The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong Part 3

And they ran, even up a hill, for running seemed to be as important as breathing itself to those jolly little Scout girls.

CHAPTER III

SHIPSHAPING

Just to show that grown folks, when they are home-grown, appreciate children's aspirations and often delight in promoting them, the equipment for Camp Comalong when it "camalong" was a big surprise indeed. Parents of the little troop, the "Junior Bobolinks" as they decided to call themselves, united in procuring a regulation outfit for the girls; and the site finally chosen was on a hill overlooking the lake, near enough other camps and especially near to one camp in which was "housed" a club of Normal School young women, secretly pledged to "have an eye" on Camp Comalong.

The girls could scarcely believe that all the freight consignment piled up on the small floor of that office could really be for them.

Corene "fell to" immediately and took charge. She ordered the others about as if she were a qualified directress, indeed, and sent each on a different errand somewhere: to get a couple of express men to cart the stuff to the grounds, to get a carpenter to cut some strong tent pegs, to get the hammers, the saws, the hatchets and so many necessary implements that it seemed the Bobolinks were not going to follow out the primitive living system of their namesakes, the little birds that sing as they fly, and seem to need the songs to propel the wings, as each fluttering movement is accompanied by its fluttering song.

But speed was the important issue with the "Bobbies," so whatever they may have overlooked in the way of real Scout endurance and personal labor for the establishment of the camp, they surely made up for with their enthusiasm and direct energy.

The ownership of a horse and wagon, or of anything that would run (at times) by motor, was all that a man at the lake needed to qualify him as an "expressman," hence the necessity of looking for more than one of such conveyances to get the equipment out to the woods in time to begin work that day.

"If we leave it all to old Sam it will get there by the end of the week," reasoned Corene, "and we must get things moving. Louise, ask the grocer if he will take these boxes for us."

"But why not take one of our cars?" suggested Julia. "You may have ours this morning, I'm sure."

"No, thank you, Julie. This stuff is rough and scratchy, and there's no use starting out to damage things. But isn't it too wonderful?

These are real army tents and there's a----"

"Flagpole!" sang out Cleo. "I should think we might have found a dead tree for that purpose."

"I believe our family made that contribution," said Grace. "Mother was afraid we would start out wrong and not have the colors right away, so she ordered a flag and pole."

"Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed Cleo. "Of course a handsome flag should fly from a proper standard bearer. I never suspected we were going to have such a complete outfit."

"The flag is at our cottage," added Grace. "Benny will bring it over as soon as we are ready. It's a perfect beauty--size six by four."

"Oh, and we can raise and lower the colors and all that!" enthused Julia. "Now we know how much better fun all this is than just dressing up at some fashionable summer place."

"Heaps," agreed Corene. "But I say, girls, we don't really have to stand around here waiting to see all this put on the wagons----"

"I would never trust those indifferent men to get it sent out to-day if we didn't just stay here and superintend," declared Cleo. "I have two promises for two men with light trucks. Let's see if either will come."

So the real work began. But it was all so novel, and the woods smelled so of the pines and cedars and larches--no wonder that spot had been given the name Tamarack Hills.

By night fall the camp site had been cleared; the girls raised a pretty crop of blisters in their frantic efforts to get things cut down. The tent pegs were all driven in, Benny and his Boy Scout friends helped with the driving, but the hoisting of the tent was considered too important a task to be left to "such little girls," so much against the ambition of Corene that piece of work was actually done by a corps of real Scouts--to wit--three very interested fathers, who came to the camp site in the autos that brought them from the early evening train.

For the sake of identification we will call these gentlemen after their daughters, so it was Mr. Cleo who ran the ridge pole under the center of the tent, while Messrs. Julia and Louise, at the signal, raised the tent by lifting the poles and carrying them to their places. It took some little time to get the big canvas house properly adjusted, but it was worth all the trouble.

"Hurrah!" shouted the Bobbies as their headquarters was finally in evidence.

"How can we ever go home and leave it to-night?" bewailed Grace.

"Folks at home are worrying lest you have worked too hard to-day,"

declared the man with the big gray car. "You must come along, kiddies."

"But we didn't, daddy, really," protested Corene. "We loafed more than we worked. There was so much to see and so many things to distract us.

I'm not one bit tired."

"Oh, h-h-h!" groaned Louise, almost falling into Cleo's arms. "She isn't a bit tired! I'm dead!"

"But Corey is always in such good form," said Julia. "This is where all her exercising comes in."

They were gathering up such tools and accessories as could not be left around on the grounds over night, and incidentally gathering up themselves, when the clap-clap-clippity-clap of horse's hoofs was heard coming over the hills.

The road was narrow, merely a way driven into a road by the campers'

use, and as the car with the Bobbies' fathers and the newly organized camp troop carefully picked their way out into the broader thoroughfare, Peg, the girl rider, came into sight.

"There she is!" Grace gave the usual announcement, and this time the girls had opportunity for a close-up view of the interesting, original Girl Scout of Tamarack Hills.

She pulled her horse up to allow the cars to pa.s.s, and it seemed to the Scouts that she deliberately tossed her head up in a defiant pose that turned her face away from them. But in spite of this they obtained a good view of the rider.

She wore a suit, the origin of which would be at once proclaimed "Western." The divided skirt was of brown leather with that picturesque fringe slashed in, so markedly popular in pictures of Mexican or Southwestern girl riders, her blouse "matched horribly," as Cleo put it, for while it was Indian in design, and also carried the slashed fringe, the material was common khaki, well washed out and deplorably faded. It might have been part of a boy's play suit, for it seemed in no way related either to the girl or to her leather riding skirt.

Her hat was broad brimmed and of tan felt--still another shade of the various browns, and again suggesting another inception. It looked a "whole lot like the Boy Scouts' hat," whispered Grace.

Surprising to relate, this girl had neither the popularly featured "bronze, red nor sunny hair," and it was dark, black actually; nor did it curl the least bit, for what fell over the ears (it was cropped very short) glistened even in the twilight.

All this was observable because in the narrow road the cars were almost stopped, and Peg's horse nosed right up to Cleo, with a very friendly whinnie.

"Dads might think we are looking for that sort of thing," whispered the conservative Louise. And if to be camp Scouts should mean "that sort of thing," her caution, just then, seemed warranted.

CHAPTER IV

AN ANGEL UNAWARES

Between settling the camp and agreeing with one another on details, the "Bobbies" were a busy little band for days after the canvas had been stretched and the ropes pegged down. It seemed so simple to wish for a camp and get it, but now that simplicity a.s.sumed complex proportions, and while it was all fascinating to the very point of thrills, yet the details were very exacting.

The tent was just large enough to take in the eight cots and to shelter such equipment as should be protected from the elements; but it now appeared there was so much to be "sheltered" and so many "luxuries" to be provided for, at the suggestion of the girls who had not learned real Scout camping as Corene had done, that the adjuncts in the way of "lean-tos" and annexes being made or proposed to be made by any or all members of the squad, threatened presently to be bigger and more important than the tent itself.

Every girl came daily armed with her Scout books, if for no other purpose than to offset Corene's objections to "cluttering things up."

It was first arranged to have a heavy matting put over the sod for flooring, and a rug had been promptly donated, but again the grown-ups had a say, and real flooring was ordered and put on a high foundation, so that there would be less danger of colds from dampness.

If Cleo could be kept from stringing up strips of cretonne "to give color" she might have done something useful; while Julia's joy in building the stone oven outside, threatened to keep her busy for the entire vacation. Louise ran to "table fixin's." She was responsible for a rustic "sideboard" made from the empty barrels and discarded freight boards, curtained effectively with the water-proof burlap, and gaily flaunting a real wood fern in a red nail keg right in the center of the top shelf. Standing off and viewing these artistic achievements took a lot of time, and incidentally left a lot of more important work unfinished.

"Where are we going to put the food?" demanded dainty Julia. "Not out there for the flies, Weasy!"