The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

CHAPTER VIII

A DAY WITH AN EX­CIT­ING FIN­ISH

The Camp Girls stood in groups wait­ing for in­tro­duc­tions to the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls which they knew were to come. Mrs. Liv­ingston per­formed these in­tro­duc­tions. As she did so, she ex­plained the rea­son for the di­sheveled ap­pear­ance of the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls, call­ing at­ten­tion to the pluck of Har­ri­et Bur­rell in try­ing to stop the mad dash of the fright­ened horse, for which, Mrs. Liv­ingston said, an hon­or mark al­ready had been placed op­po­site her name. It was the true Camp Girl spir­it, said the Chief Guardian and they were proud to wel­come her to their ranks.

The Camp Girls had been com­par­ative­ly cor­dial to the new­com­ers since their ar­rival. Now that they had heard of Har­ri­et's pluck they were es­pe­cial­ly so. They pressed for­ward with greet­ings so warm and friend­ly that the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls knew them to be sin­cere, and this made the four young wom­en feel at home on the in­stant. Har­ri­et's face was still flushed from Mrs. Liv­ingston's praise and her eye­lids were droop­ing mod­est­ly. Tom­my, how­ev­er, was in her el­ement. She talked in­ces­sant­ly, and even had to be re­mind­ed that Mrs. Liv­ingston was about to say grace. So ab­sorbed did she be­come in her own chat­ter that she did not ob­serve that the whole ta­ble was await­ing the con­clu­sion of her talk for the more solemn du­ty of ask­ing grace.

Har­ri­et thought she had nev­er gazed up­on a more at­trac­tive scene. Flow­ers were ar­ranged at in­ter­vals along each ta­ble. At each end of the ta­bles sat the guardians, gen­er­al­ly col­lege girls who had vol­un­teered their ser­vices for the sum­mer. Then the rows of brown-​faced, bright-​eyed girls com­plet­ed the pic­ture. There was prac­ti­cal­ly no re­straint placed up­on the girls. Most of the campers were well-​bred young wom­en who in­stinc­tive­ly dis­tin­guished be­tween bright­ness and bois­ter­ous­ness. There was plen­ty of gay laugh­ter and bright repar­tee, in which the keen-​wit­ted col­lege-​girl guardians oc­ca­sion­al­ly took part. These col­lege girls were both an ex­am­ple and an in­spi­ra­tion to the younger girls of the camp. It was from one of these young wom­en sit­ting near her that Har­ri­et learned what “hon­ors” meant in the camp. Ev­ery time a girl did some­thing of mer­it she was award­ed an hon­or, these be­ing be­stowed in the form of col­ored wood­en beads.

In ad­di­tion to this the girls were ad­vanced in de­grees. One day they might them­selves be­come guardians. It was all very at­trac­tive. There were many du­ties for the girls to per­form and many, many things to learn. Their days Har­ri­et dis­cov­ered, were not whol­ly de­vot­ed to amuse­ment, but to learn­ing wood­craft and oth­er use­ful things.

“I am sure I shall nev­er want to leave this won­der­ful place,” cried Har­ri­et en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly when the meal came to a close and the guardian had be­stowed an ap­pre­cia­tive smile on her.

The work be­ing cleared out of the way by the Work­ers, Mrs. Liv­ingston read from the Bible out in the open, with the girls sit­ting on the ground with feet tucked un­der them. Over-​head the birds sang sweet­ly, their voic­es heard even above those of the girls when all joined in the singing that fol­lowed the read­ing of the Scrip­ture. Fol­low­ing this came a pe­ri­od of re­lax­ation and vis­it­ing dur­ing which the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls be­gan to re­al­ly get ac­quaint­ed with their fel­low campers.

The guardians, the four girls learned, had full charge of all forms of recre­ation, so that when the guardian of Har­ri­et's di­vi­sion pro­posed a trip out in­to the woods, it was a vir­tu­al com­mand. The walk was a saunter among the trees, dur­ing which Miss Par­tridge gave them some lessons in wood­craft, es­pe­cial­ly on how to find one's way about in the woods. It was an ex­treme­ly in­ter­est­ing talk to Har­ri­et Bur­rell, though she al­ready was fa­mil­iar with a num­ber of the things Miss Par­tridge told her. Ev­ery one of the girls who had been out on the tramp, re­turned with keen ap­petites for lun­cheon which was served at half past twelve. Din­ner on Sun­day was served at five o'clock, on oth­er days it was served at six o'clock. At lun­cheon Mrs. Liv­ingston ad­dressed the girls on the work and du­ties of a Camp Girl. One part of her dis­course gave Har­ri­et a bet­ter idea of the pur­pos­es of the camp than she had be­fore known.

“We are a self-​gov­ern­ing body,” said the Chief Guardian. "For the ben­efit of the new­com­ers among us I will say that our laws are not writ­ten laws. Young wom­en soon rec­og­nize that if we are to have a hap­py, whole­some camp life, each girl must do her part well. The keynote of the whole sum­mer's work is ser­vice. The girls must be thought­ful for one an­oth­er. I can­not em­pha­size this too strong­ly.

"To be el­igi­ble to the sec­ond rank of your or­der a young wom­an must be able to ful­fil re­quire­ments such as these: She must be able to pre­pare two meals with­out help or ad­vice; must sleep with open win­dows or out of doors for at least one month; must re­frain from can­dy and so­da for at least one month; must know how to act when a per­son's cloth­ing is on fire or when a per­son has fall­en in­to deep wa­ter, as well as what to do in case of faint­ing.

“The hon­ors,” con­tin­ued Mrs. Liv­ingston, “are less eas­ily earned. For in­stance, any one of the fol­low­ing ac­com­plish­ments will count as one point in the fa­vor of the girl who earns them: Be free from colds for two suc­ces­sive months in the win­ter; be able to bring up some cer­tain ob­ject from the bot­tom in ten feet of wa­ter; to know and de­scribe three kinds of ba­by cries and what they mean; to com­mit to mem­ory the pream­bles to the Con­sti­tu­tion and the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence; al­so Lin­coln's Get­tys­burg ad­dress. There are many more re­quire­ments that you young wom­en who have just be­come mem­bers of our camp, will learn from your as­so­ciates. I shall hope to see you not on­ly reach­ing the next high­er grade at an ear­ly day, but win­ning hon­ors as well,” con­clud­ed Mrs. Liv­ingston.

“Good grathiouth!” ex­claimed Tom­my in the brief pe­ri­od of si­lence fol­low­ing the Chief Guardian's talk. She said it in a voice that was heard by ev­ery one of the girls in camp.

A sup­pressed tit­ter rip­pled around the ta­bles. Mrs. Liv­ingston looked in­quir­ing­ly at Tom­my.

“Well, Miss Thomp­son, what is it?” ques­tioned the guardian.

“I gueth I'll be an an­gel be­fore I know all of thith.”

The tit­ter be­came a shout of mer­ri­ment in which all the guardians joined. Miss Elt­ing know­ing Tom­my as she did, mere­ly smiled, but Margery blushed painful­ly. She felt hu­mil­iat­ed for her friend. Tom­my, how­ev­er, had ful­ly es­tab­lished her rep­uta­tion in that camp. In fu­ture noth­ing that she might say or do would be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly by her com­pan­ions. Mrs. Liv­ingston made no ef­fort to cor­rect the girl. In­stead she left that to the girls be­liev­ing that Tom­my would leave the camp fair­ly well made over. She un­der­stood that Tom­my was mere­ly a spoiled child, un­der whose ap­par­ent­ly thought­less, al­most im­per­ti­nent man­ner lay the mak­ing of a charm­ing, lov­able young wom­an.

While they were still at lun­cheon Jasper came in­to camp with the trunks that he had brought in an­oth­er wag­on. He had found his horse, but the an­imal had cut both legs severe­ly and could not be driv­en for some time. From the log road Jasper had dragged the trunks to the camp on a two-​wheeled cart. Tom­my spied him plod­ding down the path push­ing the cart. She eyed him in­quir­ing­ly. The girls set up a shout when they caught sight of Jasper. He was pop­ular in that he brought mail to them and some­times good­ies from home.

“That ith Jath,” nod­ded Tom­my.

“You mean Mr. Jasper,” cor­rect­ed Miss Par­tridge.

“Yeth.”

“Har­ri­et pulled hith whithk­erth latht night. Do you know what he thaid?”

“I can imag­ine that he was quite an­gry,” an­swered Miss Par­tridge.

“Yeth I gueth he wath. He thaid, 'leg­go my whithk­erth, con­tharn ye!' Yeth he did, didn't he, Har­ri­et! Wathn't that aw­ful?”

“Oh, Tom­my!” begged Har­ri­et.

It was a full minute be­fore or­der was re­stored in the din­ing tent. At the con­clu­sion of the out­break Mrs. Liv­ingston gave the sig­nal to rise and the girls crowd­ed out with flushed faces and laugh­ing eyes, a group of them sur­round­ing Tom­my, ask­ing her ques­tions in the hope that she might amuse them with oth­er fun­ny re­marks. This gath­er­ing was in­ter­rupt­ed by the voice of Mrs. Liv­ingston.

“The Mead­ow-​Brook Girls may go to their tents to ar­range their out­fits,” she an­nounced. “The trunks are in place. I sup­pose you will want to change to your camp uni­forms.”

The girls as­sent­ed ea­ger­ly. Tom­my fair­ly flew over the un­even ground. She caught her toe on the root of a tree, mea­sur­ing her length on the ground. She was up and off again un­heed­ing the shouts of laugh­ter from her com­pan­ions.

Each of the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls was ea­ger to get in­to her uni­form. Tom­my was so ex­cit­ed that Har­ri­et had to as­sist her in dress­ing. Then when this had been ac­com­plished Tom­my swept up and down the tent, sur­vey­ing her­self in the mir­ror from var­ious dif­fer­ent at­ti­tudes.

“How do you like me?” she de­mand­ed, squint­ing up at Har­ri­et.

“You will do very well if you fix your hair. It looks fright­ful, Tom­my. You must spend more time with it. The way you wear your hair re­minds me of Crazy Jane.”

“Oh, dear. I can't th­pend the time to both­er with it. I'm too buthy. You do it for me.”

“I will help you, of course, if you wish, but a Camp Girl should be able to do such things for her­self. Now you watch me do mine. While you are watch­ing, give your own hair a good brush­ing.”

Har­ri­et part­ed her hair in the mid­dle in a very straight line, di­vid­ed it in­to four strands, which she wound in­to as many soft coils, two at the nape of the neck and one on each side half con­ceal­ing her ears. She pinned it se­cure­ly, then with artis­tic pre­ci­sion fluffed a few locks of hair about her tem­ples.

“There!” she said, turn­ing a smil­ing face to her lit­tle com­pan­ion who had been ob­serv­ing her ad­mir­ing­ly.

“I couldn't do that with my hair.”

“I know that, dear. Your hair is not as thick as mine. Now let me see what you can do with yours. It looks bet­ter now that you have brushed it out.”

Tom­my ar­ranged her­self be­fore a mir­ror. She braid­ed her light hair tight­ly in­to a pig-​tail, ty­ing it about half way up with a black rib­bon. Stray ends, like the un­rav­eled strands of a rope were left string­ing down over her ears, giv­ing to her face a more imp­ish ex­pres­sion than it had worn be­fore. She turned from the mir­ror in which she had been ad­mir­ing her hand­iwork, to meet the laugh­ing eyes of her com­pan­ion.

“How do you like me?”

“Oh, I don't know. At least it looks bet­ter than it did.”

“Fine, ithn't it? Crathy Jane'th hair nev­er looked tho well ath that. But thith dreth ith a lit­tle too thom­bre for one of my age, don't you think?” ques­tioned Tom­my wise­ly.

“I think they will for­get all about the som­bre­ness of the dress when they see your hap­py face,” an­swered Har­ri­et. “Be­sides, it is the dress that all the girls here are wear­ing. I call it a very pret­ty uni­form. I hope Margery had the but­tons sewed se­cure­ly on hers. If not she will burst them all off the first time she stoops over.”

“Yeth, Buthter ith too fat,” agreed Tom­my. “Thay, Har­ri­et?”

“Yes?”

“I don't like Pa­trithia and Co­ra.”

“You shouldn't say that. You hard­ly know them.”

“I don't want to. Ev­ery time they look at me they laugh. I'll thay thome­thing to them firtht thing they know.”

“Please, please, Grace, nev­er do any­thing of the sort. You might be sent home for such a thing. You know what Mrs. Liv­ingston said to-​day about girls be­ing thought­ful for each oth­er and al­ways kind and help­ful.”

“Well Pa­trithia ithn't thought­ful or kind to me, ith thhe?”

“That is no rea­son why you should not be. Are you ready?”

“Yeth. Let'th go out and thtrut up and down.”

“I am afraid you are a vain lit­tle crea­ture, but you are a dear, Tom­my, just the same,” laughed Har­ri­et, giv­ing one of Tom­my's lit­tle pink ears a mis­chievous pinch af­ter which the two girls emerged from their tent arm in arm.

The Camp Girls gath­ered about them. The plain­ness of the cos­tume be­came Har­ri­et, but Tom­my did not look quite her­self. Her face ap­peared small­er than ev­er, and her light hair was ac­cen­tu­at­ed by the dark col­or of the uni­form. The lit­tle girl, how­ev­er, soon for­got all about her per­son­al ap­pear­ance in the en­joy­ment she found in talk­ing with the oth­er girls of the camp.

There was lit­tle to be done on Sun­day af­ter­noon. Those who pre­ferred to do so might read. Oth­ers spent the time in loung­ing and vis­it­ing or strolling among the great trees ei­ther putting in­to prac­tice such wood-​lore as they had learned or dis­cussing their own and camp af­fairs. Those girls who had been to the camp be­fore or held high rank in the as­so­ci­ation took it up­on them­selves to in­struct and be help­ful to the younger and less ex­pe­ri­enced girls. Har­ri­et's love of na­ture and her fre­quent com­mu­nions with it, made her a pop­ular pupil. About many things she knew as much if not more than her in­struc­tors among the girls, but she care­ful­ly avoid­ed set­ting up her knowl­edge against that of her com­pan­ions.

The day passed hap­pi­ly. Af­ter din­ner the campers gath­ered about a cheer­ful camp­fire where they spent the greater part of the evening lis­ten­ing to In­di­an leg­ends told to them by the guardians, re­lat­ing in­ter­est­ing ex­pe­ri­ences in their own lives, or ex­cit­ing ad­ven­tures, as the case might be. Then came bed­time. The Mead­ow-​Brook Girls were ea­ger to re­tire. They were equal­ly ea­ger to greet the com­ing day.

Dur­ing the day just end­ed, they had passed scarce­ly a word with Pa­tri­cia and Co­ra. The for­mer was a girl about Har­ri­et's age, the lat­ter a year or two old­er. Co­ra was proud and haughty. In this re­spect she was un­like the av­er­age Camp Girl, mak­ing the con­trast, in Har­ri­et's eyes, all the more marked.

Har­ri­et bade both girls a cour­te­ous good night as she turned in to her cot. They were more slow to get to bed, and a guardian's voice re­mind­ing them that it was then a quar­ter af­ter nine, fif­teen min­utes past the time when lights should be out, caused the two girls quick­ly to ex­tin­guish the lantern that hung on the cen­tre pole and seek their cots. Har­ri­et in a half doze re­al­ized that they were talk­ing. She roused her­self, not to lis­ten, but be­cause they had dis­turbed her. But Har­ri­et would not ask them to be qui­et. As for Tom­my, that young wom­an was asleep al­most the in­stant she touched the cot. It will be re­called that she had had lit­tle sleep dur­ing the pre­vi­ous night.

Then Har­ri­et went to sleep with the whis­per­ings of Pa­tri­cia and Co­ra reach­ing her but faint­ly. She re­called af­ter­wards that when she roused her­self they were sit­ting on the edge of Pa­tri­cia's cot.

As the night ad­vanced the camp be­came dark and silent. Two or three fig­ures might have been seen steal­ing in­to the tent where the two Mead­ow-​Brook Girls lay sleep­ing, but their move­ments were so cau­tious and stealthy that they did not awak­en the sleep­ers.

There was sud­den rush of feet, a smoth­ered ex­cla­ma­tion and a half cry of alarm from Tom­my's cot, then a strug­gle from Har­ri­et's side of the tent A few mo­ments of si­lence fol­lowed, af­ter which two forms with their heads swathed in tow­els were led from the tent, one strug­gling with all her strength to free her­self from her cap­tors, the oth­er walk­ing along with­out a protest­ing word or ac­tion.

The camp slum­bered on. Not a sound had reached the ears of the sleep­ing guardians near at hand, nor had an­oth­er Camp Girl been awak­ened. The fig­ures of cap­tors and cap­tives were swal­lowed up in the gloom of the for­est with­in a few mo­ments.