VACATION’S LAST FLING
“Gid-ap!” cried Betty, waving a willow switch, but not touching her old
horse with it. Four or five girls were urging their gentle steeds along
the pretty country road near the camp to which Betty Lee and Kathryn had
come for their last fling before school.
“This is like old days at the farm,” remarked Betty, rather jerkily, as
her horse picked up his pace and stride and jolted her. One of the girls
that Betty had recently met at camp passed now with a clatter of horse’s
hoofs and a flapping of girl elbows.
“She can’t ride any better than we can,” cried Kathryn, grinning. “It’s
us for riding lessons this fall, isn’t it Betty?”
Betty only nodded. This was great fun, riding up hill and down dale in
the country-side near the camp to which Betty had duly come, although
all that they had planned had not been carried out. Mr. Lee had not
brought Mrs. Lee and Amy Lou to New England, since business in New York
held him there. But the Penroses, driving up to the Maine village to
investigate all its delights, of which they were hearing in letters from
Gwen and cards from their sons, left at the psychological moment, Gwen
said, to take Kathryn and Betty with them.
It was a little hard to leave Carolyn behind. She had given up all idea
of camp and Betty really did not see how any one could leave the ocean
unless she had to. But the restless boys had been making ready to leave
on some other trip, by boat, if Larry Waite had his way. There would be
some scattering.
Betty and Kathryn were taken by car to Boston, where they embarked for
New York, going on a “delirious” jaunt by a coast steamer to New York.
There they joined the Lees, Amy Lou doing the honors of the city with
great dignity and telling the girls where to see different things of
importance. Betty would not spoil Amy Lou’s enthusiasm by reminding her
that she had been there before. That was one pleasant custom in the Lee
family, to give each member a fair chance with enthusiasms or
accomplishments. To take the wind out of anybody’s sails—well, that was
too deadly!
But Betty and Kathryn had a gay time for a a week. They ate lobster in
one delightful place and had French dainties in another. And both agreed
that no summer which they ever should have could come up to this one.
Here they were now in this wonderful camp; and Betty declared that
having seen her father and mother and Amy Lou had been quite enough to
stave off any homesickness. She never _would_ want to go home now.
Imagine! School!
This was more like school in numbers, this Indiana camp of Girl
Reserves. The group in the Maine village had been more or less an
exclusive, or small one. Here were about sixty girls, only a few of whom
Betty knew, though there were some from other high schools in her home
city. And were they _friendly_—and _noisy_, at certain times? So Betty
queried in her home letter written the day after arrival. But it was
only the camp freedom, supervised, to be sure, that found expression
here as in all camps.
Betty and Kathryn, rather expecting this to be something of an
anti-climax after Maine, were pleasantly disappointed. Why, it was
“gorgeous!” And it may be that the extravagant expressions of youth were
justified. It was “like being away to school—and without lessons!”
Betty’s only other camp experience had been a week-end attendance upon a
Fall Retreat. That she had “loved” and it had made her happy in her
interest in Lyon “T,” but it did not last long enough. By arrangement
she was here for three weeks and would see some changes in the personnel
of the girls. Many of them came for only a week; some, for two weeks.
The camp had been a gift to the Y. W. C. A., and consisted of the
buildings and grounds of a country resort, close to a tiny country town.
The main building, originally a country hotel or club house, was a
three-story structure and had been adapted to its present use, very much
like a girls’ dormitory. Wide porches, a large room with a fireplace for
the open fires they sometimes had in cool evenings, an immense dining
room, a big “back porch” which was practically a large room and now
glassed in and screened, to be thrown open often—all these were
prominent features.
There were several small cottages and because the next group of Girl
Reserves was a large one, Kathryn and Betty had been placed in one of
these, as they were to stay over into the next period. The girls were at
first a trifle disappointed, but when they found that a phoebe was
nesting on the ledge above their very door, undisturbed with their
passing in and out, they were quite delighted.
Main building, cottages and all were perched on a wooded bluff above the
banks of a beautiful little river. It was not the ocean, to be sure, but
Betty was satisfied when she first realized the loveliness of the place,
its tall trees, the birds nesting close by and their songs in the
morning. And oh, the nice space! Little country roads, deep hollows,
thick woods, all sorts of growths with the wild flowers of the late
season! There was a safe backwater in which to swim and bathe—and the
water was warm, and did not taste salty! Inland country had a beauty of
its own. Moreover, there was some one to tell you about everything.
A young science instructor from one of the colleges had charge of a
nature interest group, for which Betty and Kathryn promptly signed.
Betty joined the dramatic group and Kathryn signed up for handicraft.
Both were in the recreation group, and they concluded that a poetry club
would be “instructive.”
Yet it was not in the least like school and classes. The nature group
met out under the trees and planned or executed a hike. The recreation
group played tennis, volley ball and other outdoor games or scampered
over the country on horseback, as Betty and Kathryn were doing now. The
dramatic group took the lead in the funny plays or masquerades or stunts
with which the whole camp was entertained.
And now the girls were jogging slowly home from their ride. The horses
would be given a little rest and another set of riders would have their
turn.
“I had a note from Ramon this morning, Kathryn,” said Betty, as she tied
her horse to the proper place and joined Kathryn in a stroll down the
hill to the bridge that crossed the river. “I haven’t had a good chance
before to tell you without somebody around.”
“Then he’s still alive,” said Kathryn, her eye on a rabbit that popped
out of the bushes and went scurrying down the little road.
“He was when he wrote it,” giggled Betty. Then she sobered, thinking
that it was not very nice of her to make a joke of anything connected
with that harassed boy.
“You didn’t tell us much about your talk with Ramon, Betty,” remarked
Kathryn, with an air of inviting confidences.
“There was so little of it,” musingly returned Betty. “Look! There’s
that Kentucky warbler that we’ve been trying to see! I didn’t know that
they nested here till Miss Davenport told us.”
“Well, Kentucky is the name of it, and if this _is_ Indiana, camp isn’t
so far north of the Ohio River.”
Even the girls’ low voices had made the bird whisk out of sight again.
Quiet indeed must she who follows the birds learn to be! There was no
further conversation while the girls stealthily tiptoed to a vantage
point and watched the thick bushes that concealed the warbler. Then—oh
joy!—there were both of the mates. First the male bird flew from the
bush to a tree above. On a lower limb, in plain sight, he rested for a
few moments, a ray of sunlight catching the bright yellow of his breast
and showing clearly the black markings of the head. But whisk—they were
both there on the same limb for a second, then gone! Bird study was like
that!
“Now you see them and now you don’t see them!” said Betty, wishing that
she had her notebook. “Don’t let me forget, Kathryn, to put all that
down for our reports, and about the little field sparrow’s nest we found
at the foot of that tree. Gracious! I’m afraid now of _stepping_ on some
nest when we dash around!”
“Go on about Ramon, Betty.”
The girls stopped on the great bridge and leaned on its railing to look
down at the water below. A little green heron started from a thicket
close to the river and a spotted sandpiper flew close to the sands or
gravel upon a “sand-bar” and kept on its low flight for some distance up
the stream.
“I suppose I told you how relieved he was to hear that his mother and
sister were found and all right. I tried to get him to see how much more
his mother would want him than any money, but he doesn’t look at it that
way.”
“Maybe there’s some reason we don’t know, Betty. Then folks are
different about those things. Perhaps they _do_ care about the jewels
and their family and all more than about _living_, without them.”
Betty considered. “I suppose they do hate to be taken advantage of and I
suppose awful things must have happened through that old scoundrel.”
Betty looked around almost as if she expected to see him. “Oh, let’s
forget about it. Ramon Sevilla-sky will just have to have his old
adventures if he will be so obstinate. All he said in his letter was
that he _was_ still alive and on the trail. He just wrote to thank me
for everything, he said, and he could write to Father later on, if he
had any success.”
Kathryn, who had laughed at Betty’s combination of Ramon’s name,
repeated meaningly “_if he has any success_!”
When the girls went back to headquarters again, they found things
humming as usual in the merry beehive of activity. Bernadine Fisher, one
of the dramatic group, handed them each a large scrap of brown paper,
torn in irregular shape and written upon with a very black pencil. This
was the invitation to a barn dance, to take place that evening. “Look as
crazy as you can,” said Bernadine. “And after the barn dance we’re going
to put on our masterpiece. Don’t forget, Betty, that you are the heroine
that gets kidnapped and everything. Ask Miss Mercer about costume. You
remember we talked about that.”
“Yes—but what do I _say_?”
“Oh, make it up! The heroine doesn’t have to say much. She will probably
be gagged anyhow if she is kidnapped!”
“Yes, but I’m one of the villains,” said Kathryn, “and we didn’t write
up anything but the plot!”
“That’s all right. We almost never do for a stunt like this. Just get
the general idea and work out the details as you do it.”
Kathryn and Betty looked at each other with large-sized smiles as
Bernadine left them, though Betty was thinking to herself that
kidnapping and being gagged was not so funny in real life. She had seen
Ramon after such an experience.
“This goes in my stunt-book,” said Kathryn, holding up the artistically
torn piece of brown paper. “It’s loads of fun, Betty, but I guess we’d
better see Miss Mercer about when to come in with our speeches. It
wouldn’t do to be standing around waiting for each other before the
audience. What did I ever let you work me into this play for?”
“You know you wouldn’t miss it, Gypsy! Oh, yes, Miss Davenport, I should
say we _will_ help you put up the bird pictures! Wait till I get the
thumb tacks for you. Have we really seen that many?”
On the big sun porch Kathryn and Betty were soon busy helping put up,
from the excellent portfolio of bird pictures published by the New York
State Museum or the “University of the State of New York,” such pictures
as represented birds actually seen by the nature group in camp. “We have
not as many as we would see in the migration season,” Miss Davenport
explained, “but it is easy enough to get at least fifty birds that nest
about here on our list. I’m making a tree list now for the camp; and
don’t forget to report all the wild flowers, girls.”
The play that night was a great success, a few bad moments for the
actors, when something wrong was done, resulting only in shrieks of
delight and enjoyment from the audience. It was rather entertaining to
hear several startled and perfectly distinct remarks from a heroine that
was supposed to be unable to speak or call for aid. But Betty thought
she was going to be dropped by the excited villains and spoke before she
thought. “Oh!” she finished much mortified, and Kathryn saved the day by
clapping a hand over the heroine’s mouth and calling for “another gag.”
“She will rouse the neighbors yet!” cried Kathryn with a dramatic
gesture, “and all will be lost! See, varlets, that you make a good job
of it this time!” True, “varlets” and “job” scarcely seemed to belong to
the same vernacular, but what mattered a little thing like that?
Besides, they were giving a “real play” at the end of the week.
Ah, the fun they had, the friendships they made and the lessons they
learned in “good sportsmanship” and living together! From reveille to
taps they went from one activity to another, or slept in rest hour, or
sang at meals. Two things Betty declared that she could never forget.
One was a wet evening when a fire in the big fireplace was comfortable.
It was their hearth fire and camp fire in one and the girls sat around
on the floor before it or ranged themselves in comfortable seats at a
greater distance, while one of the young teachers who was a fine
story-teller told all that they asked for of the old tales, and more
amusing or thrilling newer ones.
The other great moment came during the beautiful ceremonial at the end
of the period. Betty and Kathryn had been leaders in the school
organization and found themselves useful here. Both received honors at
the recognition service. And oh, that lovely night, with its moon, its
firelight outdoors, its lights carried by the girls among the shadows
and its inspiration!
“I like you, Betty Lee,” facetiously, yet truthfully said one of the
camp directors as Betty bid her goodbye on the big bridge. A whole
procession of girls was walking across it to take the train at the
village station and a loaded old truck was ahead of them with suitcases
galore.
The young director withdrew her arm which she had linked with Betty’s as
she strolled with the girls as far as the bridge.
“I mean it,” laughed she. “You are a wholesome, happy girl, and I like
your influence upon other girls. I hope you’ll be president of Lyon ‘Y’
this year again.”
Betty shook her head in the negative, looking ahead at Kathryn who was
walking with one of their many new friends. “No—I’ve had that and I
want Kathryn in this year, if possible. But I’ll work for it just as
hard and all the more for having been here! Thank you for your good
opinion of me—I’ll try to deserve it. And we all just love _you_! Thank
you for everything! I’ve had just the _happiest_ time!”
“I’m glad of that, my dear. Come back next year for we have bigger plans
than ever. Remember, Betty Lee, that wherever you go you are going to
have an influence you do not realize on other girls.”
“Mercy, Miss Dale, don’t tell me that! I don’t _want_ to! If there’s
anything I hate it’s trying to manage anybody!”
“I don’t mean that,” smiled Miss Dale. “You may find out what I do mean
some day.”
But Betty dismissed this thought. The train was late and as the
crowd of girls waited they sang _Skin-a-ma-rink-a-dink-a-dink_,
_Sing-a-linga-ling_, _Yawning_, and other camp classics, varied by their
own versions and their hiking and goodbye songs. A tear or two had to be
wiped away over a few sentimental partings. But after the train came in,
demure and bright-eyed travelers happily boarded it.