JACK was the first to wake in the delicious stillness of the morning.
When his mother opened her eyes a little later, she found him sitting up
beside her with a look of delight and wonder on his face.
"The river talks in its sleep," he said, leaning over her with shining
eyes.
"What does it say, Jackie-boy?" Mrs. Merrithew asked.
"I don't know the words,--yet," he answered, "but I will some day."
"Yes, I believe you will, dear," his mother said, with a smile and a
sigh, for she firmly believed that her boy, with his vivid imagination
and quick apprehension, had the life of a poet before him.
Just then a shout from the boys' tent proclaimed that the twins were
awake; then Mr. Merrithew's cheery voice was heard, and soon the camp
was alive with greetings and laughter. Under Mr. Merrithew's direction
(and with his active assistance), a cooking-place was soon made, and a
bright fire inviting to preparations for breakfast. The device for
cooking consisted of two strong upright sticks with forked tops, and a
heavy horizontal pole resting upon them. On this pole two pothooks were
fastened, from which hung the pot and kettle, and the fire was kindled
under it. Then a little circle of flat stones was made for the
frying-pan, the pot and kettle were filled with fresh water, and Susan's
outfit was complete.
Pending the erection of a "camp wash-stand," and the choice of a safe
and suitable bathing-place, faces and hands were washed in the river
amid much laughter, and with careful balancing on stones in the
shallows. The toilets were barely completed when three toots on the
horn announced that breakfast was ready. A long table and benches were
among the furniture which Doctor Grey and Mr. Merrithew had planned to
make; until their construction, they were glad to group themselves,
picnic-fashion, around a table-cloth on the ground. The way that
breakfast was disposed of showed that the true camp appetites had begun
already to assert themselves. Porridge and molasses, beans, bacon and
eggs, and great piles of brown bread and butter, vanished like smoke.
Jackie astonished the party (and alarmed his mother) by quietly
disposing of a cup of strong coffee, passed to him by mistake, and
handing it back to be refilled with the comment that it was "much more
satisfyinger than milk."
After breakfast they all set to work with enthusiasm to make camp more
comfortable. Susan washed dishes and arranged the provision tent with
housewifely zeal; Mrs. Merrithew and Mrs. Grey brought the blankets out,
and spread them on the grass to air, drove shingle-nails far up on the
tent-poles to hold watches, pin-cushions, and innumerable small but
necessary articles, and superintended the stretching of a rope from one
pole to another, about a foot from the ridge-pole. This last arrangement
proved most useful, all the garments not in use being hung over it, so
that the chaperons' tent, at least, was kept in good order. The
gentlemen busied themselves in building the promised table and seats.
Mr. Andrews had told them to make use of anything they wanted on his
island, so the twins had hunted about till they discovered a pile of
boards near one of the barns. These served admirably for the necessary
furniture, and after that was finished several cosy seats were made, by
degrees, in favourite nooks along the bank. The morning passed with
almost incredible swiftness, and even the youngest (and hungriest) of
the campers could scarcely believe their ears when the horn blew for
dinner.
In the afternoon some, bearing cushions and shawls, chose shady spots
for a read and a doze; some set off in the canoes for a lazy paddle; and
others organized themselves into an exploring party to visit the
deserted house. Marjorie and Dora, Miss Covert, and Will Graham formed
the latter group. The stone house was a curious structure, with an air
of solidity about it even in its neglected and failing condition. It had
been built many years before by an Englishman, who did not know the
river's possibilities in the way of spring freshets. When he found that
he had built his house too near the shore, and that April brought water,
ice, and debris of many sorts knocking at his doors and battering in his
windows, he promptly, if ruefully, abandoned it to time and the
elements. It might, long ago, have been so arranged and protected as to
make it a very pleasant summer residence, but, instead, it was now used
only for a week or two in haying-time, when the haymakers slept and ate
in its basement,--for this quaint little house had a basement, with a
kitchen, dining-room, and storeroom. Our visitors, having gained
entrance to the hall by a very ruinous flight of steps and a battered
door, descended to the basement first, admired the fireplace in the
kitchen, and looked rather askance at the deep pile of straw in the
dining-room, where the haymakers had slept. There was a rough table in
one corner of the room, and on it some tin cups and plates and a piece
of very dry bread. The haying on the island was about half-done; there
was a short intermission in the work now, but it was to begin again very
soon.
They found nothing else of especial interest in the basement, so went to
the hall above. Here were two good-sized rooms, one on each side of the
hall. Each had a fine, deep fireplace, and in one were two old-fashioned
wooden armchairs and a long table. The windows--two in each room--were
narrow and high, and had small panes and deep window-seats.
"Oh, what fun it would be to play keeping-house here, Dora!" Marjorie
cried.
"Wouldn't it!" Dora answered. "Let us, Marjorie! Let us pretend it is
ours, and choose our rooms, and furnish it!"
"That will be fine," Marjorie answered, fervently, and soon the little
girls were deep in a most delightful air-castle.
"Let us play, too," said Will, persuasively, and Katherine answered
without hesitation:
"Yes, let us! I feel just like a child here, and could play with a doll
if I had one!"
"Well,--let me see; we will begin by deciding about the rooms," said
Will. "Let us have this for the study,--shall we?--and put the books
all along this wall opposite the windows!"
And so these two "children of a larger growth" played house with almost
as much zest as Marjorie and Dora,--and greatly to the amusement and
delight of the latter couple when they caught a word or two of their
murmured conversation. Up-stairs were four rather small rooms with
sloping ceilings, and in the middle of the house, just over the front
door, a dear little room without the slope, and with a dormer-window.
"This shall be our boudoir," Dora said, as they entered, and then
stopped and exclaimed in surprise, for against one wall stood a piano!
Almost the ghost of a piano, or the skeleton, rather,--at the very best,
a piano in the last stage of decrepitude, but still a piano. Its
rosewood frame had been whittled, chopped, and generally ill-treated,
and more than half its yellow keys were gone, but oh, wonder of
wonders, some of those remaining gave a thin, unearthly sound when
struck! It seemed almost like something alive that had been deserted,
and the little group gathered around it with sympathetic exclamations.
While they were talking and wondering about it, lively voices proclaimed
the approach of the twins.
"We won't say anything about our housekeeping play," said Dora, hastily,
turning to Mr. Graham, and Marjorie loyally added, "except to mother."
"All right, if you like," the student agreed, and Miss Covert quickly
added her assent. The twins admired the stone house, the fireplaces, and
the piano, but with rather an abstracted manner. Soon the cause of their
absent-mindedness transpired. Mr. Merrithew had met some Indians that
afternoon, when they were out paddling, and had bought a salmon from
them. This had led to a conversation about salmon-spearing, and the
Indians had promised to come the following night, and show them how it
was done. They could take one person in each canoe, and Mr. Merrithew
had said that Carl and Hugh should be the ones. Of course they were
greatly excited over this prospect, and chattered about it all the way
back to the tents.
[Illustration: "A GREAT BONFIRE WAS BUILT"]
That evening, when dusk had settled down, a great bonfire was built, and
they all sat around it on rugs and shawls, in genuine camp-fashion.
First, some of the favourite games were played,--proverbs, "coffee-pot,"
characters, and then rigmarole, most fascinating of all. Rigmarole, be
it known, is a tale told "from mouth to mouth," one beginning it and
telling till his invention begins to flag or he thinks his time is up,
then stopping suddenly and handing it on to his next neighbour. The
result is generally a very funny, and sometimes quite exciting,
medley. To-night Mr. Merrithew began the story, and his contribution
(wherein figured a dragon, an enchanted princess, and a deaf-and-dumb
knight) was so absorbing that there was a general protest when he
stopped. But the romancer was quite relentless, and his next neighbour
had to continue as best he could. Even Jackie contributed some startling
incidents to the narrative, and when at last Mrs. Grey ended it with the
time-honoured (and just at present, most unfortunately, out-of-fashion!)
assurance that they all, even the dragon, "lived happy ever after,"
there was a burst of laughter and applause. Then some one began to sing,
and one after another the dear old songs rose through the balmy night.
Sometimes there were solos, but every now and then a chorus in which all
could join. Dora sang every French song she knew,--"A la Claire
Fontaine" ("At the Clear Fountain"), "Malbrouck," and "Entre Paris et
Saint-Denis" ("Between Paris and St. Denis") proving the favourites.
Mrs. Grey, who declared she had not sung for years, ventured on "The
Canadian Boat-Song" and "Her bright smile haunts me still." At last,
when voices began to grow drowsy and the fire burned low, they sang,
"The Maple-Leaf For Ever" and "Our Own Canadian Home," then rose and
joined in the camp-hymn,--"For ever with the Lord," with its:
"And nightly pitch our moving tents
A day's march nearer home."
The next day seemed to fly, to every one, at least, but Carl and Hugh.
Their hearts were so set on the salmon-spearing that for them the time
went slowly enough till night brought the four Indians with their
torches and spears. Doctor Grey and Mr. Merrithew walked along the shore
to see what they could of the proceedings, but the rest--and even
Will--were content to sit around the fire as before. Carl sat in the
middle of one canoe, and Hugh in the other, both greatly excited and
both trying to think themselves quite cool. Only the steersmen
paddled,--the bowmen kneeling erect and watchful, with their spears in
readiness. (The salmon-spear is a long ash shaft, with two wooden prongs
and a metal barb between them. The spearing of salmon, by the way, is
restricted by law to the Indians, and any white man who undertakes it is
liable to a fine.) Sticking up in the bow of each canoe was a torch,
made of a roll of birch-bark fastened in the end of a split stick. The
red-gold flare of these torches threw a crimson reflection on the dark
water, and shone on the yellow sides of the birches, and the intent,
dusky faces of the fishermen watching for their prey. Slowly, silently,
they paddled up the stream, till at last the silvery sides of a
magnificent fish gleamed in the red light. Then, like a flash, a spear
struck down, there was a brief struggle, and the captive lay gasping in
the foremost canoe. It was too much for Hugh. He had enjoyed with all
his boyish heart the beauty and the weirdness of the scene, but the
beautiful great fish, with the spear-wound in his back,--well, that was
different. He was not sorry that the Indians met with no more luck, and
was very silent when the others questioned them, on their return, as to
the joys of salmon-spearing. When he confided to Carl his hatred of the
"sport," the latter shook his head doubtfully.
"But you will help eat that salmon to-morrow," he said.
"Well,--perhaps," Hugh answered, "but, all the same, it's no fun to see
things killed, and I'm not going to if I can help it!"
The fortnight of camp life passed like a dream, and it is hard to tell
who was most sorry when the day of departure came. Dora, who had written
a regular diary-letter to her father and mother, and begun one of the
stories that were to be like Mrs. Ewing's, said that never in all her
life had she had such a beautiful time. Katherine Covert, with life-long
friends to "remember camp by," and all sorts of happy possibilities in
her once gray life, bore the same testimony with more, if more quiet,
fervour. Mr. Merrithew said that he was ten years younger, and Jackie
opined that, in that case, they must have been living on an enchanted
island,--but added, that he was very glad _he_ had not been made ten
years younger, like Daddy!
Brown and plump and strong of arm, the campers brought back with them
hearty appetites, delightful recollections, and inexhaustible material
for dream and plan and castles in the air.
Many pleasant things were waiting to be done on their return; first and
foremost, Miss Covert had come to live at the Big Brick House, to teach
the children when holiday time should be over, and to be a help
generally to Mrs. Merrithew. Also, according to Mrs. Merrithew's plans,
to have a little real home life and happiness,--for Katherine had been
an orphan since her childhood, and for five years had taught school
steadily, although it was work that she did not greatly like, and that
kept her in a state of perpetual nervous strain. Teaching a few
well-bred and considerate children, whom she already loved, would be
quite different, and almost entirely a pleasure.