Wyn's Camping Days: or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club

“I vote aye!” said Frank, with emphasis. The other four followed in quick succession.

“Why, that’s lovely of you!” cried the captain of the club. “I–I was afraid nobody would like it but myself.”

“It’s so appropriate,” said Bess.

“It’s all right,” Frank declared. “I wonder what the Busters will call their camp?”

“They named it last fall,” said Wyn. “Dave told me. It is Cave-in-the-Wood Camp. Not so bad–eh?”

“Pretty good for a parcel of boys,” observed Bess.

“Well, I’m glad the worry’s over,” yawned Grace. “Let’s go to bed. You know, Percy, we’ve got to work like slaves to-morrow, so it behooves us to get to bed betimes.”

“Mercy!” cried Frankie, “they’ll be wanting to make up the cots before we are out of them in the morning. Come on! let’s all turn in.”

There was a general roll-call at daybreak the next morning. Wynifred and Frank were not the only ones to get up as soon as day approached, although to them had been allotted the task of going to Windmill Farm for the milk and the day’s supply of vegetables.

They had agreed the night before to venture into the water. The boys always bragged about this early morning dip, which was a rule of their camp.

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to do anything those boys do,” declared Bess, with her usual contempt for the vaunted superiority of the other sex. “If they can run down and plunge right into the water, right out of bed, why can’t we?”

So even Grace–who had her doubts about it–ventured on this second morning. They slipped out of their sleeping clothes and into bathing suits. There was a little chill in the air; but Wyn assured them the water would be warmer than the air and–if they remained in half an hour, or so–the sun would be up and his rays would warm them when they came out.

And Wyn’s prophecy was proven right. The six girls disported in the lake like a flock of ducks. Mrs. Havel, however, would not let them remain more than twenty minutes. The sun had shot up, then, and already the green knoll was warm in his first rays.

Wyn and Frank scurried into their clothes and hurried away to the farm for the milk and vegetables. Frank saw the windmill on the summit of the hill, and nothing would do but she must run up and inspect it. The breeze was rising and the farmer, who was likewise the miller, was preparing to “grind a grist.”

“We’ve got a good bit of grain on hand; but we’ve not had wind enough of daytimes lately to grind a handful,” he said. “I can’t invite you inside, young ladies, because when they set up this mill for me they made the door, as you see, right behind the sails. When the arms are in motion I am shut in till the grist is ground; or I stop the sails with this lever just inside the door–d’ye see?”

As the girls went back toward the house the arms began turning with a groaning sound. The wind became fresher. Round and round the long arms turned, while the canvas bellied like the sails on a boat.

Louder and louder grew the hum of the mill. The miller threw in the clutch and the stones began to grind. They heard the corn poured into the hopper, and then the shriek of the kernels as they were ground between the stones. The whole building began to shake.

“What a ponderous thing it is!” exclaimed Frank. “And see! there’s a tiny window in the roof facing the lake. I imagine you could see clear to Meade’s Forge from that window.”

“Farther than that, my dear–much farther,” said the farmer’s wife, handing Frank the basket of fresh vegetables over the garden fence. “On a clear day you can see ’way across the lake to Braisely Park. The tower of Dr. Shelton’s fine house is visible from that window. And the whole spread of the lake. But the air must be very clear.”

“Goody! We’ll bring the other girls up here some day when the mill is not running and climb to the top of the mill for the view,” declared Frank.

Bess and Mina, with some advice from Mrs. Havel, made a very good breakfast. Although neither was very domestic in her tastes, the two young cooks were on their mettle, and did the best they could. If the hot biscuits were not quite so flaky as their mothers’ own cooks made them at home, and some of the poached eggs broke in the poacher, and the broiled bacon got afire several time and “fussed them all up,” as Mina said, the general opinion of the occupants of Green Knoll Camp was that “there was no kick coming”–of course, expressed thus by the slangy Frank Cameron.

Grace would dawdle over the dishwashing, and Percy was a good second. Therefore, those two still had work on their hands when Bess sighted a motor boat coming swiftly toward their camp from the direction of Gannet Island.

“Now somebody’s going to butt in and bother us,” declared Bess. “It can’t be the Busters, I s’pose?”

“That’s exactly who it is!” cried Wyn, delightedly. “That’s the Happy Day. Dave said if his cousin, Frank Dumont, could come up here, he would bring his father’s motor boat. And he must have come yesterday when we were busy and did not see him.”

“Hurrah!” cried Frank. “A motor boat beats a canoe all to pieces.”

“The Busters are aboard, all right,” sighed Bess, after another look. “Now we’ll have a noisy time.”

“Now there’ll be something doing!” quoth Frank. “That’s the trouble with a crowd of girls. After they have played ‘Ring Around the Rosy’ and ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ they don’t know another living thing to do except to sit down and look prim and be prosy. But with boys it’s different. There’s something doing all the time.”

“You should have been a boy, Frank,” declared Bess, with some disgust.

“If I was one, I’d be hanging around your house all the time, Bessie mine,” laughed the other, hugging the boy-hater.

“Get away! I’d have Patrick turn the hose on you if you did!” cried Bess, in mock wrath.

But secretly, Miss Lavine, as well as her mates, was glad of the break in the quiet affairs of Green Knoll Camp made by the appearance of Dave Shepard and his spirited chums.

“Oh, crackey, girls! you ought to see our camp! We’ve got a regular pirates’ cave,” declared Ferdinand Roberts.

“Did your stores get wet in that awful storm?” demanded Wyn from the top of the knoll.

“Not much. We managed to cover them with the canvas. And now we’ve cleaned out the cave and it’s great. All we need is some captives to take over there and chain to the rocks,” laughed Dave.

“And fatten ’em up till they’re fit to eat,” drawled Tubby Blaisdell.

“Stop it, Tub!” cried one of his mates. “We’re not going to play cannibals, but pirates.”

“Well, in either case,” declared Bess, “you will not get captives at Green Knoll Camp.”

“Is that what you call this pretty hillock?” cried Dave. “Well, it is a beauty spot! And how nice you girls have made everything. Why! you don’t need any boys around at all.”

“That’s what I’ve always told them,” murmured Bess. “They’re only a nuisance.”

“We came over to see if we could help you,” continued Dave. “Here’s my cousin, Frank Dumont, girls. Some of you know him, anyway. This is his motor boat, and if there really is nothing we can do to help you here, why, Frank wants to take you all–with Mrs. Havel, if she is agreeable–for a trip around the lake. We’ve got supplies aboard and we’ll stop somewhere and make a picnic dinner.”

“Goody!” cried Mina. “Then we will not have to make dinner here, Bess.”

“Agreed!” announced Grace. “There will be no more dishes to wash until evening, then.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Dave said, slowly. “Of course we like to have you girls go along; but usually girls do the grub-getting and dishwashing on a picnic.”

“Nothing doing, then,” declared Frank, laughing at him. “This crowd of girls are going as invited guests, or not at all. We promise to be ornamental, but not useful.”

“You’re ornamental, all right, in those blouses and bloomers,” declared Ferd, for the girls had discarded skirts about the camp, and felt much more free and comfortable than they usually did.

“If worse comes to worst,” said Mrs. Havel, smiling, “I will be the camp drudge, boys, for I want to see the lake shore in panorama.”

“Oh, let ’em come,” drawled Tubby, still lying on his back on the little deck of the Happy Day. “They’ll get hungry some time and have to cook for us.”

And so, amid much bustle, and laughter, and raillery, the girls of Green Knoll Camp joined the boys of Cave-in-the-Wood Camp in the motor boat for a trip around the big lake.

CHAPTER XI

WHERE THE ACCIDENT HAPPENED

“And where is Professor Skillings?” asked Mrs. Havel, as the well-laden launch drew away from the little natural landing which defended one end of the girls’ bathing beach at Green Knoll Camp.

“Bless your heart, ma’am,” said Ferdinand Roberts, laughing, “the old gentleman is trying to figure out one of Tubby’s unanswerable arguments–that is, I believe, what you’d call it.”

“One of Tubby’s unanswerable arguments?” cried Wyn. “For pity’s sake! what can that be?”

“Why, at breakfast this morning the professor got to ‘dreaming,’ as he sometimes does. He tells us lots of interesting things when he begins talking that way; but sometimes, if we are in a hurry to get away, we have to put the stopper in,” chuckled Ferd.

“Tubby usually does it. Tubby really is good for something beside eating and sleeping, girls–you wouldn’t believe it!”

“You do surprise us,” admitted Bess Lavine, cuttingly.

“All right. But just wait and listen. We wanted to get away early and come over here after you,” said Ferd. “And the professor began to give us one of his talks. This time it was on literature. By and by he says:

“‘We are told that it took, Gray, author of ‘An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,’ seven years to write that famous poem.”

“‘Gee!’ exclaimed Tubby. ‘If he’d only known stenography how much better off he’d been.’

“‘Ahem! how do you prove that, Mr. Blaisdell?’ inquired the professor, quite amazed.

“‘Why, we took that as a lesson in the shorthand class of the Commercial Department last spring,’ said Tubby, ‘and some of the real good ones could do Gray’s Elegy, from dictation, in seven minutes. See what Gray would have saved if he’d known shorthand!’

“And that completely shut up the professor,” said Ferd, as the laughter broke out. “He hasn’t recovered from the shock yet.”

The Happy Day was turned toward the Forge first, skirting the shore all the way. That brought them, of course, close to Jarley’s Landing. Polly was just pushing out in a little skiff.

Wyn and Frank waved to her; but the other girls did not know her, of course, and only watched the boatman’s daughter curiously.

“How well she rows!” exclaimed Percy.

“Say! but she’s a fine looking girl,” said Dave, earnestly. “What handsome arms she’s got.”

“Handsome is as handsome does,” remarked Bess, snappishly.

“She’s as brown as an Indian,” observed Mina.

“That doesn’t hurt her,” declared Dave, stoutly. “Is she the girl you were speaking about, Wyn?”

“She is Polly Jarley, and she is my friend,” responded Wynifred, quietly. “And I believe her to be as good as she is beautiful.”

“Then there are wings sprouting under her blouse,” laughed Frank; “for there’s no girl I ever saw who could hold a candle to Polly for right down beauty.”

“She looks so sad,” said Mina, softly.

“Why shouldn’t she be sad?” Wyn demanded, “with everybody talking about her father the way they do?”

“Come, girls!” commanded Mrs. Havel. “Don’t gossip. Find some other topic of conversation.”

“Ha! quite so,” cried Frank, with a grimace upon her own homely face. “A girl may be as pretty as a picture and spoil it all by an ugly frame of mind. How’s that for a spark thrown from the wheel?”

“Stand back, audience!” exclaimed Dave. “Something like that is likely to happen any minute.”

“I don’t really see how the old professor gets on with you boys at all,” remarked Bessie Lavine, with a sigh. “You’d worry the life out of an angel.”

“But Professor Skillings is not an angel–thanks be!” exclaimed Dave.

“He’s a good old scout!” drawled Tubby.

“He just hasn’t forgotten what it is to be a boy,” began Ferd.

“But, goodness me!” cried Frankie. “He’s forgotten about everything else, at some time or other; hasn’t he?”

“Not what he’s learned out of books and from observation,” declared Dave. “But my goodness! he is absent-minded. Yesterday a couple of us fellows chopped up a good heap of firewood. We don’t have a fancy stove like you girls, but just an out-of-doors fireplace. After supper the dear old prof, said he’d wash the dishes, and we dumped all the pots and pans together and–what do you think?”

“Couldn’t think,” drawled Frank. “I’m too lazy. Tell us without making your story so complicated.”

“Why, we found he had carried an armful of firewood down to the shore and was industriously swashing the sticks up and down in the water, thinking he was washing the supper dishes.”

With similar conversation, and merry badinage, the journey around Lake Honotonka progressed. The shores of the lake, in full summer dress, were beautiful. There was an awning upon the motor boat, so the rapidly mounting sun did not trouble the party. But it was hot at noonday, and through Dave’s glasses they could see that the sails on the mill behind Windmill Farm were still. There wasn’t air enough stirring, even at that height, to keep the arms in motion, and down here on the water the temperature grew baking.

They ran into a cool cove and went ashore for dinner. Nobody wanted anything hot, and so, as there was a splendid spring at hand, they made lemonade and ate sandwiches of potted chicken and hard-boiled eggs which the boys had been thoughtful enough to bring along. The girls had crisp salad leaves to go with the chicken, too, and some nice mayonnaise. Altogether even Tubby was willing to pronounce the “cold bite” satisfying.

“And I’m no hypocrite,” declared the fat youth, earnestly. “When I say a thing I mean it.”

“What is your idea of a hypocrite, Tubby?” demanded Wyn, laughing.

“A boy who comes to school smiling,” replied Tubby, promptly.

After a while a little breeze ruffled the surface of the lake again and the Happy Day was made ready for departure. They continued then toward the west, where lay the preserve known as Braisely Park, in which there were at least a dozen rich men’s lodges. They were all in sight from the lake–at some point, at least. Each beautiful place had a water privilege, and the landings and boathouses were very picturesque. There was a whole fleet of craft here, too, ranging in size from a cedar canoe to a steam yacht. The latter belonged to Dr. Shelton, the man who had accused John Jarley of stealing the motor boat Bright Eyes and the five thousand dollars’ worth of silver images from the ruined temples of Yucatan.

“And of course,” said Wyn, warmly, “that is nonsense. For if Polly and her father had done such a thing, they would turn the silver into money; wouldn’t they, and stop living in poverty?”

“Well, it looks mighty funny where that boat and all could have gone,” Bessie remarked.

“If she sank as quickly as he says, the wreck must lie off Gannet Island somewhere,” remarked Dave, reflectively.

“Oh! I wish we could find it,” commented Wyn.

“If it ever sank at all,” sneered Bessie.

But it was almost impossible to quarrel with Wyn Mallory. Frank would have “got hot” a dozen times at Bess while the party chanced to discuss the Jarleys and their troubles. But the captain of the Go-Ahead Club was patient.

Bye and bye–and after mid-afternoon–the Happy Day came around to the west end of Gannet Island. Up among the trees a glint of white betrayed the presence of the boys’ tent. In a little sheltered cove below the site of Cave-in-the-Wood Camp, danced the fleet of canoes.

Nothing would do but the girls and Mrs. Havel must go ashore and see the cave and the camp.

“And we can have tea,” said Ferd. “How’s that, girls? Professor Skillings has got a whole canister of best gunpowder in his private stores–and there he is on that log, examining specimens.”

“Oh, dear me!” cried Frankie, “tea isn’t going to satisfy the gnawing of my appetite.”

“How about a fish-fry?” demanded Dave, swerving the motor boat suddenly away from the landing.

“Where’ll you get your fish?” cried Percy Havel.

“In the fish store at Meade’s Forge,” scoffed Ferdinand Roberts.

“That’s too far to run for supper–and back again–this afternoon, boys,” said Mrs. Havel.

“Just you wait,” cried Dave. “I caught sight of something just now–there she is!”

The Happy Day rounded a wooded point of the island. Near the shore floated Polly Jarley’s skiff and Polly was just getting up her anchor.

“She’s been fishing all day!” exclaimed Wyn.

“And I’ll wager she’s got a fine mess of perch,” said Dave. “Hi, Miss Jarley!” he shouted. “Hold on a minute.”

Polly had heard the chugging of the motor boat. Now she stood up suddenly and waved both hands in some excitement.

“What does she want?” demanded Bess.

“Get out! farther out!” the boatman’s daughter shouted, her clear voice echoing from the wooded heights of the island. “Danger here!”

“What’s the matter with her?” demanded Bess again. “Is there a submarine mine sunk here?”

But Dave veered off, taking a wider course from the shore.

“What is the matter, Polly?” shouted Wyn, standing up and making a megaphone of her hands.

“Snags!” replied the other girl. “Here’s where father ran Dr. Shelton’s boat on a root. The shallow water here is full of them. Look out”

“Say!” cried Frank Dumont “We don’t want to sink the old Happy Day.”

“So this is where the accident happened; is it?” observed Wyn, looking around at the shores of the little cove and the contour of the island’s outline.

“Humph!” snapped Bessie Lavine, sitting down quickly. “I don’t believe there was any accident at all. It was all a story.”

CHAPTER XII

AN OVERTURN

Dave Shepard had stopped the motor boat land now he hailed the pretty girl in the skiff.

“I say, Miss Jarley! did you have any luck?”

“I’ve got a good string of white perch. They love to feed among these stumps,” returned Polly.

“Oh, Polly Jolly! sell us some; will you?” cried Wyn, eagerly. “We’re so hungry.”

“Do, do!” chorused several of the other girls and boys aboard the Happy Day.

Polly, smiling, held up a long withe on which wriggled at least two dozen silvery fish. “Aren’t they beauties?” she demanded. “Wait! I’ll row out.”

She had already raised her anchor. Now she sat down, seized the short oars, and plunged them into the water. How she could row! Even Bessie Lavine murmured some enthusiastic praise of the boatman’s daughter.

Her skiff shot alongside the motor boat. She caught the gunwale, and then held up the string of fish again.

“How much, Miss Jarley?” asked Dave.

“Half a dollar. Is that too much?”

“It looks too little; but I suppose you know what you can get for them at the Forge,” he said.

“And this saves me rowing down there,” returned the brown girl, smiling and blushing under the scrutiny of so many eyes.

Wyn leaned over the rail, took the fish, and kissed Polly on her brown cheek.

“Dreadfully glad to see you, dear,” she declared. “Won’t you come over to the camp to-morrow and show us girls where–and how–to fish, too? We’re crazy for a fishing trip.”

“Why–if you want me?” said Polly, her fine eyes slowly taking in the group of girls aboard the motor boat.

All looked at her in a friendly way save Bessie, and she had her back to the girl.

“I’ll come,” said Polly, blushing again; and then she pocketed, the piece of money Dave gave her, and pushed off a bit.

“Is this really where your father came so near losing his life, Polly?” asked Wyn, seriously.

“Yes, Miss Wyn. Right yonder. It was so thick he could not see the shore. A limb of that tree yonder–you can see where it was broken off; see the scar?”

There was a long yellow mark high up on the tree trunk overhanging the pool where Polly had been fishing.

“That limb brushed father out of the boat just as she struck. The snag must have torn a big hole in the bottom of the Bright Eyes. Lightened by his going overboard, she shot away–somewhere–toward the middle of the lake, perhaps. He knows that he gave the wheel a twirl just as he went overboard and that must have driven the nose of the boat around.

“She shot away into the fog. He never saw or heard of her again. We paddled about for a week afterward–the bateau men and I–and we couldn’t find it. Poor father was abed, you see, for a long time and could not help.”

“All a story, I believe,” whispered Bess, to Mina.

“Oh, don’t!” begged the tender-hearted girl.

Perhaps Polly heard this aside. She plunged her oars into the water again and the skiff shot away. She only nodded when they sang out “Good-bye” to her.

The Happy Day carried the party quickly back to the cove under the hill on which Cave-in-the-Wood Camp had been established. The girls and boys landed and were met by Professor Skillings–who could be a very gallant man indeed, where ladies were concerned. He helped Mrs. Havel out of the motor boat, which Dave had brought alongside of a steep bank, where the water was deep, and which made a good landing place.

“My dear Mrs. Havel! I am charmed to see you again,” said the professor. “You are comfortably situated over there on the shore, I hope?”

“My girls are as successful in making me comfortable as are your boys in looking after you, I believe, Professor Skillings,” returned the lady, laughing.

“More so–I have no doubt! More so,” admitted the professor.

“Treason! treason!” shouted Dave Shepard.

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Wyn, who had hopped ashore behind the chaperone.

“Professor Skillings is going back on us, boys,” declared Dave.

“Why, Professor!” cried Ferdinand. “Where would you find in all the five zones such a set of boys as we-uns?”

“Five zones? Correct, my boy,” declared the professor, seriously. “But name those five zones; will you, please?”

“Sure!” wheezed Tubby, before Ferd could reply. “Temperate, Intemperate, Canal, Torrid, and Ozone.”

“Goodness gracious, Agnes!” gasped Dave. “Can you beat Tubby when he lays himself out to be real erudite?” while the others–even the professor and Mrs. Havel–could not forbear to chuckle.

But Dave and Ferd got busy at once while the others laughed, and chaffed, and looked over the boys’ camping arrangements. Dave was cook and Ferd made and fed the fire. These boys had all the approved Scout tricks for making fire and preparing food–they could have qualified as first-class scouts.

Ferd started for an armful of wood he had cut down at the bottom of the steep bank and suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, he slipped, his feet pointed heavenward, and he skated down the bank upon the small of his back.

“My goodness me!” exclaimed Frank Cameron. “Did you see that?”

“Sure,” said Dave, amid the laughter of the crowd. “Poor Ferdy! the whole world is against him!”

“You bet it is,” growled Ferd, picking himself up slowly at the bottom of the bank. “And it’s an awful hard world at that.”

“Come on! Come on!” whined Tubby Blaisdell. “Aren’t you ever going to get supper? You’re wasting time.”

Dave was expertly cleaning fish. Wyn ran to his help, finding the flour, cracker-crumbs, and salt pork. The pan was already heating over the blaze that the unfortunate Ferdinand had started in the fireplace.

“If you’re so blamed hungry,” said Dumont to the wailing Tubby, “start on the raw flour. It’s filling, I’ll be bound.”

“Say! I don’t just want to get filled. I want to enjoy what I eat. I could be another Nebuchadnezzar and eat grass, if it was just filling I wanted.”

“Ha!” cried Dave. “Tubby is as particular as the Western lawyer–a perfectly literal man–who entered a restaurant where the waiter came to him and said:

“‘What’ll you ’ave, sir? I ’ave frogs’ legs, deviled kidneys, pigs’ feet, and calves’ brains.’

“‘You look it,’ declared the lawyer man. ‘But what is that to me? I have come here to eat–don’t tell me your misfortunes.’”