The Carter Girls' Week-End Camp Part 26

"Oh, yes, that'll do if'n they ain't no boys around."

"We uns will keep the baby fox for one of them things until Josh gits larnin' and then you kin be it," and Tom t.i.t laughed for joy.

"Is you uns ever flew?" Tom t.i.t asked Bobby.

"No--my mother is so skittish like, she ain't never let me. She's 'bout one of the scaredest ladies they is."

"We uns' maw is done flew away herself and she didn't mind when we uns went a bit. We uns useter think that when the men found maw they took her and hid her in a hole in the ground. Spring-keeper done tole me lots of times that she wasn't in the ground but had flew up to heaven, but we uns ain't never seed no one fly, so we uns just thought he was a foolin'. And you see," he whispered, "Spring-keeper is kinder daffy sometimes, so the folks say, and we uns has to humor him. But now--but now--we uns done flewed away up in the air. If we uns kin fly, why maw kin do it, too. She ain't in a hole in the ground no mo'. We uns almost saw her flyin' way up over the mountain tops."

"I'm--I mean we uns is a-goin' to come to see you. My father is goin' to take me there some day. Kin you play on the Victrola?"

"No--we uns ain't never seed one. What is it?"

"Why, it makes music."

"Oh, we uns kin play the jew's-harp."

"Gee! I wish I could--I mean we uns wishes we uns could. If you show me how to play the jew's-harp, I'll show you how to play the Victrola. Come on, I'll show you first while th'ain't n.o.body in the pavilion. You see, my sisters is some bossy an' they's always sayin' I scratch the records an' won't never let me play it by myself, but they is about the bossiest ever. I ain't a-goin' to hurt the old records."

Tom t.i.t looked at the Victrola with wondering eyes while Bobby wound it up. He had seen a small organ once and the postmistress at Bear Hollow had a piano, but this musical instrument was strange indeed.

"I'm a-gonter leave the record on that Helen's been a-playin'. I don't know what it is. I can't read good yet but I reckon it's something pretty."

It was Zimbalist playing the "Humoresque." Fancy the effect of such a wonderful combination of sounds breaking for the first time on the sensitive ears of this mountain youth. He had heard music in the wind and music in the water; the birds had sung to him and the beasts had talked to him; but what was this? He stood like one enchanted, his hands clasped and his lips parted. At one point in the music when the great artist was evidently putting his whole soul in it, Tom t.i.t began to sob.

Tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Why, what's the matter? Don't you like it? I'll put a ragtime piece on," cried Bobby, abruptly stopping the machine with a sc.r.a.ping sound that certainly proved he was a great scratcher of records.

"Oh, now it's lost! It's lost! We uns thought we uns had found something beautiful. Where has it gone?"

"Did you like it then? What made you bawl?"

"We uns has to cry when we uns finds something beautiful sometimes. We uns cries a little when the sun sets but it is tears of happiness. Can you uns play that again?"

"Sure!" and Bobby started up the "Humoresque" again and this time Tom t.i.t dried his eyes and stood with a smile on his face.

"Oh, Spring-keeper!" he cried when Mr. McRae came hunting him, "we uns has found something more beautiful than sunsets and flowers--prettier than birds--prettier than pink--prettier than blue or yellow. It shines like dew and tastes like honey--Oh, Spring-keeper, listen!"

"Yes, my boy, it is beautiful. And now I think you have found enough things for today and we must go home."

"Go home and leave this!" and Tom t.i.t embraced the Victrola. "We uns can't leave it."

"Listen, my boy! I will get one for you. I don't know why I never thought of it before. Within a week you shall have one all your own and play it as much as you choose."

Of course Bobby had to be instructed in the rudiments of jew's-harp playing first, according to agreement, and then with many expressions of mutual regard our young people parted from the spring-keeper and Tom t.i.t.

CHAPTER XIX

A DISCUSSION

August was over and our girls were not sorry. The camp had been like an ant hill all during that month of holidays. Not that it had been a month of holidays for the Carters, far from it. There had been times when they did not see how they could accomplish the work they had undertaken. They were two hands short almost all of the month which made the work fall very heavily on the ones who were left. Gwen was taken up with Aunt Mandy, the kind old mountain woman who had been so good to the little English orphan. Now that Aunt Mandy was ill, Gwen felt it her duty to be with her day and night. Susan was so busy waiting on Mrs. Carter that she never had time for her regular duties in the kitchen.

Lewis and Bill were terribly missed. They had done so many things for the campers, had been so strong and willing and untiring in their service that the girls felt the place could hardly be run without them.

Skeeter and Frank did all they could but they were but slips of lads after all and there were many things where a man's strength was necessary.

Mr. Carter was glad to help when he was called on, but he did not seem to see the things that were to be done without having them pointed out.

When there was much of a crowd he rather shrank from the noise and the girls felt they must not let him be made nervous by the confusion. Of course there was much confusion when twenty and more boarders would arrive at once, have to be hauled up the mountain and a.s.signed tent room and then as Oscar would say, "have to be filled up." The girls would do much giggling and screaming; the young men would laugh a great deal louder than their jokes warranted, and the boys seemed to think that camp was a place especially designed for practical jokes.

It was a common thing to hear shrieks from the tents when the crowd was finally made to retire by the chaperone, and then the cry, "Ouch!

Chestnut burrs in my bed!" Once it was a lemon meringue pie, brought all the way from Richmond by an inveterate joker who felt that a certain youth was too full of himself and needed taking down a peg! Now there is nothing much better than a lemon meringue pie taken internally, but of all the squashy abominations to find in one's bed and to have applied externally, a lemon meringue pie is the worst.

It was as a censor of practical jokes that Douglas and Helen missed the young soldiers most. They had been wont to stand just so much and no more from the wild Indians who came to Camp Carter for the week-end, and now that there was no one to reach forth a restraining hand, there was no limit to the pranks that were played.

Mrs. Carter felt that the job of chaperone for such a crowd was certainly no sinecure. She complained quite bitterly of her duties.

After all, they consisted of having the new-comers introduced to her and of presiding at supper and of staying in the pavilion until bed time. Miss Elizabeth Somerville had made nothing of it, and one memorable night when there was too much racket going on from the tents the boys occupied, she had arisen from her bed in the cabin and, wrapped in a dressing gown and armed with an umbrella, had marched to the seat of war and very effectively quelled the riot by laying about her with said umbrella.

The girls looked back on her reign, regretting that it was over. It was lovely to have their mother with them again but she was quite different from the mother they had known in Richmond in the luxurious days. That mother had always been gentle while this one had a little sharp note to her voice that was strange to them. It was most noticeable when she had expressed some desire that was not immediately gratified.

"I am quite tired of chicken," she said to Douglas one day. "I wish you would order some sweetbreads for me. I need building up. This rough life is very hard on me and nothing but my being very unselfish and devoted makes me put up with it."

"Yes, mother! I am sorry, but my order for this week is in the mail and I could not change it now, but I will send a special order for some Texas sweetbreads to Charlottesville. I have no doubt I can get them there."

Either the order or the sweetbreads went astray. Mrs. Carter refused to eat any dinner in consequence and sulked a whole day.

"If she only doesn't complain to father we can stand it," Douglas confided to Nan. "What are we going to do, Nan? I am so afraid she will make father feel he must go back to work, and then all the good of the rest will be done away with. She treats me, somehow, as though it were all my fault."

"Oh no, honey, you mustn't feel that way. Poor little mumsy is just spoiled to death and does not know how to adapt herself to this change of fortune."

"You see, Nan, now that Mr. Lane has had to go to Texas with the militia the business is at a standstill. He was trying to fill the orders they had on their books without father's help."

"Yes, Mr. Tucker said that father's business was a one man affair and when that one man, father, was out of the running there was nothing to do about it. Thank goodness, father is not worrying about things himself."

"I know we should be thankful, but somehow his not worrying makes it just so much more dreadful. I feel that he is even more different than mother. It is an awful problem--what to do."

"What's a problem?" asked Helen, coming suddenly into the tent where her sisters were engaged in the above conversation.

"Oh, just--just--nothing much!" faltered Douglas.

"Now that's a nice way to treat a partner. You and Nan are always getting off and whispering together and not letting me in on it. What's worrying you?"

"The situation!"

"Political or climatic?"