Dear me—the hosts of things to be decided during these first weeks of school! But wasn’t it interesting?

There was talk of a new sorority. There was the revelation of some that had existed before, sub rosa. Indeed everything was secret and the way the rules were substantially avoided without breaking the letter of the law was another astonishing feature. Betty Lee did not quite understand that yet. The sorority fever had not struck the little group of her especial friends in their freshman year. There had been some of the girls who were what the rest called “snooty” or “high hat,” the terms in common parlance for a species of snobbery. But as “little freshmen” their assumptions made small impression on their associates of the freshman class.

Prominent juniors had been paying some attention to Lucia Coletti and incidentally to Betty and Mathilde and Carolyn. Peggy and Kathryn seemed to be left out. Nothing had been said so far, but notice had been taken, no doubt. Betty was thoughtful. She had been thrown with Lucia first because she could be of service to her. Now no delicate withdrawal was possible because Lucia, naturally depending upon Betty for much information and liking Betty very much, a fact that Betty did not realize, turned to her for companionship whenever their work made it possible.

Betty saw that her first impression of Lucia had not been entirely correct. To be sure, Lucia had been spoiled, as an independent American girl would view her upon first acquaintance, adding the feeling of rank to that of the superiority of wealth and opportunity. But in some respects Lucia was timid, and Betty had some idea now of how she had dreaded the new environment. Any timidity was hidden, however, behind a reserve which had a little dignity and which Betty told herself was a bit of the Count Coletti.

Then again Lucia would be impulsive and in high spirits with Betty’s friends and tell them little things about her old schools abroad, for she had been in several, owing to the travel of her parents. This was all very interesting and Betty was becoming fond of Lucia, though she was sure that Carolyn, Kathryn, and Peggy would always stand first. But Betty liked “lots of friends.”

How high school affairs were impressing themselves upon Lucia Coletti she did not say and the girls did not ask, though they could see that she was interested. She spoke English very well indeed and made excellent recitations in her different studies. To every one she was uniformly polite, but not even Betty was invited to her confidence, though it must be said that Betty, absorbed in putting through her own work, did not notice it.

Among other things difficult to get started early, the G. A. A. hike was numbered. The heavy work of the opening weeks hindered the teachers who were in charge of athletics. Then Jupiter Pluvius took a hand and there was a week of almost steady rain. But warm days in October with bright sunshine came along and at nearly the end of the month the day was “actually appointed,” said Peggy.

“It’s a shame that we couldn’t have had it when it was so nice and warm,” said Mathilde, who was privately intending to offer Lucia a ride to the spot chosen for the breakfast.

“But it would have been too warm for the hike,” answered Lucia herself, who was a member of the Girls’ Athletic Association by this time and on one of the committees. “I think that I shall enjoy that.”

“Won’t it be too far for you?” asked Mathilde, who was lazy, and only “going in” for the easiest form of athletics she could find, though she was fond of games, which saved the day for her, and she liked the interpretive dancing, in which she was quite graceful.

“Only five miles?” asked Lucia. “Why, we think nothing of that in——”

Lucia broke off, for her mother had warned her not to compare anything to her life abroad. She made an excuse of speaking to Miss Fox, who had this expedition in charge, and moved away from Mathilde quite naturally. Lucia, however, was quite friendly with Mathilde. What girl would not like another who was flatteringly attentive and evidently impressed with her? Moreover, Mathilde was a fair, prettily-dressed girl, attractive enough when she chose to be.

“Listen, Finny,” said Dotty Bradshaw, coming up to Mathilde. “You can be on the soup committee if you like and ride out with us.”

“‘Soup Committee!’ I hope you are not going to have soup for breakfast!”

“Don’t be so literal, Finny. Of course we are not going to have soup or anything like it. Can you cook wieners?”

“I should say not!” Mathilde started away in disgust. “Besides, I want to take the hike and get credit for it.”

“Haw, haw, haw,” said Dotty in low tones to her friend Selma, who knew Mathilde almost as well as Dotty did. “When I get outdoors I shall indulge in ‘laffcher,’ I think. But wouldn’t I have been sold if she had taken me up? It would just about have spoiled the fun the committee is going to have!”

“Dotty, Dotty, Dotty!” reproved Selma; but a smile and dancing eyes showed that she did not blame the irrepressible Dotty too severely.

This took place at a meeting of various committees on the Friday before the breakfast hike. Betty had been persuaded to be on the committee for refreshments, though she, too, would have liked to take the entire hike and earn the points for it. But it would be fun. Kathryn said that any girl who had really done any cooking was capable of bossing the entire affair and if Betty would be chairman of the committee, she would impart all her own valuable knowledge of what to cook and how on picnics.

“Kathryn Allen, I’ve never been to a camp and all you other girls have. I simply can’t be chairman!” This was Betty, in the corner of the big room where the refreshment committee was getting together to discuss arrangements.

“Listen, Betty. The chairman bosses the rest. They do the work!”

Betty laughed. “On that basis, then, Gypsy, I don’t care, but I think one of you ought to be chairman just the same. Will Miss Fox know how much of everything we ought to have?”

“Of course she will. She’s got the names of everybody that signed up to go. I don’t know whether we ought to allow for girls coming at the last minute, or bringing company, or allow the other way for those that think they’ll go and won’t.”

“Always better to have too much, than not enough,” said Betty, thinking of one or two tight squeezes when her mother had had the missionary society and more came than usual.

“Yet that is very wasteful, Betty.”

“Yes, Dotty, it is. I think you ought to be chairman.”

“No, thanks. Some time I’ll tell you how narrowly we escaped having another member on this committee.”

“You are a case, Dotty Bradshaw. What have you been doing now?”

“Nothing much, Kathryn. Somebody call this meeting to order.”

“All right. Betty, you’re chairman.”

“Honestly, I wasn’t named chairman, girl. Ask Miss Fox whom she intended for chairman—please, Gypsy.”

“All right—to settle it.”

Kathryn dashed across the room, stopping behind Miss Fox and waiting for an opportunity to speak to her. There was a brief conference and Kathryn returned to tell Betty triumphantly that she was chairman.

“Yes, of course,” returned Betty. “I saw you fix it up with her. Did you tell her that I would be deeply disappointed if I didn’t have the honor?”

“Something like that,” laughed Kathryn. “Now let’s get down to business.”

The morning of the hike was clear and sunny, when the sun finally decided to get up. Fifty girls were up first, getting ready. The “bunch” who hiked were to meet at the school, but the committee on refreshments was to drive with their supplies. Miss Fox had accepted the offer of Kathryn’s brother to drive the Allen car out for them and to help arrange their temporary camp. Lucia Coletti, interested and anxious to help, had begged her uncle for the use of his car. “It will be ready for you to go to business,” she said, “for it is only to take out boxes of food and perhaps a few rugs.”

“Why turn my car into a grocery delivery wagon?” teasingly Mr. Murchison asked Lucia.

“Because the groceries will not deliver the things for us.”

“Very well, then, Lucia, if you can make your peace with the chauffeur.”

“Oh, Horace! He will do anything! But I will tell him to come back immediately.”

“Will there be no one to come back, nothing to bring?”

“Oh, no—no—no, we all hike back, even those who ride out to do the breakfast.”

“I see; and the food will have been disposed of. See, Lucy, sister, how American your daughter is becoming? She talks of hikes and things.”

“I am only part American, Uncle,” said Lucia, soberly and with emphasis. “I am also the daughter of Count Coletti!”

Chauncey Allen, understanding that only Kathryn and Betty would be in their car, asked two of his friends to accompany him. When they appeared at the Allen house Kathryn wanted to know “how come,” as Chauncey reported to Chet Dorrance later on.

“I have to have somebody, don’t I, to keep me in countenance before all those girls. Moreover, I want help in making the fires.”

“We girls are perfectly capable of making the fires.”

“Honestly, Kit, don’t you like it?”

“Yes, I really do, but I don’t know whether it’s proper or not, or whether Miss Fox will like it or not.”

“She knows I’m going to drive, don’t she?”

“Doesn’t she, you mean. Yes. Oh, I suppose it’s all right, if we can get all the things in.”

“Wait till you see us fix ’em!”

Thus Kathryn and Betty had three escorts and a goodly amount of supplies. It was cold riding in the early morning, but the girls wore warm knickers and sweaters and drew over the blankets which the car was furnished. It was a jolly ride. Betty had scarcely seen all summer these boys with whom she had become acquainted at the freshman parties and other meetings of her first year at Lyon High. Kathryn’s brother had been at a boys’ camp. Chet had been away with his mother and brother, Ted, of the romantic disaster. The other boy was “Mickey” Carlin, whom Betty did not know so well; but Mickey was full of fun and contributed his share of life to the occasion.

The five miles were quickly covered by machine and as the spot chosen was a picnic resort on the river, it was not difficult to dispose of the supplies which they had brought. They arrived at about the same time as Miss Fox and more of the committee in two other cars, and while they were unloading, here came the Murchison car and its colored chauffeur in uniform.

Miss Fox was not only not annoyed at the presence of the boys but was glad to accept their services. “We need some camp-boys,” said she laughingly. “It isn’t going to take our hikers so long to cover five miles, though I told them to take their time and see whatever there was to see on the way.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Fox,” said Chauncey with a chuckle. “They’ll wait till they hike back to see things, and believe me they’ll have an appetite for breakfast!”

“All right, Chauncey. I shouldn’t be surprised but you’re right. By the way, you are invited for breakfast with the other boys, and you might just consider yourselves added to the refreshment committee. Yes, girls, all the milk and stuff can be carried to those picnic tables under the shelter house. We’ll mix the cocoa there and open up the buns. Careful to wipe off the tables and put papers under everything, girls. If we eat our peck o’ dirt we’ll do it without germs, I hope.”

Pans, stacks of buns, paper plates, pickles (so appropriate for a breakfast, Dotty said), eggs to be scrambled, bacon to be cooked, and great sacks of apples and bananas were sorted and arranged under the direction of Betty, who sprang to the fore when she saw that Miss Fox was going to leave it to her. Betty had learned that summer that orderly arrangement was half the battle in getting a meal. Quickly, from her little note-book, in which she had carefully written the names of the committee assigned to the various tasks, she told each one her duty and divided the supplies accordingly. Fun was held in abeyance for a little, till things were fairly started. Oh, it would work out all right, Betty told herself. The girls would select each a plate and visit “each pot and pan,” in due order.

The sun was up and it grew hot near the fires, but sweaters could be thrown aside. The cooks were adorned with a pointed head-dress of white with G. A. A. in blue letters printed upon it. Dotty called it the G. A. A. crown and fastened one around Betty’s locks, saying that she was chief cook and bottle-washer and must have one whether she really cooked or not.

“I’m floor-walker, Dotty, but I’m going to oversee the scrambled egg business, because if we have ’em at all they want to be good. I’ve practiced at home several days under Mother, so I’m going to do the mixing up. Gracious, did we bring the salt!”

For a minute Betty looked blank, while Dotty consolingly remarked that the bacon would be salty enough anyhow. But the salt was discovered in one of the cars, a whole container of it, and Betty’s moment of panic was over. This was to be a real breakfast, Dotty declared, and several little squirrels dashing up and down the trees nearby were doubtless hoping that they would be invited.