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The Meadow-Brook

Girls Under Canvas

OR

Fun and Frolic in the Summer Camp

By

JANET ALDRIDGE

Author of The Meadow-Brook Girls Across Country, The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat, etc.

Illustrated

Philadelphia
Henry Altemus Company

1913

"I go, I thtay!"

CONTENTS

The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

CHAPTER I

CRAZY JANE'S WILD DRIVE

"Tommy, what are you doing?" demanded Margery Brown, shaking back a lock of unruly hair from her flushed face.

"Conthulting the Oracle," lisped Grace Thompson, more familiarly known among her friends as Tommy.

"I should think you would prefer to cool off in the shade after that climb up the hill. I'm perishing. If you knew what sight you are you'd come in out of the sun, wouldn't she, Hazel?"

Hazel Holland regarded Margery solemnly.

"You are a sight yourself, Buster. Your face is as red as a beet. I wish you might see yourself in a looking glass."

Buster tossed her head disdainfully. "I'm not a sight," she declared.

"I'll leave it to Tommy if your face isn't positively crimson." But Tommy was too fully absorbed in her present occupation to give heed to the remark. "I'm sorry Harriet isn't here," continued Hazel, seeing that Tommy had not heard her.

"Why isn't she here?" asked Margery.

"Harriet is helping her mother," replied Hazel. "She always has something to do at home. She is a much better girl than either you or I, Buster. Harriet is always thinking of others instead of herself."

"Well, she's older. She is sixteen and I am only fourteen. By the time I'm her age I will settle down, too," declared Margery wisely.

"Wearing spectacles and darning socks," smiled Hazel.

Margery shook her head vehemently.

"Wouldn't it be awful!" she queried.

"Oh, I am not so sure of that," replied Hazel. "I like to keep house. Every girl ought to know all about housekeeping. Do you know how to cook?"

"No. I don't want to know either, not even plain cooking," retorted Margery. "Plain cooking may be all right for plain people, but——"

"Buster!" rebuked Hazel. "I am amazed to hear you talk that way. That is like Crazy Jane. You don't want to be called another 'Crazy Jane,' do you? You will be if you persist in saying such silly things."

"Why don't you lecture Tommy?" demanded Margery, her eyes snapping threateningly. "Tommy doesn't know a biscuit from an apple dumpling until she gets it in her mouth."

"Tommy, please come in out of the heat," begged Hazel. "What are you doing out there?"

"Telling my fortune," answered Tommy without raising her head from her task. Hazel observed that Tommy was pulling a daisy apart. A heap of daisies that she had pulled up by the roots, lay in her lap, regardless of the dirt that was accumulating on her stiffly starched white dress. One by one Tommy pulled the daisy petals from the flower, muttering rhythmically to herself.

"Consulting the Oracle," sniffed Buster. "Did you ever hear of anything so silly?"

"We all do silly things," answered Hazel wisely.

"I go, I thtay; I go, I thtay; I go, I thtay; I go—Oh!" Tommy glanced up with an expression of disgust on her face.

"Didn't it come out to suit you?" smiled Hazel Holland.

"No," pouted Tommy, screwing up her small face. When animated, Grace's was an impish face, made more so by the upward tilt of a much freckled nose.

"Go where?" I questioned Margery, now evincing a mild interest in Tommy's affairs.

"To the thea thhore."

"Oh, the sea shore," nodded Hazel.

"Yeth. The daithy theth tho. I'm going with my father and mother. But I don't want to go. I want to thtay here with the girlth," pouted Tommy.

"I should think you would be happy to think you are going to the sea shore. Most girls would be," reminded Hazel.

"It must cost a lot of money to go to the sea shore," remarked Margery Brown.

Tommy bobbed her head vigorously.

"Yeth. My father hath lotth of money, I thuppothe. But I don't care. I don't want to go."

"When do you go?"

"I don't know, Hathel. The Oracle thayth I'm going."

The Oracle having settled the question, no further doubts remained in the mind of little Grace Thompson.

Grace's father was a lawyer. Both he and the girl's mother had inherited fortunes, and Grace being an only child had much, finer clothes than any of her companions in the little New Hampshire town of Meadow-Brook.

Hazel Holland and Margery Brown were the daughters of village merchants, the former's father being a druggist, while the father of the latter owned a fairly prosperous grocery business.

The fourth member of this little quartette, Harriet Burrell, was not so fortunately situated as were her three friends. Harriet's father was a bookkeeper in the local bank, and on his moderate salary was doing his best to give his daughter and younger son an education. His salary was barely sufficient to do this and at the same time support his family, small as it was.

It was Harriet's ambition to go to college. She was now sixteen years old. In two more years she would finish her course at the high school. From that point on, the way did not look particularly bright, so far as continuing her education was concerned.

In the meantime Harriet Burrell was living the wholesome life that her environment made possible. She was a strong, healthy, buoyant girl, full of life and spirits, popular with everyone who knew her, and a superior being in the estimation of the three girls who were her close friends, even though she was unable to dress as well as they or to do other things that were easily within the means of the parents of Grace, Hazel and Margery.

The four girls were together much of the time, quarreling and making up almost in the same breath, even stubborn little Tommy giving way to the kinder and more mature disposition of Harriet Burrell. As Hazel had already said, Harriet at that moment was at home helping her mother, even though the fields, the trees and the nodding daisies were calling loudly to her.

"Must you go if you do not wish to!" Margery was asking.

"I gueth not; not if I don't want to, and I don't," declared Grace with emphasis.

"She thinks she can have more fun with us four girls this summer. Still, she should go if her folks wish her to do so," nodded Hazel thoughtfully. "Don't you say so, Buster?"

"No, I don't," declared Margery with some warmth. "In her place I should do just what I liked best. Then again, it wouldn't be fair for Tommy to go away like that and leave us all alone here to mope through the summer. That's right, Tommy. Tell them you won't go unless—unless you can take us along too."

"Margery!" rebuked Hazel severely. "That wasn't a nice thing to say. That shows a selfish spirit. If Harriet were here I know she would tell you the same thing. I am sure you didn't mean it that way."

"Harriet wouldn't," protested Buster. "She doesn't put on a solemn face and read people lectures. No, Hazel Holland, she doesn't do anything of the sort. There's some one coming," exclaimed the girl, suddenly changing the subject.

"I see her. It is Miss Elting," answered Hazel, her eyes growing bright. "She is coming up to see us, I do believe."

"Yeth, it'th Mith Elting," decided Grace, screwing up her little face and looking inquiringly at the newcomer who was leisurely making her way along the road in their direction. 441 wonder what she wantth."

"Miss Elting is coming up to join us, of course," replied Hazel. "And you see if she doesn't have something fine to suggest. Harriet is going to miss something, I know."

Miss Elting was one of the younger teachers in the Meadow-Brook High School, a leader in the girls' sports and very popular with them. But of all the pupils in the school her favorites were perhaps the four girls to three of whom the reader already has been introduced. Miss Elting called them "The Little Big Four." The young teacher exerted a great influence over the four Meadow-Brook Girls; she had been especially helpful to Harriet and a closer relation than that of teacher and pupil existed between the two. Both were passionately fond of Nature. They loved the fields, the woods and the waters and many a care-free happy hour they had spent together in the open. Hazel, Margery and Grace frequently accompanied them, though in such instances Harriet and Miss Elting usually found it necessary to cut short their outing because Margery "got all flustered up" from the heat and Tommy's feet usually hurt her.

They had recognized Miss Elting approaching some distance down the road that lay at the foot of the hill upon which the three girls had gone to spend a few leisure hours.

"Hoo-oo!" called Hazel, springing up and waving her handkerchief to attract Miss Elting's attention. The teacher saw them they thought; she appeared to be waving her hand at them, though the distance was so great that they could not be certain of this.

"I'm going to meet her," exclaimed Tommy, springing to her feet. "You thtay here." Tommy started off, scattering a lapful of daisies about her as she ran, then fled down the hill in a series of leaps, her white shoe ties brushing the tops of the daisies and sending the latter into a nodding sea of protest.

"Grace! Grace, come back!" cried Hazel.

"Isn't she a tomboy!" scoffed Margery. "Her nickname suits her."

Tommy was moving too rapidly at that moment to turn back, even though she had wished to do so. So fast was her gait that she appeared to have lost control of herself. Her little white-shod feet were working like parts of a machine driven at high speed. Her voice floated up to them in a shrill wail.

"Thave me! I'm going to fall," she cried. Then she disappeared from view as she sprawled face downward with arms thrust forward among the daisies and tall grass.

"Oh! She is hurt," cried Hazel in alarm.

"No, she isn't. Don't get excited," answered Margery calmly. "You don't know Tommy if you think a little tumble like that could harm her. See, there she goes."

Sure enough, Grace was on her feet again racing down the hill at the same reckless pace as before. She reached the foot of the hill without further mishap, hesitated a second or so at the fence, and then vaulted over it. For a moment, she was out of sight in the ditch beside the road, then she was seen clambering into the dusty highway.

Hazel was laughing.

"You couldn't do that, Buster, I'll warrant."

"I am sure I don't want to," answered Margery stretching out comfortably with her hands supporting her head. "I'm no circus performer."

Hazel uttered a little exclamation.

"Look Margery! Look!" she cried.

"Well, what is it? I don't see anything," replied Margery petulantly, raising herself on one elbow, gazing listlessly down into the valley where the village lay baking under the hot June sun.

"It's a special," cried Hazel. "See, the cars are orange colored. Aren't they pretty? I never saw anything more attractive."

Margery turned up her nose disdainfully.

"I don't see anything about a railroad train to get excited over," she answered, lying back in the shade of the maple tree, beneath which the girls had been resting for the past hour or so.

That the special train rushing down the valley, would make no stop at Meadow-Brook, Hazel could plainly see. Trains that were to stop there always slowed down before reaching the second crossing west of the village. This one had not done so. No sooner had Hazel observed this than she caught sight of something else, something that set her nerves all a tingle. A huge cloud of dust was rolling down the highway near the railroad tracks. That this cloud was not caused by the train was plain to the watching girl. Soon she was able to make out the outlines of an automobile in the cloud of dust. The train was but a short distance away. Each was making for the crossing, where the highway and railroad tracks met. Hazel did not believe the driver of the motor car was aware that the train was so close, even if the driver knew of its presence at all, for no train was due to pass through Meadow-Brook at that hour.

The color suddenly left Hazel Holland's face.

"Quick! Quick! Look!" she gasped.

"It's too hot to keep bobbing up and down," returned Margery indifferently.

"But look! Look!"

"Tell me about it, Hazel, dear. You do not have to get up to see. I do."

"Oh? Buster, there's going to be a collision."

"Eh? What?" Buster was on her feet instantly.

"The train is going to hit the automobile!"

Margery's face paled. Her breath came more quickly. Her eyes grew large and wondering. The power of speech seemed suddenly to have left her. They had forgotten all about Grace Thompson in the greater interest of the moment. Margery shivered with apprehension while beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead. She was staring in terror at the onrushing car.

"Oh!" she shuddered. "There'll surely be a collision."

"Look! The chauffeur doesn't see the train on account of the dust. Don't you see the dust rising in the road ahead of the automobile? The wind is blowing it up ahead and the machine is kicking it up behind. Hoo-oo! Hoo-oo!" cried the girl, frantically waving her handkerchief to attract the attention of the driver of the car, at the same time pointing to the rapidly approaching train.

Instead of slackening speed, the driver of the motor car appeared to be putting on more. The car was rapidly nearing the railroad crossing. So was the train.

"Oh, I can't look at it," cried Margery, throwing herself on the ground and burying her face in her arms.

Hazel stood perfectly rigid. She scarcely breathed. Her eyes were wide and staring.

"Ha—as it hap-p-pened?" faltered Margery.

"No-o-o. Oh! The driver is going to be killed! Oh, oh!"

For one awful second the motor car and engine of the special were swallowed up in a cloud of dust, then out of the cloud darted the locomotive on one side. On the other dashed the automobile, still on four wheels, continuing at the same reckless speed along the highway.

Hazel uttered a little scream.

"He's made it. Oh!" She sank to the ground pale and trembling. Margery raised a very red, very scared face.

"Wa—as he killed?"

"No."

"Oh, fudge! Why didn't you scare me to death while you were——"

"Look Oh, look!"

"I won't," declared Margery firmly. "Go crazy if you wish. I won't."

"It's Tommy!"

Buster bobbed up in a fresh panic.

The "man" in the motor car was gazing up at the girls waving one hand to them, steering the car with the other hand.

"It's a woman!" gasped Hazel.

"It's Crazy Jane," cried Margery. "No wonder she nearly ran down a train of cars."

"Tommy! Oh, Tom-my!" screamed Hazel Holland, hopping about frantically, waving both arms above her head, seeking to attract the attention of the woman driver as well as that of Tommy.

The little white figure had climbed the bank into the highway and was now fleeing down the road to meet her friend Miss Elting. Tommy did not see the automobile approaching from the rear. A knoll and a bend in the road hid the driver of the car and the little white figure from each other. The noise of the train either drowned that of the automobile, or else, Grace thought the rumble made by the car to be that made by the train that had just passed down the valley.

The motor car roared around the bend. Miss Elting screamed as she saw it. Grace heard the scream, but failing to understand the meaning of it, decided it to be some sort of greeting. The little girl waved her arms in reply. Miss Elting was gesticulating and pointing frantically. The two girls on the hillside were for the moment paralyzed with fright.

All at once, Grace appeared to perceive her danger. She turned sharply. There she stood, her frightened face turned toward the oncoming car that was rapidly approaching her enveloped in a blinding cloud of dust. The driver and Tommy discovered each other at about the same instant. There was no time to stop the car.

Suddenly, car and Tommy were swallowed up in the dust cloud.

"Grace is killed!" screamed Margery.

"Yes, oh yes!" wailed Hazel, wringing her hands. "What shall we do?"

Out of the dust cloud hurtled the little white figure. She appeared to have been doubled up into a large white ball by the car when it struck her.

The ball rolled from the road, disappearing into the roadside ditch. The motor car lurched around the curve in the road, zig-zagged past Miss Elting, then became a rolling cloud of dust again.

CHAPTER II

WHAT HAPPENED TO TOMMY

"Oh-h-h!" moaned Margery. "Poor Tommy has been killed."

In that terrible moment Hazel Holland came nearer to fainting than ever before in her life. She pulled herself sharply together. Margery was by this time sobbing hysterically.

"Don't do that," commanded Hazel sharply, "We must do something. Come quickly!"

Hazel started down the hillside in the trail followed by Tommy during her break-neck sprint to meet Miss Elting. The latter was already running toward the scene of the accident. Hazel recalled afterwards having wondered at the time that a woman could run so fast. Miss Elting's feet seemed barely to touch the ground. Margery, mustering her courage, staggered to her feet and followed Hazel at a slower pace, though she, too, was running.

Hazel was the first to reach the place where Grace had been hurled from the highway by the car.

"Grace!" she screamed, clambering awkwardly over the fence, dropping down on the road side. "Oh, Grace, are you killed?"

A pale-faced girl was sitting at the bottom of the dry ditch with both feet tucked under her. There was a bewildered look on her small face. She was blinking dazedly.

"Oh, dearie, are you injured?" cried Miss Elting, slipping and sliding down into the ditch beside the pale-faced Tommy.

"Yeth."

"Tell me where, what?"

"My feelingth are hurt."

"She's alive! She's alive," cried Hazel, throwing impulsive arms about the neck of her little friend.

"Your feelings are hurt? Well, dear, if that is all, you are a lucky girl," smiled Miss Elting. "Did the automobile hit you?"

"Yeth."

At this juncture, Margery made her appearance in a wholly unexpected manner. Margery in climbing the fence had caught her skirt on a nail. She plunged headlong down the bank into the ditch, almost falling on Grace.

"Oh, oh!" groaned Margery.

Hazel, laughing almost hysterically in her joy at finding Grace alive, quickly assisted Margery to her feet, wiping the dirt from Buster's flushed face.

"She isn't hurt at all," laughed Margery, fixing a glance of inquiry on Tommy's face.

"Tommy says her feelings are hurt," Miss Elting informed Buster.

"Then I am worse off than she. Because I tore my skirt and hurt my arm, too. Catch me running on another wild goose chase like this one. I don't believe the car hit you at all, Tommy Thompson."

"Yeth it did," protested Tommy. "Of courthe it did. I gueth I know. I felt it."

"Stand up," commanded Miss Elting, placing both hands under the arms of the girl and assisting her to her feet. "There! Now see if you can walk. Of course you can," comforted the teacher. "The car never touched you. You must have leaped out of the way just in time. Come, I will help you into the road, then we will take you home. But where is Harriett? I heard she was out here with you girls."

"I should not be here had not Tommy and Hazel dragged me out," declared Margery. "Violent exercise is not good for one during the hot weather."

"It'th very good for you, Buthter," remarked Tommy wisely. "It ithn't good for a growing girl to be thtout, tho I've heard."

"Don't worry. You will never suffer from being too stout," retorted Margery. "You can't keep still long enough."

"Mith Elting, I've been thitting here in the ditch for ever and ever tho long and not thaying a word, and Buthter thayth I can't keep thtill."

"Why don't you girls stop squabbling and answer Miss Elting's question?" demanded Hazel. "Harriet is at home, Miss Elting."

"Yeth, Harriet ith wathing ditheth for her mother," said Tommy. "I'd like to thee anybody make me wath ditheth if I didn't want to."

"That isn't a nice thing to say, Grace," rebuked the teacher. "Of course Harriet is a great help to her mother, as every girl should be. Suppose, Grace, that your mother could not afford to hire a servant to do these things for her? In that case I am positive you would do whatever you could to assist your mother. I believe you would make a fine little housekeeper."

Grace shook her head with emphasis.

"No? Then what would you do if your mother insisted upon your washing dishes?"

"I'd drop the ditheth. Maybe they wouldn't want me to wath any more ditheth after that," replied Tommy, screwing up her face so impishly that Miss Elting laughed aloud.

"Is it any wonder that Grace and myself quarrel awfully at times, Miss Elting?" asked Margery.

"They don't mean anything by it," apologized Hazel.

"Thay, what did you come up here for, Mith Elting?" questioned Tommy, directing a glance of suspicious inquiry at the teacher. "Do you want uth to go for another nithe little walk? No, thank you. I've walked with you before. Thank you very kindly. My feet are too thore and Buthter ith too tired. Harriet'th brother thayth that Buthter wath born with that tired feeling. I geth he'th right. Don't you think tho, Miss Elting? Thit down and retht, and I'll tell your fortune with a daithy."

"If you are rested sufficiently I think we had better move on. Don't worry, Grace. I am not going to drag you away on one of those long walks. But I have something to tell you."

"I knew it," piped Tommy. "Look out! There cometh another automobile." Tommy shied from her position in the road like a skittish horse.

Just then the car that had caused all the trouble came honking toward them and slowed down with a series of explosions that sounded like the discharges of a Gatling gun. The young woman who was driving the car, brought it to a stop, leaped out and running to Grace threw her arms about the slender girl in white.

"Oh, my darlin', my darlin'. My blessed little Tommy. Did I kill you altogether? And I wasn't going a little bit, was I? But didn't I come near to ripping the cowcatcher from that engine? Wasn't it just glorious the way I dodged the old thing? I knew all the time it was going to be a close shave, but I made up my mind I'd beat 'em out even if I took off the hind wheels of my car. Get in, you dears. I'll drive you home."

"What! Ride with you?" questioned Margery. "Not for a million dollars. It's a shame. They ought to arrest you."

"Yes, Jane," rebuked Miss Elting. "You shouldn't go racing about the way you do. Your car nearly ran over Grace."

"Dad says I drive too fast. He says he doesn't blame folks for calling me 'Crazy Jane.' He says I'll meet with an accident one of these days. But Dad has old-fashioned ideas."

Jane paused long enough to brush back two stray locks from her flushed face. Her hair was all awry and her attire showed carelessness and haste in dressing.

"Well, darlin's, if you won't go with me I think I'll go and get Harriet. She isn't afraid to ride with me."

"Please don't do that," replied Miss Elting. "We are on our way to see Harriet on important business."

"So long, then. I'm off, girls."

Jane sprang into her car and drove away with a sputter and a roar, disappearing in a cloud of pungent blue smoke.

"Isn't she a crazy creature?" demanded Margery disdainfully.

"She means well," soothed Hazel.

"Yeth. Thhe meanth to kill thomebody well," corrected Tommy.

Jane McCarthy had acquired the name of "Crazy Jane" because of her reckless driving, her harum-scarum ways and her complete ignoring of public opinion. Not a few of the residents of the little New Hampshire village feared that Jane might be brought home after one of her wild drives, with broken bones, if not worse.

In spite of her reckless manner Jane was well liked. She was good hearted and very charitable, though her charity was not always bestowed with judgment Being motherless she had practically done as she pleased ever since she began to walk, and her father, a wealthy contractor, had indulged her every whim, believing that Jane could do no wrong. Jane was prompt to take advantage of this paternal leniency, though her worst offense was that of continuously terrorizing the neighborhood in which she lived and the whole countryside as well, by her reckless driving with both car and horse.

The narrow escape of Grace Thompson from being run over by the big touring car had not shaken Jane's nerve in the least. It had shaken Tommy's only briefly. Tommy, supple and alert, had leaped from the road just in time to avoid being run down by the car. A second's delay on her part would undoubtedly have proved serious if not fatal to Tommy Thompson.

But the three girls were to see more of Jane in the near future. She was to play a more active part in their lives than she had ever before done. Just now they were more interested in what they instinctively felt Miss Elting had to say to them.

"Now, listen, girls," said Miss Elting after the roar of the car had died away in the distance. "I will tell you about the very pleasant plans I have made for you and Harriet."

CHAPTER III

THE TRAIL TO CAMP WAU-WAU

"I understand that your parents have been considering your going to the sea shore with them, Grace?" said Miss Elting with a rising inflection in her voice. "I suppose you are eager to go?"

"No, I'm not. What'th, more, I'm not going. I'm going to thtay here with the girlth. Why?" Tommy regarded the teacher keenly.

"Because my dear, if you are not going to the sea shore I wish to include you in my plans for the summer. I have a fine vacation planned for the four of you. Does any of you know the location of Pocono Woods?"

The girls shook their heads.

"It is a forest near Jamesburg about twenty-five miles from here. How would you young women enjoy spending your vacations in a camp in the woods, living in tents and——"

"Really truly tentth?" interrupted Tommy.

"Yes, dear. Real tents and campfires and all that sort of thing, right in the heart of the Pocono Woods, miles and miles from civilization."

"Are there any thnaketh there?" questioned Grace apprehensively.

"No, no snakes."

"Mothquitoeth?"

"There may be a few mosquitoes. I cannot say as to that. But it is a lovely spot. This camp," Miss Elting went on to say, "is for young girls and young women, and is part of the Camp Girls' Association, a large and growing organization. You will find a great many other young women there and you will, while there, be in charge of a guardian."

"Guardian!" interrupted Grace. "My father ith my guardian."

"Oh, I don't mean that sort of a guardian," answered Miss Elting with a bright smile. "The guardians are merely the women who take charge of the girls during their stay in camp. I am to be one of them this summer. I had planned to take you four girls there after the close of school, but did not think it advisable to speak of my plans until they were more fully developed and all arrangements completed. Now what do you think of it?"

"It is perfectly splendid," cried Margery. "Won't that be great, girls? But," she added, her face sobering, "I do not think my father and mother would permit me to go."

"I am quite sure that mine would not," agreed Hazel solemnly.

"I gueth Mith Elting hath theen to that," spoke up Tommy, her eyes narrowing.

"You have made a close guess, Grace. They have agreed, all except in your case. Your mother wishes to talk the matter over with you and your father before making a final decision."

"Then it ith all right," nodded Tommy confidently. "I'll make them let me go anyway and—ith Harriet going?"

"Yes. I hope so."

"Doeth thhe know about it!"

"I have not spoken to Harriet about it. I had hoped to do so out here to-day. That is why I proposed just now that we return to the village. We shall have a chance to talk it over on the way back, when I will tell you more about the proposed vacation."

"You thay my folkth know about it, Mith Elting?"

"Yes, dear."

"What did they thay?"

"That they thought you had better go to Narragansett with them, but that if you insisted, they supposed you would have to go to the summer camp with us," admitted the teacher with a tolerant smile.

Tommy twisted her face into a grimace.

"My folkth know what ith good for them," averred the little blonde girl.

"I am afraid, my dear, that you do not fully know what is good for yourself," declared the teacher reprovingly. "You will have to obey the rules when you get to camp, and they are quite strict. There are so many girls there, that rather strict regulations have to be enforced. Every girl is expected to live up to them. Failing to do so she undoubtedly would be sent home."

"If they catch her," answered Tommy wisely. "You thay that Harriet doethn't know about thith?"

"Not yet, Grace."

The girl reflected for a moment. They had started slowly toward the village. All at once Tommy started down the road at top speed.

"Grace, Grace!" called Miss Elting.

"She's gone to tell Harriet what you have said," declared Margery.

A shade of annoyance passed over Miss Elting's face, quickly giving place to an amused smile as she watched the light-footed Tommy speeding down the road. Tommy whisked herself out of their sight in no time.

"Let us hurry on," urged the teacher. "Grace is sure to confuse the story if she tries to tell it. Mrs. Burrell wished me to tell Harriet of the camping trip that is before her."

The girls nodded their approval of the suggestion. Margery held her head a little higher than usual. She wanted to impress upon Miss Elting the fact that she was too dignified to do what Tommy had just done.

In the meantime Grace had continued her wild flight to the door of the Burrell home into which she burst like a miniature cyclone. Her face was flushed and her eyes sparkled. Her white dress was crumpled and stained from sprawling on the hillside and falling out of the road into the wayside ditch.

"Oh, Harriet! Harriet!" she gasped, flinging herself into the room where Harriet Burrell and her mother sat sewing on one of Harriet's dresses which, though the young woman did not know it, was intended for her to wear during the coming vacation in camp.

Harriet sprang up and ran to the excited Tommy, believing that something terrible had occurred.

"Tommy, Tommy! What is it?" she cried.

"The greatetht thing you ever heard. Oh, I won't tell you. It ith too good. Gueth what? Gueth!" chuckled Grace.

"I am afraid I cannot," laughed Harriet, now discovering that nothing was amiss with Grace. "I am not a good guesser, but I do guess that you are very much excited."

"You're going, too," interrupted Grace. "We're all going, and we're all going to live in——"

"Sit down, Tommy and calm yourself. You are so excited that I can't understand anything from your jumble of words," admonished Harriet, laying a firm hand on the arm of her friend and pushing Grace into a chair.

"I don't want to thit down," objected Tommy bobbing up again. "I want to talk, then I want to danthe. Oh, I'm tho happy. But I'm a thight," she added, glancing down at her gown.

"I agree with you," answered Harriet, smilingly. "Do sit down and compose yourself. Where are the girls? Are they as flustrated as you are?"

"Yeth, and they're going, too. They're coming here with Mith Elting. They're coming from over there." Harriet smiled as Grace waved an excited hand toward the west, the direction in which the hill lay.

"Tell me about it. I am growing curious. Where is it we are going?"

Tommy bobbed up from her chair and began dancing about the room.

"Oh, ever and ever tho far."

By this time Mrs. Burrell began to understand. She realized that the cat was about to jump out of the bag, but made no effort to assist Grace in telling the story. Instead Harriet's mother sat with an amused smile on her face.

"We're going away, we're going away. Don't you underthtand?"

"No, Tommy, I don't."

"Oh, fiddle!"

"Where is it that we are going?"

"Ever and ever tho far away. Way off in the woodth where the birdth thing and the frogth croak and the mothquitoeth bite you and thpoil your complexion. And, oh, gueth, gueth, Harriet."

Harriet threw up her hands, an expression of comical despair on her face.

"I give you up, Tommy. You are hopeless. Here come Miss Elting and the girls. Perhaps Miss Elting can tell us what it is all about. I am not going away. You are going to the sea shore, are you not, Tommy?"

Tommy shook her head vigorously.

"I'm not," she declared, with a stamp of her foot. "I'm going to the woodth and——"

"You ran away from us, you naughty girl," chided Miss Elting after having greeted Mrs. Burrell and Harriet. Margery and Hazel had followed her in, and were now shaking hands with Harriet, though it had been only a matter of some two hours since last they met.

"I suppose Grace has told you all about it, Harriet. However, there may be a few dry details left for me," continued Miss Elting with a severe frown at Tommy.

"She hasn't told me anything. She has tried to tell me, but she is too excited to be intelligible. Please tell me what it is all about. I am anxious to hear the news."

"Let Grace tell it, now that she has begun," suggested Miss Elting, nodding to the excited Tommy.

However, with the entrance of the teacher and the two girls, Tommy in her haste to blurt out the full story had become hopelessly tangled. She hesitated, stammered, then stopped short. There was a merry laugh at her expense.

"I shall have to tell you after all, young ladies," said the teacher. "You four girls, it has been decided, are to go with me to the summer camp in the Pocono Woods. Do you know about the summer camp there, Harriet?"

"I have heard of it," answered Harriet, gazing steadily at the speaker. "It is quite an important organization, is it not?"

"Just so. As I already have explained to the girls, I am one of the guardians. I thought it would be fine to have my Meadow-Brook Girls accompany me, and with the consent of the parents of each girl, I have arranged for you to remain in the camp for six weeks, at least, or until we have to return to get ready for the fall term of school here."

"Yeth, and, and, and——" began Tommy.

"Oh do hurry up and tell the retht, Mith Elting," she ended impatiently.

The smile slowly faded from Harriet's face, and now that the animation had left it, it was rather plain. Her hair brushed straight back from a broad forehead, made more pronounced the undeniable plainness of her features. But when animated that face was fairly transformed. As Miss Elting had expressed it, "Harriet lighted up divinely." She was a tall, well built girl whose erect carriage and graceful poise indicated athletic training.

"Yes, that will be fine, indeed," agreed Harriet. "Of course you know it will not be possible for me to go with you, much as I should like to. You understand why without my explaining, Miss Elting."

"Yeth you will go," burst out Grace, suddenly finding her voice again. "I'll pay for you. I've got lotth and lotth of money."

Harriet's face flushed.

"You are a dear, Tommy. But you know I could not permit you to do that," was Harriet's gentle reply. "It is very, very good of you, but wholly impossible. You know Miss Elting, that I could not afford a vacation such as that, much as I should like to go. Oh, wouldn't it be fine if we four girls might spend our vacation in camp together?" she exclaimed, her features lighting up again.

"And so you shall," answered Miss Elting with a finality in her tone that led Harriet Burrell to gaze at the young woman with keen, questioning eyes. "Listen, my dear. I am going to take you with me as my guest. As I have already explained, I am one of the guardians of the camp. The guardians receive no remuneration for their services, but each is entitled, if she wishes, to take one girl with her as her guest. The girl so taken would be a member of the camp, just the same as the others. She would in no sense be a charity member either. She would be on exactly the same footing as her companions. That is the way you are going to join the camping party. I am inviting you to be my guest. Your name already has been registered with Mrs. Livingston, the Chief Guardian of the camp. Your place will be ready for you when you reach there, and I believe you will enjoy your summer thoroughly."

"Now what have you got to thay to that?" demanded Grace triumphantly.

Harriet turned a thoughtful gaze on the smiling face of her mother.

"And you knew about this all the time, but said never a word to me, Mother?"

"Yes, dear."

"Oh, you darling Mother," cried the girl impulsively, throwing both arms about Mrs. Burrell's neck, kissing her affectionately. From her mother Harriet turned her attention to Miss Elting whom she also embraced in a bear-like hug. "How can I ever thank you?"

"By going with us," answered Miss Elting.

"Thay, aren't you going to kith me? Didn't I firtht tell you about it?" demanded Tommy.

Harriet ran over to her little friend, kissing her lightly, at the same time giving Tommy's ear a pinch.

"Girls, you have been in the secret all the time, too, haven't you?"

"Do you think I could keep a thecret all that time?" answered Grace. "Didn't I nearly break my prethiouth neck to get down here to tell you the good newth the minute I heard it? Didn't I get run over by an automobile, too?"

"Grace fell down the hill. She did have a narrow escape from being run down by Crazy Jane," explained Miss Elting.

Harriet regarded her little friend with twinkling eyes.

"When do we go?" she asked.

"On Saturday, the day after to-morrow."

"So soon! Oh, that will be glorious. But how about clothes. What do the girls wear? Anything they happen to have?"

"No. They dress alike, or nearly so."

"Then I fear I shan't be able to go. You see I have nothing except my regular clothes."

Miss Elting continued speaking, unheeding the interruption.

"The everyday dress is of dark blue serge, the waist is batiste lined, it has long sleeves and a large flowing bow, made of plaid or Roman-striped silk at the neck. The skirt for the large girls is plain with a wide box pleat at the back. The skirt for the smaller girls is kilted and made ankle-length or shorter if desired. The dress has three pockets, one of them in the sleeve——"

"Funny plathe for a pocket," observed Tommy.

"Now do you begin to understand?" smiled Miss Elting.

"Why—why," stammered Harriet, "That is the very thing mother and I have been working on. I've been at work on my camp dress all the time and didn't know it." Harriet laughed excitedly. There were tears of joy in her eyes. "Oh, what a goose I have been, haven't I, girls?"

"Yeth," agreed Tommy, bobbing her head up and down.

"The official hat," continued Miss Elting, "is also of dark blue serge to match the rest of the outfit. It has a white silk cord about the crown with the name of the camp in white on the blue background. I forgot to say that the emblem of your rank in the camp order, will be worked on the sleeve. That may be done after reaching camp."

"What is the name of the camp—Pocono?" asked Harriet for the sake of continuing the conversation. She was too dazed to think clearly as yet.

"Camp 'Wau-Wau' is the name. It is a Chinook Indian name. 'Wau-Wau' is a term, usually applied to a number of squaws gathering for a confab, and corresponds to the 'pow-wow' of the braves. Now you know all about it. We shall start from here on the noon train Saturday."

CHAPTER IV

IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST

"Is the wagon for Camp Wau-Wau here?" asked Miss Elting.

Four happy-faced girls, accompanied by the teacher, had left the train at Jamesburg, from where they were to be conveyed by wagon into the woods. Miss Elting was directed to a three-seated buck-board wagon. Jasper, the handy man about the camp was on the driver's seat. He was an old man who said little. It was rumored that three seasons spent at Wau-Wau had thoroughly subdued him.