BREAKING CAMP
There were but a few days left of camp life. Hartley must return to
Harvard, Effie would enter upon her last year at the Wadsworth school
where Daniella, too, would go. Ran would go back to his law school,
Ashby to the university, Jo was looking forward with some misgivings to
her first year at college, but was so rejoiced that Nan was to be one
of her classmates that she averred it took away half her dread. Mary
Lee and the twins would return to Miss Cameron, and on the way home the
Corners would stop for a day at Cousin Maria Hooper’s.
“We must do something to celebrate,” declared the boys.
“What shall it be?” asked Ran. “We might send off fireworks on the
lake.”
“That would be one thing if we could get them in time,” Hartley fell in
with this.
“No doubt Al Davis has some left over from his Fourth of July stock;
we’ll see,” Ran rejoined.
“We might have a regular breaking camp the way the darkies do at
camp-meeting,” suggested Mary Lee.
“We could do that,” agreed the others.
“Let’s arrange a programme,” proposed Ashby, taking out his note-book
and pencil.
“Now, isn’t that just like Ash?” said Ran; “he always wants everything
down in black and white.”
“Best way,” Ashby answered, “then there’s sure to be no mistake. What
first? I suppose we ought to have some sort of feed to make it jollier.”
“And some kind of stunt besides fireworks,” specified Hartley.
“Come, Nan, you and Jo are the ingenious ones; stir up your brains and
give us a programme,” demanded Ran.
“Speeches,” suggested Nan. “You can be one of the orators, Ran; it will
get your hand in. Jo can do one of her funny monologues.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Can’t you leave me out?” Jo began to
protest.
“Oh, yes, of course you will. Come on, Jo.” Voices urged her on every
side, and she gave in.
“Pity we couldn’t have the phonograph again for some music,” said
Hartley, “but there isn’t time. You might give us a banjo solo, Ash.”
“And Ran can sing some coon songs; he’s great at that.” Mary Lee
suggested this.
“What’s the matter with a sort of minstrel show? We needn’t black up,”
proposed Ran.
“Why not?” inquired Hartley. “Here’s the lake handy to remove the burnt
cork.”
“Well, we’ll see. Put it down, Ash. Now, let’s see, I suppose we ought
to begin with a feed. What shall it be, Jean? You’re the authority on
wittles.”
“If we had ice we could have ice-cream, for the cream is easy to get
from the farmhouse,” replied Jean.
“So’s the ice easy to get; we’ll look into that. Well, suppose we say
ice-cream and cake, though it seems to me something warmer would be
more comforting; the nights are chilly,” Ran remarked.
“Jean could eat ice-cream sitting on an iceberg with her feet in a
snow-drift,” remarked Jo. “Let’s have something warm if we can, Jean.”
“Suppose we have an old time country feast,” Daniella proposed, “nuts
and cider, apples and gingerbread.”
“Something typical of the region? It wouldn’t be bad. Cider and apples
are plentiful enough, and we can bribe Hetty to make the gingerbread,
while as for nuts, if we can do no better we’ll have peanuts. We might
toast marshmallows, too, if any one cares for them after having so
many this season.” Jo was the speaker.
“What’s wrong with a corn-roast?” inquired Ashby.
“All right. The best yet. Good boy!” cried Hartley. “Put her down. Now
read.”
“Early evening, minstrel show, followed by corn-roast and fireworks;
that simplifies matters. Speeches and stunts included in show;
fireworks as finale,” Ashby read from his note-book.
“What do we do to break camp, as you call it?” inquired Effie.
“Oh, we must march around camp singing, then shake hands and go to bed.
We needn’t keep it up all night the way the negroes do sometimes,” Mary
Lee told her.
“We might get up a song for the occasion,” observed Ran. “Well, I think
that is a pretty good programme, as much as we can get through. Nan,
you and Jo can get up the jokes and things; Mary Lee and the rest can
attend to the costumes; we boys will see about the speeches, the corn
for the roast and the fireworks; that disposes of the whole business.”
Ashby wrote the list down and the party scattered, intent upon the
immediate carrying out of their plans. Therefore very soon Nan and
Jo had their heads together giggling over some absurd jokes, Ran was
marching up and down with head bent, intent upon his speech, Mary Lee
and the other girls were consulting their elders in the matter of
costume while Hartley and Ashby started off for a forage for corn and
fireworks.
Miss Marshall and Miss Lloyd never failed to further anything in
reason, and proposed that the costumes be nothing more elaborate than
the ordinary camp dress. “If you black up,” said Miss Lloyd, “you will
be sufficiently prepared for a show of this kind and you can brighten
your costumes by wearing different colored handkerchiefs. Are you all
to take part in the minstrel show?”
“Oh, no, only the three boys, Nan, Jo and myself,” Mary Lee told her.
“The rest want to be audience, so there will be only six to perform.”
“Quite enough considering the size of the audience. Very well, anything
we can do to help, please believe we shall be glad to do.” So the flock
went off to report to Nan and Jo.
They found these two cudgeling their brains for proper words to use
in something they were writing. “Ate, state, fate.” Jo had her pencil
poised. “Which sounds better, Nan? So from this good old camp we must
be getting on a gait, or, For we must all be traveling just as sure as
fate?”
“Oh, Jo, the first is so slangy and the second isn’t much better. Let
me see. Why not say: We must be departing for the season’s waxing late?”
“Departing is so formal. We don’t want a song to be sung on a college
platform before a row of professors. I object to departing. Why not
say: Now we must be going for the season’s getting late?”
“That’ll do. I think it really sounds better. Hallo, girls. We are
getting into shape. I think one more stanza will complete this
beautiful song. You all must learn it so as to sing it when we march
around camp.”
“It is to the tune of John Brown’s body,” Jo told them. “Here’s the
first verse:
“We’ve all been having such a jolly time at camp,
We’ve all been having such a jolly time at camp,
We’ve all been having such a jolly time at camp,
But now we’re marching on.”
“Go on,” begged the girls. “Let’s have the rest.” And Jo consented to
read the other lines.
“We’ve been canoeing on the pretty little lake,
We’ve been canoeing on the pretty little lake,
We’ve been canoeing on the pretty little lake,
But now we’re marching on.
“We’ve been on picnics and we’ve climbed the mountains high,
We’ve been on picnics and we’ve climbed the mountains high,
We’ve been on picnics and we’ve climbed the mountains high,
But now we’re marching on.
“We’ve eaten flapjacks and a lot of other things,
We’ve eaten flapjacks and a lot of other things,
We’ve eaten flapjacks and a lot of other things,
But now we’re marching on.
“We’ve done our shopping at the store of Al Davis’,
Accent on the vis, girls.
“We’ve done our shopping at the store of Al Davis’,
We’ve done our shopping at the store of Al Davis’,
But now we’re marching on.
“We’ve been a-riding on the farmer’s clumsy nags,
We’ve been a-riding on the farmer’s clumsy nags,
We’ve been a-riding on the farmer’s clumsy nags,
But now we’re marching on.
“Now we must be going, for the season’s getting late,
Now we must be going, for the season’s getting late,
Now we must be going, for the season’s getting late,
And we go marching on.”
“You see,” Jo laid down her paper, “the beauty of this is that we don’t
have to have any rhymes, only meter, and it is a sort of hymny thing
appropriate for a camp. Of course the Glory, glory hallelujah comes in
to make it more like a camp-meeting.”
“It’s perfectly fine, Jo. How did you come to think of it?” asked the
girls.
“Oh, it was Nan’s idea, as you might know. She started it and I helped
out with the lines. I’m going to do an Irish monologue and we have some
good jokes. Noahdiah Peakes ought to be here to ask conundrums.”
“That gives me an idea,” said Nan jotting something down on the margin
of her paper.
The boys, who had gone off in the wagon, returned with a pile of
roasting ears, and some mysterious articles which they hustled into
their tent.
“Did you get any fireworks?” asked Jack on the alert.
“We did, indeed,” Ran told her. “We bought out all that Al Davis had,
and I think we shall have quite a show.”
“Are they what you took into the tent?” inquired Jack, her curiosity
still unsatisfied.
“Shan’t tell you,” returned Ran with a mischievous smile. He was a tall
lad, with blue eyes and sandy hair, not handsome but with a frank,
pleasant face that at once inspired confidence. Ashby was not so tall.
He had the same colored hair but his eyes were gray. He was a little
shy, but was always ready to do anything for others he could, but
always did it in a quiet, unassuming way.
There was much scurrying to and fro for the rest of the day, much
laughter and fun over the arrangements for the evening.
“I am glad we have something to occupy us,” said Daniella as they sat
down to dinner, “for the breaking up of a good time always does make me
sad.”
“Then you have had a good time, Danny, and are glad you came,” Miss
Helen said.
“Oh, I am glad. I have never had such a good time.”
“Not even in Europe?”
“No, because it was all so strange and new, and I was trying so hard to
understand and take in everything, while here I’ve been with you all
and it has been so free. There were no lessons, no strange languages,
no buildings I ought to know about, no pictures I ought to see.”
Miss Helen smiled at the frank confession. It was evident that while
Daniella’s trip to Europe had been of great benefit in the matter of
education, it had weighed rather heavily upon her at the time.
Presently Mary Lee came in and drew up her chair with a sigh of
fatigue. “I’m tired,” she said. “I do hate to pack, but I have about
finished.”
“You are forehanded, Mary Lee,” said her aunt.
“Oh, but you know I like to get things done. The rest said they
wouldn’t pack till morning as they might want some of their things this
evening, but I have put aside exactly what I shall need and can stuff
them in the last thing.”
“Isn’t that just like Mary Lee?” said Daniella. “She is so orderly that
I believe she’d be standing ready dressed with a hand satchel if the
house caught on fire.”
“Oh, I always keep my bag ready packed,” replied Mary Lee in a
matter-of-fact way. “I can snatch it up at any minute.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Daniella laughed and nodded at Miss Helen.
Here Jo came in. “Hurry up, girls,” she said. “We have something on
hand to do right after dinner.”
“Hurry up yourself,” Nan told her. “You’re a great one. Here we have
nearly finished our dinner and you have just come in. What is the
special rush?”
“We’re going to get things to deck the hall.”
“They will all have to be taken right down again,” said Mary Lee
practically.
“Well, ’Lish can do it after we go. We don’t have to consider anything
but the putting up.” She hurried through with her meal and rushed out
to join the others who, with the boys, were waiting to set out for
the woods. The boys were armed with hatchets ready to chop off green
boughs for decorations, leaving the girls to gather leaves already
turning, and the red berries of the wild rose.
With armfuls they returned to the big cabin where they made a veritable
bower to the contempt of ’Lish whom they called upon for nails and
string. “Fool nonsense, I call it,” he muttered, “fetchin’ all that
there truck to litter up the place. Some folks ain’t got a mite of
common sense. Why can’t they leave things be? I can’t see as it’ll make
their wittles taste any better to have the place look like a bé-zar.”
However, he was willing enough to help, for it was his way to grumble a
little and then be all the readier afterward.
They all had a busy day of it, but their enthusiasm never flagged and
if they were tired by supper time each and all insisted that all they
needed was a little food to make them as ready for fun as ever. The
days were much shorter and they needed all the lanterns in camp to
light up the place. The lights were hung around the impromptu stage,
gleaming from between green boughs and casting a glow upon the red
and yellow leaves. Hartley’s was the first appearance, and here Jack
discovered what was so mysteriously hurried to the boys’ tent, for
Hartley was made up as Noahdiah Peakes, and came in pushing himself
along on a ridiculous little wagon with a toy horse, these having
been discovered at Davis’s store. The old jokes were made, the old
conundrums asked each to the customary accompaniment of “Git ap!” This
was Nan’s idea, the one she had jotted down that morning on the margin
of her paper, and it made a great hit. Then came the minstrels, Hartley
keeping his costume, but adding a coat of black cork to his hands and
face. Ashby with his banjo was one of the end men, Ran with bones was
the other. They did some funny coon songs interspersing the performance
with jokes. Then Mary Lee gave her breakdown which was so applauded
that she did another typical dance. Nan gave an imitation of an opera
singer with no voice at all, then Jo, who had gone out to get rid of
her burnt cork, returned to do an Irish monologue. She was a great
mimic and her brogue brought much applause. After the finale, an old
camp-meeting hymn, sung in chorus, they all trooped out to the field
back of the camp where ’Lish had been instructed to build a fire, and
here they had the corn-roast. The boys had prepared a pile of sharpened
sticks, and if the corn was frequently smoked and charred it was
relished by most of the party.
[Illustration: JO RETURNED TO DO AN IRISH MONOLOGUE.]
“Now the fireworks!” cried Jack who was much interested in these. To
the lake they took their way to set off pinwheels and roman candles,
and to send up rockets which went hissing down into the lake. At the
last a great rocket bomb started the echoes and sent frightened birds
flying from their nests in the near-by trees.
Then every one, even ’Lish and Hetty, joined in the procession which
marched around the camp singing their song. More verses were added as a
line would be suggested and the marching was kept up enthusiastically
till the older ones declared themselves tired. At the close every one
solemnly shook hands all around and it was declared that they had “done
broke camp” as Hetty expressed it. She made a little bobbing curtsey to
all. “I sholy is disinclined to part with yuh-alls,” she said. “It seem
lak ole times to hev dese yer cay’ins on. I ain’t been to no veritas
camp-meetin’ fo’ many a long ye’r, an’ yuh-alls is such nice ladies an’
gemmans dat I hopes to see yuh-alls nex’ ye’r,” a wish which was echoed
by one and all.
Then some one raised “Three cheers for Camp Happiness!” and then “Three
cheers for Miss Marshall and Miss Lloyd!” so the cheering was kept up
till a curious little squirrel, wakened by all this hullabaloo, came
scampering out of his nest and sat on his haunches looking around
inquiringly as if to say, “Why all this fuss, friends?” The squirrels
had become very tame, for every one fed them, and no one thought of
scaring them off, much less of hurting them.
In a short time every lantern and candle was out, the tents gleamed
white in the moonlight. Before another week the place would be silent
save for the lonely call of a night-bird or the pad of some four-footed
creature prowling the woods.
All this came to Nan’s mind as she turned on her pillow. She thought of
Place o’ Pines deserted and boarded up as she had seen it for the last
time. “I shall never come back,” she sighed.
[Illustration: CHAPTER XIX
MERCEDES ARRIVES]