THE CAMP
[Illustration: "'HERE IS YOURS,' SAID BELL; 'NEXT TO OURS.'"]
A LONG, low, irregular building, with a wide verandah in front, the lake
rippling and ruffling almost up to the piers; beyond, great hills
rolling up and away. To right and left, boat-houses and tents; hammocks
swung between the trees, fishing-rods ranged along the sides of the
building. This was the Camp. As the wagons drove up, Mrs. Merryweather
hurried from the house, and Mr. Merryweather and Phil came up with long
strides from the wharf. Amid a chorus of eager welcome, a babel of
questions and answers, the travellers were helped out and escorted to
the verandah.
"Most welcome, all!" cried Mrs. Merryweather. "Are you very tired? No?
that is good! Well, but you must be hungry, I am sure. There are
doughnuts and milk on the table; or if you would rather have tea--"
"They are not hungry, Miranda!" said Mr. Merryweather. "They cannot be
hungry at three o'clock. Dined at Wayport, Ferrers? Of course! Jack,
show your uncle his tent! Miss Montfort--"
"I'll show them the way, Papa!" said Gertrude. "Where is Bell, Mammy?
Oh, there she is! Bell, here are Margaret and Peggy; girls, this is
Bell!"
Bell Merryweather, a sturdy, blue-eyed girl with the general aspect of a
snow apple, greeted the guests with a hearty shake of a powerful hand,
and a cordial smile.
"We have been looking forward so to your coming!" she said. "Don't you
want to come out to your tent? Here, I'll take your bag, Margaret; shall
I say 'Margaret' at once? it will be so much nicer. This way!"
She led the way, Margaret following, Gertrude and Peggy after them,
still talking eagerly. A row of flagstones led past the boat-house, and
on under solemn pines and feathery birches to where a line of tents
stood facing the water.
"Here is yours," said Bell; "next to ours, this big one; we are three,
you see. Yours is small, but I hope you can be comfortable."
"Comfortable!" echoed Peggy; "I should think so! Oh, Margaret, do look!
how perfect everything is! Oh, what ducky beds! the red blankets are
just like home; our boys have red blankets. Oh, I shall be perfectly
happy here!"
Margaret, accustomed to the wide spaces and ample closets of Fernley
House, was a little bewildered at the first glance around her. The tent
was hardly bigger than the stateroom of a moderate-sized steamer. Could
two persons live here in anything approaching comfort? A second glance
showed her how compactly and conveniently everything was arranged. The
narrow cots, with their scarlet blankets and blue check pillows,
stood on either side; between them was a table, with blotter of birch
bark, and an inkstand made by hollowing out a quaintly shaped piece of
wood and sinking in the hollow a small glass tumbler. Above the head of
each bed hung a long shoe-bag with many pockets, while opposite the foot
were rows of hooks for dresses, a shelf on which stood pitcher, basin,
etc., and a chest of drawers. All was fresh, neat, and tidy.
"Yes, I am sure we shall be happy!" said Margaret, repeating Peggy's
words.
"Here is the hook for your lantern," said Bell. "Here is a little jar
for crackers, but be sure to keep it covered, or the squirrels will
carry them off. I hope you will not mind a squirrel coming in now and
then? they are so tame, they come hopping in to see if we have anything
for them; I often leave a bit of something."
"Oh! what fun!" said Peggy. "I love to tame squirrels. Ours at home will
come and eat from our hands. Will yours do that?"
"Not often; at least, not for me. The boys can bring them sometimes. I
think they like boys best. But I have a dear little field-mouse who
brings me her babies to look at now and then, just to show me how they
are growing. There, now, we go on chattering, when I know you ought to
rest awhile, and unpack and stow away. It takes quite a bit of planning
for two persons to fit into a tent. By and by, when you are all settled,
would you like to go out on the water? Hurrah! we'll come for you. Come
on, Toots!"
The two sisters walked slowly down the long slip that led to the
floating wharf, and sat down with their feet hanging over the edge.
"Well, Bell!" said Gertrude, eagerly.
"Well!" said Bell, slowly.
"What do you think of them? Isn't she lovely? and isn't Peggy a dear?"
"Yes," said Bell. "I think you have just hit it, Toots. Peggy is a dear;
just a hearty, jolly dear; but Margaret is lovely. Do you see a little
hint of Hilda? I can't tell where it is; not in the features, certainly,
nor in the coloring. I think it is in the brow and eyes; a kind of noble
look; I don't know how else to put it. You wouldn't say anything false
or base to this girl, any more than you would to Hilda; you wouldn't
dare. My lamb! I speak as if falseness and baseness were the usual note
of your conversation."
"I thought you were a trifle severe," said Gertrude, smiling. "Well,
anyhow, it is a joy to have them here, and dear Colonel Ferrers, too.
What shall we do this evening? Here come the boys for a council."
The twins, Gerald and Phil, came running down the wharf, followed by
Jack Ferrers. The latter, whom some of my readers may have known as an
awkward, "leggy" boy, was now a man. Very tall, towering three or four
inches above the six-foot Merryweathers, he still kept his boyish
slenderness and spring, though the awkward angles were somehow softened
away. He no longer stooped and shambled, but held his head up and his
shoulders back; and if he did still prance, as his uncle declared, like
the Mighty Ones of Scripture, it was not an ungraceful prancing.
Briefly, Jack Ferrers was a fine-looking fellow.
"Council of War?" asked Gerald; "or do we intrude?"
"Sit down!" said Bell. "We were just beginning to plan the evening. What
are your ideas, if any?"
The boys--for they were still the boys, even if they had passed one and
twenty--stretched themselves along the wharf in picturesque attitudes.
"I would sing!" announced Gerald. "Prose will not express my feelings at
this juncture.
"My fertile brain is simmering,
My fancy's fire is glimmering;
I'd fain betake
Me to the lake,
When bright the moonlight's shimmering.
"Your turn, Ferguson. Go on; the song upraise!"
"Let me see!" said Phil. "Well--on the whole--
"I can't agree with himmering;
_My_ fancy's fire is dimmering;
If you would know
The thing I'd doe,
Methinks I'll go a swimmering."
"Oh! no, Phil," said Gertrude. "Not the very first night the girls are
here; it will take them a day or two to get used to camp ways, Margaret
at least; and we want to do something all together, something that
Colonel Ferrers will like, too. I think--"
"Sing it! sing it!" cried Gerald. "The song upraise, Tintinnabula! no
escape! 'Trimmering' is still left you."
"Is there only one vowel?" demanded Bell, laughing. "I refuse to be
fettered. Wait a second!--now I have it.
"Forbear, forbear your clamoring,
And cease this hasty hammering;
I think, with Jerry,
'Twere wise and merry
To row by moonlight glamouring.
Your turn, Toots!"
"I cannot!" said Gertrude. "You know I cannot, Bell. Besides, there
aren't any more rhymes."
"Oh!" cried Gerald, "you know what you are telling, and you know what
happens to people who tell them. Perpend, Tootsina!
"You yodel, yodel yammering,
You stutter, stutter stammering;
And when you cry,
'I will not try!'
We know you're only shammering."
"Gracious!" said Gertrude. "Don't you suppose I would make rhymes if I
could? It's really a dreadful thing to be the only prose member of a
large family. But Jack comforts me; you can't make them either, can you,
Jack?"
"Not to save my life!" said Jack. "Never could see how they do it."
"But you can set them to music!" said Gertrude. "That is the delightful
thing about you."
"And you can illustrate them! That is one of the many delightful things
about you!" said Jack, with a low bow.
"'They built it up for forty miles,
With mutual bows and pleasing smiles!'"
quoted Gerald. "A truce to this badinage! Compliment, unless paid to
myself, wearies me. We go, then, in canoes?"
"In canoes!" replied the others in chorus.
"'Tis well! Any special stunts in the way of arrangement?"
"Oh!" said Jack, "in plain prose--Bell, will you come with me? It's our
turn to get supper, isn't it? and I have an idea--just a little
one--which we can talk over while we are getting it."
"Oh, guard it, guard it tenderly,
Thy one idea--thy first!"
sang Gerald.
"And we, the while, console ourselves;
'Twill be the last, at worst!
Nay! nay!" he went on, as Jack seized him by the shoulders, and made a
motion toward the water.
"Duck not the bard, the tuneful bard,
Who all thy soul reveals;
To hear the truth, I own, is hard,
Yet dry thy tearful squeals!"
"False construction!" said Bell. "You cannot dry squeals."
"They were tearful ones!" Gerald protested. "It was the tears I would
have dried. Tears, idle tears, I know not whence they come; tears from
the depth of some despairing fiddler."
"Suppose you dry _up_!" said Jack, dipping Gerald's head lightly in the
water.
"No ducking between swims!" proclaimed Phil. "Law of the Medes and
Persians!"
"Besides, it is time to be making the fire!" said Bell, rising. "Leave
him to his conscience, Jack, and come along!"
"Yes, leave me to me conscience!" said Gerald.
"'Twill cradle me with songs of Araby;
Arrah be aisy! hear it sing to me!"
"Jerry, what _has_ got into you?" asked Gertrude, a few minutes later,
when Phil had followed the others to the house, leaving the two Reds, as
their mother called them, together. "Has the rhyming spider bitten you?
you are really wild!"
"Nice little sister!" said Gerald, rolling over, and resting his head
on Gertrude's knee. "Nice little red-haired, cream-colored, comfortable
sister! If I were as good-looking as you, Toots, who knows? As it
is--but still I am happy, my child, happy! I say! Toots!"
"Yes, Jerry!"
"What do you think of her?"
"Oh, Jerry, she is a darling!"
"_Dixisti!_" cried Gerald. "Thou hast spoken."