SHIPSHAPING
Just to show that grown folks, when they are home-grown, appreciate
children's aspirations and often delight in promoting them, the
equipment for Camp Comalong when it "camalong" was a big surprise
indeed. Parents of the little troop, the "Junior Bobolinks" as they
decided to call themselves, united in procuring a regulation outfit
for the girls; and the site finally chosen was on a hill overlooking
the lake, near enough other camps and especially near to one camp in
which was "housed" a club of Normal School young women, secretly
pledged to "have an eye" on Camp Comalong.
The girls could scarcely believe that all the freight consignment
piled up on the small floor of that office could really be for them.
Corene "fell to" immediately and took charge. She ordered the others
about as if she were a qualified directress, indeed, and sent each on
a different errand somewhere: to get a couple of express men to cart
the stuff to the grounds, to get a carpenter to cut some strong tent
pegs, to get the hammers, the saws, the hatchets and so many necessary
implements that it seemed the Bobolinks were not going to follow out
the primitive living system of their namesakes, the little birds that
sing as they fly, and seem to need the songs to propel the wings, as
each fluttering movement is accompanied by its fluttering song.
But speed was the important issue with the "Bobbies," so whatever they
may have overlooked in the way of real Scout endurance and personal
labor for the establishment of the camp, they surely made up for with
their enthusiasm and direct energy.
The ownership of a horse and wagon, or of anything that would run (at
times) by motor, was all that a man at the lake needed to qualify him
as an "expressman," hence the necessity of looking for more than one
of such conveyances to get the equipment out to the woods in time to
begin work that day.
"If we leave it all to old Sam it will get there by the end of the
week," reasoned Corene, "and we must get things moving. Louise, ask
the grocer if he will take these boxes for us."
"But why not take one of our cars?" suggested Julia. "You may have
ours this morning, I'm sure."
"No, thank you, Julie. This stuff is rough and scratchy, and there's
no use starting out to damage things. But isn't it too wonderful?
These are real army tents and there's a----"
"Flagpole!" sang out Cleo. "I should think we might have found a dead
tree for that purpose."
"I believe our family made that contribution," said Grace. "Mother was
afraid we would start out wrong and not have the colors right away, so
she ordered a flag and pole."
"Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed Cleo. "Of course a handsome flag should
fly from a proper standard bearer. I never suspected we were going to
have such a complete outfit."
"The flag is at our cottage," added Grace. "Benny will bring it over
as soon as we are ready. It's a perfect beauty--size six by four."
"Oh, and we can raise and lower the colors and all that!" enthused
Julia. "Now we know how much better fun all this is than just dressing
up at some fashionable summer place."
"Heaps," agreed Corene. "But I say, girls, we don't really have to
stand around here waiting to see all this put on the wagons----"
"I would never trust those indifferent men to get it sent out to-day
if we didn't just stay here and superintend," declared Cleo. "I have
two promises for two men with light trucks. Let's see if either will
come."
So the real work began. But it was all so novel, and the woods smelled
so of the pines and cedars and larches--no wonder that spot had been
given the name Tamarack Hills.
By night fall the camp site had been cleared; the girls raised a
pretty crop of blisters in their frantic efforts to get things cut
down. The tent pegs were all driven in, Benny and his Boy Scout
friends helped with the driving, but the hoisting of the tent was
considered too important a task to be left to "such little girls," so
much against the ambition of Corene that piece of work was actually
done by a corps of real Scouts--to wit--three very interested fathers,
who came to the camp site in the autos that brought them from the
early evening train.
For the sake of identification we will call these gentlemen after
their daughters, so it was Mr. Cleo who ran the ridge pole under the
center of the tent, while Messrs. Julia and Louise, at the signal,
raised the tent by lifting the poles and carrying them to their
places. It took some little time to get the big canvas house properly
adjusted, but it was worth all the trouble.
"Hurrah!" shouted the Bobbies as their headquarters was finally in
evidence.
"How can we ever go home and leave it to-night?" bewailed Grace.
"Folks at home are worrying lest you have worked too hard to-day,"
declared the man with the big gray car. "You must come along,
kiddies."
"But we didn't, daddy, really," protested Corene. "We loafed more than
we worked. There was so much to see and so many things to distract us.
I'm not one bit tired."
"Oh, h-h-h!" groaned Louise, almost falling into Cleo's arms. "She
isn't a bit tired! I'm dead!"
"But Corey is always in such good form," said Julia. "This is where
all her exercising comes in."
They were gathering up such tools and accessories as could not be left
around on the grounds over night, and incidentally gathering up
themselves, when the clap-clap-clippity-clap of horse's hoofs was
heard coming over the hills.
The road was narrow, merely a way driven into a road by the campers'
use, and as the car with the Bobbies' fathers and the newly organized
camp troop carefully picked their way out into the broader
thoroughfare, Peg, the girl rider, came into sight.
"There she is!" Grace gave the usual announcement, and this time the
girls had opportunity for a close-up view of the interesting, original
Girl Scout of Tamarack Hills.
She pulled her horse up to allow the cars to pass, and it seemed to
the Scouts that she deliberately tossed her head up in a defiant pose
that turned her face away from them. But in spite of this they
obtained a good view of the rider.
She wore a suit, the origin of which would be at once proclaimed
"Western." The divided skirt was of brown leather with that
picturesque fringe slashed in, so markedly popular in pictures of
Mexican or Southwestern girl riders, her blouse "matched horribly," as
Cleo put it, for while it was Indian in design, and also carried the
slashed fringe, the material was common khaki, well washed out and
deplorably faded. It might have been part of a boy's play suit, for it
seemed in no way related either to the girl or to her leather riding
skirt.
Her hat was broad brimmed and of tan felt--still another shade of the
various browns, and again suggesting another inception. It looked a
"whole lot like the Boy Scouts' hat," whispered Grace.
Surprising to relate, this girl had neither the popularly featured
"bronze, red nor sunny hair," and it was dark, black actually; nor did
it curl the least bit, for what fell over the ears (it was cropped
very short) glistened even in the twilight.
All this was observable because in the narrow road the cars were
almost stopped, and Peg's horse nosed right up to Cleo, with a very
friendly whinnie.
"Dads might think we are looking for that sort of thing," whispered
the conservative Louise. And if to be camp Scouts should mean "that
sort of thing," her caution, just then, seemed warranted.