THE CAMP ON ACORN ISLAND
Although it was high noon when they were at Lumberport the Girls of
Central High and their boy friends had not lunched there. Indeed, they
waited to reach a certain pleasant grove which some of them knew
about, on the south shore of the river, and several miles above the
spot where Purt Sweet had taken his involuntary ducking.
As the motorboats put ashore and the boys tied them to stubs in the
high bank, they all began joking Purt about his plunge into the river.
The dude had been obliged to exchange his natty outing suit of Lincoln
green for a suit of oil-stained overalls that he found in the cabin of
the _Duchess_. He could not find his own baggage, as the boys with him
had hidden it.
As for the tam-o'-shanter, it had fallen off and floated down the
stream. Purt would never see that remarkable headgear again.
"But that isn't what the boy is worrying about," chuckled Lancelot
Darby, as the party came ashore with the luncheon hampers. "It's the
fate of the Barnacle that is corroding Purt's sensitive soul!"
"How do you make that out?" demanded Reddy Butts, broadly grinning.
"Why, isn't it a fact that he went in after the dog? I saw him dive
right after the poor thing when it fell overboard. It was a mighty
brave attempt at rescue, I should say--especially when we all know
that Purt swims about as good as a stone fence."
"Some hero, Purt is," agreed Billy Long, chuckling.
"And didn't he make that dive gracefully?" demanded Reddy, bursting
with laughter to think how he had shot the dude overboard by a sly
twist of the wheel on the _Duchess_.
Purt was really ashamed of his present appearance. He felt it
necessary to excuse it to the girls.
"Weally," he said, when he came ashore, "I am not pwesentible; but I
hope you ladies understand that it was an unavoidable accident."
"I don't know about that," said Laura, gravely.
"Oh! I assure you, Miss Belding," Purt hastened to say, "I had no
intention of going overboard--weally!"
"So you were not actually trying to rescue the dog?" demanded Jess.
"That howwible cweature!" gasped Purt, in disgust. "I would fling him
from the tallest cliff there is--could I safely do so."
"And not try to dive after him--eh?" chuckled Bobby.
"You are cruelty incarnate!" exclaimed Jess, gravely. "I am horrified
to find that we have a boy at Central High who would willingly destroy
such a beautiful--Oh! oh!" shrieked Jess, who had been facing a thick
path of woods below this open camping place. "What is _that_? It's a
bear!" she concluded, asking and answering the question herself.
She started in a very lively fashion for the boats. Some of the other
girls were quite as agile. Like the word "mouse" in domestic scenes,
the cry of "Bear!" in ruder surroundings "always gets a rise out of
the girls," as Chet Belding slangily expressed it.
But it was not a bear. Purt Sweet was stooping to aid in blowing up
the flame of the campfire over which they proposed making Mrs. Morse a
cup of tea. He did not see the "bear" coming.
But the other boys recognized the object that had so frightened Jess,
and they burst into a roar of laughter. Out of the bushes and across
the opening in the wood came a half wet, bedraggled dog, which, with
a joyful whine, leaped upon the individual who had so fatally
attracted his doggish love and loyalty!
"The Barnacle!" yelled Chet. "What did I tell you? Talk about 'the cat
coming back?' Crickey! the cat wasn't in it with this mongrel of
Purt's."
In the exuberance of his joy Barnacle fairly pitched Purt across the
fire, and tipped over the pail of water that had been hung over it to
boil. The dude seemed fated to fall into trouble on this first day of
the outing.
But now Purt was mad! He scrambled up, found a club, and chased the
barking Barnacle all about the camp. The dog would not be chased away.
Perhaps he had observed Lizzie opening the lunch baskets. Besides, he
seemed to take everything Purt tried to do to him as a game of play.
"Do leave the dog alone, Purt!" exclaimed Lil, at last. "You're making
yourself perfectly ridiculous."
Lily Pendleton's opinion had weight with Pretty Sweet. He sat down,
gloomy and breathless, and tried to ignore the Barnacle.
The latter sat on his tail all through the _alfresco_ meal, directly
behind Purt. The dude gave him no attention; but the other boys threw
pieces of meat and sweet crackers into the air for the Barnacle to
catch.
Could he catch them? Why! it seemed as though the dog must have been
trained for just that trick. He never missed a bite!
When his appetite was satisfied the mongrel began to try to attract
Purt's attention. Every time Purt reached for anything, the Barnacle's
cold, wet nose was right there! It was a plain case of "love at first
sight," as Bobby remarked. Nothing could convince that dog that Purt
was not his loving friend.
But finally the dude's serious air and his efforts to reach the dog
with a particularly well-shod foot, made an impression on the
Barnacle. He squatted down before Purt and lifting up his head,
uttered a howl that would have brought tears to the eyes of a graven
image.
"You'll break the poor dog's heart, Purt," said Jess, gravely. "Give
him a kind word."
"He has the most sorrowful face on him of any dog I ever saw,"
declared Dora Lockwood. "Look at him kindly, even if you can't
speak."
"Yes," whispered Dorothy, her twin. "He has almost as sorrowful a face
as Lizzie's."
"Gee! there's a pair of them," sighed Bobby, ecstatically. "Let's take
the dog with us to be a comrade for Liz."
Indeed, Lizzie Bean petted the mongrel, which hung around the camp
until the picnickers started up the river again.
There was another disturbance when Purt tried to slip aboard the
_Duchess_ without the dog. The Barnacle whined, and howled, and jumped
aboard, and was finally driven ashore with an oar.
The motorboats and their tows got off into the stream. There sat the
deserted dog on his tail, howling most dismally as the boats drew up
stream and left him behind.
Laura called to Purt in the other boat: "Never mind, Mr. Sweet, I
don't think you'll be troubled with that dog any more. It's twenty
miles to Lake Dunkirk. He will never follow you that far."
"I bet the Barnacle haunts Purt in his dreams," exclaimed Bobby.
"Oh! say not so!" begged Billy Long. "If Purt has the nightmare and
draws that 'family friend,' the faithful revolver, on the ghost of the
dog--Good-_night_! Like enough he'll blow us all out of the tent."
"I bet that Barnacle dogs his 'feetsteps' for the rest of Purt's
mortal existence," declared Chet, prophetically.
"One thing," said Lil Pendleton, "the nasty beast can't follow us to
Acorn Island."
"And we won't get there ourselves to-day, if we don't hurry," Chet
said. "Come on, Pretty! let's see what your little _Duchess_ can do,"
and he speeded up the engine of the _Bonnie Lass_.
"We have some distance to go, that's a fact," said Nellie. "The island
is two miles beyond the end of Rocky River."
The bigger powerboat pulled away from the _Duchess_ and the two
parties ceased shouting back and forth. Mrs. Morse was trying to get a
nap, so the girls did not sing. But they told jokes and stories, and
of course Bobby gave one of her jingles:
"'There was an old man of Nantasket
Who went to sea in a basket:
When up came a shark,
Swallowed him and his bark----
Now, wasn't that a fine funeral casket?'"
"Oh! I can beat that one," cried Jess.
"Let's hear you," responded the black-eyed miss.
"Listen, then," returned her schoolmate:
"'A canny young canner of Cannee,
One morning observed to his Granny,
"A canner can can
A lot of things, Gran,
But a canner can't can a can, can 'e?"'"
Now, how is that for a match for _your_ limerick?"
This started the ball a-rolling. Dora Lockwood raised her hand,
crying,
"Please, teacher! I have one," and immediately produced this:
"'There was a small boy who lived in Jamaica,
Who bought a lobster wrapped in a brown paper;
The paper was thin
And the lobster grabbed him----
What an awful condition that small boy was in!'"
This woke up Dorothy Lockwood, who would not be outdone by her twin.
She recited:
"'In Huron, a hewer, Hugh Hughes,
Hued yew-trees of unusual hues.
Hugh Hughes used blue yews
To build sheds for his ewes;
So his ewes a blue-hued yew shed use.'"
"Great Scott, girl!" gasped Chet. "That almost twisted your tongue out
of kilter."
"Any more?" queried Lance, who likewise had wonderingly listened to
this display of talent. "Ah-ha! I see Nellie just bursting with
one."
"Yes. I have a good one," admitted the doctor's daughter. "Hear it:
"'A right-handed writer named Wright
In writing "write" always wrote "rite."
Where he meant to write "write,"
If he'd written "write" right,
Wright would not have wrought rot writing "rite.'"
Now! let's hear you say _that_ fast?"
This certainly was a teaser and the boys admitted it. Finally somebody
shouted for Mother Wit. "Come on, Laura! where are you?" demanded
Bobby. "Are you going to let us mere 'amachoors' beat you? Give us a
limerick."
Mother Wit was expected to keep up with the other wits, that was sure.
So she obliged with:
"'A smart young fisher named Fischer,
Fished for fish from the edge of a fissure.
A fish, with a grin,
Pulled the fisherman in.
Now they're fishing the fissure for Fischer.'
"And now, boys, while we have been entertaining you," concluded Laura,
"you have gotten behind the _Duchess_ again."
"That's right, Lance," said Chet. "Give her some more power."
"Electricity is a wonderful thing," said Jess, seriously. "Just think
how fast it travels."
"How fast?" demanded Bobby.
"Something like 250,000 miles a second, I read somewhere."
"And so," remarked Bobby, grinning, "if it hits anybody, it tells the
judge it was going about ten miles an hour."
They were out for a good time and could laugh at almost anything that
was said, or was done. Freed from what Bobby called "the scholastic
yoke," the whole world seemed a big joke to them.
"I know we're going to have the finest kind of a time at Acorn
Island!" the cut-up exclaimed.
"Well! I hope there's nothing much to do there to-night, save to eat
supper," Jess said, yawning. "So much ozone is already making me
sleepy."
"Father Tom promised to have a man there to meet us, who would even
have the fire going and the teakettle boiling," said Bobby. "You see,
he's been up here hunting and fishing, and these guides all know him.
He can get what he wants from them."
The boats chugged on up the river and finally, as the evening began to
draw in, they sighted the broadening sheet of water which they knew to
be Lake Dunkirk. The lake was longer, but much narrower, than Lake
Luna, and it was surrounded by an unbroken line of forest.
The sun was setting. Its last beams shone upon the island which lay
about two miles above the entrance to Rocky River, and that island
looked like an emerald floating on the blue water.
The light was fast fading out of the sky, save where the west was
still riotous with colors. The big oaks on Acorn Island grew black as
the shadows gathered beneath them.
At the nearer end was the hillock where they were to camp. Here the
grove was open and they could see the cabin standing, with two tents
beside it. One of the tents had a raised flap, and there was the
stovepipe with a curl of smoke coming out of it.
Down at the edge of the shore--a smooth and sheltered bit of beach
where the landing was easy--a man was sitting, smoking his pipe. A
beautiful canoe, of Indian manufacture, had its bow drawn up beside
him.
The boys and girls shouted a welcome as they drove in toward the
shore. He rose, knocking the ashes from his pipe, and waved a hand
toward the camp above. He was a tall man, almost as black as a negro,
with long, black hair, and was barefooted.
"All right!" he grunted, gutturally. Then he pushed off, stepped into
his canoe, and paddled away without another word.
The boats were beached and the young people began to disembark. Before
the guide in the canoe got half way to the northern shore of the lake,
he was lost to their sight, the darkness came down so suddenly.