This, then, is how it came about that "Kitten" Brown and I were seated,
one midgeful morning in July, by the pellucid waters of Lake Susan W.
Pillsbury, gnawing sections from a greasily fried trout, upon which I had
attempted culinary operations.
Brown's baptismal name was William; but the unfortunate young man
was once discovered indiscreetly embracing a pretty assistant in the
Administration Building at Bronx, and, furthermore, was overheard to
address her as "Kitten."
So Kitten Brown it was for him in future. After he had fought all the
younger members of the scientific staff in turn, he gradually became
resigned to this annoying _nom d'amour_.
Lightly but thoroughly equipped for scientific field research, we had
arrived at the rendezvous in time to bribe the two guides engaged by the
Government to go back to their own firesides.
A week later the formidable expedition of representative ladies arrived;
and now they were sitting on the shore of Lake Susan W. Pillsbury, at a
little distance from us, trying to keep the midges from their features
and attempting to eat the fare provided for them by me.
I myself couldn't eat it. No wonder they murmured. But hunger goaded them
to attack the greasy mess of trout and fried cornmeal.
Kitten was saying to me:
"Our medicine chest isn't very extensive. I hope they brought their own.
If they didn't, some among us will never again see New York."
I stole a furtive glance at the unfortunate women. There was one among
them--but let me first enumerate their heavy artillery:
There was the Reverend Dr. Amelia Jones, blond, adipose, and close to the
four-score mark. She stepped high in the Equal Franchise ranks. Nobody
had ever had the temerity to answer her back.
There was Miss Sadie Dingleheimer, fifty, emaciated, anemic, and gauntly
glittering with thick-lensed eye-glasses. She was the President of the
National Prophylactic Club, whatever that may be.
There was Miss Margaret McFadden, a Titian, profusely toothed, muscular,
and President of the Hair Dressers' Union of the United States.
There was Mrs. Gladys Doolittle Batt, a grass one--Batt being represented
as a vanishing point--President of the National Eugenic and Purity
League; tall, gnarled, sinuously powerful, and prone to emotional
attacks. The attacks were directed toward others.
These, then, composed the heavy artillery. The artillery of the light
brigade consisted only of a single piece. Her name was Angelica White, a
delegate from the Trained Nurses' Association of America. The nurses had
been too busy with their business to attend such picnics, so one had been
selected by lot to represent the busy Association on this expedition.
Angelica White was a tall, fair, yellow-haired girl of twenty-two or
three, with violet-blue eyes and red lips, and a way of smiling a little
when spoken to--but let that pass. I mean only to be scientifically
minute. A passion for fact has ever obsessed me. I have little literary
ability and less desire to sully my pen with that degraded form of
letters known as fiction. Once in my life my mania for accuracy involved
me lyrically. It was a short poem, but an earnest one:
Truth is mighty and must prevail,
Otherwise it were inadvisable to tell the tale.
I bestowed it upon the New York _Evening Post_, but declined
remuneration. My message belonged to the world. I don't mean the
newspaper.
Her eyes, then, were tinted with that indefinable and agreeable nuance
which modifies blue to a lilac or violet hue.
Watching her askance, I was deeply sorry that my cooking seemed to pain
her.
"Guide!" said Mrs. Doolittle Batt, in that remarkable, booming voice of
hers.
"Ma'am!" said Kitten Brown and I with spontaneous alacrity, leaping from
the ground as though shot at.
"This cooking," she said, with an ominous stare at us, "is atrocious.
Don't you know how to cook?"