The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

CHAPTER VI

TAK­ING THEIR FIRST DE­GREE

“But my dears,” cried Mrs. Liv­ingston, a sweet-​faced, moth­er­ly wom­an. “What could have oc­curred?”

It was not strange that she should ex­press amaze­ment, for the con­di­tion of the clothes of the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls would have at­tract­ed at­ten­tion any­where. She stood back sur­vey­ing them anx­ious­ly. All were more or less di­sheveled. Tom­my's blonde hair had fall­en about her shoul­ders in tan­gled locks; Margery had burst most of the but­tons off her blouse when she fell over Jasper; Har­ri­et's blue ging­ham frock had been sad­ly de­mol­ished on her jour­ney at the end of the rein be­hind the fright­ened horse; Hazel found dif­fi­cul­ty in keep­ing her hair out of her face; be­sides which, both she and Miss Elt­ing looked tired and worn.

“We had an ac­ci­dent,” ex­plained Miss Elt­ing. “But we over­came all dif­fi­cul­ties fi­nal­ly.”

“I'm the on­ly one that wath over­come,” lisped Grace. “It wathn't the dif­fi­cul­ti­eth, it wath mythelf. And, Mithith Liv­ingth­ton, Har­ri­et pulled out some of Jath­perth whithk­erth. Wathn't that fun­ny?”

“You had bet­ter leave the ex­pla­na­tion to me,” sug­gest­ed Miss Elt­ing, who then went on to ex­plain what had oc­curred on their jour­ney to the Pocono Woods, Mrs. Liv­ingston lis­ten­ing with wide open eyes.

“Oh, I am so sor­ry, my dears,” com­fort­ed the el­der­ly wom­an af­ter hav­ing heard the sto­ry of their ex­pe­ri­ences. “But you sure­ly did show pluck. That is prop­er. A Camp Girl must be re­source­ful and brave un­der all cir­cum­stances.”

“Yeth ma'am. Pleathe tell that to Buthter. She ith a 'fraid cat.”

“My dear Miss Thomp­son, that is not the way a Camp Girl should speak of any of her com­pan­ions. How­ev­er, I will for­give you this time. Are you hun­gry? You must be af­ter that long walk.”

“We had a light lun­cheon on the way out,” an­swered Miss Elt­ing.

“All of you come with me to the cook tent at once. But I warn, you it will be a lun­cheon of such as we can put our hands on. I do not wish to wake the work­ers at this hour.”

They passed by a long row of dark­ened tents on their way to the cook tent lo­cat­ed well down the street, which was a street in name on­ly.

“I have as­signed you and Miss Thomp­son to this tent, Miss Bur­rell,” said the Chief Guardian. “You will be in­tro­duced to your tent­mates in the morn­ing. Here we are.”

The cook tent was filled with long ta­bles run­ning length­ways of the tent. Ev­ery­thing was bright and clean with a strong odor of pine in the air.

“My! That odor of pine does give one an ap­petite,” laughed Miss Elt­ing. “What may we do to as­sist you?”

“You may make the cof­fee while I get to­geth­er some things to eat,” di­rect­ed Mrs. Liv­ingston. “You will find the cof­fee-​pot and cof­fee can be­side it on the sec­ond shelf to the right. I think there is still fire in the stove. I had it kept up un­til late rather ex­pect­ing that you would come in hun­gry. I shall have to talk with Jasper. His at­ti­tude was in­ex­cus­able.”

Miss Elt­ing hav­ing turned her at­ten­tion to the fire, Har­ri­et prompt­ly reached for the cof­fee-​pot and in a short time had the cof­fee boil­ing. Hazel took the food from Mrs. Liv­ingston, plac­ing it on the ta­ble and ar­rang­ing the places for the par­ty.

“Very well done, young ladies,” ap­proved Mrs. Liv­ingston, whose keen eyes had missed noth­ing of the prepa­ra­tions. “That is as it should be with a Camp Girl. I am afraid it will be use­less to sug­gest that you eat as light­ly as pos­si­ble. You must be fam­ished, but re­mem­ber you will be go­ing to bed very short­ly af­ter your meal.”

They promised her that they would heed her sug­ges­tion. All did so save Grace who ate heav­ily. Mrs. Liv­ingston re­gard­ed the lit­tle girl with an amused smile. She al­ready knew Tom­my bet­ter than Tom­my even knew her­self. To take their at­ten­tion from their eat­ing in a mea­sure, Mrs. Liv­ingston told them some­thing of the life of the camp with ref­er­ence to them­selves.

“Af­ter you have filled out and signed the blanks to-​mor­row you will be full fledged mem­bers of the Camp Girls' As­so­ci­ation. Each of you will have at­tained your first rank. You will be known as Wood Gath­er­ers and the em­blem of your rank will be the crossed fagots on the Sleeves of your blous­es. By the way, Miss Elt­ing, have they been sup­plied with the uni­form?”

“Yes. Their clothes are in their trunks. We were obliged to leave them at the sta­tion.”

Mrs. Liv­ingston nod­ded.

“Jasper will bring them over to-​mor­row--pro­vid­ed he has found his horse by that time,” she added with a half smile.

“Do we have to gath­er wood?” ques­tioned Grace.

“Some­times. We all have to do our parts in this com­mu­ni­ty. The young wom­en of the or­ga­ni­za­tion do the cook­ing and the sweep­ing for the en­tire camp. They are di­vid­ed in­to squads. All this is ar­ranged by them­selves. Those who are do­ing the work for the day are called the Work­ers. You will have to be up and ready for your du­ties by six o'clock in the morn­ing when you are Work­ers.”

“Oh, my good­neth, I couldn't do that,” ex­claimed Grace.

“Each girl must do her part. The rules of the camp will be ex­plained to you to-​mor­row. But I am quite sure the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls will make a de­light­ful ad­di­tion to Camp Wau-​Wau.”

“We shall do our best, Mrs. Liv­ingston,” Har­ri­et as­sured her with eyes fixed on the face of the Chief Guardian.

“I am sure that you will,” was the re­ply. “Miss Bur­rell, you and Miss Thomp­son will oc­cu­py cots in the tent I showed to you as we passed along. Your tent­mates will be Pa­tri­cia Scott and Co­ra Kid­der. We are obliged to place four girls in a tent now when we have so many of them with us, lat­er on two girls may ar­range to oc­cu­py one tent if they de­sire to do so, though the re­quest is sel­dom made. Break­fast will be­gin at sev­en o'clock. We like to have all our girls on hand prompt­ly at that hour. Miss Brown and Miss Hol­land will be your tent­mates for the present, Miss Elt­ing. I think as soon as pos­si­ble I shall place the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls in one tent. Would that please you?”

“Yes, in­deed,” cried the girls.

“Yeth, thank you. We're a clothe cor­po­ra­tion, ath my fa­ther would thay.”

“Grace's fa­ther is a lawyer,” ex­plained Miss Elt­ing with a smile.

“I ob­serve that she ex­hibits quite a le­gal trend of mind,” laughed the Chief Guardian. “Now if you have fin­ished eat­ing I will show you to your tents. Have you any oth­er changes of clothes for to-​mor­row morn­ing!”

Har­ri­et said they had not. The Chief said she would try to bor­row a skirt for Har­ri­et. The oth­er girls' clothes were in some­what bet­ter con­di­tion, and would do, even though Sun­day was a par­tial dress up day at Camp Wau-​Wau.

Car­ry­ing her lantern Mrs. Liv­ingston led the way first to the tent that Miss Elt­ing and the two girls were to oc­cu­py. The oth­er oc­cu­pant of this tent did not wake up. Hers was a sound sleep, in­duced by hours full of ac­tiv­ity and en­joy­ment in the fra­grant woods.

When they en­tered the next tent, how­ev­er, Har­ri­et caught a glimpse of a pair of bright eyes peer­ing at them from above the blan­kets. The eyes closed al­most in­stant­ly and the sound of reg­ular breath­ing came from that cot.

Har­ri­et smiled to her­self. She glanced quick­ly at Tom­my who al­most im­per­cep­ti­bly closed and opened one eye. Quick-​wit­ted, Tom­my had not missed the lit­tle scene. Har­ri­et want­ed to laugh, but in­stead her face wore a grave ex­pres­sion as she lis­tened to Mrs. Liv­ingston ex­plain­ing how they were ex­pect­ed to air their blan­kets out in the open in the morn­ing, then af­ter break­fast make their beds and care for their tents.

Each girl had a lock­er, this be­ing noth­ing more than a se­ries of hooks set in­to the low­er ridge plate of the tent, and on which they were sup­posed to hang their clothes. A cur­tain cov­ered this lock­er or clothes press. There was one wash­stand for each pair of girls. They pro­vid­ed their own tow­els. In the case of the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls, their tow­el rack was emp­ty, but each had a pair in the suit cas­es, to­geth­er with oth­er nec­es­sary toi­let ar­ti­cles.

Miss Elt­ing had been left to look af­ter Margery and Hazel. Mrs. Liv­ingston re­mained in the tent with Har­ri­et and Tom­my, un­til they had pre­pared for bed and fi­nal­ly tum­bled in­to their cots. Then the Chief Guardian bade each of them good night.

“Pleas­ant dreams, my dears,” she said, and left the tent tak­ing the lantern with her, leav­ing the in­te­ri­or of the place in dark­ness. For a few mo­ments the two girls lay qui­et, then Har­ri­et heard Tom­my call­ing to her in a loud whis­per.

“What is it!” asked Har­ri­et.

“I'm afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Ev­ery­thing. It ith tho th­pooky in here. Thay, can't we lock the door?”

“There is no door to lock. Don't whis­per so loud­ly. You will awak­en the oth­er girls,” warned Har­ri­et.

“May I come over in your bed?”

“In­deed you may not. Tom­my, do go to sleep. I can hard­ly keep my eyes open.”

Si­lence reigned in the tent for sev­er­al min­utes, then Tom­my be­gan an­oth­er plain­tive whis­per.

“Thay, Har­ri­et.”

“Oh, Tom­my, please,” begged Har­ri­et. “What is the trou­ble?”

“I'm afraid.”

“There is noth­ing to fear. What are you afraid of?”

“Bearth.”

“There are no bears in this part of the coun­try. I'm ashamed to see you such a cow­ard.”

“You can't thee me at all. It ith too dark,” re­tort­ed Grace. “What ith that? Thome­body whith­pered.”

Har­ri­et Bur­rell did not an­swer, for she was sound asleep by this time. Tom­my lay there star­ing in­to the dark­ness un­til her eye­lids grew heavy. They drooped and drooped, fi­nal­ly clos­ing over her eyes al­to­geth­er. But she had no more than dropped in­to a doze when she came to a sit­ting pos­ture wide awake. Some­thing had dis­turbed her. Some­thing was mov­ing in the tent and she could al­most feel it.

Tom­my's eyes grew wide with ter­ror.

“Har­ri­et!” she whis­pered. “Har­ri­et!” This time the whis­per was a lit­tle loud­er, but there was no an­swer to the ap­peal. Then a most ter­ri­fy­ing thing oc­curred. A low, deep growl sound­ed right at the head of Tom­my's cot. With a wild cry the ter­ri­fied lit­tle girl land­ed in the mid­dle of the floor.