MAKING CAMP
Betty regretted her recklessness in speaking out her thought about
tramps several times during the next two or three hours. Grace repeated
what she had said to Mollie and Amy when they came back with the
provisions. Mollie only laughed and said:
“That’s a long shot, Gracie, and I, for one, will bet there has never
been a tramp within five miles of this place.”
Amy took the idea more seriously.
However, as there was plenty of work still to be done before dark
they soon forgot everything but the delight of making a real,
“honest-to-goodness” camp.
Betty and Amy had stacked up a huge pile of firewood while Mollie and
Amy lugged up the blanket rolls and other paraphernalia from the _Gem_
and Betty busied herself with making a fireplace that would have done
credit to many a more experienced woodsman.
First she scooped out enough soft earth to make a fairly deep hole
which was about a foot and a half wide across the top. The inside of
the hole she lined with stones and small pieces of rock, building up a
sort of stone “fence” around the top of it.
And then looking about her for something that might serve to put over
the top of her “stove” she came across what was undoubtedly the find
of that afternoon. This was a large wire grill--rusted and old, to be
sure--but a gift of the gods, nevertheless.
“Look here, girls! Who says we’re not lucky?” she fairly crowed,
holding up the “find” before their enraptured eyes. “If we don’t have a
good supper to-night, then it won’t be because we haven’t a per-fect-ly
marvelous stove.”
“Hooray!” cried Mollie, waving a frying pan joyfully about her head.
“Which shall it be, Little Captain? Bacon and eggs or potatoes and
onions?”
Betty’s eyes twinkled.
“From the way I feel,” she said, “I think it had better be both.”
“So be it,” replied Mollie, happily, and a moment later was busy
finding the potatoes and onions.
“Here,” she said, shoving the latter strong-smelling vegetable in
Grace’s direction. “Stop looking in your mirror, vain thing, and get
busy. You peel the onions and I’ll tend to the potatoes.”
“Such lack of delicacy,” sighed Grace, as she obediently put away her
mirror and took up an onion. “Who suggested onions, anyway? They always
make my eyes water.”
“Notice you eat ’em just the same,” returned Mollie, unfeelingly,
adding, as Betty put a match to the fire which she and Grace had laid
with the greatest care: “Whee, there goes Betty. That’s right, old
girl, let her roar!”
“Such language!” laughed Betty, as she turned her face away from the
flood of smoke that threatened to suffocate her.
The blaze from the dry wood leapt up merrily and the girls gave a whoop
of sheer joy.
“This is the life!” cried Mollie, putting even more than her usual
“pep” into the peeling of potatoes. “Hustle up, Gracie, and we’ll soon
have an aroma around this little old camp that will draw the hungry
coyotes for miles around.”
“Goodness, I hope not,” said Betty, as she put a generous supply of
butter in the frying pan and Grace dumped her first consignment of
onions into it where they sizzled and fried delightfully. “If we
attracted too many animals I doubt if we’d have enough onions to go
around. More butter, Gracie?”
“Oh, pile it on,” returned Grace, extravagantly. “You can’t have too
much butter when you’re frying onions. Got those potatoes ready,
Mollie? The onions are browning.”
“Right here,” replied Mollie, as she added the potatoes to the golden
brown deliciousness in the frying pan. “Now what shall I do next,
Betty?”
“You might get out the bacon,” suggested the Little Captain. “We’ll be
ready for it in a few minutes. Meanwhile, I guess our fire needs more
wood.”
And while Mollie rummaged for the bacon and Betty put more wood on the
fire Amy “set the table.” There was home-made nut bread which Mrs.
Billette herself had prepared for them, delicious ginger cookies, a
jar of home-made preserves, and a huge coffee cake contributed by Mrs.
Nelson.
“Looks as if we wouldn’t starve,” remarked Grace, contentedly. “Get out
that pack of paper dishes and napkins, Amy, and we’ll be ready to eat.
The grub’s ready.”
“Such language!” exclaimed Amy, as she set out four paper plates, four
paper cups, and two or three larger plates which she announced were
vegetable dishes. “You should say ‘Dinner is served.’”
“Grub’s all right,” protested Grace. “When in camp speak the language
of campers, you know.”
“Bacon and eggs are ready,” announced Mollie at this point. “Who wants
some?”
“What a question!” laughed Betty. “Here, hold your plates, everybody.
First come gets the biggest piece of bacon.”
There was some wild old scrabbling over this, with Amy coming out
winner.
“You nearly pushed me into the butter,” complained Grace, when Amy
returned triumphantly with her prize.
“Goodness, what a waste of good butter,” Amy retorted.
Any one who has, after several hours’ work in the fresh air, been
treated to potatoes and onions and bacon and eggs, to say nothing of
nut bread and coffee cake, can appreciate just how the Outdoor Girls
enjoyed that supper.
Not until they had cooked a second panful of bacon and eggs and cleared
up the last scraps of coffee cake, did the girls really feel satisfied.
Then, after lazing for a few minutes, they scouted about to find some
water in which to wash their cooking utensils. They found it in the
form of a delightful little spring that fed the merriest of merry
little brooks further down the ravine.
It was an enchanted spot, there beside the brook--rich, heavy moss
beneath their feet, the tinkle of rushing water in their ears, the
chirping of sleepy birds overhead.
They lingered there, held by the beauty of the spot until reminded by
the growing dusk that they must complete preparations for the night
before complete darkness fell.
So, having filled a pail with water, they returned reluctantly to their
camp and placed the pail over the fire. In a few moments the water
was bubbling merrily and Mollie began briskly to wash the cutlery and
utensils they had used.
“All the comforts of home,” she laughed. “Even hot dish water. Who
could ask for more?”
“And while you girls are fixing the dishes,” said the Little Captain,
“I guess I’d better get busy and make up the beds for the night. It
won’t be so easy to do after dark.”
“Beds,” echoed the girls, staring up at her. It was honestly the first
time they had realized the need for beds.
“That’s what I said,” returned Betty, whimsically. “They may only
consist of a couple of blankets apiece but we can call ’em what we
like.”
“What’s in a name?” murmured Grace, adding wistfully: “Oh, my comfy
home and my still more comfy bed.”
“Stop it,” commanded Mollie. “You know very well, home was never like
this. What if we do have to sleep with nothing but blankets between us
and the cold, cold ground for one night? It will be all the more fun.”
As Betty began to spread the blankets within the shelter of the tent
Amy came in to see if she could help her and Betty welcomed her
gratefully.
“I can’t seem to manage the old things alone,” she said. “The blankets
are so big and the tent is so small. Spread down that corner, will you,
Amy--there’s a dear. Now, I wonder,” she paused to consider, “if one
blanket under us and one over will be enough.”
“More than enough, I should say, considering that the night is just
about as hot as any we’ve had,” said Amy. “I’d just as soon sleep
without anything over me.”
“Oh, you’ll need a cover toward morning,” said Betty, as she spread
four blankets side by side in a neat row, doubling the edges under so
that the beds when finished resembled nothing so much as sleeping
bags. “It gets pretty cold around dawn out here in the woods. Now,” she
added, regarding her finished work thoughtfully, “I guess that’s about
as right as I can make it.”
“It’s just fine,” returned Amy, enthusiastically, adding as she slipped
an arm fondly about the Little Captain: “You always know just what to
do to make people comfortable, Betty dear. I don’t know what we’d do
without you.”
“Oh, nonsense,” retorted Betty gayly. “Probably you’d get along a good
deal better. Now let’s go out and see what those girls are doing.”
Mollie and Grace were very busy as Amy and the Little Captain stepped
from the tent. They were gathering more firewood--enough, Mollie
explained, to make a “rip-roaring campfire.”
Betty and Amy went to work with them and it was not long before they
had a pile of wood large enough to satisfy even their longing in the
matter of a fire.
Then, having piled the dried timber up neatly with a skill born of long
experience, they fired it and stood about happily as the flames licked
upward, crackling and hissing merrily.
As the blaze grew the heat from the fire became intense and they were
forced to retreat from it almost to the opening of their tent. Here
they flung themselves to the ground, watching the flames in dreamy
content.
“Well, Amy, are you satisfied?” asked Grace at last, breaking a rather
long silence. “You wanted a fire, you know.”
“Oh, it’s gorgeous,” returned Amy, happily. “Don’t you think it needs a
little more wood on this end, Betty?”
“Perhaps,” said the Little Captain, lazily. “Can you reach the wood,
Amy?”
For answer Amy threw a handful of twigs on the blaze where they twisted
and sputtered, sending out that acrid smell of burning wood that is so
beloved of campers.
“I wonder,” said Mollie, breaking another long silence, “what happened
to Henry Blackford’s shack, anyway. It’s sort of mysterious, burning
down all by itself.”
“That’s probably something we’ll never know,” said Betty, softly.
And so they sat about their campfire, not realizing the swift passing
of time till the blaze burned low and in its flickering glow Betty
looked at her watch.
Then she began softly to whistle “Taps.”