The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong Part 13

"What's the surprise?" cooed Madaline.

"The Norms are going to start a cla.s.s in basketry; who wants to join?"

"Oh, baskets, the Indian kind, and the pretty raffia kind, and the----"

"Lunch basket kind," Julia interrupted Grace. "We will join you, Mackey, won't we, girls?"

Everyone agreed eagerly, and the first session was arranged to be held at Camp Comalong on the following afternoon.

"I thought after a few days things might get sort of samey," said Cleo, "but as it looks now I wonder how we are going to get everything in? We must go riding soon, Louise."

"We surely must, Clee. Let us keep the next afternoon after to-morrow free for that. I am just longing for a ride through those wonderful, green woods."

"Maybe we will meet Buzzie and Fussie, and if we do----" threatened Cleo.

"We'll make them run harder than they did us, with their old buggy-boat in the lake," finished Louise, well out of hearing of the director.

But a new cause for questions had crossed their wonderful path.

Why did those girls speak with such marked disapproval of Peg, the exclusive neighbor?

CHAPTER XI

THE FOOD SHOWER

As someone had said events were crowding at camp, and it now seemed difficult to keep schedule and not break the "rest rule." This last obligated the director to see that the girls rested for a time after the noon-day meal. As the Bobbies were such active little animals, and so eager to crowd each moment with an event--big enough to occupy an hour--Mackey had to be very decided in this order for an hour's rest every afternoon.

It was that particular period that the unwelcome callers had so completely dissipated the day before, so to-day Mackey decided to stay at camp and write up her notes, rather than scour woods for new material. Thus she could keep tabs on that relaxation period.

"We're so glad to have you, but hope we are not spoiling all your real vacation," said Louise considerately, when the patrol finished dinner, had cleaned up things and were now out under the trees resting.

"Honestly, Mackey, tell us! Didn't you plan to come and be our guardian angel, or did you just happen along that day?"

The director laughed merrily. It seemed to her girls that she could laugh more heartily than any sort of teacher they had ever come in contact with. Her big brown eyes would roll so comically, and she had a way of tossing her head up in such a frank fit of mirth, that her manner was really an inspiration to those about her.

"Don't guardies always come that way?" she replied to Louise's question. "And do you want to 'sack' me for someone else? I'm sure anyone at Camp Norm would be glad to try for the place."

Conservative Louise could not stand that, and she almost upset Mackey and her camp stool in objecting.

"Did the mothers have anything to do with it?" pressed Grace.

"Or headquarters?" went on Julia.

"Well," evaded Mackey. "I came, I saw and I conquered. So why worry?"

and the Bobbies were obliged to be satisfied with that reply.

"Has anyone seen Peg, lately?" was the next question. It came from Cleo.

"'Has anybody here seen Kelly,'" chirped Grace, falling into the funny old tune. "'Kelly with the gre--heen necktie!'" she persisted, in spite of a shower of leaves and twigs that struck at her defiant head.

"We can't call this rest," remonstrated Mackey. "Julia, I wouldn't pull up those little roots, you will have mud puddles there if it should rain to-night."

"Oh, that's so!" exclaimed Julia. "How will we arrange when the rain comes? What about my fire?"

"We will have to use up some of the dry boxes," suggested Madaline.

"Or get an oil stove," proposed Margaret.

"Or we could make a shack--build one over our camp kettle," added Cleo.

Mackey waited to try out their resources before interfering. Then she said:

"It's lots of fun to build fires in the rain; that is if you don't have to dry out too quickly after a long hike. We can always find dry wood inside of the old logs, and by scooping out some shavings we can easily start some of your nice, little cord pieces, that you have stocked under the tent. No, you can't use artificial wood, boxes nor oil stoves. All that is against the camp system."

"Then I think," said Julia, the good housekeeper, "we had better add to our woodpile. We have had such splendid weather, rain must be about due."

"We can go out wood hunting when the sun goes down, or cools off, late this afternoon," agreed Mackey. "I think Corene had such a plan already fixed."

"Indeed I did," spoke up Corene. "I know what a time we had once at the big camp when the wood pile went low and the storm ran high.

Unkink your muscles, girls; there's a heap of chopping ahead."

"And do you remember last year at the beach? We were donning our dimities about this time daily," recalled Louise, with a well meaning sigh.

"I'm gaining pounds," announced the willowy Julia. "I was weighed this morning."

"Have I grown any?" joked Louise, giving one of her inimitable stretches.

"You do all seem to be taking to camp life like squirrels to nuts,"

interrupted the director. "I shall have quite a record to my credit if you keep it up."

Time pa.s.sed so quickly that the call for their cla.s.s in basketry seemed almost to overlap the rest hour.

"To make souvenirs!" This was the attraction that roused the Bobbies even from their own joys in camp routine, for now that they were "away from home," each girl longed to bring back a token to mother, father, sister or brother; and with more than one of them the entire family was promptly put down on the list to receive a handmade souvenir from Camp Comalong.

"Undertake simple things so you will be sure to finish them," warned Mackey, for girl-like they planned the most attractive articles held out in the display catalogues.

Bags, baskets and little matted trays were finally decided upon, and Miss Freeland, the manual training teacher who stopped at Norm, found an enthusiastic cla.s.s ready for her dictation.

They sat squat on the ground like Indians when the lesson started, but before its finish the squatters had squirmed and crawled from one position to another, fitting each new attempt with a new move, until at the end there seemed to be a heap of girls all piled around the amiable Miss Freeland.

"Don't forget we are to receive callers to-day," warned Mackey. "I think the home folks have been very considerate to leave us alone so long."

Reluctantly the new task was laid aside, for, as usual, being new, it was also attractive, and at the thought of company everyone stirred around to make things look pretty.

Fresh flowers, straightening the burlap curtains on Louise's sideboard, arranging the tent with an eye to absolute order--all this was attended to with skill acquired in the short practice, and Miss Mackin had little to fear from the critical eye of any possible visitor.