The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong Part 5

"Now, it's all settled!" proclaimed Julia. She had been fighting visions of black nights under that canvas tent with no Yale locks nor other safety contrivances or erstwhile doors, and here was some one actually able and willing to "take charge."

"We are doing some research work up here," Miss Mackin explained, "and parts of my days must be given to that. You are so capable I would be in the way, really, if around all the time; but nights----"

"Oh, we would need you every night," insisted Corene sincerely.

"And in my own tent I am almost crowded out, so the plan seems inspirational," said Miss Mackin. She was surveying Louise's sideboard while Louise tried to get behind Grace. The compliment given, however, did not warrant hiding away from it.

"We intend to move in to-morrow afternoon," said Corene, "if we can get everything moved up here by that time. Could you come to-morrow night?"

"Easily. The girls will be delighted to have my cot for a visitor. I really don't have a whole cot, but I managed to get room to sleep in it," she smilingly admitted. "Yet, I hope I have not influenced you to take pity on me," she hurried to protest.

"You are a real blessing," said Cleo. She was going to say "angel,"

but a look from Grace forbade that extreme.

"We are going exploring this afternoon," announced Julia, as the visitor prepared to leave.

"Oh, yes! Don't mind the danger-signs you find stuck around," said Miss Mackin. "We have seen many of them, but not yet scented any real danger. Good-bye for a while!" she finished. "I'll be here in time to take charge of the banner-raising." She hesitated in front of the new flagpole, her eyes alight with admiration for the girls' spirit of loyalty to their Scout principles. Then Miss Mackin hurried off toward Camp Norm.

CHAPTER V

A STOLEN LOOK AROUND

It was dawn on Lake Hocomo, and the sun that disappeared behind the hills last night after spilling his colorful paint-pots into the surprised waters, tried to make amends now by softening the deadened mixture into a haze of amethyst mists.

Gray, purple, rosy, and all so velvety, like the essence of color-life itself, the day dawned; welcomed by glad birds from every bush, tree or meadow spot for miles around.

Were the Bobbies up now they might have learned something from their namesake. On a soft patch of velvet gra.s.s, jeweled with dew-blessed b.u.t.tercups, and that tiniest of flowers, the pale blue forget-me-not, the bobolinks fluttered, their song as reckless as the riot of early day, as they paddled along on wingtips to the gay rhythm of rippling, reckless aria; for a happy little songster is the bobolink, shooting up and diving down into the wet gra.s.ses for his bath of sweetness, then swaying on the slenderest of stems, not unlike the little girl who stands perched on her springboard in the first joys of water-diving.

It was because this rollicking bird sings as he flies that the vote of the Scouts resulted in his name being chosen, and on the dawn recorded the brown-gray streaked little songster left his meadow for a glimpse of that new camp in the woods. Soon he must go South for his rice feast, for early in summer the birds of his clan descend upon the rice fields and lo----!

The bobolink perched himself on the top of that new flagpole, and perhaps his trilled notes were a co-mingling of praise and good wishes. But the Bobbies were sleeping in their mothers' cottages and dreaming of the first night in camp.

d.i.c.k Porter, the night-watchman on the grounds around Tamarack Hills, rubbed his eyes and heaved the sigh of another task completed. Then he took a last look at Camp Comalong, for the Scouts had already stored in the tent goods of value, straightened his shoulders to suit the daytime needs, and sauntered off for his breakfast at the Nipanneck.

Quickly as he turned away from the camp grounds a girl stole down from the highest hilltop. Peg, the mysterious, without hat and in simple skirt and blouse, frightened away the chipmunks and bunnies as she skipped, light as a fawn, over the path invisible to less familiar eyes, then she too stopped in front of that dignified flagpole. She looked up and down the length of it and brushed her hand quizzically over its smooth surface.

"Humph!" she jerked. "Going to have everything first cla.s.s, I guess."

Cautiously she stepped up to the rustic "sideboard." This brought from her lips no caustic comment, but at once claimed her wrapt attention.

She touched the burlap curtain and peeked under it. She gingerly fingered the rustic basket that held a bunch of wild flowers and hid the gla.s.s jar of water, she smiled real approval at the wood's fern in the rugged nail-keg that offset the center, and a little sigh escaped Peg as she turned to the tent.

The new wood floor was fragrant as the pines, and as it was raised to make it safe from dampness the two "carpentered" steps with the doormat at top seemed very inviting indeed.

The girl ventured under the canvas and stood as if spellbound.

"Scouts!" she was thinking. "And I was the only Scout here till they came with all this."

The cots were still covered with burlap, and the little foot rugs were rolled in a bundle with some of Cleo's precious cretonnes. Peg just touched all this with her brown fingers, and in a girl's way smiled at this or frowned at that, as the fancy struck her.

A shrill whistle from the first lake steamer startled Peg as if she had been detected in her stolen inspection, and poking her head out of the tent to make sure the coast was clear, she jumped down the two white steps and made for the path, safe and unseen even by the girls from Camp Norm, who were just starting out for their nature hike. Peg quickly lost herself in the elderbrush lane that wound through the woods leading up to her own bungalow.

A big s.h.a.ggy collie ran out to meet her. She patted him fondly and he "wagged her" along to the door, where a woman stood waiting. She was related to the girl, that was obvious, for she had the same high toss to her head, and the same snapping black eyes, also the pure white hair showed the original color must have been black to have changed to white so early.

"Peggie, dear, where have you been?" asked the woman. Her voice was low and well-modulated.

"Just down to see the new camp," replied the girl. "Had your breakfast?"

"No, I waited for you. I do hope, Peggie," there was a note of entreaty in her words, "that you are not doing anything--risky."

"Ramrods and toothpicks!" exclaimed the girl. "Anything risky! Why, Carrie, I went down to see the new camp--the Girl Scouts, you know."

"Oh yes. Those little girls who wear the uniform?"

"Uh--ha: the girls who wear a perpetual smile and several dollars'

worth of necktie," replied Peg, a bit sarcastically.

"I am sure they look very neat and tidy, and I hope you are going to make friends with them," ventured Aunt Carrie, vindictively.

"Now, please don't start pestering me with that sort of thing,"

protested the girl. "You know I don't want to make friends with any girls."

"You are so foolish, dear, and I fear sometimes you are going to extremes with----"

"Now, Carrie! Don't be cross, please. Just let me have my way for this one little summer and the time will be up. Then, if you want me to, I'll curl my hair if I have to sleep on the rolling-pin with the ends wound round it." She laughed gaily at this prospect.

"Come in to breakfast. s.h.a.g has had his and we have such lovely berries. Come along, girlie," directed the aunt, and she wound an arm over the shoulder that pressed up to her affectionately.

s.h.a.g, the big collie, took up his post at the door. The bungalow was unique in type, if bungalows are ever alike, and the pine trees that sheltered and brushed its roof with a sibilant swish, hummed now a pretty tuneless whisper. The place was hidden against a rocky ledge and not until one stood squarely in front of the unpainted log cabin was the building really visible, in its nest of trees and brush.

Some few years before a man with his little daughter and his sister came up to the hills. He stayed at the Tippiturn House while he built this bungalow. Then he took his daughter Peggie and his sister Caroline to the house in the hills, where he lived apart from all the natives and cottagers. This was Horace Ramsdell, Peggie's father, but few people had cause to remember the name, for the owner lived aloof from others and made few friends even in the village.

With all this he was a very pleasant man, fond of animals, kind to youngsters and generous in payment for any service. He died suddenly the year before the Scouts found their way into Tamarack Hills, where they crossed the path of Peg, the now fifteen-year-old daughter.

She followed her father's footsteps in living alone, and in the matter of shunning companions, but she could not avoid making friends, as Pete the boatman had already a.s.sured the Girl Scouts.

Her queer ways, defiance of dress codes, and above all her fondness for horseback riding, naturally stirred up criticism, but Peg was as oblivious of this as she was of the taunts so often flung at her by school girls, whose companions.h.i.+p she seemed to ignore.

"Fly-away Peg," they called her, and the way she "flew to school" on her blue roan might easily have merited the caption. But to Morton School from Tamarack Hills was a long distance, mostly covered by woodlands, and when others came in autos or by wagon, why shouldn't Peg come on horseback?

She should and she did, with a smile for the Fly-away Peg, and some fruit, winter and summer, for the old janitor who took care of her horse during the school session.

There was something incongruous in her att.i.tude. She was so lively and rollicking with anyone who would not follow up the familiarity, but just as soon as one would threaten to call at her bungalow, or would ask her to call at theirs, Peg seemed to take fright and would scurry off like some woodland thing jealous of its hiding place.

No tradesman ever got past the door of her cabin; not even good old Doctor Rowan was brought inside when once he called to pay a professional visit on Aunt Carrie.