THE FOOD SHOWER
As someone had said events were crowding at camp, and it now seemed
difficult to keep schedule and not break the "rest rule." This last
obligated the director to see that the girls rested for a time after
the noon-day meal. As the Bobbies were such active little animals, and
so eager to crowd each moment with an event--big enough to occupy an
hour--Mackey had to be very decided in this order for an hour's rest
every afternoon.
It was that particular period that the unwelcome callers had so
completely dissipated the day before, so to-day Mackey decided to stay
at camp and write up her notes, rather than scour woods for new
material. Thus she could keep tabs on that relaxation period.
"We're so glad to have you, but hope we are not spoiling all your real
vacation," said Louise considerately, when the patrol finished dinner,
had cleaned up things and were now out under the trees resting.
"Honestly, Mackey, tell us! Didn't you plan to come and be our
guardian angel, or did you just happen along that day?"
The director laughed merrily. It seemed to her girls that she could
laugh more heartily than any sort of teacher they had ever come in
contact with. Her big brown eyes would roll so comically, and she had
a way of tossing her head up in such a frank fit of mirth, that her
manner was really an inspiration to those about her.
"Don't guardies always come that way?" she replied to Louise's
question. "And do you want to 'sack' me for someone else? I'm sure
anyone at Camp Norm would be glad to try for the place."
Conservative Louise could not stand that, and she almost upset Mackey
and her camp stool in objecting.
"Did the mothers have anything to do with it?" pressed Grace.
"Or headquarters?" went on Julia.
"Well," evaded Mackey. "I came, I saw and I conquered. So why worry?"
and the Bobbies were obliged to be satisfied with that reply.
"Has anyone seen Peg, lately?" was the next question. It came from
Cleo.
"'Has anybody here seen Kelly,'" chirped Grace, falling into the funny
old tune. "'Kelly with the gre--heen necktie!'" she persisted, in spite
of a shower of leaves and twigs that struck at her defiant head.
"We can't call this rest," remonstrated Mackey. "Julia, I wouldn't
pull up those little roots, you will have mud puddles there if it
should rain to-night."
"Oh, that's so!" exclaimed Julia. "How will we arrange when the rain
comes? What about my fire?"
"We will have to use up some of the dry boxes," suggested Madaline.
"Or get an oil stove," proposed Margaret.
"Or we could make a shack--build one over our camp kettle," added Cleo.
Mackey waited to try out their resources before interfering. Then she
said:
"It's lots of fun to build fires in the rain; that is if you don't
have to dry out too quickly after a long hike. We can always find dry
wood inside of the old logs, and by scooping out some shavings we can
easily start some of your nice, little cord pieces, that you have
stocked under the tent. No, you can't use artificial wood, boxes nor
oil stoves. All that is against the camp system."
"Then I think," said Julia, the good housekeeper, "we had better add
to our woodpile. We have had such splendid weather, rain must be about
due."
"We can go out wood hunting when the sun goes down, or cools off, late
this afternoon," agreed Mackey. "I think Corene had such a plan
already fixed."
"Indeed I did," spoke up Corene. "I know what a time we had once at
the big camp when the wood pile went low and the storm ran high.
Unkink your muscles, girls; there's a heap of chopping ahead."
"And do you remember last year at the beach? We were donning our
dimities about this time daily," recalled Louise, with a well meaning
sigh.
"I'm gaining pounds," announced the willowy Julia. "I was weighed this
morning."
"Have I grown any?" joked Louise, giving one of her inimitable
stretches.
"You do all seem to be taking to camp life like squirrels to nuts,"
interrupted the director. "I shall have quite a record to my credit if
you keep it up."
Time passed so quickly that the call for their class in basketry
seemed almost to overlap the rest hour.
"To make souvenirs!" This was the attraction that roused the Bobbies
even from their own joys in camp routine, for now that they were "away
from home," each girl longed to bring back a token to mother, father,
sister or brother; and with more than one of them the entire family
was promptly put down on the list to receive a handmade souvenir from
Camp Comalong.
"Undertake simple things so you will be sure to finish them," warned
Mackey, for girl-like they planned the most attractive articles held
out in the display catalogues.
Bags, baskets and little matted trays were finally decided upon, and
Miss Freeland, the manual training teacher who stopped at Norm, found
an enthusiastic class ready for her dictation.
They sat squat on the ground like Indians when the lesson started, but
before its finish the squatters had squirmed and crawled from one
position to another, fitting each new attempt with a new move, until
at the end there seemed to be a heap of girls all piled around the
amiable Miss Freeland.
"Don't forget we are to receive callers to-day," warned Mackey. "I
think the home folks have been very considerate to leave us alone so
long."
Reluctantly the new task was laid aside, for, as usual, being new, it
was also attractive, and at the thought of company everyone stirred
around to make things look pretty.
Fresh flowers, straightening the burlap curtains on Louise's
sideboard, arranging the tent with an eye to absolute order--all this
was attended to with skill acquired in the short practice, and Miss
Mackin had little to fear from the critical eye of any possible
visitor.
Honking of auto horns soon warned the Bobbies that their company was
coming, and when the honking swelled into a concert, and the concert
swelled into a volley, the campers realized they were due to enjoy a
surprise.
No less than eight cars were finally driven up, and each carried a
capacity load of passengers--the whole company representing a surprise
party on the Bobolinks.
"Surprise! Surprise!" called out the visiting girls, quite like the
old time gayety, when country folks came to a party and brought the
refreshments with them.
So many friends entirely unexpected!
It seemed the home folks had sent out the invitations and managed to
corral friends for every single Bobbie, not forgetting Mackey, who was
so glad to welcome Molly Burbank, a friend of her high school days.
And the boxes and the bundles!
"A regular picnic!" sang out Louise. "Let's put everything on the big
table."
"And Helen!" chuckled Cleo. "I am so glad to see you! When did you
come back to the lake?"
"Isabel, dear, ducky Izzy!" chirped Grace. "We have been talking about
you a lot. Can you stay?"
Then there was Mary, Carol, Annette, and so many other school and
home-town friends that for a little time the mothers seemed neglected,
but presently Louise was "hanging on her folks" with such enthusiasm
she threatened to do damage to something, while Cleo hugged her mother
and her big coz Alem, and Grace almost strangled her mother, so that
it all looked like a new version of Mother's Day.
The inspection was punctuated with constant exclamations of wonder and
applause, and that the Bobbies would find themselves expected to
shoulder added responsibilities when they should return home was very
evident.
"If they can do so well in camp we may hope for great things at home,"
remarked more than one delighted visitor, but the Scouts shook their
heads and refused to promise.
Miss Mackin was arranging "the treat." She and her friends had taken
over all the tasks so that the younger girls might more fully enjoy
the company. The long table, with its dainty paper table cover, was
arranged with paper plates (for company only), and the bunches of
rarest wild flowers Miss Mackin had gathered the day before gave a
real festive look to "the board."
"I know I'm going to have my favorite cake," crowed Cleo. "Did you
ever see such a perfectly scrumbunctious food shower?"
"Never," agreed Grace, "and I do hope there's something to keep in my
box, for we can't be sure of our own cooking all the time, you know."
"Don't you like it?" defied Corene. She was not willing to have the
commissary department thus suspected.
"Oh, yes, Corey, and your codfish made with condensed milk is so--new,
and sweetish----"
Corene threw a paper box cover at the head of her tormentor but Miss
Mackin did not see the deprecation.
Then the spread was ready, and the company sat down to a camp table
laden with home made goodies.
"This is one real joy of the small camp," Miss Mackin explained. "In
the larger camps they do not generally permit the importing of food;
but for Comalong it's a real blessing. You see, we have just been
experimenting with our little furnace, and there's the camp kettle,"
she pointed out the inclined pole with its kettle on end, that hung
over one of Julia's furnaces. "And we haven't tried baking cakes since
we came," she admitted with an explanatory laugh.
"But the pan cakes? Aren't they all right, Mackey?" asked Cleo. She
had "tried" pan cakes once or twice.
"Yes, indeed, Cleo. You did very well with those," praised the
director, "but for real chocolate cake----"
"And fudge cake!" exclaimed Louise.
"And angel cake!" added Grace.
So it went along the table, each Scout acknowledging her particular
gift with a special exclamation.
There was so much to talk about. And what a buzz and hum of voices
surprised the little wood creatures! Not even the pet bunny ventured
out from his hollow stump while all that party talked and talked.
"If only we could have company?" proposed Julia. "I mean overnight
company."
"Perhaps we can," whispered Cleo.
"Where would they sleep?" Grace queried.
"We have hammocks, and maybe we could make room between the cots, by
pushing them up together."
"Oh, Cleo," Grace broke out. "How could we make room between the cots
unless you mean to put someone on the floor?" and she howled at the
idea.
"Of course, I don't mean that," protested Cleo, between her cake
bites. "I mean to tie two cots together and put blankets between the
edges, I mean over the edges. There would be room for Helen in that
space."
"But fancy Izzy sleeping on the rail!" Grace was bound to ridicule the
idea.
"At any rate I'm going to ask Mackey!" declared Cleo. "Helen would
love to stay, and we would love to have her. We could put hammocks up
if it didn't rain."
At this juncture Grace was asked to refill the water pail, so she and
Madaline raced off to the spring. Both cast furtive glances over the
hill to Peg's cottage, but not even Shag was in sight to indicate life
around the log cabin.
"Queer where she keeps herself," remarked Grace, "but I'm going to
fetch her some cake, anyhow."
"I would too," agreed Madaline. "She doesn't seem like a girl who
could bake a good cake."
"No," added Grace, "but she surely can ride horseback. I just wonder
where she goes every day."
"The girls are going riding to-morrow. Perhaps they'll find out."
"Maybe. But aren't we having a lovely picnic?"
"Wonderful. We'll have enough cake for all week."
"I never thought sandwiches could taste so good. I suppose it's
because we haven't had any homemade bread since we came."
"And Cleo's mother brought jam; Cleo hid it in her box back of the
cupboard," said Madaline.
"Hurry, they may want the water; at any rate we can treat them to
that," declared Grace, and the water bearers made all possible haste
over the trail back to camp, spilling just enough of the fresh fluid
to tickle the spangle-weed along the way.
"They're going to stay! They're going to stay!" Cleo ran to meet Grace
with the good news, for lovely as camp had seemed with the patrol as
its sole occupants, the prospects of company "to stay," and that the
guests should be "Dare-to-do-Izzy" as Isabel was popularly called, and
jolly little Helen would could "see a joke half a mile off"; no wonder
there was new joy apparent in camp.
"Everyone is going," chirped Julia, "and I hope they all saw how much
we have improved."
"Your pounds, do you mean, Jule? Maybe they couldn't see them. You
should have pointed them out," teased Louise.
"Now, Weasy, maybe you think they all saw your inches," returned
Julia. "There's mother's handkerchief, I know she didn't intend to
leave that to me," and she hurried to the big gray car, with the
dainty speck of lace and linen.
"Give them a cheer," prompted Miss Mackin.
"Hurrah for the home folks," led Corene.
"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" boomed the lusty cheer, until the hills
echoed and the lake repeated the hail.
Then the picnic and shower were over, and the Bobbies were so excited
they hardly knew whether to show Izzy the spring or Helen the
woodpile.
The colors were lowered by Louise and Julia, and then clouds gathering
beyond the rim of trees glowered ominously, and that reminded them
that they must hurry to gather more wood before the rain would come.