And, indeed, Pat _was_ to find one of the boys more than useful before the picnic was over!
A few hours' well-organized activity put everything in readiness for the house-party. Garrett Lee appointed himself chief of the commissary and flew tirelessly between his home and the grocery store until he had assembled enough cans of soup, bacon, weiners and other eatables peculiar to scouts' appetites to feed a regiment! Sheila and Mrs. Lee, after a brief consultation, added to the equipment many little necessities that Garrett in his masculine ignorance had overlooked. Two of the other girls collected the necessary kitchen utensils and a simple first-aid kit. Loaded down with all these and with extra blankets and the bobs, the boys and Mrs. Lee went on out to Hill-top a day in advance to open the house and prepare it for the others.
Pat, inspired by the activities of the others and not having been pressed into troop service, busied herself by packing and repacking almost every garment that she and Renée possessed!
"Patsy, dear, you _won't_ need all those things," Aunt Pen had laughed, pointing to the bulging suitcase.
Pat admitted this. "Well, it's fun packing 'em and I just had to do something," she confessed.
The next day eight merry girls boarded the funny little train that puffed off slowly toward the hills. To Renée the picnic was the most exciting of adventures! She had seen little snow--never in her life anything like the great piles, snowy white, through which the train was snorting its way! She had never had on a pair of skates in her life, nor had she ever coasted down a hill! And as Peggy told of Garrett's new bob, "Madcap," and its lightning speed, she shivered with an ecstasy of fear and wondered--if they made her ride on it--what it would feel like to fly over the snow and whether she might not just die outright of terror!
The boys, in rollicking spirits and muffled to the tips of their noses, met them at the station; together they trudged back through the snow to the farmhouse. Logs were crackling merrily in the big fireplaces and a table had been spread ready for an early supper. The girls fell to unpacking the equipment and spreading their blankets over the funny old beds and the cots which had been brought up from the nearby camp. Sheila, who had been appointed officer-in-charge, promptly, in accordance with the custom of scout outings, posted in a conspicuous place, the "standing rules."