The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

CHAPTER XXI

A DAY OF EX­CITE­MENT

“Get back!” com­mand­ed Crazy Jane, push­ing a crowd of girls away. “Do you want to smoth­er the poor child?”

“We must get her in­to one of the tents,” de­clared Mrs. Liv­ingston.

“Wait till she comes to,” an­swered Jane, turn­ing Har­ri­et over on her back so that the rain, which was falling in a fine driz­zle now, might beat on the face of the un­con­scious girl.

Now Har­ri­et be­gan to move her head from side to side to avoid the driz­zle that was beat­ing in­to her face. Soon her eye­lids be­gan to quiver. Her breath­ing be­came stronger. Mrs. Liv­ingston was kneel­ing be­side her, chaf­ing the girl's hands and smooth­ing back the tan­gled hair from her white fore­head.

“I think she should be car­ried in to one of the tents now,” said the Chief Guardian.

“Sure,” agreed Jane, gath­er­ing Har­ri­et in­to her arms and stag­ger­ing away. She shook her head ve­he­ment­ly as half a dozen girls sprang for­ward to help her with her bur­den.

Har­ri­et strug­gled from the friend­ly arms of Jane.

“I--I can walk,” she said weak­ly. Jane threw an arm about her waist and led her in­to the near­est tent, fol­lowed by Mrs. Liv­ingston and more than twen­ty Camp Girls.

“You had bet­ter all go to your tents, dry your­selves and get in­to bed,” ad­vised the Chief Guardian. “We don't want any of our Camp Girls to be­come ill, you know. Miss Bur­rell will be all right now, I think.”

The Camp Girls obeyed re­luc­tant­ly, though Har­ri­et's chums asked and re­ceived per­mis­sion to re­main with their fel­low Mead­ow-​Brook girl. Up­on en­ter­ing the tent Jane saw the tou­sled head of Pa­tri­cia Scott above the blan­kets of an­oth­er girl's col Pa­tri­cia had crawled in­to the first cot she came to.

“Get up, young la­dy, and give Har­ri­et a chance,” or­dered Jane.

Pa­tri­cia mere­ly stared, then her black eyes snapped. She made no move to rise. Crazy Jane did not re­peat her or­der. In­stead she strode up to the cot, grasped the edge of it and turned it over. Pa­tri­cia went sprawl­ing.

Har­ri­et had sat down heav­ily on the floor of the tent as soon as her friend re­leased her. Jane pat­ted down the quilts and step­ping over to her com­pan­ion as­sist­ed her to the sud­den­ly va­cat­ed cot.

“Get in, hon­ey,” smiled Jane.

Pa­tri­cia had scram­bled to her feet, her eyes snap­ping men­ac­ing­ly, her hands clenched so tight­ly as to show white ridges at the knuck­les. Then she caught sight of the Chief Guardian about to en­ter the tent and brought up abrupt­ly in her charge on Crazy Jane who had not deigned to look at Pa­tri­cia af­ter dump­ing her out of the cot.

“You may go to my quar­ters and lie down, Miss Scott,” or­dered Mrs. Liv­ingston. “The rest of you may do the same when you feel equal to it.”

Pa­tri­cia flung her­self out of the tent an­gri­ly. Co­ra re­mained a few mo­ments, act­ing as though she want­ed to say some­thing. How­ev­er, in­stead of do­ing so she fi­nal­ly fol­lowed Pa­tri­cia and went through the rain to Mrs. Liv­ingston's tent.

“Ith--ith Har­ri­et bet­ter now?” ques­tioned Tom­my in a hes­itat­ing voice.

“Yes, dear, we hope so. She will be as well as ev­er by to-​mor­row morn­ing. Miss Mc­Carthy, do you know what she did to save those girls?”

“No, Mrs. Liv­ingston, I don't know. She saved them all right. That's as much as I care to know. Has any one a wrap­per? Har­ri­et is soak­ing wet.”

Hazel and Margery im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan rum­mag­ing in the tent. They failed to find a ki­mono or dress­ing gown, be­cause the girls who oc­cu­pied the tent were wear­ing their own. Mrs. Liv­ingston there­at, re­moved Har­ri­et's torn, dress­ing gown, wrap­ping her in dry blan­kets, Har­ri­et protest­ing all the time that she was not in need of all these at­ten­tions. One of the reg­ular oc­cu­pants of the tent was sent to an­oth­er tent where she slept on the floor for the rest of the night. She had of­fered no ob­jec­tion to giv­ing up her bed, nor would she have done so had she found Pa­tri­cia there, as Pa­tri­cia Scott well knew. Jane de­clared that she would not leave Har­ri­et.

In the mean­time, Miss Par­tridge, who now was Mrs. Liv­ingston's Chief As­sis­tant, was mak­ing hot tea for the girls who had been caught un­der the falling tree. Mrs. Liv­ingston re­mained with Har­ri­et for a lit­tle time, leav­ing soon af­ter Miss Par­tridge came in with the tea. Short­ly af­ter that she might have been seen, en­veloped in a hood­ed rain­coat tramp­ing about the camp with Jasper, ex­am­in­ing the trees to learn if there was fur­ther dan­ger from any of them. Hav­ing sat­is­fied her­self on this point and mak­ing a fi­nal round of the tents to see that her girls were all com­fort­ably set­tled for the night, Mrs. Liv­ingston re­turned to her own tent.

Morn­ing dawned bright and beau­ti­ful af­ter the storm. It was not un­til then that the Camp Girls re­al­ized what a nar­row es­cape Har­ri­et Bur­rell and the three oth­er girls had had. There was noth­ing to be seen of the tent save here and there a white patch of can­vas ob­serv­able un­der the mass of limbs and fo­liage. Jasper was at work sto­ical­ly chop­ping away, both for the sake of clear­ing up the mess and pro­vid­ing some ex­cel­lent wood for the camp­fire. Af­ter din­ner enough of the wreck­age was cleared away so that the girls were able to catch a glimpse of the four cots drawn up close to­geth­er, though they were now crushed down and lay in con­fu­sion on the floor of the tent.

Har­ri­et had got­ten up short­ly af­ter the usu­al hour. Her eyes were bright, but her face showed the ef­fect of the tri­al through which she had passed. It still bore scratch­es. The girl was so lame that ev­ery step she took gave her pain and her back was so stiff that she stooped con­sid­er­ably when walk­ing. Mrs. Liv­ingston had tried to get the sto­ry of Har­ri­et's sav­ing of their lives from the three girls. Pa­tri­cia and Co­ra were un­com­mu­nica­tive. Tom­my had no very clear idea of what had oc­curred, ex­cept that she “wath thmoth­ered al­motht to death.” But Mrs. Liv­ingston was not to be put off so eas­ily. She found an op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak with Har­ri­et ear­ly in the af­ter­noon. The first ques­tion she asked was why the cots had been placed in the mid­dle of the tent floor.

Har­ri­et smiled as she told the Guardian that they had been dragged there so that their oc­cu­pants might es­cape the rain.

“What fol­lowed?” urged Mrs. Liv­ingston.

“Ev­ery­thing hap­pened. It seemed as if we were be­ing slow­ly crushed to death. Then Jane and Jasper came to the res­cue.”

“How did you get such a lame back?” asked the Chief Guardian sud­den­ly.

“I think it was try­ing to lift the cots,” an­swered Har­ri­et, then she blushed. “I mean when the cots----”

“I un­der­stand,” smiled the Guardian. “You held up the cots so that your com­pan­ions might not be crushed.”

“I had to do so,” ad­mit­ted Har­ri­et. “But it was no more than I should have done. You see the branch­es sud­den­ly be­gan press­ing down on the cots pin­ning the girls un­der­neath them. I knew they nev­er could get out if the whole weight of the tree once set­tled down on them. Jane was near at hand. I knew she would reach us in a very few mo­ments. It was noth­ing, Mrs. Liv­ingston. I didn't wish to speak of it. Please don't say any­thing to the girls about it un­less you wish to em­bar­rass me,” added Har­ri­et, laugh­ing. “I have been more con­spic­uous al­ready than I like. You see they have not for­got­ten the soapy soup.”

“Nor have I,” an­swered the guardian with a quick com­pres­sion of her lips. “That af­fair is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, though I have now lit­tle hope of fix­ing up­on the guilty per­son. Per­haps this in­ter­rup­tion may bring out some­thing how­ev­er. That makes two mys­ter­ies for us to clear up. First the haz­ing, then the in­ci­dent of the con­somme. There are one or more guilty girls in this camp who must be found and dis­missed. I am de­ter­mined up­on that. Now about your sleep­ing quar­ters.”

“Oh, yes, I was go­ing to speak with you about that.”

“The on­ly tent we have is a small A tent with room enough for two per­sons. Do you think you can get along with that, al­low­ing one oth­er girl to share the tent with you, say for in­stance, Miss Kid­der?”

“Oh, yes. But I rather thought I should like to sleep out of doors for a few nights. May I?”

“If you think you are well enough. I would sug­gest that you place your bed near the tent that we shall erect this af­ter­noon, then if you wish to go in­side you will not have far to go. Why do you wish to sleep out of doors?”

“I thought I should like to try for the 'hon­or' for sleep­ing out doors for five con­sec­utive nights.”

“Oh, yes. That re­minds me. You have some 'hon­ors' com­ing to you as it is. At din­ner this evening I shall have some­thing to say that un­doubt­ed­ly will please you. But we have a vis­itor. I must leave you.”

The vis­itor was none oth­er than Char­lie Col­lier. He was alone and was shak­ing hands with Co­ra when Har­ri­et first caught sight of him. Har­ri­et Bur­rell's face as­sumed a thought­ful ex­pres­sion as she looked the young man over. She had no par­tic­ular fault to find with his ap­pear­ance, but the con­ver­sa­tion she had over­heard be­tween Co­ra and Pa­tri­cia out­side the tent, in­stant­ly re­curred to Har­ri­et. Mr. Col­lier was un­doubt­ed­ly there to get his an­swer re­gard­ing Co­ra's ac­com­pa­ny­ing him to the dance at “The Pines.”

“Oh, I hope she doesn't do any­thing so fool­ish,” thought Har­ri­et.

The guest was soon chat­ting with Mrs. Liv­ingston, then af­ter hav­ing paid his re­spects to her, he walked with Co­ra, greet­ing the oth­er girls to whom he had been in­tro­duced on his pre­vi­ous vis­it. He glanced at Har­ri­et and she was pos­itive that he asked some ques­tion of his com­pan­ion con­cern­ing her, for Co­ra turned quick­ly to­ward Har­ri­et, then see­ing she was ob­served, shift­ed her glance.

“I wish she would in­tro­duce me. I know I could very eas­ily spoil her lit­tle plan,” thought Har­ri­et. How­ev­er, she was not asked to meet Mr. Col­lier. Very short­ly af­ter­wards, he bade the girls good-​bye, say­ing that he must be get­ting on as he was to have an ac­tive part in the prepa­ra­tions for the dance at “The Pines” that evening. More than one girl in camp wished that she might be num­bered among those who were go­ing to dance at “The Pines.”

Jane came run­ning up to Har­ri­et say­ing that Mrs. Liv­ingston had said Jasper was to fix what­ev­er sort of a bed Har­ri­et wished. Jane sug­gest­ed that they bring a cot out from one of the tents, and build a roof over it.

“That isn't the kind of bed I am go­ing to sleep on,” an­swered Har­ri­et, glanc­ing up bright­ly. “Did you ev­er see a woods­man's bed?”

“Gra­cious, no!” ex­claimed Crazy Jane. “What sort of a freak is it?”

“There comes Jasper. I will tell him what I want. He doesn't look par­tic­ular­ly hap­py, does he!”

Har­ri­et told Jasper to cut two six-​inch tree trunks and fetch them to the site of the new tent. He brought some that had al­ready been cut for a Coun­cil Fire. Har­ri­et di­rect­ed him to place them on a lev­el piece of ground, par­al­lel to each oth­er and about four feet apart.

“Now bring me all the pine boughs you can get. I shall need a lot of them,” said Har­ri­et bright­ly.

Jane her­self car­ried a great many of these boughs to the spot. Har­ri­et broke them off to a length to suit her, af­ter which she be­gan stick­ing the boughs in the soft earth, tops up­per­most. Arm­ful af­ter arm­ful was dis­posed of in this man­ner un­til a fra­grant green mound had been built up. On top of this when she could find no more room to stick the sharp ends of the boughs, the girl laid oth­er boughs, be­ing care­ful not to leave any sharp ends pro­ject­ing.

“Now, Jasper, if you will bring me my mat­tress, we will try the bed,” she said af­ter com­plet­ing and sur­vey­ing her work crit­ical­ly.

Jasper did as she re­quest­ed, for Har­ri­et's lame back would not per­mit of her lift­ing any­thing of weight. The mat­tress was placed on top of the heap. Har­ri­et point­ed to it, nod­ding bright­ly to Crazy Jane.

“Try it, dear,” she said.

By this time quite a crowd of girls had gath­ered about Har­ri­et to watch the mak­ing of the bed, nev­er hav­ing seen any­thing of the kind be­fore. Jane very cau­tious­ly placed her­self on the new bed. To her amaze­ment it did not break down with her. In­stead she seemed to be ly­ing on fra­grant air. Jane ut­tered a lit­tle cry of de­light.

“How do you like it?” chuck­led Har­ri­et.

“Oh, girls this is sim­ply great. I could just die on this bed.”

“Please don't. I want to sleep on it to-​night,” an­swered Har­ri­et laugh­ing­ly. “I didn't make it for you to pass your last mo­ments on. I made it to sleep on and I pro­pose to have a re­al sleep there this very night.”

How­ev­er, as a mat­ter of fact, Har­ri­et Bur­rell was not des­tined to en­joy her night's rest on the bed of pine boughs.

On the con­trary she was des­tined to pass a most mis­er­able night, in this her first sleep in the open.