“Oh, yes, I know the knots,” she replied.  “But you just ought to see me try to light my fire in the open, with two matches!  More like two boxes I guess.”

“And my simple dish,” contributed Mildred Clark, who now, with her companions, had joined the group, and all were merrily making their way to the meeting room.  “I thought I would select the very simplest of the simple, and I took pork and beans.”

“You did!” exclaimed a chorus.

“Yes, and it is a real wonder I am here.  I thought I never would get out of that old hot kitchen.  Martha told me I should have taken Irish stew but—­”

“But you preferred the Boston Bake,” interrupted Mable Blake.

“Of course Mildred wouldn’t have anything to do with the Irish!” teased Madaline, who was well known to have “leanings” in that direction.

“Indeed, I will never scorn the Celts again!” sighed Mildred, “for I had to brown the pork and it burned.  I had to soak the beans all night and they swelled up so I had to scoop them up on a dust pan next morning.  I didn’t use those, of course,” as the girls’ looks protested, “I had enough on the floor to plant a garden and I really did plant them.  Then, the big pan full I baked, and it took all day.  Did you ever know plain pork and beans constituted an exact science in the preparation for the table?  Why didn’t I try milk toast, and get finished in time for your ball game, girls?  Don’t you think I am a real hero of the simple dish-pork and beans?”

“We surely do, Millie, and I hope you get a perfect mark for all that work,” spoke up Grace.  “My real trouble came in making a bed.  That sounds so easy, but our beds have lace covers, and no sooner would I get one end straight, than the other would be all draped up in little cascades.  Don’t you all just hate to make beds?”

“Oh, no, I love to do it,” declared Mabel.  “But just let me show you my flag.  Doesn’t it look like a crazy quilt design?” and from her scout manual she unfolded a page of paper, with the required American flag drawn and colored in crayons, and not really a poor illustration of her beloved Old Glory.

“Well, you have all had your troubles, but I think mine was by far the most complicated and exasperating,” Cleo declared, coherent conversation being made quite possible by the double file in which the girls grouped themselves, as they walked along.  “You should just see me take my measurements.  Of course I forgot to follow instructions and ‘see card at headquarters,’ as the little blue book directs.”

“My sakes!” exclaimed Grace.  “Do we have to have our measurements tonight?”

“We must answer all test questions and that is one of them,” replied Cleo.  “But when I got my height by using a pencil over my head on a door-post, of course we all do that, I had a set of cords all knotted up at points to show waist, chest, arm, etc., and our pet kitten, Cadusolus, made a tackle for the whole bunch, and before I could recover them she had taken her own measures on my marked strings.  I won’t be sure of them now, for I had to finish them in a big hurry after that.”