“Pshaw! We Go-Aheads must not be afraid of a little storm—”
Wyn’s voice was drowned in the clap of thunder which accompanied an awful flash of lightning. With both came a splintering crash, the tent seemed to rock, and for a moment its interior was vividly illuminated by the electric bolt. The lightning had struck near at hand.
Both Wyn and Mrs. Havel–the bravest of the seven gathered in the big tent–were frightened by this awful shock. The other girls clung to them, Mina and Grace sobbing aloud.
“I–I feel as though that bolt fairly seared my eyeballs,” groaned Frank Cameron. “Oh, dear! Here’s another!”
But this flash was not so severe. The girls peered out of the slit in the front of the tent and screamed again in alarm. The rain had passed for the moment. There, not many rods away, stood an old, half-dead oak with its top all ablaze.
“That is where the lightning struck,” cried Wyn.
“It is fortunate our tent was no nearer to that side of the plateau,” observed Mrs. Havel.
Then the rain commenced again, and the thudding on the canvas drowned out their voices for a time.
Somehow Wyn managed to get supper. The thunder and lightning gradually subsided; but foran hour the rain came in intermittent dashes and it was nine o’clock before they could venture forth into the cool, damp air.
They had eaten their simple meal and set up the sleeping cots (which were likewise of canvas) before that. There was a flooring of matched planks to be laid, too; but the rain had wet them and the girls would have to wait for to-morrow’s sun to dry them.
“Oh! I don’t believe living under canvas is going to be half so nice as we thought,” complained Mina. “I neverdidthink about its storming.”
“A bad beginning makes a good ending,” quoted Mrs. Havel, brightly. “This is only for one night.”
“Excuse me! I don’t want another like it, Auntie,” declared her niece.
They could have no lamp to see to go to bed by, save Wyn’s pocket electric flash.
“And it’s so plaguey awkward!” cried Frankie. “Here one of us has to hold the snapper shut so the others can see. Here, Mina! I’ve played Goddess of Liberty long enough;youhold the lamp awhile.”
Wyn slung a line from one end of the tent to the other, and on this they hung their clothes. All the girls were provided with warm pajamasas being safer night garments under canvas than the muslin robes they wore at home.
“Idofeel so funny,” cried Percy, hopping into her own nest. “I can’t curl my toes up in my nightgown–they stick right out at the bottom of these trousers!”
“And doesn’t the grass tickle your feet?” cried Frank, dancing about between the cots. “My, my! thisiscamping out in real earnest. O-o-o! Here’s a trickle of water running under the side of the tent, Wyn.”
“You can thank your stars it isn’t running through a hole in the tent right upon your heads,” responded the captain. “Do get into bed, Frank.”
Even Frank was quiet at last. The day had been a strenuous one. The muttering thunder in the distance lulled them to sleep. Soon the big white tent upon the knoll by the lake was silent save for the soft breathing of the girls and their chaperone.
And–odd as it may seem, considering the strangeness of their surroundings–all the girls slept soundly through the night. It was Wyn Mallory herself who first opened her eyes and knew, by the light outside, that it must be near sunrise.
Up she popped, stepping lightly over the coldgrass so as not to arouse her mates and Mrs. Havel, and reached the opening. She peered through. To the east the horizon was aglow with melting shades of pink, amber, turquoise and rose. The sun was coming!
Wyn snapped open the flap and ran out to welcome His Majesty. Then, however, she remembered that she was in pajamas, and glanced around swiftly to see if she was observed.
Not a soul was in sight. At that moment the first chorus of the feathered choir that welcomes the day in the wilds, had ceased. Silence had fallen upon the forest and upon the lake.
Only the lap, lap, lap of the little waves upon the shore was audible. The wind did not stir the tree branches. There was a little chill in the air after the storm, and the ground was saturated.
Wyn was doubtful about that “early morning plunge” in the lake that she had heard the boys talk about, and which she had secretly determined to emulate. But the boys’ camp was at the far end of Gannet Island and she could not see it at all. She wondered if Dave and his friends would plunge into that awfully cold-looking water on this chilly morning?
To assure herself that the waterwascold she ran down to where the canoes lay and poked onebig toe into the edge of the pool. Ouch! it was just like ice!
“No, no!” whispered Wyn, and scuttled up the bank again, hugging herself tight in both arms to counteract the chill.
But she couldn’t go back to bed. It was too beautiful a morning. And all the others were sleeping soundly.
Wyn decided that she would not awaken them. But she slipped inside, selected her own clothing, and in ten minutes was dressed. Then she ran down to the pool again, palmed the water all over her face, rubbing her cheeks and forehead and ears till they tingled, and then wiped dry upon the towel she had brought with her.
Another five minutes and her hair was braided Indian fashion, and tied neatly. Then the sun popped up–broadly agrin and with the promise in his red countenance of a very warm day.
“Good-morning, Mr. Sun!” quoth Wyn, dancing a little dance of her own invention upon the summit of the green knoll that overhung the lake before the tent. “I hope you give us a fine day, and that we all enjoy it.”
With a final pirouette she ran back to the tent. Still Mrs. Havel and the others slept.
“What lazy folk!” she told them, in a whisper, and then caught up a six-quart pail and ranback through the open place and found the wood road that Polly had written her about.
She knew that to her left lay the way to the landing where Mr. Jarley kept his boats, and where their stores were under cover in a shed. But breakfast was the first consideration, and in the other direction lay Windmill Farm, at which Polly told her she had arranged for the Go-Aheads to get milk, fresh eggs, and garden vegetables.
So Wyn tripped along this right hand extension of the wood path and, within half an hour, came out of the forest upon the edge of the cleared farm. Before her lay sloping fields up, up, up to a high knoll, on the top of which stood a windmill, painted red.
The long arms of the mill, canvas-covered, rose much higher in the air than the gilt vane that glistened on the very peak of the roof. The rising sun shone full upon the windmill and made it a brilliant spot of color against the blue sky; but the wind was still and the sails did not cause the arms to revolve.
Just below the mill, upon the leisurely slope of the knoll, was set the white-painted farmhouse, with well-kept stables and out-buildings and poultry yards and piggery at the rear.
“What a pretty spot!” cried Wyn, aloud.“And the woods are so thick between it and the lake that one would never know it was here.”
She hurried on, for she knew by the smoke rising from the house chimney and the bustle of sound from the barnyard that the farmer and his family were astir.
Before she reached the side porch a number of cows, one with a bell on her neck leading the herd, filed out through the side yard and took a lane for the distant pasture. Horses neighed for their breakfasts, the pigs squealed in their sties and there was a pretty young woman singing at the well curb as she drew a great, splashing bucket of water.
“Oh! you’re one of the girls Polly Jarley told us were coming to the lake to camp?” said the farmer’s wife, graciously. “And did you get here in the storm last night? How do you all like it?”
“I can only answer for myself,” declared Wyn, laughing. “They were all asleep when I came away. But I guess if we have nothing worse to trouble us than that shower we shall get along all right.”
“You’re a plucky girl–for a city one,” said the woman. “Now, do you want milk and eggs?”
Wyn told her what she wanted, and paid forthe things. Then she started back to camp, laden with the brimming milk pail and a basket which the farmer’s wife had let her have.
The sun was now mounting swiftly in his course across the sky. Faintly she heard the sawmill at the Forge blowing a whistle to call the hands, and knew that it was six o’clock. She hurried her steps and reached the opening where the tent was pitched just as the first sleepy Go-Ahead was creeping out to see what manner of day it might be.
“For goodness’ sake, Wyn Mallory!” cried this yawning nymph in blue pajamas. “Have you been up all night?”
“Aren’t you cute in those things, Percy?” returned Wyn. “You look just like a doll in a store window. Come on and dress. It’s time you were all up. Why! the day will be gone before you know it.”
“Oh–ow–ouch!” yawned Percy, and then jumped quickly through the opening of the tent because Grace Hedges pushed her.
“Why! the sun’s up!” cried the big girl. “Why! and there’s Wyn with milk–and eggs–and pretty red radishes–andpeas. Mercy me! Look at all the things in this basket. Whose garden have you been robbing, Wyn?”
“Come on!” commanded the captain of theGo-Ahead Club. “I brought a bag of meal inmycanoe. And there is salt, and aluminum bowls, and spoons. We can make a good breakfast of eggs and mush. Hurry up, all you lazy folk, and help get breakfast.”
“O-o-o! isn’t the grass cold!” exclaimed one girl who had just stepped out from between woolen blankets.
“I–I feel as though I were dressing outdoors,” gasped another, with chattering teeth. “D-don’t you suppose anybody can see through this tent?”
“Nonsense, goosey!” ejaculated Frank. “Hurry up and get into your clothes. You take up more room than an elephant.”
“Did you ever share a dressing room with an elephant, Frank?” demanded Bess.
“Not before,” returned the thin girl, grimly. “But I am preparing for that experience when I try to dress in the same tent with Gracie.”
But they were all eager to get outside when they sniffed the smoke of the campfire, and, a little later, the odor of eggs “frying in the pan.” Despite the saturated condition of most of the underbrush Wyn knew where to get dry wood for fuel, Dave had long ago taught her that bit of woodcraft.
With a small camp hatchet she had attackedthe under branches of the spruce and low pine trees, and soon had a good heap of these dead sticks near the tent. She turned over a flat stone that lay near by for a hearth. Before the other girls and Mrs. Havel were dressed and had washed their faces at the lakeside, Captain Wyn was stirring mush in a kettle and frying eggs in pork fat in a big aluminum pan.
“Sunny side up; or with a veil of brown drawn over their beautiful faces, Frankie?” asked Wyn, referring to the sizzling eggs. “How do you like ’em?”
“I like ’em on toast–‘Adam and Eve on a raft’ Brother Ed calls ’em. And when he wants ’em scrambled he says, ‘Wreck ’em!’”
“You’ll get no toast this morning,” declared Wyn. “You’ll be satisfied with crackers–or go without.”
“Cruel lady!” quoth Frank. “I expect I’ll have to accept my yoke of eggs—”
“Only theyolkof the eggs, Frank?”
“No, I mean the pair I want,” laughed Frankie. “And I’ll take ’em without the toast and–‘sunny side up.’”
“Good! I can’t turn an egg without breaking it–never could. Now, girls! bring your plates. I’ll flop a pair of eggs onto each plate. There’s crackers in the box. Hand around your bowls.The cornmeal mush is nice, and there is lovely milk and sugar if you want it. For ‘them that likes’ there is coffee.”
“M-m-m! Doesn’t it smell good?” cried Grace, as the party came trooping to the fire with their kits.
“I–I thought I’d miss the sweet butter,” said Bess, sitting down cross-legged on the already dry grass. “But somehow I’ve gotsuchan appetite.”
“I hope the boys are having as good a time,” sighed Wyn, sitting back upon her heels and spooning up her mush, flooded with the new milk. “Isn’t this just scrumptious, Mrs. Havel?”
“It is the simple life,” replied that lady, smiling. “Plenty of fresh air, no frills, plain food–that ought to do much for you girls this summer. I am sure if you can endure plain food and simple living for these several weeks before us, you will all be improved in both health and mind.”
This could be no day of leisure for the Go-Ahead Club. To get settled in camp was the first task–and that no small one.
There was the plank flooring to be laid in the big tent, the cook-tent to be erected, and the floor laid in that. There was a sheet-iron stove to erect, with a smoke pipe to the outside, and an asbestos “blanket” to wrap around the pipe to keep the canvas of the tent-top from scorching.
There were the swinging shelves to put up, fastened to the ridge-pole of the cook-tent, on which certain supplies could be kept out of the reach of the wood mice and other small vermin. Indeed, there were a dozen and one things of moment to see about, beside bringing over to the camp a selection of the stores–and their extra clothes–from John Jarley’s shack by the boat landing.
Wyn was a competent girl and knew something about using a hammer and a saw. The flooring planks for both tents had been assembled atDenton, and were numbered; but after they got the sleepers laid Wyn realized that she and her mates had tackled more of a task than they had expected.
“And the boys will be just as busy as they can be to-day,” she said to the other girls. “It’s a wonder if everything they owned didn’t get soaked last evening.
“Now, we can’t depend upon the Busters to give us any assistance just now. Doubt if we see ‘hide nor hair’ of them to-day. But we need somebody to make these floors properly. There! Bess has stuck a splinter into her hand already.”
“Plague take the old board!” snapped Bess, dropping it and sucking on a ragged little wound in her hand.
“You see,” Wyn said, quickly. “I’m going to get some help. Anybody want to walk over to Jarley’s with me?”
“Are you going to get that man to come here?” demanded Bess, sharply.
“Don’t see what else there is to do–do you, Bessie?”
“Isn’t there anybody else to help us around here? There must be other squatters.”
“I do not know of any. We chance to know the Jarleys—”
“Not I!” cried Bess, shaking her head. “Idon’t know them–and I won’t know them.”
“All right. You and Grace and Percy take the pails and try for some berries in the woods yonder. I saw some ripe ones this morning. Fresh picked berries will add nicely to our bill-of-fare; isn’t that so, Mrs. Havel?”
“Quite so, my dear,” replied the widow, and buried herself in her book again, for, as she had told the girls, she had not come here to work; they must treat her as a guest.
“Are you going to stop with Mrs. Havel, Mina?” continued Wyn. “Then come along with me, Frank. We’ll go over and see if the Jarleys bite. Bess is afraid they will!”
“She was telling us all about John Jarley,” said Wyn’s chum, as the two left the camp on the green knoll. “Do you suppose he stole that motor boat and the box of silver statuettes?”
“I don’tknowanything about it,” said Wyn, briskly. “But I know that he and Polly are very poor, and with a motor boat and five thousand dollars’ worth of silver, it looks to me as though they would be very foolish to suffer the privations they do. It’s nasty gossip, that’s all it is.”
“Well, Bess says the man stole from her father years ago—”
“I don’t know much aboutthat, either,” interrupted Wynifred. “But I think Bess is overstepping the line of exact truth when she says John Jarley stole from her father. They were doing business together, and Mr. Lavine accused Jarley of ‘selling him out’ in a real estate deal.
“I asked my father about it. Father says the whole business was a little misty, at best. If Jarley did all Lavine said, he merely was guilty of being false to his friend and partner. It is doubtful if he made much out of it. But Lavine talked loudly and long; he had lots of friends even then. The talk and all fairly hounded the Jarleys out of town.
“And now,” said Wyn, warmly, “the Lavines are rich and the Jarleys have always been poor. Mr. Jarley is an exile from his old home and such friends as he had in Denton. It is really a shame, I think–and you’ll say so, too, when you see what a splendid girl Polly is.”
The two girls had followed the edge of the lake toward the landing, instead of taking the path through the wood. Suddenly they came in sight of the float and shack, with the several boats in Mr. Jarley’s keeping.
Back from the shore was a tiny cottage, painted red, its window sash and door striped with yellow. It was a gay little cot, and everything aboutit was as neat and as gaily painted as a Dutch picture.
As Wyn and Frank came down the hill they saw Polly Jarley run out of the house and down to the landing. Her father was busy there at an overturned boat–evidently caulking the seams.
The boatman’s girl did not see her visitors coming; but Wyn and Frank got a good view of her, and the latter exclaimed to Wyn:
“Why! she’s as pretty as a picture! She’s handsome! If she only had on nice clothes she would be a perfect beauty.”
“Wouldn’t she?” returned Wyn, happily. “I think my Polly Jolly is just thedearestlooking creature. Isn’t she brown? And what pretty feet and hands she has!”
Polly wore a very short skirt, patched and stained. Her blouse was open at the throat, so that the soft roundness of the curve of her shoulder was plainly visible.
Out of the open neck of the blouse her deeply tanned throat rose like a bronze column; the roses in her cheeks and on her lips relieved the sun-darkened skin. Her hair was in two great plaits and it was evident that she seldom troubled about a hat. She was lithe, graceful as she could be, and bubbling over with good health if not good spirits.
And this was a morning–after the rain–to make even a lachrymose person lively. The smell of all growing things was in the nostrils–the warmth of the sun lapped one about like a mantle–it was a beautiful, beautiful day,–one to be remembered.
Wyn shouted and started running down the hill. Polly heard her, turned to see who it might be who called, and recognizing her friend, set out to meet her quite as eagerly.
“Oh, Miss Wynifred!” cried the boatman’s daughter.
“Polly Jolly! This is Frank Cameron.” She kissed Polly warmly. “How fine you look, Polly! Tell me! will all we girls look as healthy and be as strong as you are, by the autumn? You’re a picture!”
“A pretty shabby one, I fear, Miss Wyn,” protested Polly, yet smiling. “I am in the very oldest clothes I have, for there is much dirty work to be done around here. We have hardly got ready for the summer yet. Father has been so lame.”
“And you must introduce me to your father, Polly,” Wyn said, quickly. “We have something for him to do–if he will be so kind.”
“All you need to do is to say what it is, Wynifred,” responded Polly, warmly. “If either ofus can do anything for you we will only be too glad.”
The three girls walked to the spot where Mr. Jarley was engaged upon his boat. He was not at all the sort of a person whom the girls from town had expected to see. The boatmen and woodsmen who sometimes drifted into Denton were rough characters. This man, after being ten years and more in the woods, savored little of the rough life he had followed.
He was a small man, very neat in his suit of brown overalls, with grizzled hair, a short-cropped gray mustache, and without color in his face save the coat of tan his out-of-door life had given him.
There was a gentle, deprecatory air about him that reminded Wyn strongly of Polly herself. But this manner was almost the only characteristic that father and daughter had in common.
Mr. Jarley was low-spoken, too; he listened quietly and with an air of deference to what Wyn had to propose.
“Surely I will come around and do all I can to aid you, Miss Mallory,” he said. “You shall pick out the stores you think you will need, and we will take a boat around to your camp. Your stores will be perfectly safe here–if you wish to risk them in my care,” he added.
“Of course, sir. And we expect to pay you forkeeping them. If we have a long spell of rainy weather the dampness would be bound to spoil things in our tents.”
“True. This corrugated iron shack will keep the stores dry, and the door has a good padlock,” returned Mr. Jarley. “Now, you young ladies pick out what you wish carried over to the camp and I will soon be at your service.”
“Isn’t he nice?” whispered Wyn to Frank, when Polly had run into the house for something, and Mr. Jarley himself was out of hearing.
“Why! he is a perfect gentleman!” exclaimed Frank. “How can Bess talk as she does about him? I am surprised at her.”
“And these other people about here, too!” declared Wyn, warmly. “What an evil tongue Gossip has! That man–Shelton, is his name?–at the other end of the lake, who has accused Mr. Jarley of stealing his boat and the silver statues, ought to be punished.”
“Well–of course–we don’tknowanything more about the Jarleys than these other people,” observed Frank, doubtfully.
“I judge people by their appearance a good deal, I suppose,” admitted Wyn. “And mother tells me that is a poor way to judge. Just the same, Ifeelthat the Jarleys are being maligned. And I would love to help them.”
“Well! there isn’t much chance to do that unless you can prove that heishonest, after all,” remarked Frank.
“I know it. Everything is going to tell against him unless the lost boat and the images can be found. I wonder where it was sunk? Do you suppose Polly would tell us just where the accident happened?”
“Ask her.”
“I will, if I get a chance,” declared Wyn. “And wouldn’t it be fine if we girls could find the sunken boat and the box belonging to Dr. Shelton, and clear up the whole trouble?”
“Eventhatwould not satisfy Bessie Lavine,” said Frankie, with a little laugh. “You know–Bess is ‘awful sot in her ways.’ When she has made up her mind that a thing is so, you can’t shake it out of her with a charge of dynamite!”
“You never tried the dynamite; did you, Frank?” queried Wyn, smiling.
“No! But I’ve wanted to–at times.”
“Bessie is like her father–obstinate. It is a family trait Yet, once get her turned around–show her that she has been wrong and unfair to anybody–and she can’t do too much for her to prove how sorry she is.”
“That’s right! look how she talked against the boys–especially against Dave Shepard. Andnow you can just wager she won’t be able to do enough for him to show how grateful she is for being pulled out of the water,” laughed Frank.
Mr. Jarley was ready to load the boat for them, and Polly came back with the key to the shack. Polly could not go over to the camp, for both she and her father could not leave the landing at once. Some fishermen might come along at any time to hire a boat. The season was opening now, and after the “lean months” that had gone by, the Jarleys had to be on the watch for every dollar that might come their way.
“It seems an awfully hard life for such a man–and for Polly,” whispered Wyn to her companion. “I’d justloveto have Polly for a member of our club.”
“So would I,” agreed Frank. “She’s just as sweet as she can be. But Bess would go right up in the air!”
“Oh, I know it,” sighed Wyn. “Somehow we have got to make Bessie Lavine see the error of her ways. Oh, dear! why can’t people be nice to each other all the time?”
“Goodness me, Wyn Mallory!” exclaimed Frank. “What do you expect while there still remains ‘original sin’ in the world? That seems to have been left out ofyourconstitution; but most of the rest of us have our share.”
That day the camp upon the hill overlooking Lake Honotonka was completed. Mr. Jarley was very helpful, for beside laying the floors of the two tents, and setting up the stove, he built for the girls an open-air fireplace of flat rocks, dragged up from the shore; set up their plank dining table, cut and set three posts for their clothes-line (for they were to do their own laundry work), dug shallow ditches all around the tents, with a drain to carry off any water that might collect; built an “overlook-seat” at the foot of a big birch which overhung the water, and did countless other little services which most of the Go-Ahead Club appreciated.
Bessie Lavine did not come back from the berrying expedition until Mr. Jarley had gone back to the landing; and of course she hadn’t much to say about the change in the appearance of things. But the other girls were enthusiastic.
“And now we must have a name for the camp,”said Mrs. Havel, as they sat down to the oilcloth-covered table to dinner.
The arrangements for cooking and eating were of the simplest; yet everything was neat. Using oilcloth saved laundry, and using paper napkins was likewise a help. The food was served daintily, if simply, and although all the girls were used to much finer table service at home, the hearty appetites engendered by the pure air of lake and forest made even coarse food taste delicious.
They were all instantly enthusiastic over their chaperone’s suggestion. Half a dozen names were suggested on the spur of the moment; but no particular one met the approval of all the girls, immediately.
“We’ll have to draw lots,” suggested Mina.
“No! let’s each write down the best names we can think of, and then vote on them,” said Bess.
“Goody!” cried Frank. “We must have a name that fits, but is pretty and not too ‘hifalutin’,’ as my grandmother would say.”
“Naming the camp is all very well, girls,” said Wyn, seriously, rapping on the table for order. “But there are more important things to decide. The work of the camp is to be properly apportioned—”
“Oh, dear me!” groaned Grace. “Have wegotto work? After traipsing over four miles ofhuckleberry pasture all the morning I feel as though I had done my share for to-day.”
“And she ate as many as she picked!” cried Bess. “Oh, I’m going to tell on you, Miss! You’re not going to crawl out of your fair share.”
“I didn’t enlist to work,” declared Grace, with some sullenness. “What’s the fun of camping out if one has to work like a slave all the time?”
“And we haven’t even begun!” cried Frank. “For shame, Gracie!”
“Now, none of the members of the Go-Aheads, I feel sure,” quoth Wyn, quietly, “will try to escape her just burden. To have the fun of camping out under canvas we must each do our share of the work quickly and cheerfully. We will divide up the tasks, and change them about weekly. Of course, Mrs. Havel is not supposed to lift her hand. She is our guest.”
“Oh, but auntie is going to show us how to make pancakes,” cried Percy.
“I’ll learn to dothat,” said Grace, brightening up. “For I love ’em.”
“Of course–piggy-wiggy!” scoffed Bess. “Come, Wyn, you set us our tasks and any girl who kicks about ’em shall be fined.”
“We’ll do better than that. We will use Mina’s idea of drawing lots about the work.There are certain things to be done each week–each day, of course. Two girls must ’tend fires and cook; two girls must air and make beds, clean up about the tents, and wait on table if needed; the other two must get up early and go for the milk and vegetables, gather berries, and do odd jobs. The girls who do the ‘chamber work’ should wash the dishes, too, for the cooks will be too tired and heated after preparing the meals to clean up the tables and mess with the dishwashing.
“Now are those three divisions satisfactory? Every third week, you see, the two who go for the milk, etcetera, will have an easy job. Is it agreed?”
There was no objection raised to this plan, and the girls paired off as they usually did–Wyn and Frank together, Grace and Percy, and Bess and Mina.
Then they drew straws–really grass blades of three lengths–to see which couple should do which. It fell to the lot of Bess and Mina to cook for a week. Grace and Percy Havel were “chambermaids,” and Wyn and Frank Cameron had the good luck to get the shortest blade of grass.
“Of course,I’dhave to work hard two weeks before getting a chance to rest,” grumbled Grace.“Probably something will happen after we’re here a fortnight, and we’ll all have to go home.”
“It would take somethingawfulto send me home from this beautiful spot in a fortnight,” cried Mina.
“Just my luck if you all got smallpox, or something equally contagious,” growled Grace.
“Then you certainly would be fortunate for once–if you escaped it,” chuckled Wyn.
“Not a bit of it. They’d quarantine you here, and have nurses, and lots of nice jellies and ices for you; while poor unlucky me would be packed back to Denton for the rest of the summer–and after working like a slave, dishwashing, and sweeping, and making beds, and cooking, and the like, for two whole weeks.”
Despite Grace’s complaints, the club as a whole was satisfied with the arrangements for taking care of the camp. There had been a secondary consideration in the minds of all their mothers when permission was obtained for the Go-Aheads to spend the summer under canvas. Mrs. Evelyn Havel was a wondrously good housekeeper. She had been trained in domestic science, too. And she had promised to have an oversight of each girl’s work and to teach them, from time to time, many helpful domestic things.
This phase of the camping-out plan Wyn had“played up” in getting the consent of all the parents; and for one, Wyn was determined to carry the scheme through. When they went back to Denton in the fall she proposed to be a good “plain cook” herself, and she hoped the other girls would fall in cheerfully with the project also. She knew Mrs. Havel would do all she could toward teaching them.
The work once apportioned to them, the girls’ minds could be given more particularly to the naming of the camp. But they would not decide upon it until bedtime. However, all six cudgeled their brains to invent striking names.
It was decided that only one name could be suggested by each girl, and this would give them a list of six to choose from. Oddly enough both Mina and Grace chose the same–Camp Pleasant. It looked as thoughthatname had a lead at the start.
Frank suggested Birch Tree Camp–for there was an enormous birch on the knoll at the foot of which Mr. Jarley had set up a bench for them.
“Now you, Bess?” said Wyn, as mistress of ceremonies.
“Camp Pleasant is all right,” admitted Miss Lavine; “only it is not very distinctive. I expect there are thousands of Camp Pleasants–don’t you think so?”
“What’s the matter withmyname?” demanded Frank Cameron.
“I find the same fault with it,” replied Bess. “It is not distinctive enough. Now, I don’t know that I have the right idea; but I believe that calling the camp after our club wouldn’t be so bad. And it would mean something.”
“Go-Ahead Camp? Or Camp Go-Ahead?” cried Grace.
“There’s nothing romantic about it, that’s sure,” objected Mina.
“Goodness me! we’re not looking for romance, I hope,” cried the strong-minded Bess.
“Bess is a suffragette in embryo–I declare!” cried Frank, laughing.
“How does Camp Cheer sound?” suggested Percy. “Now, that’s real nice,Ithink.”
“Say, we’ve got to vote on them, anyway,” said Grace. “We’vegot two votes for Camp Pleasant, Mina.”
“But hold on!” cried Frank. “Here’s one hasn’t been heard from. The shrinking violet of all our crew! What’s the matter, Wynnie? Can’t you decide on a name?”
“I thought of one last evening when we were paddling over here from the Forge–before the rain,” admitted the captain.
“Well! for pity’s sake!” gasped Grace.“That’s before we even knew it was to have a name.”
“I didn’t think particularly about naming the camp,” said Wyn, reflectively, “but from the water, with the squall working up behind us, and the last light of the day lingering on this little hill, the name flashed into my mind.”
“What is it?” chorused the others. “Do tell us, Wyn!”
“Green Knoll.”
“Justthat?” cried Grace. “‘Green Knoll’? Why! Itwasgreen; wasn’t it?”
“I remember how green it seemed from the lake,” added Bess. “It’s not a silly name, either. It means something.”
“I take it all back about ‘Birch Tree Camp,’” declared Frank. “‘Green Knoll.’ There’s a dignity about that–as our assistant principal, Miss Hutchins, would say.”
“It’s a fine name,Ithink,” admitted Percy Havel, slowly. “I withdraw Camp Cheer. It may not be so cheerful here all the time–especially if we catch smallpox, as Grace says. But it willalwaysbe green up here on the knoll.”
“As long as we are here to see it, at least,” agreed Frankie, nodding.
“Say! our Camp Pleasant is swamped!” criedGrace. “What say, Mina? Shall we surrender?”
“Green Knoll sounds very pretty,” agreed the sweet-tempered Mina Everett.
“Oh, girls! do you really all like it?” Wyn cried.
“I vote aye!” said Frank, with emphasis. The other four followed in quick succession.
“Why, that’s lovely of you!” cried the captain of the club. “I–I was afraid nobody would like it but myself.”
“It’s so appropriate,” said Bess.
“It’s allright,” Frank declared. “I wonder what the Busters will call their camp?”
“They named it last fall,” said Wyn. “Dave told me. It is Cave-in-the-Wood Camp. Not so bad–eh?”
“Pretty good for a parcel of boys,” observed Bess.
“Well, I’m glad the worry’s over,” yawned Grace. “Let’s go to bed. You know, Percy, we’ve got to work like slaves to-morrow, so it behooves us to get to bed betimes.”
“Mercy!” cried Frankie, “they’ll be wanting to make up the cots before we are out of them in the morning. Come on! let’s all turn in.”
There was a general roll-call at daybreak the next morning. Wynifred and Frank were not theonly ones to get up as soon as day approached, although to them had been allotted the task of going to Windmill Farm for the milk and the day’s supply of vegetables.
They had agreed the night before to venture into the water. The boys always bragged about this early morning dip, which was a rule of their camp.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to do anything those boys do,” declared Bess, with her usual contempt for the vaunted superiority of the other sex. “If they can run down and plunge right into the water, right out of bed, why can’twe?”
So even Grace–who had her doubts about it–ventured on this second morning. They slipped out of their sleeping clothes and into bathing suits. Therewasa little chill in the air; but Wyn assured them the water would be warmer than the air and–if they remained in half an hour, or so–the sun would be up and his rays would warm them when they came out.
And Wyn’s prophecy was proven right. The six girls disported in the lake like a flock of ducks. Mrs. Havel, however, would not let them remain more than twenty minutes. The sun had shot up, then, and already the green knoll was warm in his first rays.
Wyn and Frank scurried into their clothes and hurried away to the farm for the milk and vegetables. Frank saw the windmill on the summit of the hill, and nothing would do but she must run up and inspect it. The breeze was rising and the farmer, who was likewise the miller, was preparing to “grind a grist.”
“We’ve got a good bit of grain on hand; but we’ve not had wind enough of daytimes lately to grind a handful,” he said. “I can’t invite you inside, young ladies, because when they set up this mill for me they made the door, as you see, right behind the sails. When the arms are in motion I am shut in till the grist is ground; or I stop the sails with this lever just inside the door–d’ye see?”
As the girls went back toward the house the arms began turning with a groaning sound. The wind became fresher. Round and round the long arms turned, while the canvas bellied like the sails on a boat.
Louder and louder grew the hum of the mill. The miller threw in the clutch and the stones began to grind. They heard the corn poured into the hopper, and then the shriek of the kernels as they were ground between the stones. The whole building began to shake.
“What a ponderous thing it is!” exclaimedFrank. “And see! there’s a tiny window in the roof facing the lake. I imagine you could see clear to Meade’s Forge from that window.”
“Farther than that, my dear–much farther,” said the farmer’s wife, handing Frank the basket of fresh vegetables over the garden fence. “On a clear day you can see ’way across the lake to Braisely Park. The tower of Dr. Shelton’s fine house is visible from that window. And the whole spread of the lake. But the air must be very clear.”
“Goody! We’ll bring the other girls up here some day when the mill is not running and climb to the top of the mill for the view,” declared Frank.
Bess and Mina, with some advice from Mrs. Havel, made a very good breakfast. Although neither was very domestic in her tastes, the two young cooks were on their mettle, and did the best they could. If the hot biscuits were not quite so flaky as their mothers’ own cooks made them at home, and some of the poached eggs broke in the poacher, and the broiled bacon got afire several time and “fussed them all up,” as Mina said, the general opinion of the occupants of Green Knoll Camp was that “there was no kick coming”–of course, expressed thus by the slangy Frank Cameron.
Gracewoulddawdle over the dishwashing, and Percy was a good second. Therefore, those two still had work on their hands when Bess sighted a motor boat coming swiftly toward their camp from the direction of Gannet Island.
“Now somebody’s going to butt in and bother us,” declared Bess. “It can’t be the Busters, I s’pose?”
“That’s exactly who it is!” cried Wyn, delightedly. “That’s theHappy Day. Dave said if his cousin, Frank Dumont, could come up here, he would bring his father’s motor boat. And he must have come yesterday when we were busy and did not see him.”
“Hurrah!” cried Frank. “A motor boat beats a canoe all to pieces.”
“The Busters are aboard, all right,” sighed Bess, after another look. “Now we’ll have a noisy time.”
“Now there’ll be something doing!” quoth Frank. “That’s the trouble with a crowd of girls. After they have played ‘Ring Around the Rosy’ and ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ they don’t know another living thing to do except to sit down and look prim and be prosy. But with boys it’s different. There’s something doing all the time.”
“You should have been a boy, Frank,” declared Bess, with some disgust.
“If I was one, I’d be hanging around your house all the time, Bessie mine,” laughed the other, hugging the boy-hater.
“Get away! I’d have Patrick turn the hose on you if you did!” cried Bess, in mock wrath.
But secretly, Miss Lavine, as well as her mates, was glad of the break in the quiet affairs of Green Knoll Camp made by the appearance of Dave Shepard and his spirited chums.
“Oh, crackey, girls! you ought to see our camp! We’ve got a regular pirates’ cave,” declared Ferdinand Roberts.
“Did your stores get wet in that awful storm?” demanded Wyn from the top of the knoll.
“Not much. We managed to cover them with the canvas. And now we’ve cleaned out the cave and it’s great. All we need is some captives to take over there and chain to the rocks,” laughed Dave.
“And fatten ’em up till they’re fit to eat,” drawled Tubby Blaisdell.
“Stop it, Tub!” cried one of his mates. “We’re not going to play cannibals, but pirates.”
“Well, in either case,” declared Bess, “you will not get captives at Green Knoll Camp.”
“Is that what you call this pretty hillock?”cried Dave. “Well, itisa beauty spot! And how nice you girls have made everything. Why! you don’t need any boys around at all.”
“That’s what I’ve always told them,” murmured Bess. “They’re only a nuisance.”
“We came over to see if we could help you,” continued Dave. “Here’s my cousin, Frank Dumont, girls. Some of you know him, anyway. This is his motor boat, and if there really is nothing we can do to help you here, why, Frank wants to take you all–with Mrs. Havel, if she is agreeable–for a trip around the lake. We’ve got supplies aboard and we’ll stop somewhere and make a picnic dinner.”
“Goody!” cried Mina. “Then we will not have to make dinner here, Bess.”
“Agreed!” announced Grace. “There will be no more dishes to wash until evening, then.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Dave said, slowly. “Of course we like to have you girls go along; but usually girls do the grub-getting and dishwashing on a picnic.”
“Nothing doing, then,” declared Frank, laughing at him. “This crowd of girls are going as invited guests, or not at all. We promise to be ornamental, but not useful.”
“You’re ornamental, all right, in those blouses and bloomers,” declared Ferd, for the girls haddiscarded skirts about the camp, and felt much more free and comfortable than they usually did.
“If worse comes to worst,” said Mrs. Havel, smiling, “Iwill be the camp drudge, boys, for I want to see the lake shore in panorama.”
“Oh, let ’em come,” drawled Tubby, still lying on his back on the little deck of theHappy Day. “They’ll get hungry some time andhaveto cook for us.”
And so, amid much bustle, and laughter, and raillery, the girls of Green Knoll Camp joined the boys of Cave-in-the-Wood Camp in the motor boat for a trip around the big lake.
“And where is Professor Skillings?” asked Mrs. Havel, as the well-laden launch drew away from the little natural landing which defended one end of the girls’ bathing beach at Green Knoll Camp.
“Bless your heart, ma’am,” said Ferdinand Roberts, laughing, “the old gentleman is trying to figure out one of Tubby’s unanswerable arguments–that is, I believe, what you’d call it.”
“One of Tubby’s unanswerable arguments?” cried Wyn. “For pity’s sake! what can that be?”
“Why, at breakfast this morning the professor got to ‘dreaming,’ as he sometimes does. He tells us lots of interesting things when he begins talking that way; but sometimes, if we are in a hurry to get away, we have to put the stopper in,” chuckled Ferd.
“Tubby usually does it. Tubby reallyisgood for something beside eating and sleeping, girls–you wouldn’t believe it!”
“Youdosurprise us,” admitted Bess Lavine, cuttingly.
“All right. But just wait and listen. We wanted to get away early and come over here after you,” said Ferd. “And the professor began to give us one of his talks. This time it was on literature. By and by he says:
“‘We are told that it took, Gray, author of ‘An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,’ seven years to write that famous poem.”
“‘Gee!’ exclaimed Tubby. ‘If he’d only known stenography how much better off he’d been.’
“‘Ahem! how do you prove that, Mr. Blaisdell?’ inquired the professor, quite amazed.
“‘Why, we took that as a lesson in the shorthand class of the Commercial Department last spring,’ said Tubby, ‘and some of the real good ones could do Gray’s Elegy, from dictation, in seven minutes. See what Gray would have saved if he’d known shorthand!’
“And that completely shut up the professor,” said Ferd, as the laughter broke out. “He hasn’t recovered from the shock yet.”
TheHappy Daywas turned toward the Forge first, skirting the shore all the way. That brought them, of course, close to Jarley’s Landing. Polly was just pushing out in a little skiff.
Wyn and Frank waved to her; but the other girls did not know her, of course, and only watched the boatman’s daughter curiously.
“How well she rows!” exclaimed Percy.
“Say! but she’s a fine looking girl,” said Dave, earnestly. “What handsome arms she’s got.”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” remarked Bess, snappishly.
“She’s as brown as an Indian,” observed Mina.
“That doesn’t hurt her,” declared Dave, stoutly. “Isshethe girl you were speaking about, Wyn?”
“She is Polly Jarley, and she is my friend,” responded Wynifred, quietly. “And I believe her to be as good as she is beautiful.”
“Then there are wings sprouting under her blouse,” laughed Frank; “for there’s no girlIever saw who could hold a candle to Polly for right down beauty.”
“She looks so sad,” said Mina, softly.
“Why shouldn’t she be sad?” Wyn demanded, “with everybody talking about her father the way they do?”
“Come, girls!” commanded Mrs. Havel. “Don’t gossip. Find some other topic of conversation.”
“Ha! quite so,” cried Frank, with a grimace upon her own homely face. “A girl may be aspretty as a picture and spoil it all by an ugly frame of mind. How’sthatfor a spark thrown from the wheel?”
“Stand back, audience!” exclaimed Dave. “Something like that is likely to happen any minute.”
“I don’t really see how the old professor gets on with you boys at all,” remarked Bessie Lavine, with a sigh. “You’d worry the life out of an angel.”
“But Professor Skillings isnotan angel–thanks be!” exclaimed Dave.
“He’s a good old scout!” drawled Tubby.
“He just hasn’t forgotten what it is to be a boy,” began Ferd.
“But, goodness me!” cried Frankie. “He’s forgotten about everything else, at some time or other; hasn’t he?”
“Not what he’s learned out of books and from observation,” declared Dave. “But my goodness! heisabsent-minded. Yesterday a couple of us fellows chopped up a good heap of firewood. We don’t have a fancy stove like you girls, but just an out-of-doors fireplace. After supper the dear old prof, said he’d wash the dishes, and we dumped all the pots and pans together and–what do you think?”
“Couldn’t think,” drawled Frank. “I’m toolazy. Tell us without making your story so complicated.”
“Why, we found he had carried an armful of firewood down to the shore and was industriously swashing the sticks up and down in the water, thinking he was washing the supper dishes.”
With similar conversation, and merry badinage, the journey around Lake Honotonka progressed. The shores of the lake, in full summer dress, were beautiful. There was an awning upon the motor boat, so the rapidly mounting sun did not trouble the party. But itwashot at noonday, and through Dave’s glasses they could see that the sails on the mill behind Windmill Farm were still. There wasn’t air enough stirring, even at that height, to keep the arms in motion, and down here on the water the temperature grew baking.
They ran into a cool cove and went ashore for dinner. Nobody wanted anything hot, and so, as there was a splendid spring at hand, they made lemonade and ate sandwiches of potted chicken and hard-boiled eggs which the boys had been thoughtful enough to bring along. The girls had crisp salad leaves to go with the chicken, too, and some nice mayonnaise. Altogether even Tubby was willing to pronounce the “cold bite” satisfying.
“And I’m no hypocrite,” declared the fat youth, earnestly. “When I say a thing I mean it.”
“Whatisyour idea of a hypocrite, Tubby?” demanded Wyn, laughing.
“A boy who comes to school smiling,” replied Tubby, promptly.
After a while a little breeze ruffled the surface of the lake again and theHappy Daywas made ready for departure. They continued then toward the west, where lay the preserve known as Braisely Park, in which there were at least a dozen rich men’s lodges. They were all in sight from the lake–at some point, at least. Each beautiful place had a water privilege, and the landings and boathouses were very picturesque. There was a whole fleet of craft here, too, ranging in size from a cedar canoe to a steam yacht. The latter belonged to Dr. Shelton, the man who had accused John Jarley of stealing the motor boatBright Eyesand the five thousand dollars’ worth of silver images from the ruined temples of Yucatan.
“And of course,” said Wyn, warmly, “that is nonsense. For if Polly and her father had done such a thing, they would turn the silver into money; wouldn’t they, and stop living in poverty?”
“Well, it looks mighty funny where that boat and all could have gone,” Bessie remarked.
“If she sank as quickly as he says, the wreck must lie off Gannet Island somewhere,” remarked Dave, reflectively.
“Oh! I wish we could find it,” commented Wyn.
“If it ever sank at all,” sneered Bessie.
But it was almost impossible to quarrel with Wyn Mallory. Frank would have “got hot” a dozen times at Bess while the party chanced to discuss the Jarleys and their troubles. But the captain of the Go-Ahead Club was patient.
Bye and bye–and after mid-afternoon–theHappy Daycame around to the west end of Gannet Island. Up among the trees a glint of white betrayed the presence of the boys’ tent. In a little sheltered cove below the site of Cave-in-the-Wood Camp, danced the fleet of canoes.
Nothing would do but the girls and Mrs. Havel must go ashore and see the cave and the camp.
“And we can have tea,” said Ferd. “How’s that, girls? Professor Skillings has got a whole canister of best gunpowder in his private stores–and there he is on that log, examining specimens.”
“Oh, dear me!” cried Frankie, “tea isn’t going to satisfy the gnawing ofmyappetite.”
“How about a fish-fry?” demanded Dave,swerving the motor boat suddenly away from the landing.
“Where’ll you get your fish?” cried Percy Havel.
“In the fish store at Meade’s Forge,” scoffed Ferdinand Roberts.
“That’s too far to run for supper–and back again–this afternoon, boys,” said Mrs. Havel.
“Just you wait,” cried Dave. “I caught sight of something just now–there she is!”
TheHappy Dayrounded a wooded point of the island. Near the shore floated Polly Jarley’s skiff and Polly was just getting up her anchor.
“She’s been fishing all day!” exclaimed Wyn.
“And I’ll wager she’s got a fine mess of perch,” said Dave. “Hi, Miss Jarley!” he shouted. “Hold on a minute.”
Polly had heard the chugging of the motor boat. Now she stood up suddenly and waved both hands in some excitement.
“What does she want?” demanded Bess.
“Get out! farther out!” the boatman’s daughter shouted, her clear voice echoing from the wooded heights of the island. “Danger here!”
“What’s the matter with her?” demanded Bess again. “Is there a submarine mine sunk here?”
But Dave veered off, taking a wider course from the shore.
“What is the matter, Polly?” shouted Wyn, standing up and making a megaphone of her hands.
“Snags!” replied the other girl. “Here’s where father ran Dr. Shelton’s boat on a root. The shallow water here is full of them. Look out”
“Say!” cried Frank Dumont “We don’t want to sink the oldHappy Day.”
“Sothisis where the accident happened; is it?” observed Wyn, looking around at the shores of the little cove and the contour of the island’s outline.
“Humph!” snapped Bessie Lavine, sitting down quickly. “I don’t believe there was any accident at all. It was all a story.”
Dave Shepard had stopped the motor boat land now he hailed the pretty girl in the skiff.
“I say, Miss Jarley! did you have any luck?”
“I’ve got a good string of white perch. They love to feed among these stumps,” returned Polly.
“Oh, Polly Jolly! sell us some; will you?” cried Wyn, eagerly. “We’re so hungry.”
“Do, do!” chorused several of the other girls and boys aboard theHappy Day.
Polly, smiling, held up a long withe on which wriggled at least two dozen silvery fish. “Aren’t they beauties?” she demanded. “Wait! I’ll row out.”
She had already raised her anchor. Now she sat down, seized the short oars, and plunged them into the water. How she could row! Even Bessie Lavine murmured some enthusiastic praise of the boatman’s daughter.
Her skiff shot alongside the motor boat. She caught the gunwale, and then held up the string of fish again.
“How much, Miss Jarley?” asked Dave.
“Half a dollar. Is that too much?”
“It looks too little; but I suppose you know what you can get for them at the Forge,” he said.
“And this saves me rowing down there,” returned the brown girl, smiling and blushing under the scrutiny of so many eyes.
Wyn leaned over the rail, took the fish, and kissed Polly on her brown cheek.
“Dreadfully glad to see you, dear,” she declared. “Won’t you come over to the camp to-morrow and show us girls where–and how–to fish, too? We’re crazy for a fishing trip.”
“Why–if you want me?” said Polly, her fine eyes slowly taking in the group of girls aboard the motor boat.
All looked at her in a friendly way save Bessie, and she had her back to the girl.
“I’ll come,” said Polly, blushing again; and then she pocketed, the piece of money Dave gave her, and pushed off a bit.
“Is this really where your father came so near losing his life, Polly?” asked Wyn, seriously.
“Yes, Miss Wyn. Right yonder. It was so thick he could not see the shore. A limb of that tree yonder–you can see where it was broken off; see the scar?”
There was a long yellow mark high up on thetree trunk overhanging the pool where Polly had been fishing.
“That limb brushed father out of the boat just as she struck. The snag must have torn a big hole in the bottom of theBright Eyes. Lightened by his going overboard, she shot away–somewhere–toward the middle of the lake, perhaps. He knows that he gave the wheel a twirl just as he went overboard and that must have driven the nose of the boat around.
“She shot away into the fog. He never saw or heard of her again. We paddled about for a week afterward–the bateau men and I–and we couldn’t find it. Poor father was abed, you see, for a long time and could not help.”
“All a story,Ibelieve,” whispered Bess, to Mina.
“Oh, don’t!” begged the tender-hearted girl.
Perhaps Polly heard this aside. She plunged her oars into the water again and the skiff shot away. She only nodded when they sang out “Good-bye” to her.
TheHappy Daycarried the party quickly back to the cove under the hill on which Cave-in-the-Wood Camp had been established. The girls and boys landed and were met by Professor Skillings–who could be a very gallant man indeed, where ladies were concerned. He helped Mrs. Havelout of the motor boat, which Dave had brought alongside of a steep bank, where the water was deep, and which made a good landing place.
“My dear Mrs. Havel! I am charmed to see you again,” said the professor. “You are comfortably situated over there on the shore, I hope?”
“My girls are as successful in making me comfortable as are your boys in looking after you, I believe, Professor Skillings,” returned the lady, laughing.
“More so–I have no doubt! More so,” admitted the professor.
“Treason! treason!” shouted Dave Shepard.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Wyn, who had hopped ashore behind the chaperone.
“Professor Skillings is going back on us, boys,” declared Dave.
“Why, Professor!” cried Ferdinand. “Where would you find in all the five zones such a set of boys as we-uns?”
“Five zones? Correct, my boy,” declared the professor, seriously. “But name those five zones; will you, please?”
“Sure!” wheezed Tubby, before Ferd could reply. “Temperate, Intemperate, Canal, Torrid, and Ozone.”
“Goodness gracious, Agnes!” gasped Dave.“Can you beat Tubby when he lays himself out to be real erudite?” while the others–even the professor and Mrs. Havel–could not forbear to chuckle.
But Dave and Ferd got busy at once while the others laughed, and chaffed, and looked over the boys’ camping arrangements. Dave was cook and Ferd made and fed the fire. These boys had all the approved Scout tricks for making fire and preparing food–they could have qualified as first-class scouts.
Ferd started for an armful of wood he had cut down at the bottom of the steep bank and suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, he slipped, his feet pointed heavenward, and he skated down the bank upon the small of his back.
“My goodness me!” exclaimed Frank Cameron. “Did you see that?”
“Sure,” said Dave, amid the laughter of the crowd. “Poor Ferdy! the whole world is against him!”
“You bet it is,” growled Ferd, picking himself up slowly at the bottom of the bank. “And it’s an awful hard world at that.”
“Come on! Come on!” whined Tubby Blaisdell. “Aren’t you ever going to get supper? You’re wasting time.”
Dave was expertly cleaning fish. Wyn ran to hishelp, finding the flour, cracker-crumbs, and salt pork. The pan was already heating over the blaze that the unfortunate Ferdinand had started in the fireplace.
“If you’re so blamed hungry,” said Dumont to the wailing Tubby, “start on the raw flour. It’s filling, I’ll be bound.”
“Say! I don’t just want to get filled. I want to enjoy what I eat. I could be another Nebuchadnezzar and eat grass, if it was justfillingI wanted.”
“Ha!” cried Dave. “Tubby is as particular as the Western lawyer–a perfectly literal man–who entered a restaurant where the waiter came to him and said:
“‘What’ll you ’ave, sir? I ’ave frogs’ legs, deviled kidneys, pigs’ feet, and calves’ brains.’
“‘You look it,’ declared the lawyer man. ‘But what is that to me? I have come here to eat–don’t tell me your misfortunes.’”
Amid much laughter and chaffing they finally sat down to the fish-fry–and if there is anything more toothsome than perch, fresh from the water, and fried crisply in a pan with salt pork over the hot coals of a campfire, “the deponent knoweth not,” as Frank Cameron put it.
Then Tubby got his banjo, Dumont his mandolin, Dave his ocarina, and they sang, and played, and told jokes, until a silver crescent moon risingover the lake warned them that the hour was growing late. The feminine visitors then boarded theHappy Dayand under the escort of Dave and Ferdinand to work the boat, the girls and their chaperone made the run back to Green Knoll Camp, giving the cove where Polly Jarley had caught the perch a wide berth.
Dave insisted upon going ashore at Green Knoll and searching the camp “for possible burglars,” as he laughingly said.
“Do,dolook under my bed, Dave!” squealed Frank, in mock distraction. “I’ve always expected to find a man under my bed.”
“But it was real nice of him, just the same,” admitted Mina Everett, when theHappy Dayhad chugged away. “I feel a whole lot better now that he has beaten up the camp.”