?"

"Please do not wait for me. I shall not be done here for some little
time. The coffee isn't ground yet. What part of the stove do you require
for your custard?"

"The oven, of course. Don't you know how to make custard?"

"Oh, yes." Harriet turned her face from her companion, apparently to
avoid the smoke, but in reality that Margery might not observe her
laughter. "Help yourself to the oven."

Margery groped about underneath the oil stove, burned her fingers and
bumped her forehead against the edge of the stove.

"If you please, don't knock the top of the stove off. We are some
distance from another stove," reminded Harriet.

"I--I can't find the oven," wailed Margery.

"Don't you know why?"

"No-o."

"That is strange."

"Where is the oven?"

"There isn't any on this stove. Hadn't you discovered that yet, you
silly?"

"No--oven?" repeated Buster.

"No. No oven."

"Then I've mixed my custard for nothing?"

"I am afraid you have unless you can turn the mixture to some other
purpose."

Margery stared at Harriet in silence, then carefully setting the dish on
the little shelf above the stove she sat down on the floor and burst
into tears.

Harriet left her frying pan, and, taking Buster firmly by an arm, lifted
the girl to her feet and led her out to the after deck.

"Wha--at are you go--oing to do?"

"Bathe your face for you and set you down on the deck to cool off,"
replied Harriet.

"You knew all the time that there wasn't any oven," sobbed Buster.

"Yes, of course I did. So should you have known. I let you go on--"

"Because you are mean," interjected the unhappy Margery.

"No. To teach you to use your eyes. You should learn to be observing.
Didn't you hear us talking about that oven when Jane brought home the
stove?"

"Ye--es. I had forgotten."

"Of course you had. Now get ready for supper. To-morrow I will make an
oven of stones on the shore and you shall make your custard and you
shall have it all to yourself, if you wish, just to punish us for being
so mean to you. Will that satisfy you, Buster?"

"Ye--ye--yes," answered Buster, with three distinct catches in her
voice.

"Come, now, dry your eyes, that's a dear," urged Harriet. "Tommy!"

"Yeth?"

"Will you kindly place the chairs. Supper will be served in the cabin as
soon as the coffee is ready."

Tommy proceeded noisily about her task of putting the chairs in place at
the table. Soon after that Harriet with a dish tow