A COINCIDENCE.
"Almost time for Dr. Wright!" exclaimed Douglas. "I believe I heard the
R. F. & P. stop at Elba. I do wonder what he is going to say."
"He is going to say we are a set of fools and lunatics and refuse to let
us have any money to start the camp. Since we have been so extravagant
and selfish for all these years, he'll think we ought to go to the poor
house, where we belong," said Helen, frowning. "I can see him now
looking through his eyebrows at me with the expression of a hairy
wildman in a show."
Dr. Wright came with good news of the travelers. He had not only seen
them safely on board but had sailed with them, coming back with the
pilot. He reported Mr. Carter as singularly calm and rested already and
Mrs. Carter as making an excellent nurse. Evidently he was rather
astonished that that poor lady could make herself useful, and Helen,
detecting his astonishment, was immediately on the defensive; but as Dr.
Wright was addressing his remarks principally to Douglas, almost
ignoring her, she had no chance to let him know what she thought of his
daring even to think slightingly of poor little Mumsy.
"I have a scheme for you girls, too, if you won't think I am
presumptuous to be making suggestions," he said, now including all four
of the sisters.
Of course, Douglas and Nan assured him that they considered it very kind
of him to think of them at all, but Helen tossed her head and said
nothing. Lucy waited to see what Helen would do and did the same thing,
but she could not help smiling at the young doctor when he laughed
out-right at her ridiculous mimicry of Helen. He flushed, however,
showing he was not quite so callous to Helen's scorn and distrust as he
would have liked to appear.
"I think the wisest thing for you to do would be to rent this house,
furnished, if you can find a tenant----"
"We've done it!" exclaimed Helen triumphantly.
"That is, we have got a tenant if you think it is best," explained
Douglas. "We were going to do nothing without your approval."
"Oh, come now! I have no jurisdiction over you," laughed the young man.
"Isn't power of attorney jurisdiction?" asked Lucy. "Nan says I can't
have any more stockings until you permit me."
"Well, well! I must be a terrible bugaboo to you! I don't feel at all
qualified to judge of your stockings, little girl, or anything else
pertaining to the female attire. It was the merest accident that I was
given power of attorney. I am not in the least an appropriate person to
be having it. I only consented to have it wished on me when I saw your
father was becoming excited and tired over the unexpected hitch when the
notary spoke of Miss Douglas's not being of age. I have transferred what
cash your father has to your sister's account. I must find out from you
whom you want to look after your affairs and consult that person----"
"But, Dr. Wright, we would lots rather have you, if you don't mind!"
exclaimed Douglas. "Any of our kinsmen that we might call on would
insist upon our coming to live with them or make us go to some stuffy
boarding house or something. They would not look at it as I believe you
would at all. We have a scheme, too, but we want to hear yours first."
"My scheme was, as I say, first to rent your house, furnished, and then
all of you, with some suitable older person and some man whom you can
trust, go and camp out on the side of the mountain in Albemarle. What do
you say to it?" The girls burst out laughing, even Helen.
"Dr. Wright, this is absolutely uncanny!" exclaimed Douglas. "That is
exactly what we were planning!"
"Only we were going you some better and were to have boarders," drawled
Nan.
"Boarders, eh, and what do you know about keeping boarders?" laughed the
doctor.
"We know enough not to do the way we have been done by at summer
boarding houses where we have been sometimes."
"Well, all I can say is that I think you are a pretty spunky lot. Please
tell me which one of you thought up this plan. There must surely have
been a current of mental telepathy flowing from one of you girls to me.
It was you, I fancy, Miss Douglas."
"No, I am never so quick to see a way out. It was Helen."
"Yes, Helen thought of it, but I came mighty near doing it," declared
Lucy. "I would have done it all the way but I went to sleep."
Helen looked as though she did not at all relish having anything even so
intangible as a current of mental telepathy connecting her with one whom
she was still determined to look upon as an enemy. He was gazing at her
with anything but the eyes of an enemy, however, and Nan's remark about
his eyes looking like blue flowers high up on a cliff that you must
climb to reach, came back to her. She felt that those flowers were in
easy reach for her now; that all she had to do to make this rugged young
man her friend was to be decently polite. But her pride was still hurt
from his former disapproval and while his present attitude was much
better, she still could not bring herself to smile at him. She was very
quiet while the other girls unfolded their plans for the camp. She did
not take so much pleasure in it now that it was not altogether her
scheme. To think that while she was working it up this bumptious young
doctor was doing the same thing!
"The keeping boarders part of it was mine, though," she comforted
herself by thinking.
Dr. Wright was really astonished by the quickness with which these
spoiled girls had acted and their eagerness to begin to be something
besides the butterflies they had seemed. Douglas told him of the plans
for the camp that the assistant in the office was to draw for them, and
then showed him some of the advertisements of their boarding camp that
Nan had been working on all day.
"This is sure to draw a crowd of eager week-enders," he declared. "In
fact, I believe you will have more boarders than the mountain will
hold."
"I thought it best to have kind of catchy ads that would make people
wonder what we were up to anyhow," said Nan. "Now this one is sure to
draw a crowd: 'A week-end boarding camp, where one can have all of the
discomforts of camping without the responsibility.' Here is another:
'Mountain air makes you hungry! Come to The Week-End Camp and let us
feed you.'"
"Fine!" laughed the young man. "But please tell me how you plan to feed
the hungry hordes that are sure to swarm to your camp. Do you know how
to cook?"
"Helen can make angel's food and I know how to make mayonnaise, but
sometimes it goes back on me," said Nan with the whimsical air that
always drew a smile from Dr. Wright.
"I can make angel's food, too," declared Lucy.
"Well, angel's food and mayonnaise will be enough surely for hungry
hordes."
"Of course, we are going to take some servants with us," said Helen,
breaking the vow of silence that she was trying to keep in Dr. Wright's
presence. "Old Oscar, our butler, and Susan, the housemaid, have both
volunteered to go. I can make more things than angel's food, and,
besides, I am going to learn how to do all kinds of things before we
go."
"That's so, you can make devil's food," teased Nan. "Somehow I didn't
like to mention it."
"Cook is going to teach me to make all kinds of things. I am going to
get dinner to-morrow and have already made up bread for breakfast. I am
going to buy some of the cutest little bungalow aprons to cook in, pink
and blue. I saw them down town this morning. They are what made me think
of learning how to cook."
"I'm going to learn how to cook, too, and I must have some aprons just
like Helen's."
"All of us are Camp Fire Girls," said Douglas to the doctor, "and of
course we have learned some of the camping stunts, but we have not been
as faithful as we might have been."
"I am an old camper and can put you on to many things if you will let
me."
"We should be only too glad," responded Douglas sincerely.
"One of the first things is canvas cots. Don't try to sleep on all kinds
of contrived beds. Get folding cots and insure comfortable nights.
Another is, don't depend altogether on camp fires for cooking. Kerosene
stoves and fireless cookers come in mighty handy for steady meal
getting. It will be another month at least before you go, won't it?"
"Just about, I think, if we can manage it. We have school to finish and
I have some college exams that I want to take, although I see no
prospect of college yet. Another thing I want to discuss with you, Dr.
Wright, is selling our car. I think that might bring in money enough for
us to pay for all the camp fixtures and run us for awhile."
"Certainly; I'll see about that for you immediately."
The young man took his departure with a much higher opinion of the
Carter sisters than he had held twenty-four hours before. As for the
Carter sisters: they felt so grateful to him for his kindness to their
parents and to them that their opinion of him was perforce good. Helen
still sniffed disdainfully when his name was mentioned, but she could
not forget the expression of approval in his blue eyes when he found
that the camping scheme was hers.