THE CAMP.
The lunch did not go begging. Even Cousin Lizzie forgot her disgusting
surroundings and deigned to partake of Helen's very good lettuce
sandwiches. She even pronounced the coffee from the thermos bottle about
the best she had tasted for many a day.
"My cook doesn't make very good coffee. I don't know what she does to
it. When we go back to Richmond I think I shall get you to show her how
you make it, Helen."
Helen smiled and had not the heart to tell her cousin that her own cook
had made the coffee, after all. Of all the young Carters, Miss
Somerville was fondest of Helen. She had infinite patience with her
foibles and thought her regard for dress and style just as it should be.
"A woman's appearance is a very important factor and too much thought
cannot be given it," she would say. Miss Somerville had boasted much
beauty in her youth and still was a very handsome old lady, with a
quantity of silver white hair and the complexion of a débutante.
"Gentlemen are more attracted by becoming clothes than anything else,"
she declared, "and of course it is nothing but hypocrisy that makes
women say they do not wish to attract the opposite sex." Miss
Somerville, having had many opportunities to marry, and having chosen
single blessedness of her own free will, always spoke with great
authority of the male sex. She always called them gentlemen, however,
and the way she said "gentlemen" made you think of dignified persons in
long-tailed coats and high stocks who paid their addresses on bended
knees.
"Only one more station before we get to Greendale!" exclaimed Douglas.
"I feel real rested."
"That's cause I'se been so good," said the angel Bobby. "I ain't a
single time had my head an' arm chopped off. I tell you, I don't do
shover's work for the C. & O. for nothin'. My boss don't 'low me to work
for nobody but jest him."
"You have been as good as gold," said Douglas, "and now I am going to
buy you some candy," she added, as the train boy came through crying his
wares.
"Choclid?"
"Suppose you have marshmallows instead. They are so much less evident on
your countenance," suggested Helen.
"All right! I'd jest as soon 'cause that nice dirty boy in the mountings
kin milk me some choclid out'n the cow whenever I gits hungry."
"What a filthy trip it has been!" said Cousin Lizzie as she shook the
cinders from her black taffeta suit.
"Yes, it is grimy," declared Helen, "and I came off without my Dorine. I
had just got a new one. I do hate to arrive anywhere with a shiny nose.
Lend me your vanity box, Douglas, please."
"Vanity box! I never thought about bringing it. It is packed with the
other extra, useless things in Cousin Lizzie's trunk room. It never
entered my head that we would want a vanity box at a mountain camp."
"Well, I don't intend to have a shiny nose in a mountain camp any more
than any other place. I hate to look greasy."
"Have a marshmallow," drawled Nan. "They are great beautifiers."
So Helen powdered her nose with some of Bobby's candy, much to the
amusement of that infant.
Lewis and Bill were waiting for the travelers at the station at
Greendale with the ramshackle little car, which they had christened the
Mountain Goat because of its hill climbing proclivities. Josh was also
there, with the faithful Josephus hitched to an old cart to carry the
luggage up to the camp.
The porter from the summer hotel of Greendale was on the platform as the
train stopped and he immediately came forward, thinking these stylish
passengers were for his hostelry; but the little mountain boy stepped in
front of him and said:
"We uns is you allses baggage man," and he seized their grips and
parcels and won their hearts as well with his merry blue eyes and soft
voice.
"Oh, you must be the dirty boy what's got a choclid cow!" exclaimed
Bobby. "I'm a dirty boy, too, now I'm come to live in the mountings an'
I'm goin' to be a baggage man, too, if Dr. Wright will let me off from
being a shover up here where th' ain't no traffic cops to 'rest you if'n
you don't stick out yo' arm goin' round the cornders. I'd most ruther be
a baggage man than a shover if'n I can sit in front with you and drive
the mule." All this poured forth in one breath while the young men were
greeting the ladies.
"All aboard!" shouted the brakeman and the signal was given for the
engineer to start.
"Oh, where are Oscar and Susan?" from a distracted Douglas. "Stop,
please stop!"
Oscar was discovered peacefully sleeping and Susan so deep in her
beloved dream book that she was oblivious to the passing of time and
miles. They were dragged from the colored coach by the amused brakeman
and dumped on the platform as the train made its second rumbling start
upgrade.
The bringing of these two servants had been a problem to our girls. They
were both of them kind and faithful but were strictly urban in their
raising, and how the real rough country would affect them remained to be
seen. They sniffed scornfully at the small station with its stuffy
waiting-rooms, one for coloreds and one, whites, and looked at the great
mountains that closed them in with distrust and scorn.
"Uncle Oscar, this place jes' ain't no place at all," grumbled Susan.
"Look at that shack over yonder what passes fer a sto', and this here
little po' white boy settin' up yonder on the seat with our Bobby! He
needn't think he is goin' ter 'sociate with the quality. You, Bobby, git
down from thar an' come hol' my han'!"
"Hol' your grandmother's han'! I ain't no baby. I'm a 'spressman an' am
a gointer hol' the mule. That was pretty near a joke," he said, looking
confidingly into the eyes of his new friend. "One reason I was so good
a-comin' up here was because we let Susan go in the Jim Crow coach to
keep Uncle Oscar comp'ny, 'cause when she is ridin' anywhere near me
she's all time wantin' me to hol' her han.'"
"We thought we'd make two loads of you," said Lewis, when the greetings
were over. "Bill can go ahead with Aunt Lizzie and some of you while the
rest of us walk, and when he puts you out at the camp he can come back
and meet us half way."
"Douglas must ride," declared Helen. "She is so tired."
"I'm a lot rested now."
"Yes, sure, you must ride," said Lewis, a shade of disappointment in his
tone as he had been rather counting on having a nice little walk and
talk with his favorite cousin.
"Say, Lewis, you run the jitney first. Legs stiff and tired sitting
still," said Bill magnanimously.
So while Lewis was cheated out of a walk with Douglas, he had the
satisfaction of having her sit beside him as he drove the rickety car up
the winding mountain road. Miss Somerville was packed in the back with
Nan and Lucy, but when Lucy found that Helen was to walk, she decided to
walk, too. Susan was put in her place, and so her feelings were somewhat
mollified.
"Josephus ain't above totin' one of the niggers 'long with the trunks,"
said Josh, determined to get even for the remarks he had heard Oscar and
Susan make in regard to "po' white trash." The antagonism that exists
between the mountaineer and darkey is hard to overcome.
So Oscar, the proud butler of "nothin' but fust famblies," was forced
either to walk up the mountain, something he dreaded, or climb up on the
seat of the cart by the despised "po' white trash." He determined on the
latter course and took his seat in dignified silence with the expression
of one who says: "My head is bloody but unbowed."
"The freight came and we have hauled it up and unpacked the best we
could. I am afraid it is going to be mighty rough for you girls and for
poor Aunt Lizzie, who is certainly a brick for coming, but we have done
our best," said Lewis to Douglas.
"Rough, indeed! Who would expect divans and Turkish rugs at a camp? We
are sure to like it and we are so grateful to you and Mr. Tinsley. But
look at the view! Oh, Cousin Lizzie, just look at the view!"
"Now see here, Douglas, I said I would come and chaperone Cousin Robert
Carter's granddaughters if no one would make me look at views. Views do
not appeal to me." She couldn't help looking at the view, though, as
there was nothing else to look at.
"I's jes' lak you, Miss Lizzie. I don' think a thing er views. I ain't
never seed one befo' but I heard tell of 'em. Looks lak a view ain't
nothin' but jes' seem' fur, an' if'n th'ain't nothin' ter see, what's
the use in it?"
Wordsworth's lines came to Nan and she whispered them to herself as she
looked off across the wonderful valley:
"'The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.'"
She intended to whisper it to herself but as the march of the lines took
possession of her, she spoke them out loud without knowing it. On the
ninth line she came out strong with, "'Great God! I'd rather be--'" Miss
Somerville and Susan looked at her in amazement. Her dark eyes were
fixed on the despised view with a look of a somnambulist.
"Lawd a mussy! Miss Nan done got a tech er heat!"
"Blow your horn, Lewis. Didn't you hear Nan?" from Miss Somerville.
"She must see something coming."
Nan went off into such a peal of laughter that Bill Tinsley himself
could not have vied with her. She blushingly admitted it was just some
poetry she was repeating to herself, which made Miss Somerville agree
with Susan that Miss Nan had a "tech er heat."
"You had better have a dose of that aromatic ammonia and lie down for a
while when we get to the top," suggested Miss Lizzie dryly.
The road stopped at the cabin some distance from the pavilion, so they
alighted and Lewis turned the car on a seemingly impossible place and
careened down the mountain to pick up the others before they were
exhausted with the climb.
The cabin was in perfect order and so clean that even Miss Lizzie was
destined to find it difficult to discover germs. Gwen had rubbed and
scrubbed and then beautified to the best of her ability. She had
purchased a few yards of coarse scrim at the store and fresh curtains
were at the windows. The white iron bed was made up in spotless
counterpane and pillows, and on the freshly scrubbed pine floor was a
new rag rug of her own weave. The open fireplace was filled with
fragrant spruce boughs, and on the high mantel and little deal table she
had put cans of honeysuckle and Cherokee roses. She had longed for some
vases but had not liked to ask the young men to buy them. She felt that
the curtains were all the expense she should plunge them into.
When Gwen had seen the car approaching she had shyly gone behind the
cabin. She dreaded in a measure meeting these girls and their cousin.
She had become accustomed to the presence of the young gentlemen, but
what would the girls think of her? Wouldn't they think she was odd
and funny looking? She was quite aware of the fact that she was very
different in appearance from the girls in cities. She had pored over
too many illustrated papers not to know how other girls her age dressed
and looked. Her scant blue dress was made after a pattern sent to the
Mission School by some interested ladies. It was supposed to be the best
pattern for children to use where the cloth must be economically cut.
So it was and singularly picturesque in its straight lines, but Gwen was
but human and now that fashion sheets plainly said wider skirts and
flaring, here she was in her narrow little dress! She hated it. Bare
legs and feet, too!
Her instinct was to turn and flee around the mountain to the arms of
Aunt Mandy, who thought she was the most wonderful little girl in all
the world. But there was the kind of fighting blood in her that could
not run. The spirit of a grandfather who had been one of the heroes of
Balaclava made her hold up her proud little head and go boldly around to
the front of the cabin to face the dreadful ladies.
"Oh, you must be Gwen!" exclaimed Douglas, coming forward with both
hands to greet the girl. "Mr. Somerville has told us how splendidly you
have taken care of them and I know you must have arranged this room for
Cousin Lizzie. It is lovely."
Gwen no longer felt like one of the Light Brigade. This was not the jaws
of Death and the mouth of Hell. This sweet young lady didn't even
notice her bare feet, and the scanty skirt made no difference at all.
She introduced her to Miss Somerville and to her sister, Nan, who was
also graciousness itself. Miss Somerville was a little stiff, reminding
Gwen of the old ladies on the hotel piazza who bought the lace and
tatting that she and Aunt Mandy made on the long winter evenings when
the sun went down behind the mountains so early.
"Yes, the room will do very well."
It was rather faint praise and took very little time to say when one
considered that Gwen had spent days on her task. But Nan and Douglas
made up to her for their cousin's seeming coldness by going into
raptures over the cabin.
"Lewis did not tell us he was going to whitewash the room for Cousin
Lizzie," said Nan.
"I whitewashed it myself. The young gentlemen were so occupied with
constructing the pavilion that I could not bear to interrupt them." Nan
and Douglas could not help smiling at the little English girl's stilted
language but they hid their amusement. "I prepared the attic room for
the negro maid. Would you like to go up and see that?"
"Yes, indeed! Come on, Susan, and see your room. It is to be right up
over Cousin Lizzie's."
"Well, praise be to my Maker that I ain't goin' to have to sleep in the
air. My lungs is weak at best an' no doubt the air would be the death of
me."
Susan's figure belied her words, as she was an exceedingly buxom girl
with a chest expansion that Sandow might have envied her.
The attic was entered by a trap door from the room below and in lieu of
stairs there was nothing but a ladder made chicken-steps style: small
cross pieces nailed on a board.
The attic room was scrubbed as clean as Miss Lizzie's. The low ceiling
and very small windows certainly suited Susan's idea of sanitation, as
very little air could find its way into the chamber. A rough wooden bed
was built against the wall, as is often the way in mountain cabins, more
like a low, deep shelf than a bed. Gwen had stuffed a new tick with
nice clean straw and Susan bid fair to have pleasant dreams on her fresh
bed. A night spent without dreams of some kind was one wasted in the
eyes of the colored girl who consulted her dream book constantly.
Josh had railed at Gwen for putting a bunch of black-eyed Susans in the
attic room.
"Waitin' on a nigger! Humph! You uns ain't called on to lower yo'sef
that a way. Niggers is niggers an' we uns would ruther to bust than
fetch an' carry fer 'em."
"This seems a very small thing to do," Gwen had answered. She did not
share the mountaineer's prejudice against the black race. "I have no
doubt this girl will like flowers just as much as Miss Somerville."
So she did and a great deal more, as she expressed her appreciation of
the tomato can of posies, and Miss Somerville had not even noticed the
bouquets in her room. As Susan followed the girls up the funny steps and
her head emerged through the trap door, her eyes immediately fell on the
flowers.
"Well, Gawd be praised! My dream is out! I done fell asleep in the cyars
an' dream I see little chillun picking flowers in a fiel'. My book say
that is one er two interpretations: you is either goin' ter have fresh
flowers laid on yer grabe er some one is goin' ter make you a prisint er
flowers. I thank yer, little miss, fer the bowkay."
"Indeed, you are welcome," and Gwen gave her a grave smile.
Susan had been quite doubtful at first what her attitude should be with
this white girl who went barefooted and whitewashed cabins herself. She
knew very well how to treat po' white trash: like the dust under her
feet. There was no other way for a self-respecting colored girl to treat
them. But this white girl was different, somehow.
"She got a high steppin' way that is mo' like quality," she declared to
Oscar later. "She calls that slab-sided, shanty-boat 'ooman Aunt Mandy,
but I 'low they ain't no kin. Now that there Josh is low flung. I think
Miss Douglas is crazy to let Bobby run around with him as much as she
do. I bet his maw would stop it fast enough."
The Carter girls' enthusiasm and praise for the camp fully repaid the
young men for their untiring labor. The pavilion was really a thing of
beauty, built right up in the trees, as it were, like a great nest. It
had no walls, but the roof projected far enough to keep out anything
short of horizontal rain. An artistic rustic seat encircled the great
poplar trunk in the centre and rough benches were built around three
sides of the hall. Stairs went down on the fourth side to the kitchen in
the basement, and outside, steps gave entrance to the pavilion. The
whole building was screened. This was to be dining-room, living-room,
dance hall and everything and anything they chose to make of it. The
girls had reserved their victrola in renting the house and it now had
the place of honor near the circular seat.
"We just unpacked it this morning," said Lewis. "There was no use in
music with no girls to dance with."
"Aren't men strange creatures?" laughed Helen. "Now girls love to dance
so, they dance with each other, but two men would just as soon do fancy
work as dance with one another."
"Sooner," muttered Bill. "Let's have a spin!"
So a spirited "one-step" was put on and then the youths felt themselves
to be overpaid for their work as they danced over the floor that had
been the cause of many an aching joint and mashed thumb. Joints were not
aching now and mashed thumbs were miraculously cured by clasping the
hands of these pretty girls.
That first supper in the mountains was a very merry one. Miss Elizabeth
was much refreshed by a nap and came to the pavilion quite resigned to
life. She had nothing but praise for the handiwork of her beloved
nephew, and even included the laconic Bill in her compliments. She
wished, however, he would not be so sudden in his laughter as she was
afraid it betrayed the vacant mind.
Gwen had made a delicious fricassee of chicken in the fireless cooker,
the mysteries of which she had been taught at the mission school. Hot
biscuit and honey from Aunt Mandy's hive completed the feast.
"What delicious biscuit!" exclaimed Douglas. "Isn't Gwen a wonder?"
"'Scuse me, Miss Douglas, but I made them biscuit," said Susan, who was
waiting on the table.
"But, Susan, I thought you said you couldn't cook a thing!"
"That was in Richmond. I ain't boun' by no regulations of no club whin
I leaves the city. You see in my club, which is called the Loyal
Housemaids, we swars never to 'tend to two 'fessions at onct. When we is
housemaids, we is housemaids, but out here where th'ain't ter say no
house, I kin do as I's a mind, and I sho' did want ter make some biscuit
ter go with that there fricassy. Uncle Oscar an' I is goin' ter share
the cookin'. An' Miss Gwen is goin' ter do the haid wuck. We ain't
conversant with the fi'less cooker an' we don't know nothin' 'tall 'bout
lightin' kerosene stoves."
Our girls were much gratified by Susan's willingness to turn in and be
of some real assistance. The work when only the family were there would
be light, but if the many week-enders who had announced their intention
of coming to their camp materialized, they well knew that it would take
the combined efforts of them all to feed the hungry hordes and to wash
the many dishes and make up the many cots. The laundering of the bed
linen and towels would amount to more than they could cope with, so they
had decided to patronize a laundry in Charlottesville, for all the flat
work.
Bobby was in a state of extreme bliss. He had been allowed to help Josh
feed Josephus and now he was permitted to come to supper without doing
more towards purifying himself than just "renching the Germans" off his
hands and face. He was to sleep in the tent with his Cousin Lewis, too.
The girls' tent was pitched just behind the Englishman's cabin, while
the masculine quarters were nearer the pavilion.
"We will put up other tents as we need them," said Lewis. "We have
chopped down enough trees and cleared enough ground to camp the whole of
Richmond."
"Thank goodness, our boarders won't come for a week yet and we can have
time to enjoy ourselves for a while," sighed Douglas.
She was very tired but it was not the miserable fatigue she had felt in
town. It was a good healthy tired that meant a night's rest with nothing
to think about but how good life was and how kind people were.
Everything was certainly working out well. Cousin Lizzie was behaving in
a wonderful way for an old lady who thought much of her ease and had no
love of Nature. Helen and Lucy were too interested to squabble at all
and so were getting on splendidly. Bobby was behaving himself
beautifully, and even the servants were rising to the occasion and
evidently intending to do their best. The only fly in the ointment was
their attitude towards Josh and his towards them. He openly called them
"niggers," and they called him "po' white" right to his face. Gwen, they
seemed to have accepted at her face value and not judged by her bare
feet and scanty frock.
"Niggers, an' min' you, Miss Douglas, we don't 'low nobody but us to
call us out of our names that way," said Oscar. "Niggers is reg'lar
bloodhoun's an' they kin smell out quality same as geologists kin. Me'n
Susan knows that that there little Miss Gwen is a lady bawn."
"I believe she is, Oscar, and I hope you and Susan will be just as nice
to her as you can be."
"We'll do our best, but land's sake, Miss Douglas, don' arsk us to be
gentle with that there Josh. He is low flung and mischeevous to that
extent."
"All right, Oscar," laughed Douglas, "but don't be too hard on him."
Lewis had told her that Josh was fully capable of taking care of himself
and in the trial of wits Josh would certainly come out ahead.
"He already done scart Susan to death, tellin' her about hants in the
mountings. He says that Miss Gwen's paw was pestered by a ringin' an'
buzzin' in his haid that drove him 'stracted, and he used to roam the
mountings trying to git shet of the sound, til bynby he couldn't stan'
it no mo an' up'n jumped off'n a place called the Devil's Gorge and
brack ev'y bone in his body. An' he sayed the Englishman still hants
these here parts an' you can hear the buzzin' an' ringin' sometimes jes'
as plain as the po' man uster hear it in his life time. He say he won't
come over here arfter nightfall to save yo neck."
"What nonsense!" declared Douglas. "Well, all the buzzing on earth won't
keep me awake," but before she went to sleep, she recounted the
ridiculous tale to her three sisters, who shared the tent with her.
They agreed that they would have to ask Lewis to speak to Josh about
telling such things to poor Susan, who was already eaten up with
superstition.
"Ain't it grand to sleep in a----?" but Lucy was asleep before she said
what it was grand to sleep in. Nan tried to recall some lines of
Wordsworth that Gwen reminded her of, but "The sweetest thing that ever
grew," was all she could think of before sleep got her, too. Helen
forgot to put olive oil on her eyebrows, a darkening process she was
much interested in, and went off into happy, dreamless slumber. Douglas
shut her tired eyes and sleep claimed her for its own before she could
count ten.