Grace Harlowes Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers | Page 5

party, and to the discoverers should belong
the spoils," declared Hippy.
Tom shook his head.
"No, no," protested Grace. "It is fine of you to make the offer, but I
could not permit it for myself, and I am positive that the other girls will
not even listen to it."
"You see, Tom, how they spurn me. The instant I get a brilliant thought
they promptly duck it in ice water," complained Hippy.
"We will do this much, we will be your guests when we reach your
domains, and, if you insist on being liberal, you may cook our meals
for us three times a day. However, so far as sharing in your good
fortune is concerned, we can do so only in our hearts," decided Grace
with emphasis.
Grace immediately acquainted her companions with Hippy's unselfish
offer to share with them whatever good fortune might be in store for
him in the Kentucky Mountains.
"That is splendid of Hippy," declared Anne, smiling and nodding.
"I tell him, however, that when we are his guests in the Hippy
Mountains, he can give us three good meals a day, cooked by his own
fair hands, but that is all," announced Grace. "Do I echo your
sentiments, girls?"
They said she did. That is, all except Emma Dean agreed with Grace
Harlowe. Emma warned them that Hippy had better not offer her a
share in anything unless he were prepared in his heart to lose it.
"Very good then, I won't. I withdraw the offer," declared Hippy airily.
"I will agree to cook a meal for you over on the range. Mark the words,
'cook a meal for you on the range!' Ha-ha. How is that? I reckon I can

stand it to cook a meal for you if you can stand it to eat it. Speaking of
food reminds me that I smell bacon frying, so suppose we fall to and
devour it, provided it is fit to eat. Personally I am not overloaded with
confidence in Laundry's ability as a chef."
Night had settled over the mountains when they finally sat down on the
ground by the campfire to eat their supper, the first warm meal they had
had since starting out on their journey at daylight that morning.
Washington had done very well with his first meal, considering that he
so recently had been kicked out of camp by an irate mule, and the
Overland girls admitted that the little colored boy did know how to
cook after all, for the bacon, the coffee, and the potatoes, baked in their
jackets in hot ashes, were delicious.
The girls, however, had already found it necessary to read Wash a
lecture on the beauties of neatness and cleanliness, it having been
discovered that, in this direction, Wash-Wash was not all that his
nickname implied.
Wash, having been given permission, retired to the edge of the laurel to
resume his harmonica exercise. Lying back in the shadows, only the
whites of his eyes and the reflection of the light from the campfire on
teeth and harmonica were visible to the Overlanders, giving merely a
suggestion of a human countenance.
"A nature sketch in black and white," observed Anne Nesbit. "I should
think he would weary of blowing that thing so much. He has been
doing so all day long."
"Blowing? You are wrong," corrected Hippy. "A harmonica is played
with a grunt and a sigh. I could make a brand new pun on that if I
wanted to, but--"
"Don't you dare," begged Miss Briggs. "I am long-suffering, but I
cannot tolerate the ancient quality of your puns."
"Most spinsters are that way," retorted Lieutenant Wingate. "Tom, have

you any orders for me? I suppose I shall have to act as guardian for
your wife while you are absent from this outfit. If you have half as
difficult a time managing her as I do, I don't envy you your lot. The
only bright spot in the situation is that I have to put up with her
peculiarities for the duration of this journey only. You are in for life."
"Hippy, I am ashamed of you," rebuked Nora Wingate.
"Thank you. You see, Tom, what a helpmate my little Nora is. I don't
have to feel ashamed of any act of mine; I don't have to feel
embarrassed after I have put my foot in it, nor anything. Nora does all
of that for me. Really, Tom, you ought to train Grace to be ashamed for
you for your shortcomings, or to be embarrassed for you. You have no
idea what a lot of bother over nothing it relieves a fellow of."
"Nora Wingate is a very busy woman," observed Emma, whereat there
was a laugh at Hippy's expense.
"Tom Gray's wife doesn't have