Page:Baum--Tamawaca folks.djvu/161

Rh ized a "surprise party" on George B. Still (another lake-fronter) one evening. A band of some twenty people assembled at the cottage of a neighbor, all carrying baskets laden with frosted bricks in place of cake, beer-bottles filled with clear spring water but still bearing Budweiser labels, mud-pies with nicely browned crusts, turnips fried to resemble saratoga chips and other preposterous donations of a similar character.

Then they stole silently to George's cottage, and when he opened the door in answer to their timid knock burst into a sudden flood of merriment that never subsided until after midnight.

The Stills were as pleased as could be, but no one paid much attention to them. Somebody thumped the piano while everybody else danced a two-step regardless of interfering toes or furniture.

Little Drybug, a dapper man who weighed about seventy-six pounds