Page:The Eight-Oared Victors.djvu/170

158 in a story book—a bit that is not original by any means.

"Well, thank our lucky stars, we don't have to grind away in the boat to-day!" exclaimed Sid one morning, as he got up ahead of the others, for it was his return to prepare breakfast.

"That's right," called Tom, in a sleepy voice from his cot, as he turned over luxuriously amid the scanty coverings, for the night had been warm. "I vote we get the launch in running order, if that's possible, and take the girls off for a picnic."

"Second the motion," exclaimed Sid, "with the amendment that the girls provide, and put up, the lunch."

"We'll pay for it, if they put it up," said Frank.

"That's better," remarked Phil. "I'll tip Sis off, and I guess they'll do it."

Behold then, a little later, the eight young persons, lively and gay, in the wheezy and uncertain launch, voyaging over the lake toward a distant dell of which they knew, on the mainland, where they proposed to picnic for the day.

They ate the lunch which the girls had put up in dainty fashion, sitting on a broad, flat rock near the edge of the lake, with the wind rustling in the trees overhead, and the birds flitting here and there.

"Isn't it glorious here?" mused Sid.