I
Six of the Darlings were girls. The seventh was a young man who looked
like Galahad and took exquisite photographs. Their father had died
within the month, and Mr. Gilpin, the lawyer, had just faced them, in
family assembled, with the lamentable fact that they, who had been so
very, very rich, were now astonishingly poor.
"My dears," he said, "your poor father made a dreadful botch of his
affairs. I cannot understand how some men----"
"Please!" said Mary, who was the oldest. "It can't be any satisfaction
to know why we are poor. Tell us just how poor we are, and we'll make
the best of it. I understand that The Camp isn't involved in the general
wreck."
"It isn't," said Mr. Gilpin, "but you will have to sell it, or at least,
rent it. Outside The Camp, when all the estate debts are paid, there
will be thirty or forty thousand dollars to be divided among you."
"In other words--_nothing_," said Mary; "I have known my father to spend
more in a month."
"Income--" began Mr. Gilpin.
"_Dear_ Mr. Gilpin," said Gay, who was the youngest by twenty minutes;
"don't."
"Forty thousand dollars," said Mary, "at four per cent is sixteen
hundred. Sixteen hundred divided by seven is how much?"
"Nothing," said Gay promptly. And all the family laughed, except Arthur,
who was trying to balance a quill pen on his thumb.
"I might," said Mr. Gilpin helplessly, "be able to get you five per cent
or even five and a half."
"You forget," said Maud, the second in age, and by some thought the
first in beauty, "that we are father's children. Do you think _he_ ever
troubled his head about five and a half per cent, or even," she finished
mischievously, "six?"
Arthur, having succeeded in balancing the quill for a few moments, laid
it down and entered the discussion.
"What has been decided?" he asked. His voice was very gentle and
uninterested.
"It's an awful pity mamma isn't in a position to help us," said Eve.
Eve was the third. After her, Arthur had been born; and then, all on a
bright summer's morning, the triplets, Lee, Phyllis, and Gay.
"That old scalawag mamma married," said Lee, "spends all her money on
his old hunting trips."
"Where is the princess at the moment?" asked Mr. Gilpin.
"They're in Somaliland," said Lee. "They almost took me. If they had, I
shouldn't have called Oducalchi an old scalawag. You know the most
dismal thing, when mamma and papa separated and _she_ married _him_, was
his turning out to be a regular old-fashioned brick. He can throw a fly
yards further and lighter than any man _I_ ever saw."
"And if you are bored," said Phyllis, "you say to him, 'Say something
funny, Prince,' and he always can, instantly, without hesitation."
"All things considered," said Gay, "mamma's been a very lucky girl."
"Still," said Mary, "the fact remains that she's in no position to
support us in the lap of luxury."
"Our kid brother," said Gay, "the future Prince Oducalchi, will need all
she's got. When you realize that that child will have something like
fifty acres of slate roofs to keep in order, it sets you thinking."
"One thing I insist on," said Maud, "mamma shan't be bothered by a lot
of hard-luck stories----"
"Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Gilpin," said Arthur, in his gentle
voice, "that my sisters are the six sandiest and most beautiful girls in
the world? I've been watching them out of the corner of my eye, and
wishing to heaven that I were Romney or Gainsborough. I'd give a million
dollars, if I had them, for their six profiles, immortally painted in a
row. But nowadays if a boy has the impulse to be a painter, he is given
a camera; or if he wishes to be a musician, he is presented with a
pianola. Luxury is the executioner of art. Personally I am so glad that
I am going to be poor that I don't know what to do."
"Aren't you sorry for us, Artie?" asked Gay.
"Very," said he; "and I don't like to be called Artie."
* * * * *
Immediately after their father's funeral the Darlings had hurried off to
their camp on New Moon Lake. An Adirondack "camp" has much in common
with a Newport "cottage." The Darlings' was no exception. There was
nothing camp-like about it except its situation and the rough bark
slats with which the sides of its buildings were covered. There were
very many buildings. There was Darling House, in which the family had
their sleeping-rooms and bathrooms and dressing-rooms. There was Guide's
House, where the guides, engineers, and handy men slept and cooked, and
loafed in rainy weather. A passageway, roofed but open at the sides, led
from Darling House to Dining House--one vast room, in the midst of which
an oval table which could be extended to seat twenty was almost lost.
Heads of moose, caribou, and elk (not "caught" in the Adirondacks)
looked down from the walls. Another room equally large adjoined this. It
contained tables covered with periodicals; two grand pianos (so that
Mary and Arthur could play duets without "bumping"); many deep and easy
chairs, and a fireplace so large that when it was half filled with
roaring logs it looked like the gates of hell, and was so called.
Pantry House and Bar House led from Dining House to Smoke House, where
an olive-faced chef, all in white, was surrounded by burnished copper
and a wonderful collection of blue and white.
There was Work House with its bench, forge, and lathe for working wood
and iron; Power House adjoining; and on the slopes of the mountain back
of the camp, Spring House, from which water, ice-cold, at high pressure
descended to circulate in the elaborate plumbing of the camp.
For guests, there were little houses apart--Rest House, two
sleeping-rooms, a bath and a sitting-room; Lone House, in which one
person could sleep, keep clean, write letters, or bask on a tiny balcony
thrust out between the stems of two pine-trees and overhanging deep
water; Bachelor House, to accommodate six of that questionable species.
And placed here and there among pines that had escaped the attacks of
nature and the greed of man were half a dozen other diminutive houses,
accommodating from two to four persons.
The Camp was laid out like a little village. It had its streets, paved
with pine-needles, its street lamps.
It had grown from simple beginnings with the Darling fortune; with the
passing of this, it remained, in all its vast and intricate elaboration,
like a white elephant upon the family's hands. From time to time they
had tried the effect of giving the place a name, but had always come
back to "The Camp." As such it was known the length and breadth of the
North Woods. It was _The_ Camp, par excellence, in a region devoted to
camps and camping.
"Other people," the late Mr. Darling once remarked, "have more land, but
nobody else has quite as much camp."
The property itself consisted of a long, narrow peninsula thrust far out
into New Moon Lake, with half a mountain rising from its base. With the
exception of a small village at the outlet of the lake, all the
remaining lands belonged to the State, and since the State had no
immediate use for them and since the average two weeks' campers could
not get at them without much portage and expense, they were regarded by
the Darlings as their own private preserves.
"The Camp," said Mr. Gilpin, "is, of course, a big asset. It is unique,
and it is celebrated, at least among the people who might have the means
to purchase it and open it. You could ask, and in time, I think, get a
very large price."
They were gathered in the playroom. Mary, very tall and beautiful, was
standing with her back to the fireplace.
"Mr. Gilpin," she said, "I have been coming to The Camp off and on for
twenty-eight years. I will never consent to its being sold."
"Nor I," said Maud. "Though I've only been coming for twenty-six."
"In twenty-four years," said Eve, "I have formed an attachment to the
place which nothing can break."
"Arthur," appealed Mr. Gilpin, "perhaps you have some sense."
"I?" said Arthur. "Why? Twenty-two years ago I was born here."
"Good old Arthur!" exclaimed the triplets. "We were born here, too--just
nineteen years ago."
"But," objected Mr. Gilpin, "you can't run the place--you can't live
here. Confound it, you young geese, you can't even pay the taxes."
Lee whispered to Gay.
"Look at Mary!"
"Why?"
"She's got a look of father in her eyes--father going down to Wall
Street to raise Cain."
Mary spoke very slowly.
"Mr. Gilpin," she said, "you are an excellent estate lawyer, and I am
very fond of you. But you know nothing about finance. We are going to
live here whenever we please. We are going to run it wide open, as
father did. We are even going to pay the taxes."
Mr. Gilpin was exasperated.
"Then you'll have to take boarders," he flung at her.
"Exactly," said Mary.
There was a short silence.
"How do you know," said Gay, "that they won't pick their teeth in
public? I couldn't stand that."
"They won't be that kind," said Mary grimly. "And they will be so busy
paying their bills that they won't have time."
"Seriously," said Arthur, "are you going to turn The Camp into an inn?"
"No," said Mary, "not into an inn. It has always been _The_ Camp. We
shall turn it into _The_ Inn."