ROUND ROBIN

OTHER VOLUMES IN THE
“LITTLE
SCHOOLMATES” SERIES
Edited by
FLORENCE CONVERSE

it seemed empty

ROUND ROBIN

BY
ABBIE FARWELL BROWN

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

—Katharine Lee Bates

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE

Copyright, 1921
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

TO
Katharine Lee Bates
SEER OF TRUTH, SAYER OF BEAUTY,
SOWER OF WISDOM

God hath made of one blood all nations
of men to dwell on the face of the earth.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A Letter to the One Who Reads This Book

Dear Schoolmate:

This is a stay-at-home story, the only one in our series. We have been to Greece and Spain, to Russia, Germany, and France, to Belgium, to Japan, to Ireland and Mexico, to Armenia and Scotland and Italy. We played with the royal children in the palace of the Tsar, before their great tragedy touched them; we went to school in Paris with Geneviève, and in Aintab with Archag, and out to domestic service with Mattina in Athens; we sang Spanish riddles with Pilarica, and listened to Scottish hero-tales with the young Laird; we lived in a Mexican cave and sailed in a Japanese boat; we spent Christmas in Germany, before the War; we tramped the roads of Ireland with gay Finn, before the revolution; we followed Pieter when he fought for his Belgium; and we came home from the Italian victory in a little Sicilian cart of many colors. And now we are going to stay at home and live as Americans live, and get acquainted with ourselves and each other.

America is a palace of a thousand windows, some of them opening on the past and some of them looking toward the future; and in my letters to you I have tried to open a few of the windows that look back into our pasts; magic casements they are, for we have as many pasts as we have races in America. And two things I have tried to tell you about those races:

Why they came to America

and

What they brought to America.

Turn over the pages of the letters, if you have kept them, and you will find that they are really chapters in a short history of America’s colonists and immigrants. All the chapters are not written yet, all the windows are not opened; some day perhaps there will be a Scandinavian chapter to tell us why the hardy, industrious Norse and Swedes are here, farming our northwestern prairies, and what gifts they brought to make America more beautiful; and some day we may open a Dutch window, looking across the perilous sea from old New York to Holland.

But this time, my letter is not a little chapter of past history, for most of the young people in this story are descendants of the Puritans who settled New England and the Cavaliers who settled Virginia; and we already know by heart those two chapters of our past. Don’t we? Plymouth Rock, Paul Revere, Pocahontas:

“A cargo of tea

Thrown into the sea,

In seventeen-hundred

And sixty-three.”

Those are the keys which unlock that magic casement. You can open it for yourself, anytime. The “Round Robin” window which I am opening in this letter, looks not into the past nor yet into the future, but into the present. It looks right into the hearts of American boys and girls of to-day.

From the East and the West and the North and the South of our United States they come. Two or three, in the story, have fathers who were foreign born, but most of them are of “American Stock,” as we say when we mean that our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers were the children of English colonists. We say it proudly, we whose ancestors fought the American Revolution, whose grandfathers saw the passing of slavery, whose brothers did their bit in the Great War. Proudly, because we believe that whatsoever of freedom, of democracy, of holiness there is in America to-day, was first planted and rooted here by our ancestors, those first English settlers.

Narrow-minded and narrow-hearted people who look with near-sighted spirits through the windows of the past and the windows of the future, bewail the fact that one hundred years from now, “American Stock” will no longer mean to American Schoolchildren, English inheritance. Because, dear Schoolmate, your children and your grandchildren will have married and intermarried with Americans of Latin and Teutonic and Slavic and other blood—​with the American grandchildren of Italians, and French, and Germans, and Swedes, and Russians, and Syrians—​and who knows how many other races? But these narrow-minded, narrow-hearted, unvisionary people forget that if our America is a free, a democratic, a holy place, one hundred years from now, the American Stock will still be rooted true in the old ideals. And it is by ideals that countries live and are judged.

To Americanize a person means to find out how much, or how little, he knows and cares about freedom and democracy and holiness, and then to help that much or little grow. And all this is done by making friends with the foreigners who come to us from other lands. Making friends with people, as you know very well, means understanding them, loving them, making allowance for them and remembering that they have to make allowance for us also. It means studying their ways, and especially their ways of achieving freedom, their ways of achieving democracy, their ways of achieving holiness—​as well as expecting them to study and approve of our ways. Perhaps some of their ways are better than some of ours. If they are, then we shall certainly want to adopt those ways; if they are not, then we must do our American best to convince these immigrant friends that our ways are better. We mustn’t think that a way is bad just because it isn’t our way, and we mustn’t think a way is good just because it is our way.

So you see that Americanizing people means much more than teaching them English, and telling them about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and showing them how to use bathtubs and ballot boxes. It means making sure that they know what freedom means, and what democracy means (Do you know, dear Schoolmate?) and what holiness means; and that their hearts and souls are set toward making America a free, a democratic, a holy nation.

Look into the hearts of the children in this Round Robin, and you will find growing there the old ideals whose names I am repeating so often in this letter, freedom, democracy, holiness; you will find them in the hearts of the young Americans whose fathers were foreign born (I’ll wait and let Miss Abbie Farwell Brown tell you which those are), as well as in Beverly’s courteous little Southern heart, and Nancy’s staunch little New England heart, and Dick’s jolly little wholesome heart of the West. The children in the story would be astonished if they knew that I was saying these things about them. They are just “a bunch” of honest, happy boys and girls, off on a typical American holiday in a summer camp, learning to “get together.” But getting together is the A B C of freedom and democracy and holiness.

It is the A B C of holiness because holiness is “getting together” with God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” And getting together with God means finding out God’s will and then doing it; working with Him; building up the nation with Him. And the way to get together with God is by prayer; and by looking back through the ages and following the working of His will in His world, as we see it in the Bible, and in all secular science, art, history, and literature; and then by more prayer. “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.” That is the prayer of the nation builder, who has “got together” with God. And every American is a nation builder.

It is the A B C of democracy because democracy is “getting together” with your fellow-men: “And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Fellowship, brotherhood, equal opportunity, all these come from loving thy neighbor as thyself. Government of the people, by the people, for the people, must fail just so long as we fail to love our neighbor as ourself. Democracy means loving all the people all the time; not just one kind of people, the rich, or the poor, or the bankers, or the bakers, or the people who live in our street, but all the people, all the time. In a Democracy, every man is our neighbor.

It is the A B C of freedom, because freedom is “getting together” with the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.” You can’t be free by yourself; not in America; not in the world. Even if you were a self-supporting hermit, or a Robinson Crusoe, you wouldn’t be free. Solitude isn’t freedom. You wouldn’t be free to marry, alone on a desert island. A man is free when he is at peace with himself. But no man is really at peace with himself so long as some other man is not at peace. God made us so. Even if we are self-righteous and think that we are not to blame for our neighbor’s unhappiness, we can’t be at peace while he is miserable before our eyes and in our ears; but to have to run away from misery isn’t freedom. What does this mean, dear Schoolmate? Why! it means that you and I can never be free until everyone is free. It means that freedom is a spiritual goal; but you don’t have to beat the other fellow to it; the game is to have everybody come up to time. And to have everybody come up to time, we must all play the game according to the rule; be good sports!

And now, you will tell me that these ideals are not merely American, they are the ideals for which every Christian nation ought to strive. That may be; but America has a special claim to them, for it was our English colonial ancestors who put them into political form for us, and breathed their spirit into this government of ours which we called a Republic. We think that freedom, democracy, and holiness have a better chance to grow in our Republic than in the earlier forms of government, such as monarchy. Republics, such as ours, may not be the last word in political freedom, and democracy, and holiness; there may be newer forms of government in which people may have a better chance to be holy, democratic, and free than they have in ours; all history shows how men and governments have grown and changed, down the ages; to grow is to change. But so long as we do think that our ideals have a better chance in a Republic than in anything else, we can keep our government a Republic; for it is we who choose what America shall be; it is we who cast the votes. That is what it means to be an American.

And because freedom and holiness and democracy are the ideals for which every Christian nation ought to strive—​and this the nations know, in their secret hearts, as well as you and I know it, dear Schoolmate—​because their ideals and ours are really the same, we have, in those ideals, the basis and groundwork, and starting point for an international brotherhood of nations; the one sure way of getting together.

Affectionately yours,
Florence Converse.

ROUND ROBIN

ROUND ROBIN

CHAPTER I

THE GOLDEN GIRL

Six girls and a terrier puppy were waiting on the wharf at Old Harbor for the boat to come in. Of course there were many other persons gathered besides these; for the arrival of the daily mail boat was the great event of the little Maine seaport. But the six girls in their brown middies, flitting about like gay thrushes, seemed to take up most of the room on the little pier; to say nothing of the omnipresent pup.

Although they were dressed almost exactly alike, and were of nearly the same age, they were as different as six girls could well be. One was tall and quiet, with a straight thick mane of fair hair. One was short, dark and round, and spoke with a quaint accent. One had a rich olive skin, great serious brown eyes, and a black braid thick as your arm. One was freckled like a meadow lily, with a snub nose and sandy curls. The fifth was a slender, dainty brunette with tiny hands and feet and a delightful Southern drawl. The last of the six had features like the tall, quiet girl. But she was sturdier and quicker. There was a ripple in her chestnut hair and a twinkle in her blue eyes that marked this Yankee from her English cousin.

These two, arm in arm, were leaning over the railing of the pier, exchanging jokes with a big red-haired boy in a dory below, who was doing mysterious things with a landing net.

“Ho! There, you’ve lost another one, Dick!” cried the lively girl of the watching pair. “A great cowboy you are, and can’t catch a crab!”

“I’ll bet I could do it with a lasso, Nancy,” grinned the boy good-naturedly, “though the critters do have nex’ to no necks.” Dick Reed was always making atrocious puns like this one, which the girls pretended not to notice. “I figured I’d get a nice mess for all our suppers. But”—​he glanced ruefully at the two small red objects sidling about the bottom of the dory, “I reckon I’ll have to make it a private donation to the newest comer; a sort of peace-offering. Say, do you suppose she will like ’em?”

“Why shouldn’t she like them?” asked Cicely Vane, the English girl, in her clear soft tones.

“Yes? Why shouldn’t she like them?” Nancy Batchelder repeated her cousin’s question in her more animated and penetrating voice. “I suppose she eats like the rest of us.”

“Well, we’ll soon see,” said Dick, landing another crab dexterously. “There you are, old Sidestepper! And proud you ought to be to make a lunch for the Golden Girl.”

“Hush, Dick!” cautioned Nancy, “Don’t let any stranger hear you call her that. It sounds so—​so vulgar. You’ll forget sometime, and she will hear you.”

“She’s got good ears if she can hear me now,” muttered Dick.

“We used to call her that last summer,” Nancy whispered to her chum. “You know, she has lived here longer than any of us, really. But I don’t believe she knows the nice, dear corners of Old Harbor, or the nice, dear comfortable people as well as we do. She never went anywhere off her father’s place, they say, except to ride or drive or sail in his yacht. Though when she was a tiny little girl she used to run down to Cap’n Sackett’s often. That was before Nelly went there to live.”

“Didn’t she come to see you at the camp?” queried Cicely, wondering at the inconsistent ways of these Americans, in a land where everyone was supposed to be “equal.” “I should have thought she would be lonesome in that big house.”

“Dear me, no!” laughed Nancy. “She never even looked at us in those days. You ought to have seen her nose go up in the air when she passed us in the motor. She had girls and boys on house parties to visit her sometimes. But they came from far away, and flocked by themselves. Mrs. Poole, her stepmother, is a dressy, snobby kind of woman. I’m glad my mother isn’t like that! The people here scarcely know her by sight. Nobody likes Mr. Poole, either. He is what they call a ‘hard man,’ whatever that may mean.”

“In England it has something to do with money and not being kind,” said Cicely vaguely. “I don’t think I shall like this rich girl of yours, Nancy.”

“Don’t call her mine!” Nancy hastened to disclaim, with a little shake to her cousin’s shoulders. “I didn’t want her to come. Nobody did. But as Mother said, what could you do, when Mr. Poole wrote so strangely, to say that he and Mrs. Poole were going suddenly away with the baby, and that there would be no other place for them to leave Anne? Just imagine! He said Anne had always spent her summers at Old Harbor; and now mightn’t she stay at Mother’s camp with us girls, to learn the simple life, which would be good for her!”

“My word!” commented Cicely. “How odd! Was that all her father said?”

“I think so. Anyway, you know Mother. After she had read that letter backward and forward—​and upside down, for all I know—​she sighed and said—​‘Poor little Golden Girl! I don’t understand her father. But I guess we ought to have her here and be nice to her.’”

“Dear Tante!” exclaimed Cicely. “She couldn’t help but be nice to anyone. But why did she call this Anne a ‘poor’ little girl?”

“I don’t know,” said Nancy. “I wonder.”

Their wonderings were cut short by a cry from the other side of the pier. “Boat ahoy! Hi, Nancy!”

It was a tall young man in a flannel shirt and knickerbockers who called out to his sister over the heads of the crowd.

“Come on, girls!” summoned Nancy, who seemed to be their leader. And the little brown flock fluttered forward to the edge of the pier. “Now, when I say ‘One—​two—​three!’ be ready with the yell. We’ll start her right with a rousing welcome, anyway.”

The little steamer was just rounding the point of the nearest island. Evidently there were not many persons on board. It was still early in the season and many of the summer cottages were as yet unopened. On the upper deck was standing just one person. As the boat drew near one could see that this was a girl in a fur stole, who seemed to be looking earnestly at the group on the wharf.

“That must be Anne Poole,” said Nancy to her Club. And she whispered in Cicely’s ear—​“I’m nervous! I don’t know why. She seems to me like a foreigner, though she’s not. But you didn’t, and you are!”

The sentence sounded mixed. But Cicely seemed to understand and squeezed her cousin’s arm. These two were old friends as well as relatives. For though this was Cicely Vane’s first visit to America, Nancy Batchelder had several times been to Cicely’s home in England, the country of Nancy’s own long-ago ancestors.

“Qu’elle est chic!” murmured Gilda Bétemps.

“But how pale!” added Norma, the dark girl.

“I wish Mother would let me bob my hair,” thought Nancy, looking enviously at the newcomer’s boyish head.

“What lovely clothes!” sighed the pretty Southerner, noting every detail of hat and coat and dainty shoes. “I can’t imagine her in this rig!”

“She looks stiff and unhappy,” thought the English girl. What Nelly Sackett thought she did not say. Her lips were pursed together and she eyed the Golden Girl with keen blue eyes.

“Now, come on, girls! Go to it, Doughboy!” Nancy admonished the puppy. “One two—​three!” Six girlish voices, aided by a deeper masculine trio, burst into a wild yell. “Heia, hoia! Together! Get together!”

“Bow—​wow—​wow!” barked Doughboy, quivering with enthusiasm.

The girl on the steamer looked first surprised then interested, as she saw six handkerchiefs waved in her direction, while a little dog bounded frantically up and down like a rubber ball. She had not expected a welcome like this. Though indeed she had not known what to expect, it was all so strange. A little color crept into her pale cheeks and she bowed her head slightly.

“Some airs!” sniffed Dick Reed. Then he disappeared into the background, where Hugh and Victor were getting the motor boat ready for passengers.

The little steamer picked her way gingerly to the pier. The gang plank was let down, and presently the Golden Girl was tripping ashore on high-heeled shoes. Nancy stepped forward with a well-meaning smile. “You are Miss Anne Poole?” she said, “And I am Nancy Batchelder from Round Robin. I’m glad to welcome you. My mother was sorry not to be here, too. But she is busy getting luncheon ready.” Anne Poole stared. Her hostess was busy, getting her own luncheon! What a funny place! Then she glanced around with a start; for already the gang plank was hauled in and the steamer was about to move away. “Oh, my bags!” she cried. “Didn’t anyone bring them ashore?”

“Three trunks have come off,” volunteered Nancy, as who should say,—“Isn’t that enough for anybody?”

“No, bags; two handbags besides. One has my jewelry in it. I left them on the seat. I thought someone would bring them.” Anne Poole stood helpless.

The steamer’s bell rang. “Oh, Captain! Wait a minute! She’s left her bags!” Nancy called. Like a flash she jumped onto the steamer, over the railing, ran to the upper deck and soon reappeared with a big and a little bag, which the other girls helped her to hand ashore. Then once more she stood on the pier beside the astonished Anne, before either she or the Captain had recovered breath, or the steamer had got under way.

“We have to help ourselves and move quickly, or we get left, you see,” said Nancy, laughing at the girl’s amazed expression.

“I supposed there would be porters,” Anne repeated stiffly. “I never lift bags. But then, I never came to Old Harbor on the steamer before. Father always brought us down on the yacht.”

“It’s quite different when you come by steamer. You’ll find a lot of things different I guess,” grinned Nancy rather wickedly.

“I suppose so,” remarked Anne, lifting her eyebrows with a bored expression.

CHAPTER II

THE ROUND ROBIN CLUB

People were already drifting away from the pier. “Hugh and Victor are waiting to take us to Camp in the motor boat,” explained Nancy. “I’ll just introduce you to the Round Robin before we start. Don’t you think we have a nice yell? There are six of us, you see; you will make the seventh girl. The boys are Associates. Mother and the Twins are Honorary.”

Nancy chattered so fast that the newcomer was quite bewildered. Perhaps it was the best way to get over an awkward moment, for the Club was oddly tongue-tied. They did not all know one another very well as yet, the summer being so young. They were not awed by the Golden Girl; but they did not like the way she looked at them. “How queer these people are.” She seemed to be thinking. “I knew they would be.” She said nothing, however, and perhaps they mistook her real thoughts.

Nancy began her introduction, putting her arm about Cicely’s shoulders. “This is my cousin Cicely Vane of England,” she said.

“How do you do?” said Cicely prettily. Anne nodded coldly as the name of each girl was given.

“This is Gilda Bétemps, who was born in Belgium,” went on Nancy, drawing forward the short, round girl whose pleasant face was beaming. “She doesn’t speak English very easily yet. But she is getting on. She is going to be an American all the rest of her life.”

“I gave some money for the Belgian children, and a lot of old clothes,” said Anne, staring at Gilda with some interest. “What a dreadful thing to say!” inwardly commented the other girls. But Gilda only smiled.

“And this,” Nancy indicated the brunette of the group, “is Norma Sonnino, who is going to be a great musician some day, like her grandfather. She sings like a—​like a round robin!”

Norma blushed and rolled her eyes. “Nancy is always laughing at me,” she said, showing dazzling white teeth. “Like a round robin indeed!”

“Well, I don’t know anybody who can sing better than the round robin we named our camp for; the fellow who sings on top of the spruce tree every morning—​‘Get up, get up! Get uppity up!’ And his sunset song, Norma!”

“Grazie tante!” said Norma, shrugging her shoulders, but smiling too.

“Another foreigner!” thought Anne Poole. “That makes three of them already. What an odd group for me!” And her little nose rose higher in the air.

Norma was not a foreigner. Her people had not lived in America so long as had the people of Nancy or Beverly or Nelly Sackett. But Norma was just as truly an American as they; since her Italian-born father was now a naturalized citizen, a merchant in New York where she herself had been born.

“I am Beverly Peyton, of Virginia,” drawled the pretty Southerner, waiting for no introduction and holding out her hand cordially. Beverly had not forgotten how cold the first greeting of these Northern girls had seemed to her warm Southern heart, when a week earlier she had arrived, a stranger to all but the Batchelders. She knew that they were not really cold; it was just the Yankee offhand way. But she wanted to cheer up this pale, big-eyed newcomer.

Anne, however, did not seem to appreciate Beverly’s advance. She dropped the warm little hand as soon as convenient, and stood staring at the last of the six girls—​the freckled, sandy one.

“I know you,” she said. “You’re Captain Sackett’s niece. I used to call him Uncle Eph’ once. Are you a member of this Club, too?” There was something in the way she said it that made Nelly Sackett flush and draw back the hand she had half extended, following Beverly’s lead.

“Of course she is a member of the Round Robin,” said Nancy, clapping Nelly on the shoulder in a boyish fashion. “We couldn’t do without Nelly, though she doesn’t live at Camp. She lives at Cap’n Sackett’s, a mile and a half away.”

“The idea of a fisherman’s daughter in my Club!” thought Anne Poole. “Well!” Just then a whoop rent the air and the cry—​“Hurry up, girls!”

“The boys are getting impatient,” Nancy explained to Anne. “They’re always in a hurry. Your trunks are in the motor-boat already; three of them! I guess the boys didn’t bargain for more than one. We shall be pretty crowded. But we shan’t mind, if you don’t.”

Anne had seen two roughly-dressed young men struggling with her boxes, while a red-haired boy walked away with her suit-case. She had supposed them to be porters. What was her amazement to learn they were to be her neighbors and camp companions in this strange summer. For the bronze young man wearing the service star was Hugh Batchelder, it seemed. And his taller friend with the silver star of a wounded veteran was Victor Lanfranc, late of the French Flying Corps. While the funny Dick Reed, whom they called “Reddy,” and who shook Anne’s arm up and down like a pump handle, when he was introduced, much to her disgust, was being tutored by Hugh Batchelder at his mother’s camp.

Presently the Togo full of girls and boys and trunks and puppy, all comfortably mingled, was chugging away over the blue waters of the Harbor into a wild, beautiful section of the “country of the pointed firs.” The air was pungent with the smell of balsam and bay and sweet fern, mingled with a salty fragrance that is the breath of life to true Yankees, and which even Beverly Peyton’s aristocratic little Southern nose was beginning to love. Perched awkwardly on one of her own trunks, Anne Poole scanned the rocky shore eagerly, as they approached a high point.

“I suppose of course you know all about this coast?” said Nancy, trying to make conversation. “You used to sail around so much. We often saw your father’s yacht last summer.”

Anne sighed. “I shall miss that,” she said.

“Hugh has looked up all the places around here,” Nancy went on. “The Bay is full of history——”

“And fish,” interrupted Dick, below his breath.

“I don’t know about the history,” said Anne. “But I think I do know that Point. I never came just this way before. But isn’t that Idlewild?”

“Yes. That is Idlewild. And here is where Nelly gets off.” They were at the entrance of a little cove, at the end of which a good-sized white house stood alone. On the shore were some low grey sheds; lobster pots lay about and a dory was moored a little way from shore. The Togo drew up at the tiny pier and Nelly Sackett jumped nimbly out.

“Good-bye, Nelly! Don’t forget to-morrow,” called Nancy.

“It’s not likely I’ll forget!” grinned Nelly Sackett.

“And please, ask Cap’n Sackett about the lobsters?” Nancy reminded her.

“He’ll have them ready,” promised Nelly. “He’s going hauling, I know, to-morrow. He’ll be back by ten. The lobsters will be ready.”

“Good-bye, Nelly! Good-bye!”

“Heia! Hoia! Together! Get together!” yelled the Club as the boat chugged away; the same call with which they had greeted Anne. The latter did not join in the yell. It was too strange to her.

“Here we come to Idlewild!” As the boat drew near the Point they could see a great stone house on top of a cliff; a garage, summer houses, and the glass roofs of greenhouses. But there was no flag flying on the tall flagstaff above the boat house. The place seemed deserted. Every window was shuttered, giving the house the look of a blind person. There were no boats moored off the little pier.

“How dead it looks!” thought Anne. But she said aloud complacently—​“It’s the finest place anywhere within fifty miles; Father says so.”

“It certainly is the biggest place,” agreed Nancy. “But wait till you see Round Robin!”

“I wish I was going to be here,” said Anne simply; and Beverly Peyton saw her lip tremble. “I never went anywhere else in the summer, except when we went to Europe. I liked Idlewild.” Anne could not say any more.

“We will come over and see it some day, Anne,” said Beverly sweetly. “It is only about a mile from Camp, they say. I’ve wanted to come very much.”

“So have I,” said Nancy. “In all the years I’ve never been on shore here. We’ll all go, if you will invite us, Anne.”

Anne did not say anything. She was watching the roofs of Idlewild fade out of sight, and she looked wistful.

The others were already planning for to-morrow and seemed to have forgotten the newcomer.

CHAPTER III

FAIRY RING

Across a smooth stretch of bay dotted with tiny islets, past cliffs with great black fissures in the side; through a narrow channel between grim reefs and the ragged shore, went the Togo. Never a house did they pass. Never another boat did they meet. For Round Robin was hidden in an entirely wild part of the shore, too far from Old Harbor to suit most city people. The branch road ended at the Batchelders’ place. Beyond was wilderness. It was this very wildness that the Batchelders and their friends liked most; and because of it they had chosen this spot for their summer camp.

“Of course you know this Bay was once a great place for Indians?” said Dick, who came from an Indian-frequented part of the country. But Anne knew nothing of Indians and their history. “They had a village somewhere along here, Hugh says; Hugh is great on history. And out on that island away off there,” Reddy pointed into the misty east, “there was a terrible massacre once.”

Anne looked shocked. “There was a shipwreck on that reef,” volunteered Nancy, indicating a row of brown teeth piercing through foam.

“Better than that,” called out Hugh from the tiller, “did you girls know that this was the scene of a big sea-fight during the Revolution? One of my ancestors, who was master of a little fishing schooner, decoyed a British man-of-war right on to that shoal over there, and took him prisoner.”

“It’s not polite of you to mention it in Cicely’s presence,” laughed Nancy. “You might hurt her feelings.”

“Dear me, no!” protested Cicely. “We have forgotten all the grudges of those days, haven’t we? Our countries are just allies, aren’t they?”

“Of course they are!” said Hugh saluting like a soldier.

“Sure we are!” cried Victor doing likewise. “Ask France, too!”

“Look, Anne!” interrupted Dick, “that island out there is where Captain Kidd is said to have hidden his treasure. Maybe we shall find it this summer, who knows?”

“Pooh! They tell that same story about every island off the coast.” Nancy snubbed him.

“Well, he did hide it somewhere, didn’t he?” insisted Dick. “And nobody has ever found it yet? So!”

“This is the place where Gilda fell overboard while we were fishing yesterday.” Norma pointed out the place.

“Ze wasser was ve’y damp!” Gilda shrugged with a little frown. And they all began to laugh, even Anne, at the funny expression.

“And here’s where we go in bathing,” said Beverly, showing Anne a little sandy beach as they passed. “It is cold, oh, so cold! But it is fun, when you get used to it.”

“We had a heated pool at Idlewild,” said Anne dubiously. “I don’t like bathing in cold sea-water.”

“It’s the way we take our daily baths,” said Nancy. “There isn’t any running water at the camp, you know. There’s just the spring outside the kitchen. We have to bring in what we want in buckets, the way the first settlers did. Oh, it’s quite primitive, Anne!”

“No bathrooms then? No electric lights, I suppose?” Everybody began to laugh. Dick fished something from his pocket and flashed a torch in Anne’s face. “Of course we have electricity,” he said. “Everybody is his own firefly.”

Anne looked more and more pained at these revelations. They were approaching a point dark with fir trees, that made out into the water beside a tiny cove. There was a strip of pebbly beach, with a landing pier, from the end of which a path went wavering up the bank and disappeared into the woods. Anne caught a glimpse, through the trees, of a low log shack, and some brown canvas tents that seemed to blend in like a part of the woods.

“Here we are! Let’s give the camp yell,” suggested Nancy. And once again the newcomer’s ears were deafened by the strange cry, “Heia! Hoia! Together! Round Robin!”

There was a high answering call; and down the slip came hurrying a tall, sweet-faced woman in a blue dress and big apron, followed by two little capering boys. The terrier pup could not wait another minute, but leaped out of the boat and ran to greet the children, barking noisily as if trying to tell them about his wonderful trip to the Harbor to meet the Stranger.

The woman, whom everyone called “Tante,” came straight to Anne and took her cordially by both hands. “Welcome to Round Robin, Anne,” she said. “I am very glad to see you. These are my Twins, Eddie and Freddie. Shake hands, boys.”

The Twins stared at Anne with unfeigned interest. “Yes, her hair is a sort of gold—​” began Freddie. But Dick interrupted further comment on the Golden Girl by grabbing him up bodily and racing off, followed by Eddie and Doughboy in a tandem.

“I hope you will like our camp, Dear,” said Mrs. Batchelder, as they followed the girls up the path, leaving the young men to bring the luggage. “We have very happy times here together. Though you have never camped before, you will soon get used to the queerness, I am sure.”

There was something so motherly and kind in her manner that a lump came in Anne’s throat. She turned abruptly, in what seemed a sulky way, and said nothing.

“I t’ink s’e is not pleasant, non?” whispered Gilda to Norma. And the latter shrugged her shoulders. “I’m glad she is not my tentmate,” she remarked. “But Beverly can get along with her, if anyone can.”

The pretty path led to a quaint cabin made of rough logs, such as the Pilgrims built in Plymouth when they first landed. There was a broad piazza, however, which those busy Pilgrims would have had no time to enjoy. On it were Gloucester hammocks, rough-finished chairs, and a table which Dick had made. “This is Round Robin,” said Tante, “where we meet to eat and work and dance and spend rainy hours. A real round robin himself has a nest in the top of that spruce tree. And the Twins and I have our nests upstairs. But I am sure you will like sleeping in a tent, Anne. The boys have pitched their tents down that path about fifty rods away, beside their favorite swimming place. That is where Dick does his studying every morning. Now, Beverly, I will turn Anne over to your Southern hospitality. You will make her feel at home as soon as possible, I know.”

The other girls had already disappeared on various errands. “This way to the Fairy Ring!” drawled Beverly, with her pretty smile. “That is what Nancy calls our tent circle. They do look rather like brown mushrooms, don’t they? Do you-all like mushrooms? We are beginning to find lovely ones in the woods.”

“Toadstools!” Anne exclaimed in disgust. “I’m afraid of the nasty things. Of course, I like the ones we get in the city,” she qualified, remembering.

“Wild ones are best,” declared Beverly. “You’ll learn to know the difference. But don’t be fooled by the rich-looking Amanita. It’s deadly! Well, here’s our mushroom—​not too much-room, as Reddy says.”

They stood at the entrance to one of the little brown tents. Anne stared. “Goodness!” she said. “And I shall have only half of that?”

Two narrow cots stood against the sides of the tent; a small mirror hung from the post between them at the farther end, over a rough box that seemed to serve for a dressing table. There were, besides Beverly’s steamer trunk already in place, two camp stools, and a clothes-line stretched across the tent, on which dangled certain girlish garments. That was all. What a contrast to the dainty boudoir Anne had left behind in Chicago!

“I keep things that mustn’t get damp inside my bed,” said Beverly demurely. “I don’t know what Tante would say. She is so tidy. Your trunk will go there, opposite mine.”

“I have three trunks,” answered Anne sulkily. “I don’t see where they can go.”

Beverly laughed. “All full of clothes?” Anne nodded. “Well, you’ll never want them here, I reckon,” drawled the Southern girl. “You’ll keep them in the store-room, and be glad to get rid of them. You will never need to wear anything but this—​in Camp, at least.” She glanced down at her khaki costume. Anne sniffed.

“I never shall like it,” she said. “It’s so coarse and ugly.”

“I never shall like it,” she repeated in a letter to her father which she hastened to write that same afternoon, while she was supposed to be resting. (She did not write to her stepmother.) “Please don’t make me stay in this old camp!” Anne continued in her letter. “Mrs. Batchelder is lovely and kind. But she does the cooking herself! And we are all expected to help, taking turns at everything! And we have to take care of our tents, and sweep, and wait on table! Imagine it! There aren’t any servants; and they say it is the way the first settlers in America lived, only easier. I think it’s horrid! Please can’t I come to Canada, or wherever you are? I can keep out of the way, if you’re busy. And I won’t bother the baby.”

When Anne had finished her complaining letter she sat looking out of the tent into the trees, feeling very lonely. The Camp was silent, for it was the hour when those who wished to do so took their daily nap; while the others were expected to study or to keep quiet or to go away where they could be noisy without disturbing anyone else. Even the irrepressible Twins and Doughboy were invisible. Victor had taken them off on a small hike. Beverly had left Anne in undisputed possession of the tent. She and Cicely were going to pick wild strawberries for supper.

“I wonder what they are doing in Canada now?” thought Anne wistfully. “I wonder why Father wouldn’t let me come with them? It must have been Mother’s idea.” Ever since the baby came Mrs. Poole had acted oddly. But so had Mr. Poole. He had been different for a long time. There was something Anne didn’t understand, and it made her uncomfortable. Now they had sent her to this camp of strangers. It was very hard! Tears began to gather in her eyes, as Anne pitied herself.

Just then she became aware of a commotion in the trees outside the tent. The birds were screaming and complaining wildly; especially one father robin, who seemed to be having a fit of hysterics. “That must be the Round Robin for whom the camp is named,” thought Anne. “What a racket! You are so near the birds and things in this old camp that you can’t get away from their troubles.”

“What! What—​what—​what!” shrieked the old robin, still more anxiously, and Anne saw him flying back and forth about a certain tall cedar. Then the tree itself began to shake. The top was moving as if it were alive, thrashing back and forth strangely.

“What can it be?” thought Anne, laying down her pen and running outside. There was certainly something up in the tree; something alive. She caught the glitter of two yellow eyes peering down at her. “It is an animal!” thought Anne, and for a moment her heart stood still. She was alone in camp for all she knew. And Hugh had told that noon how he had seen a wildcat in the woods last summer. Wildcats were dangerous beasts, sometimes. What should she do? This creature was certainly furry, but it looked white. Weren’t wildcats always grey?

The creature was coming down! A great white cat-like thing, with a thick ruff around its neck, a tail like a feather plume, fur standing on end, and long, fierce whiskers. The robin kept up a ceaseless protest. Evidently he at least had reason to be afraid. Anne stood rooted to the spot with fear, while the animal descended. It gave a leap to the ground and came bounding straight towards her.

“Purr!” it cried. “Purr-miaou!” “Oh, what is it?” Anne whispered aloud to the air. But she stood her ground.

“Patsy! Patsy!” called a voice, and out of the bungalow ran Nancy. “You naughty cat! Are you bothering the birds again?”

“Is it only a cat?” asked Anne staring. “Why, it looks like a wild beast!”

“Patsy is an honest-to-goodness cat,” Nancy assured her proudly. “But our darling Patsy will chase the birds. We do the best we can. We keep him indoors at night. He has never been away from home one single night in all his little life, Anne, and we don’t let him out till after he has been fed in the morning. But he will prowl for birds. Naughty Patsy, to wake up our new guest, too!”

“I wasn’t asleep,” said Anne simply. Patsy capered across the path and flung himself head foremost at the girls’ feet, rolling over in the most engaging fashion, snowy paws in the air. “What a beauty!” cried Anne. “I love Persian cats. They are so rare. He must be very valuable.”

“He isn’t rare, and he isn’t a foreigner. He is a Maine ‘shag cat,’ born right here in the Harbor,” declared Nancy. “There are more ‘shags’ than ‘snug-haired cats,’ as the people call them around here. But we like our kitties well done, instead of rare, don’t we, Patsy? He likes you, Anne.”

Sure enough. Patsy gave a winsome little purr and ran up to Anne’s outstretched hand, as if to welcome the newcomer, and rubbed against her knee.

“You are a darling!” cried Anne, picking up the roly-poly fellow, who wasn’t so very big after all, being mostly fluff, like an icecream soda. Patsy licked her cheek with his pink tongue. And Anne smiled. It was the first time Nancy had seen her smile, and she thought how pretty Anne could be.

“He is a fairy cat,” announced Nancy. “White cats are always fairies, you know. Look out he doesn’t bewitch you, Anne!”

“Nonsense!” cried Anne, turning up her nose at the words, but stroking Patsy’s fur very gently indeed. She thought Nancy talked in a very silly way about fairy-tales, almost as if she really believed them. She did not yet know that Nancy loved better than anything else to write fairy-tales herself. And if you do a thing like that, you must at least pretend to believe in it.

Already Patsy had made Anne feel that she had a four-footed friend at camp—​which may or may not have been bewitchment. Anyway, she scribbled a postscript to the letter which she had been writing:

“P.S. Patsy is the most beautiful cat I ever saw; fine as the one who took the prize in the last cat show, you remember? Only this one is white. I am going to see if I can’t buy him of Nancy Batchelder and bring him home with me when I leave this old camp. I am sure it will be the only thing I shall want to bring away!”

However, this complaining letter of Anne’s was never sent. It remained in her pocket until it graduated from there into the fire-place at Round Robin. For it is a mistake to record your impressions of any place until you have spent at least one whole day and one entire evening there.

That first evening after supper, it being warm and dry, with a young June moon, the Round Robin gathered on the piazza; all but Hugh and Victor who had taken the canoe and had gone out on the water for a little. Perched on the piazza railing, snuggled in the Gloucester hammocks, curled on the grass mats, the Club purred like contented kittens after a good supper. First they played “I’m thinking of something.” But afterward they voted that the night was too beautiful for any game. Down in the pasture the fireflies were flickering. Sweet odors came from trees and grass and water; and sweet sounds. Now and again a little bird chirped away up in a treetop, as if his happy long day was being continued into a nice dream. The sea itself was crooning a gentle tune.

“Sing, Norma!” begged somebody. And though there was no piano or other accompaniment than the noises of out-doors, Norma was willing enough. She had a beautiful voice, full and rich and mellow for a very young girl, and she loved to sing. She began with quaint melodies in Italian, new and lovely things which the others had never heard, and could not wholly understand. Her voice seemed to melt into the night like the wind and water. Then Norma sang old songs in English which they all knew, and in which they all joined, a jolly little chorus. Anne sang as loudly as anybody, there in the dark corner where nobody could see.

Presently the sound of music came from the ocean too, where they could just spy the red canoe gliding by in the moonlight.

“Allons, Citoyens! Formez vos bataillons!” Victor’s pure tenor rose in the stirring strains of the Marseillaise, Hugh joining in with a sturdy baritone. The June wind brought the sound of the young veterans’ voices sweetly, and Tante’s eyes were moist, as she thought gratefully of what might have been. Instead, those soldier-voices might now be breathing up through the grasses of that land whose very flowers seem to sing the chant of liberty. No! There must be no more war!

Then Round Robin sang America with vim. Anne noticed that there were at least two sets of words being sung to the same melody. It is not wholly accident that makes this old tune the hymn of several great nations.

“Hooray!” shouted voices from the shore in response to America; and then the echoes woke to a rattling college yell. Hugh and Victor were coming up the path, and Doughboy scuttled barking to meet them.

“Well, it must be time for bed,” said Tante presently. “I suspect Anne Poole has found this a pretty long day, and is quite ready for sleep?”

“It has been a nice day,” said Anne simply. It might not be so bad at Round Robin, after all, she thought, crumpling up the letter in her pocket.

One more song they sang all together before they separated—​their favorite song of all they knew—​“America the Beautiful.”

“America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood,

From sea to shining sea!”

The voices rang out lustily as the campers strolled away to their various tents. And the last word Anne heard before she swiftly dropped off to sleep in her snug cot was “America!” coming clearly and softly from the tent where the young ex-soldiers lay.

CHAPTER IV

DICK’S CLAMBAKE

Anne was awakened at what seemed an unearthly hour by the sound of a bugle. “I can’t get ’em up! I can’t get ’em up in the morning!” Several merry voices seemed to be singing the words which Anne had never heard before.

At first she did not know where she was. For in spite of the hard little narrow bed she had slept like a top. The brown tent over her head, the spicy air coming in at the open door, the song of birds close by, and their flying silhouettes on the canvas made the queerest ending to her dream of home. But presently she heard a groan from the cot opposite hers, and remembered that she had a tent-mate.

“Time to get up!” Norma’s warning voice sounded musically outside, as she passed on her way to the kitchen.

“It’s disgusting to be wakened so early!” moaned Beverly, rubbing her eyes. “I wonder if I shall ever get used to it.”

Anne looked at her wrist-watch. “Seven! At home I never get up till eight,” she complained.

“Neither do I,” Beverly yawned. “But here some of us have to help get breakfast, you know. And it’s all cleared away by nine! You and I are on the dish-washing squad this week, I reckon. So we have a few minutes’ grace.”

“I never washed a dish in my life,” said Anne peevishly. She was now wide awake.

“It isn’t so bad when you do it together,” said Beverly, sitting up. “We have jolly times in the out-door pantry.”

The woods were ringing with laughter and shouts. Evidently the Twins were already up and doing, and Doughboy was helping them. A clear tenor was singing “There’s a long, long trail,” to the accompaniment of a wood-chopper’s axe. It was part of the boys’ job to see that the wood-boxes were kept full and the fires laid, and they usually elected to do most of such chores before breakfast.

Anne had just time to get into the brown middy costume like those the other girls wore, which Tante had asked her to bring. She had never put on anything like it before, and she hated the material and color. But really she looked very nice in the woodsy brown, with her fair skin and bobbed hair.

“You look more like a Dryad than any of us,” said Nancy approvingly when Anne appeared for breakfast. And though Anne wasn’t quite sure what a Dryad was, she thought by Nancy’s tone that it must be a nice sort of creature, and was pleased.

“It is queer how this brown makes you feel like a part of the woods; doesn’t it?” she said.

“Now you are a Round Robin!” said Tante, greeting her with a smile.

Breakfast was served on the veranda this beautiful morning, instead of in the living room where they had supped. The long board on trestles, such as the pioneers used, was set with plates and cups of granite ware; twelve places, the sacred number. Tante poured the steaming chocolate, which Gilda had made, at one end of the table. And this morning it was the turn of Norma to serve at the other end. Such delicious Belgian chocolate! Such eggs and rice in Italian style as Norma had prepared! Up and down went the plates from hand to hand, like an endless chain. For everybody was hungry as a bear. Doughboy sat at a distance whining gently. He was learning good puppy manners, the chief of which is patience. But Patsy had disappeared like a white flash as soon as Tante had let him out, to get his own breakfast of field-mice. Anne thought she had never tasted a better breakfast.

“Now come on, dish-washers!” With much ceremony an apron and clean dish towels were handed to Anne, and a dish mop to Beverly; and presently, with no very good grace on her part, the Golden Girl was initiated into the mysteries of a new job. Lucky it was that the dishes were non-breakable! But Beverly chattered while the process was going on, and the open-air pantry was a merry place.

“How do you like it so far as you have gone, Anne?” asked Nancy, spoon in hand, poking her head out of the kitchen door.

“It seems queer to me,” said Anne, remembering to be sulky. “I can’t get used to there being no servants.”

“I couldn’t at first,” confessed Beverly. “Down home even when we go for a few days into the country we take Mammy and old Joe and Mandy—​she’s their daughter. You just ought to eat Mammy’s beaten biscuits and fried chicken!”

“Are they black people?” asked Cicely Vane.

“Yes, certainly,” drawled Beverly. “All our servants are niggers.”

“Slaves, Beverly?” Freddie bounced suddenly into the conversation in a way he had. Everybody laughed except Freddie and his Twin, who was busy scraping out an empty jam-jar.

“Slaves!” cried Dick who was lugging in a pailful of water. “We don’t have any slaves in America, don’t you know that, Kid? Why, we fought a war to—​” Dick’s voice trailed off into silence, and for once that irrepressible boy looked confused. For Nancy was making frightful faces at him to remind him of the forbidden subject. Once upon a time Beverly’s grandfather had fought in that same war of which he spoke; while Dick’s own grandfather and Nancy’s had fought on the other side, to free the slaves. Those three young men had been college chums before the war. Colonel Peyton, a gallant soldier, had died for the cause he believed to be right. But the Union and Liberty had triumphed. This was the reason why the Northerners had agreed, before Beverly came, not to mention this subject while she was in camp.

“No, we haven’t any slaves in America, Freddie,” said Tante gently, “though some unfair things are still done, which will have to be corrected. But I believe nearly everybody in this land thinks alike about slavery nowadays.”

“I reckon we do,” agreed Beverly. “You needn’t mind talking about that war before me, Nancy. I’m not sensitive about that. And there’s only one Union now, isn’t there?”

“That’s just what I said about your Revolution,” said Cicely. “We can talk about anything, since we are all friendly, can’t we?”

“Of course we can!” nodded Tante. “That is why it is so nice for different kinds of people to get together, always.”

“Heia! Hoia!” called a shrill voice in the woods. And down the path came hurrying Nelly Sackett with a basket on her arm. She had run most of the way from the Cove, and was quite breathless.

“I thought I’d never get here before you left!” she gasped. “Uncle Eph was so late this morning. He’s been out hauling since four o’clock, and has just got back. But here are your lobsters, Tante. I boiled them myself before I came. I’m glad you waited.”

“Dick wouldn’t have had a clam-bake without you, Nelly,” said Tante. “And anyway, we are not quite ready ourselves.”

“Dick has invited us all to a clam-bake,” Nancy explained to Anne. “He has done his studying ahead and has a free morning.”

“I hate clams,” answered Anne with a wry face. “I think I won’t go to the clam-bake.”

“Oh, very well.” Nancy’s voice was cool. “But I think you will be sorry. We have great fun at our picnics, and this one is to be at a new place that Dick has discovered. He and the Twins dug the clams yesterday afternoon. Everybody is going; but you can stay and keep house with Patsy, of course.”

Anne had no mind to be left alone in the camp, even with Patsy. “Well, I suppose I had better go with you,” she said, rather ungraciously.

“Where are your clams, Dick?” inquired Tante, hailing him as he was starting down to the boat with his two swaggering partners, proud of their importance on this occasion.

“Oh, they’re all right,” said Dick mysteriously. “I took good care of them yesterday. Don’t worry; I didn’t leave them in the sun, Tante. I was too clever for that. They are where they’d like to be. Say, there are clams enough at that place to feed the whole United States, I do believe! And all as happy as clams.”

Dick came from the far West, where his father had a ranch. Everything about the sea was wonderful to him, and he was never tired of making new discoveries and serving up old ones in a new dress.

Tante looked thoughtfully at Dick. “Of course you know all about clam-bakes, Dick,” she said. “I know how you helped Cap’n Sackett last week. But—​hadn’t we better take some luncheon besides? We never seem to have too much food on our picnics; and perhaps someone may not care for clams.”

“Anne doesn’t,” Norma volunteered.

“All right.” Dick looked a little disappointed. “I thought we’d got everything ready, and for once the girls needn’t bother. There will be clams enough for everybody who likes them. But if anyone is fussy—​all right-o.”

“Lend a hand, girls,” said Tante. “We’ll put up some sandwiches and eggs in a few minutes.”

After the sandwiches were made, and while they waited for the eggs to hard-boil, Cicely went for the botany box which she always carried to get “specimens”; and Nancy, hovering about the living room, finally pounced on something for which she was looking.

“What’s that pill-box for, Nancy?” queried Eddie, the sharp-eyed.

“Well, if you must know, I’m going to hunt for some fern-seed,” said Nancy rather shyly. “You know to-night is Midsummer Eve. If I find some fern-seed I am going to try to become invisible.”

“Pooh!” cried Dick. “You are a goose, Nancy!” But just then Patsy came scampering up in a wide circle and jumped on Nancy’s shoulder.

“You see, he knows!” she laughed. “He wants to go with me. My fairy cat is full of mischief to-day. He acts perfectly wild. He knows it is Midsummer Eve, don’t you, Patsy? But you can see fairies without fern-seed, I’m sure.”

“You don’t really believe——” began Anne. But she was interrupted by a shout from the pier. “Hurry up, girls! Tide is just right! Oh, Reddy!”

The Round Robin seized the baskets and wraps and hurried down the slip where the Togo was waiting. Tante and the Twins followed. Doughboy made fourteen out of what Norma called an “unlucky number.” Patsy was not invited. He was too “temperamental,” Dick declared. It was a crowded boatful. But some of them sat on the floor and some on the deck with their legs dangling over. While the Twins and the pup chose their favorite safe place in the tiny cabin, and played at being stowaways.

It was a good hour’s run across the Bay and up the entrance to a creek which Dick the adventurous had discovered the week before. As the boat entered the creek they saw the waves rushing in a mad race to fill up the little basin before it should be high water; when they would as madly begin to rush out again, after the excitable manner of tides.

“It wasn’t like this yesterday afternoon,” said Dick proudly. “Why, it’s finer even than I thought!”

“You came at low tide, you land-lubber,” said Hugh. “You forget the difference the tide makes in morning and afternoon.”

A queer look came over Dick’s face. “That’s so,” he admitted. “But isn’t this pretty?”

They agreed that it certainly was. Along the tide-rapids great rocks were half-uncovered, and on these were little brown heads bobbing, smooth grey bodies rolling over and over in ecstatic somersaults.

“Oh what is it? What is it?” cried the Twins, popping out of the cabin when they heard the girls exclaim.

“It’s baby seals,” said Hugh. “They are doing their daily gymnastics, just as you do, Kids. I expect it’s like the setting-up exercises we had in the Army, eh, Victor?”

“I should call them sitting-down exercises,” laughed Victor.

“Maybe they are just breakfast rolls,” whispered Dick to Anne, who giggled, in spite of Nancy’s growl of protest at such punning, which the Club had agreed was not to be encouraged.

“What a place for a picnic!” cried Tante as they passed a beautiful point where the water was most rapid and where a group of pines overhung the tide, “Can’t we stop here, Dick?”

“Oh, no,” he assured her. “We have got to have the clam-bake where the clams are. Wait till you see the beach! A great place for a fire, as safe as snails. There’s the place, just beyond that rock!”

Just beyond the rock the boat drew up to the shore, a rock-strewn beach with a spit of sand below, now covered by the high tide. Hugh jumped out and held the boat for the rest to descend. “Fine!” said he. “Where are your clams, Reddy?”

Dick stood looking at the beach dubiously. “Jiminy!” he exclaimed. “I forgot about the tide! I dug the clams in the afternoon.”

“And we buried them in boxes down in the sand,” volunteered Eddie.

“So they would be happy and damp until picnic-time,” continued Freddie. “Where are they now, Dick?”

“Where indeed!” cried Dick, mournfully. “Still happy and damp, I guess.”

“There once was a boy from the West,” chanted Nancy, beginning a limerick to celebrate the affair in Club style:

“Who invited a Club as his guest,

To a clam-bake with pride;

But he left out the tide—”

she hesitated for the last line—

“And it played a low untidy jest!”

Dick finished the limerick himself, amid applause and laughter. “How long will it be before these clams are uncovered, Tante?” he asked wistfully.

“It is high tide, now, and you can’t get at them for nearly six hours,” she laughed.

Dick groaned. “Those inconsiderate old tides of yours!” he said. “Now, out on the prairie you know where you are when you are there. The grass doesn’t go ebbing and flowing down and up. It stays put. I like solid ground, I do.”

“If you were only Moses now,” Nancy teased him, “you could perhaps make the sea open and let you get at the clams.”

“Or if you were Joshua you could do something with the tide,” suggested Victor.

“If your fairies were any good you’d make them get busy, Nancy,” retorted Dick. “But as it is, I suppose we’ll just have to go home.”

“We’d all starve to death before six hours,” agreed Victor.

“Oh, no, we have a luncheon,” laughed Tante. “I had a vision that something like this might happen. I brought bacon and the coffee pot.”

“Hurrah!” shouted the Twins, who had been looking very gloomy.

“I can fry bacon,” said Dick humbly, “if I am a duffer about tides.”

“All right. Let’s build a fire in this safe place, away from the trees and grass.”

They scattered about for fire-wood, and presently they had a fine blaze under the shelter of a big rock. “It is a beautiful place for a picnic, Dick,” said Tante comfortingly. “I am sure the Indians would have liked it themselves for a camp.”

“You’re right,” said Dick. “Your coast Indians did have some advantage over our plain Indians, I’ll agree.”

“I’d like to stay here and live!” cried Norma, clasping her hands in the dramatic way she had.

“Oh, Norma! With only the clams to listen to your music?” said Beverly.

“Well, somebody else has thought as Norma does before now,” chuckled Dick. “I haven’t shown all the wonders of my discovery yet. Look, there’s sweet grass over in the bog behind the bank there. And great tall sedges for baskets. Then look at this bank itself! See, it’s made out of clam-shells. I think the Indians must have piled them here, long ago.”

“It’s an old Indian shell-heap, by Jove!” exclaimed Hugh. “Reddy, you’ve made a discovery after all. They must have been picnicking here for generations before we were born, by the size of this heap.”

“I thought it was a pretty good place for a clam-bake,” said Dick modestly. “Even if you don’t get your clams.”