Instantly following the laugh, Jane’s head was thrust through the tent opening.  The head was in disorder, for Jane had found no time to attend to her hair.  She had been working, which meant that she had been accomplishing things, for Jane was a host in herself when it came to work.

“Excuse the condition of my crowning glory, darlin’s, but I couldn’t wait to comb it.  I have been sent to tell you that the grease is on the bacon and the potatoes are popping open in the hot ashes of the cook fire.  We’re going to cut off the tops of them, dig out a tunnel and fill the tunnel with butter.  Um, um!  Now, what do you think of that?”

In a twinkling Tommy was out of bed and gleefully hurrying into her clothes.

“I thought it would interest you, darlin’,” chuckled Jane.

“You dress as if you were going to a fire,” declared Harriet, with a good-natured laugh.

“She is,” answered Crazy Jane; “the camp fire—­the cook fire, I should say.”

Tommy, during this dialogue, had not uttered a word.  Finally, having got into her clothes to her satisfaction, she darted from the tent, spinning Jane half-way around as she dashed past her, the little girl twisting her hair into a hard knot as she ran.

“I want a potato with a hole in it,” she shouted the moment she came in sight of the cook fire.  Some one snatched a hot tuber from the ashes and tossed it to her.  Tommy caught the potato, but dropped it instantly and began cooling her fingers.  “I want one with a hole in it,” she insisted.

“Bring it here and you shall have it,” replied Miss Elting.  Instead of picking up the potato and carrying it, Tommy propelled it along with the toe of her boot.  She did not propose to burn her fingers again.  The guardian gouged out a hole to the bottom, filling the hole with butter, Tommy’s eyes growing larger and larger.  Then she began to eat the potato with great relish, after having seasoned it with salt and pepper.  This was no time for words, nor were any uttered until nothing but the blackened skin of the potato was left.

“Thave me!” gasped Tommy.  “Pleathe, may I have another?”

“Don’t you think it would be well to wait for supper?” suggested Miss Elting.  “In your greediness you have forgotten the others.”

“I beg your pardon, but I wath tho hungry!  If you had been a fithh thwimming in the ocean all night you, too, would have an appetite.  How would you like to be a fithh, Mith Livingthton?”

“I am quite content to be a mere human being,” was the Chief Guardian’s laughing reply.  “Were you afraid when you found yourself out in the ocean all alone?”

“Afraid?  I—­I gueth I didn’t think about that.  I wath too buthy trying to keep from filling up with thalt water.  Did you ever drink any of that water, Mith Livingthton?”

“Hardly.”

“Then take the advice of a fithh, and don’t.”

All hands were called to supper, thus putting an end to the conversation, which had been heartily enjoyed by Mrs. Livingston.  Tommy always was a source of amusement to her.  She appreciated the active mind and the keen, if sometimes rude, retorts and ready answers of the little lisping girl.