THE TRAIL TO CAMP WAU-WAU
"I understand that your parents have been considering your going to the
sea shore with them, Grace?" said Miss Elting with a rising inflection in
her voice. "I suppose you are eager to go?"
"No, I'm not. What'th, more, I'm not going. I'm going to thtay here with
the girlth. Why?" Tommy regarded the teacher keenly.
"Because my dear, if you are not going to the sea shore I wish to include
you in my plans for the summer. I have a fine vacation planned for the
four of you. Does any of you know the location of Pocono Woods?"
The girls shook their heads.
"It is a forest near Jamesburg about twenty-five miles from here. How
would you young women enjoy spending your vacations in a camp in the
woods, living in tents and----"
"Really truly tentth?" interrupted Tommy.
"Yes, dear. Real tents and campfires and all that sort of thing, right in
the heart of the Pocono Woods, miles and miles from civilization."
"Are there any thnaketh there?" questioned Grace apprehensively.
"No, no snakes."
"Mothquitoeth?"
"There may be a few mosquitoes. I cannot say as to that. But it is a
lovely spot. This camp," Miss Elting went on to say, "is for young girls
and young women, and is part of the Camp Girls' Association, a large and
growing organization. You will find a great many other young women there
and you will, while there, be in charge of a guardian."
"Guardian!" interrupted Grace. "My father ith my guardian."
"Oh, I don't mean that sort of a guardian," answered Miss Elting with a
bright smile. "The guardians are merely the women who take charge of the
girls during their stay in camp. I am to be one of them this summer. I had
planned to take you four girls there after the close of school, but did
not think it advisable to speak of my plans until they were more fully
developed and all arrangements completed. Now what do you think of it?"
"It is perfectly splendid," cried Margery. "Won't that be great, girls?
But," she added, her face sobering, "I do not think my father and mother
would permit me to go."
"I am quite sure that mine would not," agreed Hazel solemnly.
"I gueth Mith Elting hath theen to that," spoke up Tommy, her eyes
narrowing.
"You have made a close guess, Grace. They have agreed, all except in your
case. Your mother wishes to talk the matter over with you and your father
before making a final decision."
"Then it ith all right," nodded Tommy confidently. "I'll make them let me
go anyway and--ith Harriet going?"
"Yes. I hope so."
"Doeth thhe know about it!"
"I have not spoken to Harriet about it. I had hoped to do so out here
to-day. That is why I proposed just now that we return to the village. We
shall have a chance to talk it over on the way back, when I will tell you
more about the proposed vacation."
"You thay my folkth know about it, Mith Elting?"
"Yes, dear."
"What did they thay?"
"That they thought you had better go to Narragansett with them, but that
if you insisted, they supposed you would have to go to the summer camp
with us," admitted the teacher with a tolerant smile.
Tommy twisted her face into a grimace.
"My folkth know what ith good for them," averred the little blonde girl.
"I am afraid, my dear, that you do not fully know what is good for
yourself," declared the teacher reprovingly. "You will have to obey the
rules when you get to camp, and they are quite strict. There are so many
girls there, that rather strict regulations have to be enforced. Every
girl is expected to live up to them. Failing to do so she undoubtedly
would be sent home."
"If they catch her," answered Tommy wisely. "You thay that Harriet
doethn't know about thith?"
"Not yet, Grace."
The girl reflected for a moment. They had started slowly toward the
village. All at once Tommy started down the road at top speed.
"Grace, Grace!" called Miss Elting.
"She's gone to tell Harriet what you have said," declared Margery.
A shade of annoyance passed over Miss Elting's face, quickly giving place
to an amused smile as she watched the light-footed Tommy speeding down the
road. Tommy whisked herself out of their sight in no time.
"Let us hurry on," urged the teacher. "Grace is sure to confuse the story
if she tries to tell it. Mrs. Burrell wished me to tell Harriet of the
camping trip that is before her."
The girls nodded their approval of the suggestion. Margery held her head a
little higher than usual. She wanted to impress upon Miss Elting the fact
that she was too dignified to do what Tommy had just done.
In the meantime Grace had continued her wild flight to the door of the
Burrell home into which she burst like a miniature cyclone. Her face was
flushed and her eyes sparkled. Her white dress was crumpled and stained
from sprawling on the hillside and falling out of the road into the
wayside ditch.
"Oh, Harriet! Harriet!" she gasped, flinging herself into the room where
Harriet Burrell and her mother sat sewing on one of Harriet's dresses
which, though the young woman did not know it, was intended for her to
wear during the coming vacation in camp.
Harriet sprang up and ran to the excited Tommy, believing that something
terrible had occurred.
"Tommy, Tommy! What is it?" she cried.
"The greatetht thing you ever heard. Oh, I won't tell you. It ith too
good. Gueth what? Gueth!" chuckled Grace.
"I am afraid I cannot," laughed Harriet, now discovering that nothing was
amiss with Grace. "I am not a good guesser, but I do guess that you are
very much excited."
"You're going, too," interrupted Grace. "We're all going, and we're all
going to live in----"
"Sit down, Tommy and calm yourself. You are so excited that I can't
understand anything from your jumble of words," admonished Harriet, laying
a firm hand on the arm of her friend and pushing Grace into a chair.
"I don't want to thit down," objected Tommy bobbing up again. "I want to
talk, then I want to danthe. Oh, I'm tho happy. But I'm a thight," she
added, glancing down at her gown.
"I agree with you," answered Harriet, smilingly. "Do sit down and compose
yourself. Where are the girls? Are they as flustrated as you are?"
"Yeth, and they're going, too. They're coming here with Mith Elting.
They're coming from over there." Harriet smiled as Grace waved an excited
hand toward the west, the direction in which the hill lay.
"Tell me about it. I am growing curious. Where is it we are going?"
Tommy bobbed up from her chair and began dancing about the room.
"Oh, ever and ever tho far."
By this time Mrs. Burrell began to understand. She realized that the cat
was about to jump out of the bag, but made no effort to assist Grace in
telling the story. Instead Harriet's mother sat with an amused smile on
her face.
"We're going away, we're going away. Don't you underthtand?"
"No, Tommy, I don't."
"Oh, fiddle!"
"Where is it that we are going?"
"Ever and ever tho far away. Way off in the woodth where the birdth thing
and the frogth croak and the mothquitoeth bite you and thpoil your
complexion. And, oh, gueth, gueth, Harriet."
Harriet threw up her hands, an expression of comical despair on her face.
"I give you up, Tommy. You are hopeless. Here come Miss Elting and the
girls. Perhaps Miss Elting can tell us what it is all about. I am not
going away. You are going to the sea shore, are you not, Tommy?"
Tommy shook her head vigorously.
"I'm not," she declared, with a stamp of her foot. "I'm going to the
woodth and----"
"You ran away from us, you naughty girl," chided Miss Elting after having
greeted Mrs. Burrell and Harriet. Margery and Hazel had followed her in,
and were now shaking hands with Harriet, though it had been only a matter
of some two hours since last they met.
"I suppose Grace has told you all about it, Harriet. However, there may be
a few dry details left for me," continued Miss Elting with a severe frown
at Tommy.
"She hasn't told me anything. She has tried to tell me, but she is too
excited to be intelligible. Please tell me what it is all about. I am
anxious to hear the news."
"Let Grace tell it, now that she has begun," suggested Miss Elting,
nodding to the excited Tommy.
However, with the entrance of the teacher and the two girls, Tommy in her
haste to blurt out the full story had become hopelessly tangled. She
hesitated, stammered, then stopped short. There was a merry laugh at her
expense.
"I shall have to tell you after all, young ladies," said the teacher. "You
four girls, it has been decided, are to go with me to the summer camp in
the Pocono Woods. Do you know about the summer camp there, Harriet?"
"I have heard of it," answered Harriet, gazing steadily at the speaker.
"It is quite an important organization, is it not?"
"Just so. As I already have explained to the girls, I am one of the
guardians. I thought it would be fine to have my Meadow-Brook Girls
accompany me, and with the consent of the parents of each girl, I have
arranged for you to remain in the camp for six weeks, at least, or until
we have to return to get ready for the fall term of school here."
"Yeth, and, and, and----" began Tommy.
"Oh do hurry up and tell the retht, Mith Elting," she ended impatiently.
The smile slowly faded from Harriet's face, and now that the animation had
left it, it was rather plain. Her hair brushed straight back from a broad
forehead, made more pronounced the undeniable plainness of her features.
But when animated that face was fairly transformed. As Miss Elting had
expressed it, "Harriet lighted up divinely." She was a tall, well built
girl whose erect carriage and graceful poise indicated athletic training.
"Yes, that will be fine, indeed," agreed Harriet. "Of course you know it
will not be possible for me to go with you, much as I should like to. You
understand why without my explaining, Miss Elting."
"Yeth you will go," burst out Grace, suddenly finding her voice again.
"I'll pay for you. I've got lotth and lotth of money."
Harriet's face flushed.
"You are a dear, Tommy. But you know I could not permit you to do that,"
was Harriet's gentle reply. "It is very, very good of you, but wholly
impossible. You know Miss Elting, that I could not afford a vacation such
as that, much as I should like to go. Oh, wouldn't it be fine if we four
girls might spend our vacation in camp together?" she exclaimed, her
features lighting up again.
"And so you shall," answered Miss Elting with a finality in her tone that
led Harriet Burrell to gaze at the young woman with keen, questioning
eyes. "Listen, my dear. I am going to take you with me as my guest. As I
have already explained, I am one of the guardians of the camp. The
guardians receive no remuneration for their services, but each is
entitled, if she wishes, to take one girl with her as her guest. The girl
so taken would be a member of the camp, just the same as the others. She
would in no sense be a charity member either. She would be on exactly the
same footing as her companions. That is the way you are going to join the
camping party. I am inviting you to be my guest. Your name already has
been registered with Mrs. Livingston, the Chief Guardian of the camp. Your
place will be ready for you when you reach there, and I believe you will
enjoy your summer thoroughly."
"Now what have you got to thay to that?" demanded Grace triumphantly.
Harriet turned a thoughtful gaze on the smiling face of her mother.
"And you knew about this all the time, but said never a word to me,
Mother?"
"Yes, dear."
"Oh, you darling Mother," cried the girl impulsively, throwing both arms
about Mrs. Burrell's neck, kissing her affectionately. From her mother
Harriet turned her attention to Miss Elting whom she also embraced in a
bear-like hug. "How can I ever thank you?"
"By going with us," answered Miss Elting.
"Thay, aren't you going to kith me? Didn't I firtht tell you about it?"
demanded Tommy.
Harriet ran over to her little friend, kissing her lightly, at the same
time giving Tommy's ear a pinch.
"Girls, you have been in the secret all the time, too, haven't you?"
"Do you think I could keep a thecret all that time?" answered Grace.
"Didn't I nearly break my prethiouth neck to get down here to tell you the
good newth the minute I heard it? Didn't I get run over by an automobile,
too?"
"Grace fell down the hill. She did have a narrow escape from being run
down by Crazy Jane," explained Miss Elting.
Harriet regarded her little friend with twinkling eyes.
"When do we go?" she asked.
"On Saturday, the day after to-morrow."
"So soon! Oh, that will be glorious. But how about clothes. What do the
girls wear? Anything they happen to have?"
"No. They dress alike, or nearly so."
"Then I fear I shan't be able to go. You see I have nothing except my
regular clothes."
Miss Elting continued speaking, unheeding the interruption.
"The everyday dress is of dark blue serge, the waist is batiste lined, it
has long sleeves and a large flowing bow, made of plaid or Roman-striped
silk at the neck. The skirt for the large girls is plain with a wide box
pleat at the back. The skirt for the smaller girls is kilted and made
ankle-length or shorter if desired. The dress has three pockets, one of
them in the sleeve----"
"Funny plathe for a pocket," observed Tommy.
"Now do you begin to understand?" smiled Miss Elting.
"Why--why," stammered Harriet, "That is the very thing mother and I have
been working on. I've been at work on my camp dress all the time and
didn't know it." Harriet laughed excitedly. There were tears of joy in her
eyes. "Oh, what a goose I have been, haven't I, girls?"
"Yeth," agreed Tommy, bobbing her head up and down.
"The official hat," continued Miss Elting, "is also of dark blue serge to
match the rest of the outfit. It has a white silk cord about the crown
with the name of the camp in white on the blue background. I forgot to say
that the emblem of your rank in the camp order, will be worked on the
sleeve. That may be done after reaching camp."
"What is the name of the camp--Pocono?" asked Harriet for the sake of
continuing the conversation. She was too dazed to think clearly as yet.
"Camp 'Wau-Wau' is the name. It is a Chinook Indian name. 'Wau-Wau' is a
term, usually applied to a number of squaws gathering for a confab, and
corresponds to the 'pow-wow' of the braves. Now you know all about it. We
shall start from here on the noon train Saturday."