to do a part of the camp work," declared
Mother Wit. "It all can't be shoved off onto Lizzie."

"Let us arrange about that right here and now," suggested Mrs. Morse.

"Oh, Mrs. Morse!" cried Nell, eagerly. "First of all I vote that Mrs.
Morse is not called upon to do a thing! She's company as well as
chaperon."

"I will make my own bed," said the lady, smiling. "You girls can take
turns sweeping and dusting the cabin, if you like."

"And making the beds and cleaning up our tent," added Laura. "Two at a
time--it won't seem so hard if two work together."

"A good idea," agreed Mrs. Morse.

"But that leaves an odd girl," suggested Jess.

"We'll change about. The odd girl shall help the cook. And one meal a
day--either breakfast, dinner, or supper--we girls must cook, and
Lizzie is going to have nothing to do with that meal."

"Why! _I_ can't cook," wailed Lil again.

"Good time for you to begin to learn, then," Laura said, laughingly.

Some of the other girls looked disturbed at the prospect. "I can make
fudge," observed Nell, honestly, "but I never really tried anything
else, except to make toast and tea for mother when she was ill and the
maid was out."

"Listen to that!" exclaimed the voice of Lizzie Bean, who had been
listening frankly to the dialogue. "An' I been doin' plain cookin' an'
heavy sweepin' and hard scrubbin' ever since I was knee-high to a
toadstool!"

Bobby burst out laughing. "So have I, Lizzie!" she cried. "Only I have
done it for Father Tom and my kid brothers and sisters when Mrs.
Betsey was sick."

Lily Pendleton turned up her nose--literally. "We're going to have
trouble with that girl," she announced to Nellie. "She doesn't know
her place."

But whatever Lizzie knew, or did not know, she did not shirk her share
of the work. She stayed up after everybody else had retired and
washed every pot and pan and plate, and set her bread to rise for
morning, and stirred up a big pitcher of flapjack flour to rise over
night, peeled potatoes to fry, leaving them in cold water so they
would not turn black, and set the long table fresh for breakfast.

When the earliest riser among the girls (who was Laura herself) peeped
into the cooking tent at daybreak, the fire in the stove was already
roaring, and Lizzie had gone down to the shore to wash her face and
hands in the cold water. Laura ran down in her bathing suit.

"What do you think of this place, Lizzie?" she asked the solemn-faced
girl.