The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

CHAPTER XIII

THE CAMP GETS A SUR­PRISE

“Let me thee that tow­el,” de­mand­ed Tom­my, ris­ing and step­ping over to Co­ra's side of the tent.

Miss Kid­der quick­ly thrust the tow­el in her laun­dry bag and turned an an­gry face to Grace.

“Will you please let me alone?” she said trem­bling with anger.

“Yeth, I think I will,” nod­ded Tom­my, af­ter gaz­ing briefly in­to the storm-​swept face of Co­ra Kid­der. Har­ri­et mo­tioned to Tom­my to go to bed. Tom­my de­cid­ed that she had gone far enough with her quizzing and that she would do as Har­ri­et sug­gest­ed.

That night af­ter the lights had been ex­tin­guished, Har­ri­et lay for a long, long time, think­ing over the events of the evening, be­gin­ning with the Coun­cil Fire and end­ing with the lit­tle scene that had tak­en place in their tent. What should she do? What was the hon­est course to pur­sue? The girl was un­able to de­cide. She did make up her mind, how­ev­er, to con­sult with Miss Elt­ing on the fol­low­ing morn­ing.

Af­ter break­fast at the first op­por­tu­ni­ty she went in search of Miss Elt­ing, but learned that the guardian in com­pa­ny with an­oth­er of the camp of­fi­cials had start­ed out with Jasper to go to “The Pines,” a sum­mer wa­ter­ing place in the woods, some ten miles from Camp Wau-​Wau. This sum­mer re­sort was reached by a state road en­ter­ing the woods from an­oth­er di­rec­tion, but the two young wom­en had tak­en the log road as be­ing the most di­rect.

An­oth­er in­ci­dent that in­ter­est­ed the camp great­ly that day was the vis­it of a friend of Co­ra Kid­der. He was a young man named Char­lie Col­lier who was stop­ping at “The Pines” and who had driv­en over to the camp in his au­to­mo­bile to call on Co­ra. With him was his sis­ter, a rather pret­ty girl whose elab­orate coif­fure and ex­treme style of dress­ing made her look out of place among the sen­si­bly at­tired Camp Girls.

Co­ra was con­sid­er­ably elat­ed that day at re­ceiv­ing a call from vis­itors who drove their own mo­tor car and who were pos­si­bly more fash­ion­able friends than many of the oth­er girls could boast. Co­ra in­tro­duced her friends to sev­er­al of the girls and to many of the guardians, but to none of the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls. Tom­my was in­ter­est­ed, how­ev­er. She man­aged to get close enough to the car to ex­am­ine the gown of Miss Col­lier with crit­ical eyes, and Tom­my was some­thing of a judge of clothes, for her par­ents en­ter­tained smart­ly-​dressed friends from the city quite fre­quent­ly. The lit­tle girl looked dis­dain­ful­ly at the new­com­ers, but made no com­ment.

Miss Elt­ing and the guardian who ac­com­pa­nied her to “The Pines” re­turned about four o'clock that af­ter­noon, hav­ing passed the au­to­mo­bile on the way. Har­ri­et ob­tained an in­ter­view with the teach­er short­ly af­ter­wards dur­ing the pe­ri­od of re­lax­ation and rest be­fore the din­ner hour. The two wom­en wan­dered off a short dis­tance in­to the for­est, Har­ri­et hav­ing sug­gest­ed a walk, and Miss Elt­ing shrewd­ly sus­pect­ing that her lit­tle friend had some­thing on her mind of which she wished to un­bur­den her­self.

“Now we will sit down here and be nice and com­fy, and you will en­ter­tain me,” smiled Miss Elt­ing. “How are you en­joy­ing your­self?”

“Oh, so much!” ex­claimed Har­ri­et. Then her face cloud­ed a lit­tle.

“But----” laughed Miss Elt­ing.

“Yes, I sup­pose that does ex­press it. How­ev­er, I don't want you to think I am not hap­py on my own ac­count. It is on some one else's ac­count.”

“Tell me all about it, Har­ri­et, dear.”

“I am afraid that I can­not do that,” replied the girl af­ter a brief re­flec­tion.

“Then tell me as much as you wish me to know,” urged Miss Elt­ing.

“In the first place,” be­gan Har­ri­et, “I wish to ask your ad­vice on a mat­ter that is trou­bling me.”

Miss Elt­ing smiled en­cour­ag­ing­ly.

“I am lis­ten­ing.”

“It is about that haz­ing af­fair. Sup­pose a girl had been asked if she knew any­thing about it and she had de­clared that she did not. What then?”

“You mean that she did know some­thing about it but pre­tend­ed that she did not?”

Har­ri­et nod­ded.

“Then she would be an un­fit as­so­ciate for this body of fine girls. Har­ri­et, what do you mean? You don't, you can't mean----”

“Oh, no, no!” protest­ed Har­ri­et, flush­ing to the roots of her hair.

“Of course not. For­give me for even sug­gest­ing it, my dear. Please go on.”

“But sup­pose that an­oth­er girl did not know who were the guilty ones at the time she was ques­tioned, and that af­ter­wards she had a strong sus­pi­cion as to their iden­ti­ty? What then?”

“You have giv­en me a dif­fi­cult ques­tion to an­swer, Har­ri­et, I should not like to an­swer it with­out know­ing more about the cir­cum­stances re­lat­ing to it. Tell me who the girl is that is sus­pect­ed?”

“But you are a guardian,” re­joined Har­ri­et. “Were I to tell you it would be your du­ty to in­form the Chief Guardian of what you had heard. Would it not?”

“My dear, I fear it would,” was the re­ply.

“Then I shall not an­swer your ques­tion. I want to talk with you as I would to a friend, not as a guardian in Camp Wau-​Wau. Sup­pose some girl had made this dis­cov­ery af­ter she had de­nied know­ing any­thing about the af­fair, would it then be her du­ty to in­form the Chief Guardian?”

“Per­haps it would.”

“She would be a tale­bear­er. I should not like to have any friend of mine car­ry tales, would you, Miss Elt­ing?”

“No, Har­ri­et, I would not. Much would de­pend up­on cir­cum­stances though. I fear such a case as you sug­gest must be one for the girl to de­cide for her­self.”

“Would she be act­ing dis­hon­or­ably if she did not tell what she had learned?”

“Most de­cid­ed­ly not.”

“And if she were asked about it by a guardian lat­er on and re­fused to an­swer, she still would not be act­ing un­fair­ly to her­self or her su­pe­ri­or?”

“Wait, wait. You hurl your ques­tions at me so rapid­ly that you do not give me time to think. As I have said be­fore, you must be your own judge in your own case.”

“I did not say that it was my case.”

“No, that is true. How­ev­er, I do not be­lieve that Har­ri­et Bur­rell could do a dis­hon­or­able act if she tried ev­er so hard,” smiled Miss Elt­ing. “Put your head down here on my lap, Har­ri­et, and be com­fort­able. Does any one else know?”

Har­ri­et shook her head that lay in Miss Elt­ing's lap.

“Then let mat­ters rest as they are for the present,” replied the teach­er. “Let us hope that the girl's con­science may trou­ble her so much that she will con­fess her part in the af­fair to Mrs. Liv­ingston. That will re­lieve you of all re­spon­si­bil­ity.”

“She nev­er will,” mut­tered Har­ri­et.

The guardian and Har­ri­et strolled slow­ly back to­ward the camp. On the way there just at the edge of the camp they passed Pa­tri­cia Scott. The lat­ter gave Har­ri­et a con­temp­tu­ous glance, then cool­ly ig­nored her nod which was more friend­ly than Pa­tri­cia could have hoped for. Miss Elt­ing saw the hos­tile glance and the ig­nor­ing of Har­ri­et's nod.

“If that young wom­an were in my di­vi­sion I cer­tain­ly should call her to ac­count for that. Doesn't she like you?” ques­tioned Miss Elt­ing bend­ing a keen look on her com­pan­ion.

“She doesn't seem to like me very well,” an­swered Har­ri­et, then chang­ing the sub­ject she be­gan dis­cussing a tall tree that stood just in front of the tent oc­cu­pied by the Chief Guardian. It was one of those spin­dling pines that seem to pierce the sky. Har­ri­et asked the guardian if there were not great dan­ger of its be­ing struck by light­ning.

Be­fore Miss Elt­ing could an­swer, the honk honk, honk of a mo­tor car was heard near­ing the camp.

Among the tall spruce trees they made out an au­to­mo­bile, that had left the log road and was be­ing reck­less­ly driv­en through the for­est to­ward the camp. It did not seem pos­si­ble that the driv­er of the car could pur­sue such a per­ilous course with­out wreck­ing the au­to­mo­bile which was go­ing far more rapid­ly than safe­ty war­rant­ed. There would be a brief hes­ita­tion as the front tires came in con­tact with a log, then the car would go over it with a bump and a bounce, and a tri­umphant honk, honk!

“Who can it be, Har­ri­et?” cried Margery, who with Hazel had strolled out to meet Har­ri­et and her guardian friend.

Just then the car lurched in­to the camp. The driv­er put on more speed, the car cir­cled about the camp a cou­ple of times, then came to a halt in front of the row of tents. There were a man and a young wom­an in the car. The young wom­an jumped out and see­ing Grace Thomp­son stared at her for a mo­ment then throw­ing up her hands, ut­tered an In­di­an war whoop that brought out from their tents all those who had not been aroused by the honk of the mo­tor car.

“It's Crazy Jane,” cried Har­ri­et. “Look! She has found Tom­my.”

Jane had lift­ed lit­tle Tom­my off her feet and was kiss­ing her de­light­ed­ly while Tom­my lisped “Thave me, oh, thave me!” caus­ing the oth­er girls near at hand to laugh amus­ed­ly at the fun­ny scene.

At that mo­ment Crazy Jane catch­ing sight of Har­ri­et and her com­pan­ions, bound­ed to­ward them. Jane was bare-​head­ed. Her blonde hair was fly­ing about her face and neck; her dress un­pro­tect­ed by a dust coat was cov­ered with the gray dust of the high­ways, over which she had driv­en, and her whole ap­pear­ance was di­sheveled and trav­el-​stained.

Jane fair­ly flung her­self in­to the arms of Har­ri­et Bur­rell, giv­ing her a hearty hug, then treat­ing Margery, Hazel and Miss Elt­ing to the same sort of greet­ing.

“Dad's over there. Come on and shake hands with him. He's go­ing back short­ly. You can help me un­load the car. Oh, we're go­ing to have a great time, aren't we dar­lin's!”

“You don't mean that you have come to join the camp, do you!” ques­tioned Miss Elt­ing.

“Of course, I have,” re­tort­ed Crazy Jane. “What did you think I had come for? Mead­ow-​Brook is like a grave­yard since you girls went away. Oh this is great, isn't it? We'll rat­tle the bones of this old camp, won't we?”

Har­ri­et laughed mer­ri­ly. Miss Elt­ing looked grave.

“Does Mrs. Liv­ingston know--did she know you were com­ing?”

“Of course, she did. Dad looked af­ter that. Where is she. She'll be de­light­ed to see me, I'll wa­ger.”

“Yeth,” nod­ded Tom­my who had joined them. “The'll be tho glad that thhe'll cry her eye­th out. How long are you go­ing to thtay?”

“As long as you do. Now let's get that car un­load­ed and start some­thing. This place is so qui­et it gives me the blues.”

Margery threw up her hands in de­spair, Har­ri­et smiled amus­ed­ly, Miss Elt­ing shook her head hope­less­ly. Jane dart­ed off with long strides. She had grabbed a hand of the protest­ing Tom­my and was fair­ly drag­ging the lit­tle girl along with her. It was a strange fig­ure that Mrs. Liv­ingston, who stood talk­ing with Jane's fa­ther, saw ap­proach­ing her, and dur­ing the weeks that fol­lowed she was to un­der­stand quite ful­ly why Jane Mc­Carthy's friends had named her “Crazy Jane.”