clay! Clay!"

"Yas'm!" said Clay, appearing with Henry's head in one hand and his body in the other. "Dis heah roosteh she certn'ly is good an' daid! I c'n fix 'em!"

"And they loved him so!" said Winona tragically. "They were telling mother only yesterday how intellectual he was. 'Not clever, merely,'

Mrs. Janeway said, 'but really intellectual, my dear Mrs. Merriam!'"

Billy clutched the tubs in order to laugh better, and Louise sat down just where she was, on the floor.

"What's the matter?" called Tom, running downstairs very clean and tidy.

"Winona's murdered the Janeways's intellectual rooster!" explained Billy; and lay back on the tubs again.

Tom, too, began to howl.

"What-Henry?" he said, when he could speak. "Oh, Winnie, you _have_ done it! They've had him in the family since their grandfather's time anyway. Well, you'd better make the best of it, and have Clay take out his interior decorations. Maybe we can eat him if you boil him long enough. I could have robbed the Martins's tank of their tame goldfish if I'd known you wanted a dinner of household pets." He sat down on the tubs by Billy and went off again.

"I suggested Puppums in the first place!" gurgled Billy.

"Never mind, Win," said Louise, going over to Winona, who stood mournfully by the window, "I'll attend to Henry. We'll boil him first and then bake him, and he'll be quite good. I'll make the stuffing for him, too. I know how quite well."

"Oh, thank you, Louise!" and Winona brightened up.

"Oh," teased Billy, "then the remorse isn't because he's Henry, but because he's tough?"

"It's both," said Winona, "but there's no use being uselessly remorseful when you have work to do. I can feel ever so badly about it when I go to bed to-night. I often do. The fish is all right, anyway, and I'm going to make some sauce hollandaise for it out of the cookbook. Really all you need to know how to cook is a cookbook and intelligence."

"I see the cookbook, but where--" began Tom.

"Billy Lee," said Winona firmly, "if you came to see Tom, won't you please take him out on the front porch and see him?"

"I didn't!" said Billy coolly. "I came to bring Nataly's note, and I'm staying to see you invent a ten-course dinner, if you'll let me. Let me stay to dinner, Henry and all, and I'll make your fish-sauce. All you need is a cookbook and intelligence--"

"Two clergymen," counted Winona, "one wife, father, Louise, Tom, me-Florence is going out to supper, she said this morning. You'll just make eight, Billy. Come and welcome, only please leave the fish-sauce alone."

But Billy had already tied himself into a big pink ap.r.o.n, and was mixing b.u.t.ter and flour in a saucepan with every sign of knowing what he was about.

There was a brief, tense silence while the chicken, some white potatoes and onions, were put on to boil, sweet potatoes laid in the oven to be baked, and Clay sent into the garden for lettuce and radishes. They did not light any of the gas-stove burners except the one under the late Henry, because the afternoon was yet long. They went out on the porch and talked for a couple of hours. There was a general feeling that they mustn't get too far away from the dinner.

About four Winona remembered to say to Tom, "Have you any bait-clams or oysters? We need them for our first course."

"Bait!" said Tom. "Considering we've stolen the meat from the neighbors, and robbed the poor of the soup, and I caught the fish, we can afford to buy a few blue-points. I'll go down and get them. Is there anything else you'd like while I'm down town?"

"Is it too late to order ice-cream?"

"I'm afraid so," he said. "The ice-cream places won't be open till five-thirty, and then only for an hour, you know."

"The dairies are," Winona remembered. "Please buy some cream on your way back, and we'll find a receipt and make it. There are nuts and raisins in the house. Crackers-cheese.... I think we'll have enough for dinner."

"I shouldn't wonder!" said her brother thoughtfully, as he walked away to get his wheel.

The others went back to the kitchen, and Billy went on with his sauce hollandaise-that is, he took it out of the bowl of water where it had been cooling, and put it in the ice-chest.

"Why, it's good!" said Winona, rather impolitely, having sampled it on its way.

"Of course it's good!" said Billy serenely. "Didn't I ever tell you about our old cook down south, and how I adored her? I used to tag round after her all the time when I was small-never would stay with my nurse-and I learned a lot of things. And seeing I'm going to be invited to this banquet, looks like I'd better make the ice-cream for you."

"Oh, can you?"

"Watch me!" said Billy for all answer.

As a matter of fact, when Tom got back with the blue-points and the cream, he and Billy went to work together, and they compounded a pineapple ice-cream that was fit for the G.o.ds. Louise, meanwhile, stuffed the parboiled fowl and put him in to roast. The boys captured Clay, who had gone back to his cellar door and his songs, and set him to crushing ice. Winona sat down on the tubs where Billy had been, and gave herself up to deep thought. The entree had not yet been solved.

"Pancake batter?" she said aloud at last, in a mildly conversational tone.

"I'm sure of it," said Billy, poking his head in from the back porch.

"If I take that pancake batter I got ready for to-morrow morning, sweeten it, and put b.u.t.ter and eggs and peaches in it, I don't see why it wouldn't be peach fritters. Anyway I can try ... then you drop them in the lard...."

She thought it over a little longer silently. Then she jumped down, and went into the cellar for the batter and the peaches, and brought them out on the back porch, near the ice-box, to experiment with. Tom had gone back to the pantry to see if there was cake enough, but Billy was still packing ice and salt around the ice-cream.

"Dear me!" said Winona, setting down her load on a low shelf. "I hate to see you doing all this. You're company, you know, and here we're letting you get a lot of the dinner. It worries me!"

"Don't let it," counselled Billy, tossing a lock of hair out of his eyes and going on with the packing. "I'm having a good time. To tell you the truth, I always have a good time over here. I rather feel as if I belonged to the family-and that's a nice feel to have. You're a good little chum, Winnie.... If you don't let me pack all the freezers and things I want to I'll just have to go back to merely being let in once in awhile, like company."

"I feel as if you belonged to the family, too, Billy," said Winona sincerely, "and if your packing freezers is any sign you do, go right on, please."

"I am," Billy a.s.sured her with his usual placidity.

"The lard's hot, Win! Come see if they'll frit!" called Louise from within; and Winona dashed off with her batter. But it was nice to have Billy feel that way about things. He was certainly the nicest boy she knew....

They began together, she and Louise, to drop the yellow batter into the fat, while Clay and the boys turned the freezer by turns. Louise and Winona had become so excited about their dinner by this time that a mere fritter-sauce was nothing. They made one, it seemed to them afterwards, looking back, without knowing how they did it, and it was very good at that.

"Oysters, soup, fish, salad," muttered Winona for the twentieth time. "I believe everything's ready but the cream, and that must be almost finished. Boys!" she called out through the back door, "will you please go and deck yourselves for the feast? Wear your tuxedos, please. We're going to keep up the Merriam reputation for hospitality, or die in the attempt!"

"All right-just wait till we pack it," Tom called back.

But she saw that they had separated in quest of their evening clothes before she left. Tom had just acquired his first set, and wasn't particularly fond of them. But he put them on meekly, just the same.

"We'd better dress, too," said Louise. "I'll run over home and slip some things in a suitcase, and be right back again."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX