GOING INTO CAMP
The children met Mrs. Davidson at the station as they had expected.
She was a cheery little woman, with a delicate pink skin and soft light
brown hair, so full of waves that Pauline sportively declared that it
made her seasick to look at it.
Paul and Pauline were very fond of this aunt, and found it one of the
greatest attractions of their camp-life that she usually spent her
summers with them.
“And the best of it is, Molly, that Auntie David loves us just as well
as we love her,” chatted Pauline, the last morning of her stay at Santa
Luzia.
The two girls were pacing arm-in-arm up and down the veranda, waiting
for Captain Bradstreet to drive around with the buckboard in which he
was to take his family to the canyon.
“I think your Auntie David is perfectly lovely, Polly.”
“Do you, really? Oh, I’m so glad! She likes you too, Molly. She hopes
you’ll come out often to the camp.”
“Does she? The dear, how nice of her!”
“Yes; she says you’re a reliable girl, Molly. She never said as much of
her own niece! and,--ahem!--she believes you have a good influence over
me!”
Pauline drawled out the last sentence with a droll pucker of the lips
which threw Molly into spasms of laughter.
“The blessed woman! She didn’t say that, Pauline? You don’t mean to
tell me that your Auntie David said that!”
“Yes, those very words, Molly, to papa. And papa, the old darling,
whipped out his pocket-handkerchief, wiped his eyes, and muttered,
‘I’ve noticed that myself.’”
“Now, Pauline!”
“Oh! papa is forever holding you up to me for an example, Molly. I
wonder I don’t hate you.”
“The idea of setting me up for an example for anybody, Polly,--me, a
girl with a red-haired temper.”
“Oh, hush, Molly! Your hair isn’t red!”
“It used to be when I was a little midget,--a real cayenne-pepper
color, and I had a peppery temper to match.”
“What has become of it, then, Molly?”
“Of my hair, do you mean? That has cooled off, but my temper”--
“The stage is ready,” shouted Captain Bradstreet, reining his prancing
horses around the corner of The Old and New. “Call your aunt, Pauline.”
Weezy, still a trifle pale, ran out upon the veranda with Harry to
witness the departure. Paul and Kirke raced up from the beach. Mrs.
Davidson came down from her room, and mounted with Pauline to the back
seat of the buckboard; Paul jumped in at the front beside his father,
quick good-bys were exchanged, and away dashed the lively horses on the
road to the canyon.
“Thursday, remember we shall expect you next Thursday, all three of
you,” cried the twins, looking backward.
“All three of you, of course,” echoed their father, in tones loud
enough to have been heard at sea. “We want _all_ of you, especially
little Miss Weezy.”
Weezy darted into the house, about the happiest little girl in
California, shouting,--
“He _did_ ’vite me, mamma! Captain Bradstreet _did_ ’vite me. He ’vited
me _officially_! Oh! please may I go?”
“We’ll see, dear,” answered her mother, with a smile that meant “yes”;
“we’ll see how kind and polite you are to Harry for the rest of his
stay.”
Mrs. Rowe had suspected all along that the good captain had intended to
include Weezy in the invitation, but had forgotten to mention the child
by name. Grown people are careless sometimes, and forget that little
children have been slighted. The children themselves do not forget--ah,
no!
Harry remained at Santa Luzia one week longer, and the members of the
family vied with one another in making him happy. Mr. Rowe bought
him a new suit, which delighted Molly as much as it did Harry; Kirke
caught horned toads, and dug up trap-door spiders’ nests for the
lad’s amusement; while little Miss Weezy loaded him with shells and
sand-dollars till his new pockets were in danger of bursting. By the
end of his fortnight at The Old and New they had all grown fond of the
frank little fellow, as we are apt to grow fond of those whom we try
to make happy. When he was put on the train in care of the conductor,
Weezy cried, and even Molly looked tearful.
“We shall miss the little scamp, Molly,” said Kirke, as they walked
home from the station; “but I must confess I’m tired of playing
watch-dog for him.”
“Yes, so am I, Kirke,” Molly drew a long breath; “I’m glad we asked him
to come, though. Mamma thinks the visit has helped him ever so much.”
“Does she? Well, I’m glad. But do you know, Molly, this morning I was
afraid it would rain, and the kid would have to stay over? If he had
stayed, it would have bothered us to-morrow about going to the camp.”
Kirke blew off some of his surplus energy in a prolonged whistle, the
near prospect of this much desired outing being very exciting.
But, sad to relate, when the children went down to breakfast the next
morning, yesterday’s light mist was woven into a thick curtain of fog,
which shut out the sun, the ocean, and even the hedge that bordered the
lawn. Molly opened the front door, and immediately closed it with a
shiver.
“O Kirke! out-of-doors it’s like a vapor bath. Do you suppose papa can
take us to the canyon?”
“Papa must take us; papa promised!” exclaimed Weezy, her eyes watering
as if the fog had condensed in them.
“But you know it never will do for papa to get cold, Weezy,” returned
Molly, herself ready to cry. “If it isn’t pleasant to-day, we can go
when it clears off. Wasn’t it nice in Captain Bradstreet to ask us to
stay a long while?”
“Oh! the fog will lift by and by, Molly. Here in California mist
doesn’t mean rain,” said hopeful Kirke.
For once he was a true prophet. By ten o’clock the sun had pierced the
clouds; and by eleven the little party set forth in a beach wagon,
attended by Zip, Donald’s hairless Mexican dog. Turning their backs
upon the blue ocean, they drove across the parched _mesa_, descended
a steep hill, and found themselves at the lower end of Sylvan Canyon.
Here the grass was still tender and juicy, watered by a lazy brook
flowing between dwarf forests of fern. Molly clapped her hands.
“How pretty it is, papa! so green and so tree-y!”
“The trees are mostly live-oaks and sycamores,” replied her father, who
had driven over the road the week before with Captain Bradstreet. “Look
out for the branches, or you’ll lose your caps.”
“I’d like to lose mine,” responded Weezy rather fretfully. “It pinches,
and it’s all crumpled up.”
“Oh! never mind, little sister,”--Molly brushed some grains of sand
from the visor; “the cap is plenty good enough for the woods.”
Here Zip began to bark and whine around the wagon; and before anybody
could tell what he wanted he had jumped in, trembling like a leaf.
“He’s afraid of those dogs,” said Molly, the next moment, as a pack
of hounds came running toward them, followed by a man in a rough
hunting-suit.
“No wonder he’s afraid,” exclaimed Kirke, rapidly counting. “One, two,
three,--eight big creatures! And the smallest of them could eat Zip at
a mouthful.”
“Their master is Kit Carson’s son,” observed Mr. Rowe, when they had
passed the strange procession. “He lives in that hut behind the
willows.”
“Does Cat Carson live with him, papa?” asked Weezy.
“No, little daughter; Kit Carson died years ago, but he was a famous
scout in his day.”
“What is a _cout_, papa?”
“A scout, Weezy, is a man sent before an army to spy out danger.”
“Oh! is that all?” yawned Weezy, tired of the subject.
“Kit Carson led General Frémont through to the Pacific Ocean, didn’t
he, papa?” asked Kirke.
“Yes, my son, when the country was an unexplored wilderness.”
While they talked, the road had been running about among the trees in
an inquisitive way, as if it were hunting for birds’ nests; and now it
crossed a small clearing where there was a brown cottage.
“This is Mr. Arnesten’s ranch,” said Mr. Rowe, drawing the reins.
“I see the camp, I see it!” cried Kirke, standing up in the wagon.
“There are three--yes, _four_--tents, and a shed besides.”
“Hop Kee sleeps in the shed,” said Mr. Rowe. “Ah, here comes Mr.
Arnesten from the spring. Good-morning, Mr. Arnesten. Can you bring
back my horses from the camp and feed them?”
The Swede nodded respectfully, and having set down his two pails of
water, plodded along in his clumsy shoes behind the party.
“Look, Weezy, they’ve carried the table out-of-doors under the
live-oaks,” exclaimed Molly, holding Zip by the collar. “We shall have
a regular gypsy dinner.”
“I hope dinner is ready,” said Weezy, in a flutter of expectancy. “I’m
’most starved.”
Molly was gazing about her with an air of keen disappointment.
“Where can Paul and Pauline be, Kirke? I thought they’d be looking out
for us.”
“And aren’t we looking? and haven’t we been looking for an hour?” cried
two gay voices on the right, as the twins sprang from behind the tall
sycamore that had concealed them.
Then they started three cheers for “The Merry Five,” in which their
young visitors most lustily joined.
“Ship ahoy! Cast your anchor!” called genial Captain Bradstreet, drawn
from his tent by the joyful tumult.
Auntie David hurried after to shake hands with the newcomers, and bid
them welcome to the camp. All were talking and laughing together, and
making so pleasant a din that the sleepy old owl at the top of the
sycamore actually winked at them, and cocked his head on one side to
listen.
[Illustration: “The twins sprang from behind the tall sycamore.”
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