We eat very well at Squirrel Lake.

 

Before this evening, I might have considered it superfluous to make a statement of that sort; after all, there are three of us present who cook fairly well, and we haven’t skipped one meal yet. We have even done very tastily without things like beefsteak and other meat – in fact, without many other foods because of this thing called ‘shortage.’ We are all apt to worry about gaining unsightly lumps in this place or that, and some of us, Margot in particular, are devotees of strenuous activity to keep poundage at a norm. Personally, I would prefer being lazy and eating less, but I, too, can see the delight afforded by really good meals.

 

Occasionally we cooks decide to sit down on the job. We don’t get pay for overtime but neither do we get docked for playing hooky. So for the sake of our morale, we give ourselves a change by taking the crew and ‘eating out’ on rare occasions.

 

Tonight was one of these. It was a hot day, not conducive to getting chummy with the cookstove, and we were at the end of our supplies and looking forward to only macaroni and cheese for supper. It being Nancy’s eleventh birthday, a dinner of macaroni and cheese – even followed by Frieda’s cake, which the Miners had brought – did not seem very special. Someone happily thought of eating out, and on one put up any argument in spite of the gasoline shortage.

 

I said it was a hot day. Hot days usually mean two swimming periods instead of one. So we had a long morning swim, lunch and naps and chores and one thing and another, then a second long swim in the afternoon. The water was wonderful and the mosquitoes were so greedy for us that we took pains to spend the whole swimming time actually swimming, protecting ourselves under cover of the water. Even timid Merrily descended from her inner tube and got in the water up to her chin. She let me take her far out from shore and gedunk her up and down. She did more real swimming that in all the other swimming periods we’ve had in our three weeks up here.

 

Nancy, the birthday child, was outdoing herself in glee over the fact that it was ‘good swimming weather’ on her birthday. Little Al was working hard because of the thrill of being able to swim for the first time. Margot was working Margie out in the same way that I was doing with Merrily – to keep the mosquitoes off he. Because the day was so hot and we had no dinner to cook, we stayed in the water and more happily than usual. Then we dried ourselves off and got into our glad rags in order to enjoy more confidently our special spree.

 

Everything was finally in order and we loaded into the car, the three spreeing cooks in front and the crew in the back. Our destination was the Kelly Diner in Woodruff because it has good pir and we have had some good times there. We drove up to a deserted, blind-pulled Diner with the pencilled sign on the door: “Closed to Redecorate.”

 

Our hunger began immediately, especially the hunger of the crew.

 

“Why is it closed?” “What will we do?” “Do we have to go home?” “I’m hungry!” “Let’s go to Jansen’s!” “No, you need to reserve that first.” “Let’s go to Shrimp’s!” “No, Shrimps is a night club.” “I wanna go to Shrimp’s!” “Mommy made a mistake about Shrimps, we won’t go there.” “I wanna go to Shrimp’s and see the animals in the museum!” “You’ve already seen them.”

 

It was finally suggested that Efflin’s would be nice and by the time it was decided, we were there. We parked, got out, and went in. Efflin’s was nice. Clean and pleasant, with apple butter on the tables and an unassuming little bar at the front. There was a big table for eight in the middle, and, being seven, we spread around it. Granny, as usual, was too popular – it is a crime that Grannies have only two sides when four grandchildren are present. But we finally got arranged with the birthday girl at the head of the table.

 

Margot and Gran and I, having noted the unassuming little bar, ordered Manhattans because we haven’t the wherewithal at the cottage to mix them (our specialty being Martinis). We drank to Nancy in honor of her eleventh birthday and she glowed with pleasure. But her tomato juice did not fill the bill, and she also had the honor of getting my cherry, which she promptly spit out. This was fortunate, for immediately she got mine, there was a loud demand for cherries from the rest of the crew. It subsided as her cherry hit the plate and she made it volubly clear that this was the worst cherry she ever encountered.

 

We could have corned beef and cabbage, the menu said, and an omelet for Merrily, who is partial to eggs. Nancy had to be different and chose spaghetti. We swallowed our tomato juice and started on the homemade bread and apple butter and cabbage slaw at out places. The dinners arrived but the demand for bread and apple butter kept up. With omelet in her mouth, Merrily demanded more apple butter. Spaghetti hanging from her lips, Nancy spread more bread. Margie got the apple butter in a corner and refused to give it up, bolting cabbage slaw the whole time and clutching her piece of bread tightly in her little fist. “Take it easy, Alfred!” “Please pass the slaw.” “May I have some more apple butter?” “We must get some apple butter to have at home.” “Margie, give Nancy that apple butter.” “Have you seen it in the stores?” “I hadn’t noticed.”

 

Merrily came around the table with her mouth full inside and out. Tugging at my slack suit, she said, “I want to be excused.”

 

“Where are you going?”

“Well...”

 

“Goodness, I’ll take you.”

 

“I’ll go too,” said the birthday child. The three of us left. When we returned, everyone was still doing the same thing and the apple butter had been replenished from the kitchen. Margie looked at Merrily.

 

“Excuse me, Mommy,” she said. Margot raised her eyes to heaven and reluctantly left her remaining bite of corned beef and cabbage.

 

“Al, do you want to come?”

 

“No.”

 

“Now, look, if you don’t come now you can’t go later.”

 

“All right. I’ll come.” When they returned, almost all the food except what remained on their plates was gone. They cleaned that up.

 

“Mmmmm. Now coffee!,” I said. “For dessert, jello or apricot pie.” The nice tall girl who had been seeing to us nodded. “Jello for the kids, pie for us,” Gran and Margot and I chorused. It came And we ate it all.

 

“I want a piece of pie,” said Al. The girl who saw to us heard him.

 

“He can have pie, too.” she said. Margot looked at Al. It was excellent pie.

 

“All right,” she said. He got his piece.

 

“I want a piece of pie too,” said Margie.

 

“We’d better go now,” said Margot as Al spilled apricots on both sides of his plate and then managed to scrape them up.

 

“See, Margie, Al’s all through.” He was. We dickered over th bill and finally got the correct amount collected.

 

“They certainly have wonderful appetites,” said the nice girl who saw to us, smiling at them. “They always do,” we told her, sorry that they had seemed so... sort of underfed, especially about the apple butter.

 

“They always do, certainly,” we said again. We left. The ride home was not long. It was not long enough to digest a dinner, but the first thing to meet our eyes on our return was the birthday cake that Frieda had baked for Mr. Miner to bring over to Nancy when they called.

 

“I will cut the cake,” said the birthday child. I thought of all that spaghetti, etc., ad infinitum, and said, “No, later.” Nancy’s face fell. The faces of the whole crew fell. Even Al’s.

 

“All right,” I said, mentally deciding to take care of them no matter how sick they got.

 

Gran and Margot and I lined up the rockers on the porch, sighing, and Nancy cut big wedges of birthday cake and the crew lined up in the swing to eat. They swung gently and ate happily. The sun set in peachy gold on the water and got pink and purple as it disappeared. The mosquitoes were at bay outside the porch screens. I thought, “In a way, those mosquitoes are responsible for our hugely successful dinner. They kept us swimming and we ate that much more. Tomorrow we’ll have to swim again hard in order to get ahead of the dinner. Ah me.

 

 Aloud I said, “Good dinner.”

 

“Very good,” Gran and Margot agreed, and we all thought back to the corned beef.

 

“I want another piece of cake!” said Al.

 

“Me too!” said Margie.

 

“Bedtime, kids,” said Margot. They went off down the hall to bed.