THE WEEK-ENDERS.
"If the weather only holds!" exclaimed Douglas. "This first week-end is
the most important of all. If the boarders have a good time they will
want to come back, and then they will give us such a good name that
others will want to come, too."
"People who can't rise above mere weather should be taught a lesson,"
declared Helen.
"Nonsense, child!" from Miss Somerville. "Weather is something no one
can rise above. A week of rain in these mountains would make all of us
ready to kill each other and then commit suicide."
"I hope we won't be put to the test," said Nan.
"I should hope not! 'Continual dripping on a rainy day' is a proverbial
evil. I hope some bridge players will be numbered among the guests. I am
hungry for a game."
"Why, Cousin Lizzie, you know we don't mind playing a bit," said Helen.
"Why don't you ask us whenever you want to?"
"Don't mind playing? Bless you, child! Who wants to play with people who
play because they 'don't mind playing'? I can see that game now! 'What's
trumps?' 'Whose play is it?' 'I thought I had played!' 'I must have
reniged as I find I have a heart, after all.' No, no! When I play cards,
I want the game made up of devotees. How would you like a partner in the
dance who danced merely out of good-nature and kept forgetting whether
he was dancing the schottische or mazurka?"
As no one had danced either of those obsolete dances for at least thirty
years, the girls could not help a few sly smiles.
How rapidly that first week had flown! They had settled now into regular
camp life, even Miss Somerville. She had secretly decided that Nature
was not half bad and had once found herself admiring a sunset. She had
kept her admiration to herself, however, for fear some over-zealous
person might make her get up and see a sunrise.
Oscar and Susan, with Gwen doing the head work, had managed the cooking
beautifully for the few people they had to serve. It remained to be seen
how things would go when the boarders poured in for the week-end.
Pour in they did, six more than the girls had prepared for; but Lewis
and Bill with their ready inventions made beds for the boys of spruce
boughs, and immediately put in an order for more cots and an extra tent.
There were two careful mammas who had come along to look after their
daughters and an old bachelor who had a niece in tow; so Cousin Lizzie
made up her table of bridge and every one was happy, especially the
daughters of the careful mammas and the niece who was in tow. If one
must be chaperoned, it is certainly pleasant to have the chaperone
interested in something besides chaperoning.
The Mountain Goat made three round trips to the station to meet
passengers on the afternoon train on that first Friday, and other
enthusiastic campers walked up the mountain. Josephus was very busy
with a cart full of bags and bundles. One of the stipulations that the
girls had made in their advertisements was that every one must bring his
or her own blankets. This was at the instigation of Dr. Wright, who said
it would be very difficult to furnish blankets enough; and also for
sanitary reasons he knew it to be wise. Sheets are easy to have washed,
but blankets are not so simple a proposition.
The twenty week-enders were all young with the exception of the two
careful mammas, the old bachelor with the niece in tow, and two
stiff-backed spinsters who must have had some good reason of their own
for coming to camp in the mountains but they did not give it. They
looked very grim and uncompromising as they sat on the back seat of the
Goat with a plump and pleasing little stenographer, who was to take her
much-needed holiday at the camp, wedged in between them.
"They must be geologists," whispered Douglas to Lewis. Douglas and Lucy
had gone to the station to meet the newcomers, while Helen and Nan were
to receive them at camp. "One of them had a little hammer sticking out
of her pocket."
"Well, let's hope they will keep their hammers for rocks and not knock
the camp with them."
"Do you know, I did an awfully foolish thing? I put Tillie Wingo on the
front seat with Bill and forgot to introduce them. Helen would never
have done such a tactless thing."
"Well, a small thing like an introduction here or there won't stop
Tillie. I bet she talks poor Bill blue in the face," laughed Lewis.
So she did. Miss Hill, the pleasant stenographer, told Helen that not
for one moment did Tillie stop talking on that zig-zag ride up the
mountain. She poured forth a stream of delightful high-pitched nothings
into Bill's crimson ear. Bill, as was his habit, said nothing, and, like
the tar baby, kept on saying nothing. She had his ear; his eye must
perforce remain on the perilous road; his tongue was his to hold, and
he held it. Once he let forth a great laugh which had the effect of
shutting Tillie up for almost thirty seconds; but it was not time to go
to sleep yet and Tillie was accustomed to talk until she went to sleep
and sometimes even afterwards.
"A week-end camp is a most original idea and every one in Richmond is
simply wild about it. You see, the Carters are very popular and if they
decide to do something, lots of people will want to be doing it, too.
Helen Carter is considered the best dressed girl in Richmond, not that
she dresses more than any of the other girls but she has such good
taste. All of us girls are wild about her clothes. I adore camping! I'd
join the Camp-Fire but somehow khaki is not becoming to me. Do you know,
I do not think that muddy tan is becoming to decided blondes--not that I
am such a very decided blonde. I know lots of girls who wear it who are
not near so highly colored as I am--but somehow I think tan takes all
the life out of a blonde. Of course, one can wear white up close to the
face, but even then the tan kind of ruins a blonde complexion. I prefer
blue and pink and lavender and green and, of course, yellow, and I
think grey is just sweet for a blonde. I am wild for a black dress but
my mother is so old-fashioned she thinks no one under thirty should wear
black unless, of course, there happens to be a death in the family.
Under those circumstances, I fancy she would let me wear black. I would
not wear heavy mourning but just some diaphanous, gauzy thing with
tulle--although I do think that organdy collars and cuffs set one off
terrifically well. I think I would make a splendid widow--don't you?"
It was here that Bill gave his great guffaw, but it was also at a
particularly ticklish place in the road, so he could not look at his
blonde passenger.
Tillie stopped for the aforesaid thirty seconds and then decided that
the dumb young man running the car was a common chauffeur and perhaps
she had better change her form of conversation to one not suggesting
equality. It never entered her head to stop talking.
"Richmond is just running over with jitneys now. They make such a dust
you can't see whether they are coming or going. Did you ever run a
jitney? They say there is lots of money in them. I should think you
would do better doing that than doing this--of course, though, you know
best, and perhaps you get your board thrown in up here. Mamma said she
knew that the Carter girls would not know how to feed people because
they have always led such soft lives, but I said I was coming, anyhow.
I am dying to fall off. I really should have walked up the mountain
instead of riding as that would be a good way to start, but I had on my
best shoes and I knew it would ruin them. Douglas Carter wrote me to be
sure and bring a blanket, but I simply could not get one in my grip and
I said I would sleep cold before I would be seen carrying a great old
blanket over my arm like lots of these people. It was horribly hot in
Richmond and I did not think it could be cold coming just this little
way. I think it is so brave and noble for the Carter girls to try to
help their father this way. They do say he is dippy and was quite
wild-eyed. I have a friend who was on the sleeper with Mr. and Mrs.
Carter when they went to New York, and he says they shut themselves up
in the drawing room and acted awful queer. He didn't say just how, but
it must have been something fierce. What is this funny looking place?
Is this the camp? My, ain't it odd? I am very much obliged to you for
bringing me up. Please look after my suitcase for me--it is the large
one, really a small trunk, but I had no idea of mashing my new pink
into a pulp just for the sake of reducing my luggage. Here, this is for
you--and please get my baggage," and Tillie handed the astonished Bill
a quarter.
"Didn't know what to say, so I just took it," Bill told Lewis afterward.
"First money I've earned since I was a kid and picked blackberries for
Grandmother to jam, at five cents a quart. Dog, if I would not rather
pick the berries, briars and all! I felt like hollering to somebody to
throw something over the cage, that the canary was making such a fuss I
couldn't think."
Josh, too, was the victim of tips but he indignantly returned the money
that was proffered him with this remark:
"We uns ain't beholden to nobody, but is employed regular by Mr.
Somerville, we uns and Josephus."
That is often the spirit of the mountaineer. He will sell anything but
cannot stomach a tip.
Helen and Nan received the guests as they piled out of the Mountain Goat
or came up the winding road on foot. It was a very exciting moment for
our girls. This was really the beginning of their great adventure. Were
they to succeed or not? The week-enders were there, for once at least,
but could these girls make it so agreeable that they would want to come
back?
"Do look at Tillie Wingo, Nan! Did you ever see such a goose? She has on
ten dollar champagne shoes and a blue Georgette crêpe that would melt in
a mist!"
"Yes, she is some goose, but she will pay us just as sensible board as
anybody else, so we must not be too critical," and Nan went forward to
meet the pretty blonde Tillie and the stiff-backed spinsters and the
pleasant Miss Hill, and Helen smothered her indignation at Tillie's bad
taste in being so unsuitably dressed for camping and did her best to
make it pleasant for her, Georgette crêpe, champagne shoes and all.
There was much enthusiasm from the new arrivals as they inspected the
camp. Every one went into ecstasies over the view and the arrangements.
Miss Somerville awaited them in the pavilion, where she stood as at a
reception, receiving the guests with great formality.
"These young persons must understand fully that I am the chaperone, and
I think a dignified reception of them will be conducive to good behavior
on their part," she had said to Helen as she dressed herself in a black
silk afternoon gown and arranged her beautiful white hair in its shining
puffs.
At Gwen's instigation, afternoon tea was served as soon as the formal
reception was over--tea for those so inclined and grape-juice-lemonade
for the more frivolous.
A card table was unfolded for Miss Somerville, the two anxious mothers
and the old bachelor with a niece in tow.
"Quite like the springs," whispered Cousin Lizzie to Helen, as she got
brand new packs of cards for the opening game of the season.
Our girls had thought they would have to be quite busy entertaining the
week-enders, but they found to their delight that they could entertain
themselves. There were more than enough of the male element to go around
and in an incredibly short time they had sorted themselves to their
mutual satisfaction and were either dancing to the latest record, which
Tillie Wingo had put in her bursting semi-trunk, in lieu of a blanket,
or were roaming over the mountain side.
Lil Tate, Lucy's boon companion and school-mate, had come and the two
girls had gone off arm in arm, while Frank Maury, a callow youth of
fifteen, walked shyly after them, hoping they would take him in their
train and fearing every moment that they might. His hopes and fears were
both realized and by supper time the three were sworn allies; Frank had
determined to come up the next week and bring Skeeter, his chum, and
Lil had declared she was going to make her mother let her spend the
whole summer with Lucy.
"Mamma's an awful 'fraid cat about me and just would come along. Thank
goodness, she and Miss Somerville have got cards to occupy 'em and she
has forgotten there isn't but one of me," laughed Lil, who was a
sprightly little brunette. "I wisht I had been born triplets and then
she wouldn't have to be so particular."
"Gee, I'm glad I ain't a girl--but I like girls a lot--" stammered
Frank. "Skeeter and I think they are just great," and so they chattered
on.
Bobby was not so happy. His friend Josh was too busy with Josephus and
the luggage to have him around, and no boon companion had arrived for
him. He had been made to wash and dress, which, he considered, was a
great breach of faith on the part of his sisters. He had it firmly
placed in his memory that he had been promised by some one that when he
got to the mountains he would never have to wash and dress. He sat with
a very disconsolate mien in a corner of the pavilion, watching Tillie's
pretty little feet in their champagne shoes twirling round and around,
every few moments with another pair of masculine shoes accompanying
them, as Tillie was never long without a flock of the opposite sex in
her wake. She could hardly get around the pavilion before the dance was
broken into by some eager swain. She was noted as being able to dance
down more partners than any girl in Richmond, and it was slyly hinted
that she was so long-winded because of her never ceasing practice in
conversation.
Bobby looked gloomily at the twinkling feet. They were too clean for
him, those champagne-colored shoes. His own feet were disgustingly
clean, too. Maybe he could rectify that with a judicious sprinkling of
grape juice and then some clay sifted over them. He would try! Just then
the stiff-backed spinsters, who turned out to be educators off on a
botanical and geological spree, bore down on him and seating themselves
on each side of him began:
"Little boy, are you enjoying your stay in the mountains?"
"Naw!"
"Ah, perhaps you are too idle and need occupation. Can you read and
write?"
"Naw, I can't read writin' but I can read readin'."
"You should have a task set you every day and then vacation would not
hang so heavily on your hands. Some useful bit of information imparted
to you would be edifying and useful."
"Pshaw! That's the way Cousin Lizzie talks. She's our chapel roan an'
knows mo'n anybody 'bout Solomon an' all his glory. She done learnt me a
verse already onct this mornin'."
"Ah, indeed! And can you repeat it to us?"
"Yes! I reckon 'twas the grape juice an' victrola that made her choose
this one: 'Wine is a mucker an' strong drink is rag time.' I kin learn
mos' anything," and Bobby hastened off to put the clay on his feet
before the grape juice bath had time to dry.