A STOLEN LOOK AROUND
It was dawn on Lake Hocomo, and the sun that disappeared behind the
hills last night after spilling his colorful paint-pots into the
surprised waters, tried to make amends now by softening the deadened
mixture into a haze of amethyst mists.
Gray, purple, rosy, and all so velvety, like the essence of color-life
itself, the day dawned; welcomed by glad birds from every bush, tree
or meadow spot for miles around.
Were the Bobbies up now they might have learned something from their
namesake. On a soft patch of velvet grass, jeweled with dew-blessed
buttercups, and that tiniest of flowers, the pale blue forget-me-not,
the bobolinks fluttered, their song as reckless as the riot of early
day, as they paddled along on wingtips to the gay rhythm of rippling,
reckless aria; for a happy little songster is the bobolink, shooting
up and diving down into the wet grasses for his bath of sweetness,
then swaying on the slenderest of stems, not unlike the little girl
who stands perched on her springboard in the first joys of
water-diving.
It was because this rollicking bird sings as he flies that the vote of
the Scouts resulted in his name being chosen, and on the dawn recorded
the brown-gray streaked little songster left his meadow for a glimpse
of that new camp in the woods. Soon he must go South for his rice
feast, for early in summer the birds of his clan descend upon the rice
fields and lo----!
The bobolink perched himself on the top of that new flagpole, and
perhaps his trilled notes were a co-mingling of praise and good
wishes. But the Bobbies were sleeping in their mothers' cottages and
dreaming of the first night in camp.
Dick Porter, the night-watchman on the grounds around Tamarack Hills,
rubbed his eyes and heaved the sigh of another task completed. Then he
took a last look at Camp Comalong, for the Scouts had already stored
in the tent goods of value, straightened his shoulders to suit the
daytime needs, and sauntered off for his breakfast at the Nipanneck.
Quickly as he turned away from the camp grounds a girl stole down from
the highest hilltop. Peg, the mysterious, without hat and in simple
skirt and blouse, frightened away the chipmunks and bunnies as she
skipped, light as a fawn, over the path invisible to less familiar
eyes, then she too stopped in front of that dignified flagpole. She
looked up and down the length of it and brushed her hand quizzically
over its smooth surface.
"Humph!" she jerked. "Going to have everything first class, I guess."
Cautiously she stepped up to the rustic "sideboard." This brought from
her lips no caustic comment, but at once claimed her wrapt attention.
She touched the burlap curtain and peeked under it. She gingerly
fingered the rustic basket that held a bunch of wild flowers and hid
the glass jar of water, she smiled real approval at the wood's fern in
the rugged nail-keg that offset the center, and a little sigh escaped
Peg as she turned to the tent.
The new wood floor was fragrant as the pines, and as it was raised to
make it safe from dampness the two "carpentered" steps with the
doormat at top seemed very inviting indeed.
The girl ventured under the canvas and stood as if spellbound.
"Scouts!" she was thinking. "And I was the only Scout here till they
came with all this."
The cots were still covered with burlap, and the little foot rugs were
rolled in a bundle with some of Cleo's precious cretonnes. Peg just
touched all this with her brown fingers, and in a girl's way smiled at
this or frowned at that, as the fancy struck her.
A shrill whistle from the first lake steamer startled Peg as if she
had been detected in her stolen inspection, and poking her head out of
the tent to make sure the coast was clear, she jumped down the two
white steps and made for the path, safe and unseen even by the girls
from Camp Norm, who were just starting out for their nature hike. Peg
quickly lost herself in the elderbrush lane that wound through the
woods leading up to her own bungalow.
A big shaggy collie ran out to meet her. She patted him fondly and he
"wagged her" along to the door, where a woman stood waiting. She was
related to the girl, that was obvious, for she had the same high toss
to her head, and the same snapping black eyes, also the pure white
hair showed the original color must have been black to have changed to
white so early.
"Peggie, dear, where have you been?" asked the woman. Her voice was
low and well-modulated.
"Just down to see the new camp," replied the girl. "Had your
breakfast?"
"No, I waited for you. I do hope, Peggie," there was a note of
entreaty in her words, "that you are not doing anything--risky."
"Ramrods and toothpicks!" exclaimed the girl. "Anything risky! Why,
Carrie, I went down to see the new camp--the Girl Scouts, you know."
"Oh yes. Those little girls who wear the uniform?"
"Uh--ha: the girls who wear a perpetual smile and several dollars'
worth of necktie," replied Peg, a bit sarcastically.
"I am sure they look very neat and tidy, and I hope you are going to
make friends with them," ventured Aunt Carrie, vindictively.
"Now, please don't start pestering me with that sort of thing,"
protested the girl. "You know I don't want to make friends with any
girls."
"You are so foolish, dear, and I fear sometimes you are going to
extremes with----"
"Now, Carrie! Don't be cross, please. Just let me have my way for this
one little summer and the time will be up. Then, if you want me to,
I'll curl my hair if I have to sleep on the rolling-pin with the ends
wound round it." She laughed gaily at this prospect.
"Come in to breakfast. Shag has had his and we have such lovely
berries. Come along, girlie," directed the aunt, and she wound an arm
over the shoulder that pressed up to her affectionately.
Shag, the big collie, took up his post at the door. The bungalow was
unique in type, if bungalows are ever alike, and the pine trees that
sheltered and brushed its roof with a sibilant swish, hummed now a
pretty tuneless whisper. The place was hidden against a rocky ledge
and not until one stood squarely in front of the unpainted log cabin
was the building really visible, in its nest of trees and brush.
Some few years before a man with his little daughter and his sister
came up to the hills. He stayed at the Tippiturn House while he built
this bungalow. Then he took his daughter Peggie and his sister
Caroline to the house in the hills, where he lived apart from all the
natives and cottagers. This was Horace Ramsdell, Peggie's father, but
few people had cause to remember the name, for the owner lived aloof
from others and made few friends even in the village.
With all this he was a very pleasant man, fond of animals, kind to
youngsters and generous in payment for any service. He died suddenly
the year before the Scouts found their way into Tamarack Hills, where
they crossed the path of Peg, the now fifteen-year-old daughter.
She followed her father's footsteps in living alone, and in the matter
of shunning companions, but she could not avoid making friends, as
Pete the boatman had already assured the Girl Scouts.
Her queer ways, defiance of dress codes, and above all her fondness
for horseback riding, naturally stirred up criticism, but Peg was as
oblivious of this as she was of the taunts so often flung at her by
school girls, whose companionship she seemed to ignore.
"Fly-away Peg," they called her, and the way she "flew to school" on
her blue roan might easily have merited the caption. But to Morton
School from Tamarack Hills was a long distance, mostly covered by
woodlands, and when others came in autos or by wagon, why shouldn't
Peg come on horseback?
She should and she did, with a smile for the Fly-away Peg, and some
fruit, winter and summer, for the old janitor who took care of her
horse during the school session.
There was something incongruous in her attitude. She was so lively and
rollicking with anyone who would not follow up the familiarity, but
just as soon as one would threaten to call at her bungalow, or would
ask her to call at theirs, Peg seemed to take fright and would scurry
off like some woodland thing jealous of its hiding place.
No tradesman ever got past the door of her cabin; not even good old
Doctor Rowan was brought inside when once he called to pay a
professional visit on Aunt Carrie.
On that occasion the lady, being ill, was very comfortably propped in
the big steamer-chair on the porch, Peg declaring she felt better out
in the air, and that she preferred sleeping out there when the weather
was mild enough.
So Peg of Tamarack Hills was a queer girl in many ways, and the
mystery surrounding her home life always served to excite the
curiosity of strangers, but had not, as yet, been explained.
Perhaps a half-hour after she entered the bungalow for breakfast she
appeared again in the familiar roughrider's outfit, adjusting the
leather-fringed skirt over her breeches as she stood in the doorway.
"I'll take Shag if that will make you feel any better, Aunt Carrie,"
said the girl, pulling her hat firmly on the cropped head. "Also, I'll
ride slowly enough to talk to him, and I'll surely be back by noon.
Now promise you are not going to worry."
"I can't promise, my dear; but I'll try not to. You are growing up
now, Peggie, and summer folks are so critical, you know."
"Toothpicks for summer folks!" retorted the girl scornfully. "We don't
owe them anything, Carrie, and if that's all you have got to worry
about----"
"I wish it were, dear," sighed the woman, but the girl was hurrying to
the log-built barn where "Whirlwind," her blue roan, impatiently
awaited her coming.
Then she was off "like a piece of scenery," as Pete put it. But Peggie
Ramsdell had no thought of the picturesque effect she created, nor did
she care for less friendly criticism that followed in her dust-blown
path.