The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

CHAPTER IV

IN THE HEART OF THE FOR­EST

“Is the wag­on for Camp Wau-​Wau here?” asked Miss Elt­ing.

Four hap­py-​faced girls, ac­com­pa­nied by the teach­er, had left the train at James­burg, from where they were to be con­veyed by wag­on in­to the woods. Miss Elt­ing was di­rect­ed to a three-​seat­ed buck-​board wag­on. Jasper, the handy man about the camp was on the driv­er's seat. He was an old man who said lit­tle. It was ru­mored that three sea­sons spent at Wau-​Wau had thor­ough­ly sub­dued him.

“What about the trunks?” asked the young wom­an.

“Fetch 'em to-​mor­row,” he an­swered terse­ly.

Tom­my re­gard­ed the slen­der look­ing buck-​board ap­pre­hen­sive­ly.

“Buthter bet­ter walk,” she de­cid­ed. “The wag­on won't hold her.”

“Now, now, Tom­my, do stop teas­ing Buster. If the wag­on goes down Margery will go down with it,” an­swered Har­ri­et laugh­ing­ly.

“And she will fall a great deal hard­er than will you,” added Miss Elt­ing, at which there was a mer­ry laugh.

It was late in the af­ter­noon when they fi­nal­ly climbed in­to the buck-​board which sagged in the mid­dle un­til all the girls be­gan to grow ap­pre­hen­sive. They start­ed away along a coun­try road a gay par­ty, in­deed, but Har­ri­et not­ed that horse and driv­er were not well matched. The horse she could plain­ly see was young and frac­tious, and she won­dered what the old man would do should the an­imal prove un­man­age­able. Their driv­er, how­ev­er, ap­peared to have per­fect con­trol over the an­imal, so Har­ri­et dis­missed the dis­turb­ing thought from her mind and pre­pared to en­joy the ride.

The drive to the camp was ful­ly twen­ty miles. Hav­ing come by train they had cov­ered near­ly twice the dis­tance that would have been nec­es­sary had they driv­en di­rect from Mead­ow-​Brook. The fields through which they were driv­ing were green, the air was fresh and fra­grant af­ter a show­er that had fall­en ear­li­er in the day and the girls in the buck-​board wag­on were in high spir­its.

“I'll tell you what, girls,” cried Har­ri­et af­ter they had sung all the songs they knew and dis­cussed the coun­try through which they were pass­ing un­til the lat­ter sub­ject had been worn out. “I'll tell you what we ought to have.”

“Ith it thome­thing nithe?” ques­tioned Grace.

“It is a yell, Tom­my.”

“A yell? I can yell.”

“I don't mean it in that way. Some­thing like a high school or a col­lege yell. We are the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls, you know. We have a name, now we must have a yell.”

“Oh, Mith Elt­ing, give uth a yell, a loud one,” urged Tom­my, her eyes sparkling.

Miss Elt­ing smiled tol­er­ant­ly.

“You had bet­ter ar­range one to suit your­selves,” she an­swered. “Har­ri­et, you will have to pro­vide the yell now that you have sug­gest­ed it.”

Har­ri­et al­ready had a pen­cil in her hand. She sat hold­ing the pen­cil poised above the fly leaf of a book that she had brought along to read, but had not up to this mo­ment, so much as opened. Her brow was wrin­kled in thought. Tom­my was re­gard­ing her keen­ly.

“Well, aren't you go­ing to yell!”

All at once Har­ri­et's face re­laxed. She be­gan to write. Margery craned her neck to see what was be­ing writ­ten, but Har­ri­et held the cov­er of the book in such a po­si­tion that Buster could not see what was be­ing jot­ted down.

“It isn't po­lite to look over an­oth­er per­son's shoul­der in that way,” re­proved Hazel.

“Well, you wouldn't ex­th­pect Buthter to be po­lite when she ith away from home, would you?” de­mand­ed Grace.

“I have it,” an­nounced Har­ri­et. "Lis­ten, girls and see how you like this:

“'Rah, rah, rah, Rah, rah, rah Mead­ow-​Brook, Mead­ow-​Brook, Sis, boom ah!'”

“What do you think of that, girls? Isn't that sim­ply fine?” cried Miss Elt­ing en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. But her voice was lost in the cho­rus that welled forth from the throats of the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls, who had tak­en up the yell with a will. Tom­my's “thith boom ah!” at the end of the yell sent not on­ly the girls, but Miss Elt­ing as well in­to peals of mer­ry laugh­ter.

Jasper nev­er smiled. He stroked his long whiskers re­flec­tive­ly. Har­ri­et who oc­cu­pied the seat be­side him, stole a glance at the old man out of the cor­ner of one eye.

“I sup­pose you are used to girls, aren't you!” she asked.

“Ya-​a-​a-​s,” drawled Jasper then re­lapsed in­to si­lence. The girls prompt­ly broke the si­lence again by giv­ing the Mead­ow-​Brook yell. They con­tin­ued to give it un­til their throats ached. Now and then three of them would stop short of the last line in or­der to catch more clear­ly Tom­my's “thith boom ah!” which al­ways sent them in­to screams of laugh­ter. Fi­nal­ly Tom­my be­came an­gry and re­fused to yell. But the lit­tle lisp­ing girl was like an April day. Her frowns of dis­plea­sure were re­placed by smiles with­in a very few min­utes. The girls had learned not to take Grace's fits of tem­per se­ri­ous­ly. When she be­came ruf­fled, they sim­ply left her to her­self for a few mo­ments well know­ing that the clouds would soon pass and the sun shine again.

“There are the woods! Oh, girls, look at them,” cried Har­ri­et. The wag­on had reached the top of a high knoll in the road, when be­low them was re­vealed the dark blue of a for­est that stretched straight ahead and to the right and left as far as the eye could reach.

“Yes, that is Pocono Woods,” Miss Elt­ing in­formed them. “Are they large enough to suit you?”

“What would we do if we were to get lost in there?” gasped Margery.

“I know what I'd do,” piped Tom­my. “I'd yell like thix­thty.”

“You are like­ly to do that even though you are not lost,” chuck­led the guardian.

“How far in­to the woods do we go?” won­dered Har­ri­et.

“'Bout ten mile, I reck­on,” an­swered Jasper.

“Ten miles? Lis­ten to that, girls. Oh, isn't it per­fect­ly splen­did?” ex­claimed Har­ri­et. “I nev­er dreamed that I should have such a glo­ri­ous va­ca­tion as this is go­ing to be. How many girls are there in camp, Miss Elt­ing?”

“Forty or fifty I should say. I do not know the ex­act num­ber. You will find a hap­py lot of young wom­en. Are you hun­gry?”

There was a gen­er­al as­sent to the ques­tion.

Miss Elt­ing pro­duced a small ham­per in which were sand­wich­es, cold tea, milk and fruit. It was a de­light­ful sur­prise to the girls. They showed their fur­ther ap­pre­ci­ation by eat­ing ev­ery crumb of the lun­cheon, while Jasper con­tent­ed him­self with nib­bling at a sin­gle sand­wich which he held in one hand, driv­ing the young horse with the oth­er.

In this way they drove in­to the for­est, en­tered the cool dark shad­ows of the big woods, and were greet­ed with a cho­rus of pip­ing twit­ters from hun­dreds of for­est birds, var­ied now and then by the hoarse caw of a dis­tant crow whose voice per­haps had start­ed the wood­land cho­rus. The fra­grance of the woods min­gled de­light­ful­ly with the per­fume of the wild hon­ey-​suck­le. The Mead­ow-​Brook Girls fell silent un­der the majesty of the for­est. Tom­my was the first to break the spell.

“Thith ith a th­pooky old plathe,” she de­clared with a shiv­er. “Oh, Mr. Jath­per, are there any fairi­eth in thethe woodth?”

“Any what?”

“Fairies,” ex­plained Har­ri­et, smil­ing ab­sent­ly.

“Nev­er seen none,” an­swered the old man gruffly.

“Isn't it sim­ply glo­ri­ous?” breathed Hazel.

“It is too won­der­ful for words,” agreed Har­ri­et.

Miss Elt­ing nod­ded, smil­ing hap­pi­ly at the en­thu­si­asm of the girls. The wag­on was fol­low­ing an old log­ging road. Small bush­es grew up in the mid­dle of the road. The wheels sank down in­to deep ruts that had been cut by the tires of the heavy log­ging wag­ons, but in gen­er­al the way was free of ob­struc­tions, though the bush­es in the road tick­led the hide of the young horse un­til he be­gan to prance from one side of the road to the oth­er in an ef­fort to avoid them. Har­ri­et want­ed to sug­gest to Jasper that he use both hands to drive, but she did not quite like to do so. He un­doubt­ed­ly would re­sent her in­ter­fer­ence, nor could she blame him for do­ing so.

“Jasper, are you sure the horse is per­fect­ly safe?” ques­tioned Miss Elt­ing ap­pre­hen­sive­ly.

“Hasn't been do­ing noth­ing for nigh on­to a week. Jest feels his oats, that's all.”

Har­ri­et was not ful­ly sat­is­fied with the ex­pla­na­tion, though the oth­ers ap­peared to be. Har­ri­et watched the an­imal now even more close­ly than she had done be­fore.

“Gid-​ap!” com­mand­ed Jasper, giv­ing the horse an un­ex­pect­ed slap with the reins af­ter a par­tic­ular­ly quick swerve to one side of the road on the an­imal's part. The horse cleared the road with a sin­gle leap side­ways. He had been pricked by the sharp top of a bush at the in­stant the reins were brought down on his back. The reins not be­ing un­der the full con­trol of the driv­er at that mo­ment, the an­imal took ad­van­tage of the fact and shy­ing clear out of the nar­row road, plunged in among the trees in a pan­ic of fear.

There fol­lowed a crunch­ing grind­ing crash.

“Thave me! Oh, thave me!” screamed Tom­my.

With a rip­ping sound the canopy top was stripped clear of the ve­hi­cle and left dan­gling from the low hang­ing limbs of the trees un­der which the buck-​board wag­on had been dragged.

“Hold fast! Don't try to jump!” com­mand­ed Miss Elt­ing with­out the least trace of ex­cite­ment in her voice. Hazel placed a firm hand on the arm of the ter­ror-​strick­en Tom­my.

The right for­ward wheel of the wag­on col­lid­ed with a tree. The wheel was shat­tered, and the end of the axle bro­ken off short. At the same in­stant the horse sprang sharply to the left ev­ident­ly in an ef­fort to get back in­to the log road, fac­ing al­most in the op­po­site di­rec­tion.

Jasper be­ing on the down­hill side when the wheel col­lapsed, plunged head first from the seat, land­ing heav­ily on the ground. His head com­ing in­to con­tact with the base of the tree, Jasper sank over on his side, un­con­scious.

Har­ri­et had not lost her head for a sec­ond. As the driv­er fell she snatched at the reins. She caught one of them, the oth­er falling to the ground on the wrecked side of the wag­on.

The thills of the wag­on broke off short with re­ports like the ex­plo­sions of a pis­tol. Then the horse bolt­ed. Har­ri­et grasp­ing the one rein with both hands shot over the dash­board of the wag­on as though she had been pro­ject­ed from a can­non. Hazel and Tom­my were al­so pitched from the ve­hi­cle, Miss Elt­ing and Margery cling­ing to the seats as the wag­on top­pled over on its side.

“Let go!” shout­ed Miss Elt­ing. “You'll be killed!”

But Har­ri­et clung to the sin­gle rein, the fran­tic an­imal drag­ging her away at a fright­ful rate of speed.