A Predicament
"PETER," queried Mrs. Crane, "what time is it? I'm starved."
Mr. Black looked at his watch, at first expectantly, then ruefully.
"The thing's stopped," said he, shaking it. "I dropped it out a couple
of times when I was under the Whale, and once it struck a boulder. It
stopped at half-past twelve."
"An hour ago?"
"It _might_ be two hours--or even three! Girls, did you bring a
watch--any of you?"
"I did," said Henrietta, "but I wound it to practise by without setting
it, so it's probably wrong--it usually is. It says quarter to nine!"
"It certainly _is_ wrong. I _know_ it's dinner time--or worse.
Sarah----"
"Build a fire, Peter--there's plenty of wood on the beach. I brought
a coffee pot and you'll find a box of matches in it. Jean, spread the
cloth that's in one of those hampers--the ground's nice and smooth
right there at your feet. You'll find wooden plates and tin cups under
the cloth. Marjory, you can fish for the sugar and cream and the salad.
Mabel, you--no, I'll cut the bread myself; you can pick up bits of wood
for the fire."
"There are two big apple pies and some cheese in my basket," said Jean,
"and--yes, a bag of cookies!"
"Here are my sandwiches," said Henrietta. "Just loads of them; and a
big veal loaf---- Oh! It smells so good!"
"Aunty Jane sent a huge crock of beans and some cold ham," said
Marjory, "and here's a jar of something--pickles, I guess."
"There's a box of things," said Mr. Black, "fruit, cookies, crackers,
sardines, peanut butter, and a thing or two in cans still aboard the
Whale, but I guess, with all this good home cooking, we won't need it
just yet--anyway, I'd rather look at the lake than go after it."
"Can't I take off my shoes and wade out for the coffee water?" pleaded
Mabel. "I love to wade."
"Of course you can," replied Mrs. Crane. "Here's the pail--I'll take
the doughnuts out of it."
"What's this?" asked Mr. Black, holding up a flat, heavy parcel.
"A piece of bacon--I thought we might need bacon and eggs in addition
to our salad--I brought a flat pan to fry them in. And here are salt
and pepper."
"Well!" laughed Mr. Black, as parcel after parcel came out of the
tightly packed hampers, "I guess we'll have to set up a grocery store
and sell stuff to the squirrels--we can't possibly eat all this at
_one_ meal."
"Don't be too sure," warned Bettie. "I'm pretty hungry. Mother put in a
can of cocoa and a little saucepan to cook it in--and here's a pint of
milk."
"We'll make the cocoa and coffee," decided Mrs. Crane, "and eat the
sandwiches and other ready-made things. We won't bother to do any other
cooking; and, I must say, I'm glad we don't need to. I _never_ was so
hungry."
Everybody it seemed was on the verge of starvation. The Whale's
passengers ate and ate and ate. Even Ambrosial Delight, the
three-colored cat, drank milk as if he had always lived on the lake
shore and dined from wooden plates. After dinner, every one, except
Bettie, who was compelled by solicitous Mrs. Crane to curl up with the
kitten under a tree for a nap, went exploring.
That was great fun, for exploring is interesting, anyway, even if you
haven't anything bigger to explore than your own back yard. But when
you have a whole wilderness, with a little of every kind of landscape
there is dotted about, here and there; and always so unexpectedly that
you don't know what you're coming to next, exploring becomes just the
very jolliest pursuit there is.
In the first place, there was the large, grassy clearing where they
had eaten dinner. This place was almost circular in shape and as big,
Bettie said, as a whole city block. In it were a few scattered trees;
but, for the greater part, it was open and almost perfectly level. On
one side was the lake; the other three sides were walled in by most
attractive forest.
A number of little trails led from the clearing into the woods.
Each one, they found, pointed toward some definite object. One, for
instance, carried them to a tiny spring of clear, gurgling water.
Another led them to what was evidently a good fishing spot on the
river. A third brought them to a tiny unsuspected lake, dotted with
lily pads.
"This," said quick-eyed Marjory, pointing northwestward, when the
explorers had returned for the third time to the sunny clearing, "is
the widest trail of all."
"For my part," said Mr. Black, "I don't know why there should be any
trails here at all. No one has lived here for four years. Sometimes
fishermen come here in gasoline launches for a few days in the spring,
or hunters for a week or two in the fall, but never in sufficient
numbers to make as marked a trail as this--we must certainly
investigate _this_ one."
This wider trail led them for perhaps a hundred feet through a dense
thicket of shrubbery; then, with a suddenness that was startling, the
explorers found themselves in another clearing, about half the size
of the first. In it stood a curious structure with a rounded top. It
was built of bent strips of wood, covered with large sheets of rough
birch bark, bound in place with willow withes, and sewed in spots with
buckskin thongs. It was blackened with age and smoke.
"It looks," said Henrietta, "like the top half of a big balloon. And
mercy! How horrible it smells."
"What _is_ it?" asked Mabel. "Is it a bear's den? Ugh! I hope Mr. Bear
isn't home."
"It's a birch-bark wigwam," replied Mr. Black, "and somebody has
occupied it recently. See the bed in the corner?"
Sure enough, there _was_ a bed--some balsam boughs covered with a
dingy blanket and some rags that had once been a quilt. On an upturned
box was a burlap bag containing potatoes and a few perfectly sound
onions. A deer-skin was stretched to dry against one rounded side
of the wigwam and just opposite the doorway of the queer hut were a
number of blackened stones, evidently a rude fireplace. Hanging against
a convenient tree-trunk were some sooty and most uninviting cooking
utensils; a camp kettle, a frying-pan, a lard pail or two, a big iron
pot, a long-handled spoon.
"It isn't a great while," said Mr. Black, frowning perplexedly, "since
these things were used. But who, I'd like to know, used them?"
"Wild Indians," offered Marjory, glancing fearfully over her shoulder.
"Pirates," shuddered Mabel.
"A wild man of the jungle," suggested imaginative Henrietta.
"Perhaps you're all partly right," admitted Mr. Black. "I believe these
things belong to a filthy half-breed, trapping game out of season. If
_I_ catch him at it, it will be some time before he has a chance to try
it again. Perhaps he'll come back this afternoon. Now, girls, let's go
back to the lake--this place certainly does smell 'injun-y'--there's no
other smell quite like it."
"Can't we all go in wading?" demanded Mabel. "The water's pretty cold,
but it's nice--makes your toes all pink."
"Of course you can. There isn't any danger, because the water is
shallow for a long, long distance; and the sand is as hard and clean as
the very cleanest thing you can think of."
"Marble!" cried Mabel.
"Aunty Jane's house!" shouted Marjory.
"Yes," laughed Mr. Black, "even as clean as that. Now, away with you
all. But keep within hearing distance. I'm going to rest awhile under
this pleasant tree."
"And I," murmured Mrs. Crane, drowsily, "am going to take a nap under
_this_ tree--I can't stay awake a moment longer."
Presently Bettie, the kitten, and Mrs. Crane were all sound asleep;
and, from Mr. Black's leafy shelter, a sound closely resembling gentle
snores proved most interesting to a puzzled chipmunk, who had a pantry
in that tree. The chipmunk even perched on Mr. Black's toe to listen;
but the good, weary gentleman slumbered unheedingly.
Jean, Marjory, Mabel, and Henrietta were having a glorious time in
the rippling blue lake. When they were tired of splashing about to
scare the abundant minnows, they built wonderful castles in the sand.
Mabel's were square and solid, like Mabel herself; Jean's were lofty
with aspiring towers and turrets, and Henrietta's were honeycombed with
fearsome dungeons. Marjory built long streets of tiny, modern, and
excessively neat dwellings.
After that, they discovered that the beach near the river's mouth was
strewn with pebbles of every hue known to pebbles. There were agates,
bits of glittering quartz and granite, and many brown, green, or yellow
stones threaded prettily with a network of white. They wanted to gather
them all to carry back to Bettie, but contented themselves with about a
bushel--all that their four skirts would hold. But they found to their
surprise that they were anchored to the ground; that it wasn't possible
to rise with the heavy burden. As for carrying the glittering hoard,
that was clearly impossible, too; so they heaped their treasure on the
sand and ran to look at the river where it joined the lake.
Never was there a more companionable river. At the mouth it was only a
yard wide and just deep enough to cover one's ankles. A little way up,
it spread out as wide as a street, but there it barely covered one's
toes. Farther up, there were big, moss-covered stones and the water
grew perceptibly deeper--up to one's knees. Still further, and the
river grew wide and deep and darkly mysterious, where great trees cast
brown and green shadows over the russet surface.
"Ugh!" shuddered Henrietta, at this point, "let's go back--I like it
better where it's narrow."
"So do I," agreed Jean. "If there _were_ crocodiles in this part of the
country, that's where they'd live."
"Let's build a bridge across the narrowest place," proposed Marjory.
All about were stones and driftwood. The girls built a beautiful
bridge and sat afterwards on the beach to admire their handiwork; but
very soon the quiet water stealthily washed the sand away from the
foundation stones and in a little while the river's mouth was twice as
wide as it had been before the bridge, now floating lakeward, was built.
"I could stay here forever," said Henrietta, "there are so many things
to do--nice, foolish things, like sand-castles, bridges that float
away, and stones that look like diamonds when they're wet and like just
stones when they're dry. I'd like to _live_ here."
"So would I," agreed Jean.
"Wouldn't it be nice," asked Marjory, "if we _could_ come here to camp?"
"We're here now," returned matter-of-fact Mabel. "Let's pretend we
really _are_ camping."
"Look at the lake!" exclaimed Jean, suddenly. "It isn't blue any
more--it's all gray and silver."
"And all the ripples are gone," observed Henrietta. "See how flat and
smooth it is and how _lazy_ it is along the edges. And the sand is
turning pink!"
"Hush!" warned quick-eared Marjory. "I think Mr. Black's calling
us--yes, he's waving the tablecloth!"
After they had picked their way rather painfully over the bed of
sharp pebbles, the barefooted girls ran gaily along the hard, smooth
beach--they were surprised to find themselves so far from their
foot-gear.
"Mr. Black seems excited," remarked Jean. "I wonder if anything has
happened."
"Perhaps," said Henrietta, soberly, "it's time to go home."
"It _can't_ be," protested Mabel. "We've only just come--anyway, it
seems so."
"That," explained Jean, sagely, "is because this is the very nicest
spot that ever grew."
"Hurry!" shouted Mr. Black; "don't wait to put on your shoes--just
bring them along."