FROM LILIAN’S DIARY
July 6, Thursday.
I see that this little book is going to be full before the summer is
over. It is just as well that Father gave me this pretty diary with
the key, for some of the things I shall write will be very private
and special. I do not believe, though, that I shall write out my
thoughts much. I did that once, and they seem so silly afterwards,
when you have gotten older. However, I’m nearly grown up now.
Last night there was a gorgeous rainbow and this morning when we
started down to breakfast every little spider had its cobweb out,
(tune of “ev’ry little wave had its white cap on, white cap, night
cap, white cap on”), and that means a nice day. Sure enough, it
wasn’t long before the sun shone out and showed how perfectly lovely
it is up here. I’m wild about the scenery. One of the councillors
said that the bay looked like “liquid sapphire”, which was very good
indeed, for it reflected the blue of the sky. I’ll try “liquid
sapphire” in a “pome” sometime. Merrymeeting Bay is on our right, to
the west of our point, and is where five rivers meet. It certainly
does look funny to see the current, or apparently the current, going
the wrong way between our point and that of the mainland opposite on
into the bay. I thought at first this morning that the way I had
considered down stream must be up stream and that I had been turned
around as to directions. But I soon found that this was only the
tide coming in! We are six or seven miles from Bath and almost
fourteen from the sea, I believe. There is the dearest island just
inside the bay. Somebody lives there, for we see a house and boat.
The girls call the gymnastic exercise that we have just before going
in to breakfast the “upsetting exercises”. It is fun, for the
athletic director gives us some exercises different from any I ever
had before. My voice lessons have made me able to do the deep
breathing performances easily. I didn’t take much gym last year in
school, had too much else to do, or thought I had.
At breakfast there were some announcements, about how many points
one makes in the different things, for orderly klondike, for being
quiet in rest hour, and after the last bell rings at night. I
couldn’t begin to remember it all. But I can find out gradually, I
think. Then we get points for hikes and the games, and for bringing
in the wild flowers and identifying new birds. I’m going to see how
many I can make. Each year there is a silver cup given to the best
all around camper among the seniors, among the juniors and among the
intermediates, and on your head-band you can have the cutest things
for what you have done. Frances had so many on the one she got last
year. Everybody has M. C., for Merrymeeting Camp, and two cunnin’
little pine trees on each side of those letters. Frances has a
tennis racquet, a volley ball, a baseball, a paddle, a shoe (for
hiking), and the dearest little musical notes. I think I can get the
notes, and I’m pretty good at tennis, though I’ve never played the
other games. Old Hilary will shine in basketball. How I’d love to
get the Merrymeeting ring or a pin, but not very many get those, I
guess. You can not buy them, just win them.
At eleven o’clock we had our first swim, in the cove by the pine
grove. That makes a good rhyme and I’m going to put it in a song
perhaps. It is the most fascinating place! You feel like an Indian
stepping on those generations of pine needles and do not make a bit
of noise. There is a narrow winding path with sweet fern and other
ferns and green moss and all sorts of pretty things by it, just
before you get in under the thickest trees. Then you climb down over
roots and stones to the big rocks that line the cove. This is almost
a complete circle of rocks, well, there is quite a space where they
have a rope and pole beyond which the girls do not go. Cathalina
said we all looked like mermaids. She didn’t go in this morning as
she took a bit of cold on the boat. The swimming teacher was there
and in a boat near were two more of our gentlemen, ready to rescue
us, I suppose, if we did anything foolish. The girls who can not
swim paddled around where the water is shallow. It is only at high
tide that the cove is well filled, they say. We have a swimming
teacher, an athletic director, a doctor, a nurse, and more
interesting folks that I do not know yet. All the girls that I have
met are pleasant and friendly and are of all descriptions as to size
and looks. Some of them are tutoring a little with some of the
councillors.
Now the most interesting thing of all. I had a box of candy from
Philip Van Buskirk. It seemed to be a four or five-pound box and was
full of the most delicious kinds that just melted in your mouth.
Philip certainly does know how to choose candy. It was sent from New
York and he must have mailed it as soon as he got home. Word was
sent me from the office by one of the little girls that a box was
there for me, but I thought that it was just the middies that were
to come from home, and in the midst of getting settled I forgot
about it till it was announced at the Camp Fire and the box brought
in. It flashed over me that perhaps Phil had sent it, because he had
been so perfectly lovely to me from the time we met at Rochester. We
talked music and other things almost steadily or we all sang
together and Phil has a perfectly adorable voice. And when he put
down my coat and things on the train as we started to Niagara he
bent down and said close to my ear, “You are going to hear from me
soon.” I looked up at him and laughed, and just then Cathalina spoke
to him.
Philip has been brought up to do all the nice things that gentlemen
do when they can, but I don’t believe that he is a flirtatious boy
and I do believe that he really likes me and that we can be good
chums whenever we meet. I am crazy to hear him play. Imagine having
him play an accompaniment for me!
But I’m not finishing about the box. I slipped the card quickly into
my pocket and looked at it afterward. “Philip Van Buskirk” looked so
distinguished, and so does he, for that matter. The girls were
lovely, did not ask me a word about it, although I know Hilary was
dying to be sure that it was from Philip. He is very kind indeed,
but there is no reason for being silly about it. He probably sends
candy to other girls. His manners are just perfect, and he seems so
grown up and serious, some way. I ought to write a little note of
thanks, I suppose, or would it do to tell Cathalina,—no, that
wouldn’t do. O, I didn’t bring a bit of real good stationery along!
I refused to write to any of the boys at home, said I wouldn’t have
time but would send cards to the entire crowd. They were all so good
to me the short time I was home.
This afternoon the girls had a circus in the big barn and initiated
all of us new girls. It was a circus, indeed! Some of them were
painted up as clowns and looked perfectly killing. The old girls got
it up with the help of the athletic director. We girls sat on the
hay in the high mow and slid down or climbed down when wanted to
take the center of the “stage”, which was on the main floor, also
covered with hay. Some of the stunts were very funny. Hilary and I
had to sit down back to back, with our arms locked,—in each
other’s,—and then we were to rise. We couldn’t do it at all and got
to laughing so that we just fell over in the hay! Several other
pairs of the ones to be initiated tried it and we all declared that
it couldn’t be done. Then it was announced that two councillors
would try it and show us how it could be done. We thought that it
would be a joke on the two councillors that were asked, but didn’t
they do it, though not without some trying! There was great
applause.
We had some visitors up from the boys’ camp and Brushwood Lodge,
where fathers and mothers can stay. Some of their councillors were
up, but we didn’t see anything of Campbell. If Hilary teases about
Philip, I must not forget Campbell’s interest in her!
As Isabel says, “more anon”. I’m afraid that this will be a scrappy
diary. I’m sitting on my cot to write. Nobody is in the klondike
now, but Nora McNeil, whom some of the girls call “Pat” or “Irish”.
I think that sounds a little too much like boys. Not many of the
girls have nicknames, but those that have do not seem to mind it.
It must be nearly time for the supper bell,—yes, there it is.
* * * * *
Isabel ran in at this moment and carried Lilian off with her. “I
brought over Cathalina’s sweater. She left it in Wiggly after the
circus. Say, Lilian, I’ve counted eighteen canoes beside the war
canoe. It holds seventeen by actual count of seats. Aren’t they the
prettiest things?—that deep blue and all painted up new!”
“You are like Shakespeare, Isabel, closing up your speech with two
lines that rhyme.”
“What?—O, ‘blue’ and ‘new’. Yes, I’m a great poet.”
“Can you paddle, Isabel?”
“Just a little, but I want to learn to do it well. I can swim if I
do tip over, but I want to be an expert, ha-ha!” and Isabel struck
an attitude of great dignity.
“I think that most of the Greycliff girls can swim, but I want to
get the strokes that this teacher will give us. I do think it
important to be a good swimmer if you have the opportunity to learn.
Father will be so delighted if I do these things.”
“We’ve been assigned to tables. Goodbye; I must hunt mine up.”
Lilian found herself with a new councillor and a group of girls
entirely unknown to her, but it does not take long for campers with
common interests to become acquainted.
“Who serves first?” asked one.
“The girls next to me,” replied the councillor. “Two serve for three
meals, then two others the next day, and so on, moving around the
table.” Little girls, as little used to responsibility as Cathalina
had been, took hold as cheerfully as could be, and brought in plates
of bread and butter, pitchers of milk, dishes of steaming potatoes
or platters of well-browned fish.
“Did you see the big fish?” asked one of the girls.
“No; what fish?”
“There was a four hundred-pound sturgeon caught up the river.”
“Four hundred pounds! You are joking.”
“No, indeed. We asked how they got it into the boat, and they said
it was just like a log, too heavy to fight. They cut it up and
shipped it to Bath in a barrel!”
“What a fish story!”
“No, honest, some people that live on the river caught it.”
“Ting-a-ling,” the bell at the head councillor’s table. First a bird
hike was announced for an early hour the next morning, the bell to
ring at a quarter to six. Our Greycliff quartet especially gave
attention to this and nodded at each other as members of the
Greycliff bird club.
The next announcement created universal joy and was to the effect
that the Aeolus and Truant would take out the campers for a ride on
the river and that the girls who had been at Merrymeeting before and
could paddle might take out the war canoe. There was great applause
and a hurrying on the part of the experienced paddlers to select
paddles and run or slide down to the dock.
As Lilian and Hilary walked down, one little girl came up the hill
crying. “O,” said Lilian, “what is the matter?”
No response.
“Come on with me and have a good time,” said Lilian coaxingly.
A councillor appeared hurrying up the slight ascent after the child.
“She is homesick,” she explained, “and when she thought she could
not sit by me she said she wouldn’t go.” Kindly the young councillor
led her along and finally got her on the boat. The girls saw her
later, contentedly watching the gulls which flew about the landing
as the boats started.
Everybody had been longing to get out on the water on this ideal
day. Blue, rosy or golden, the sunset colors stained the waters with
like reflected hues. The start of the war canoe was funny indeed. No
one was in practice and as Isabel said, the paddles were going in
ragtime in spite of the regularly called time. But by the time they
were fairly out in the river the paddles swept in unison. Girls sat
both within and on top of the Aeolus, and out on the front and rear
of the Truant. A pretty sight it was as they floated out into the
sunset, and there we may leave them, knowing that we shall find them
in their klondikes in the morning.