The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong Part 31

"When things crowd to the point of congestion," declared Julia, "they simply have to be omitted. I move to omit everything omittable."

"And I tally the motion," chirped Grace. "It saves time to tally instead of adding to."

"If you will all kindly line up for chow," suggested Louise. "I don't see any nor scent any, but some should be about. There goes the twelve o'clock boat."

"Comes, you mean," corrected Isabel. "It's steaming into our dock."

"Company, and on moving day!" exclaimed Julia, dancing around in shameless joy. "There comes the old Hawk soaring in, sure enough."

A couple of toots and a few squawks from the smoke-stack of the Hawk (or thereabouts) and the steamer glided in majestically, unmindful of the coming b.u.mp.

"Kids, Kidlets, and Kiddies!" exclaimed Cleo, as through the trees the dock could be seen fairly crawling with youngsters.

Miss Mackin had joined the ranks of the spectators. "Looks like our fresh air camp," she gasped.

"Allow me to do the honors," orated Isabel. "That motley throng reminds me of my last birthday party. They're all broke out in bundles."

"Wait; they may not be coming here," interrupted Julia. "Why couldn't some other camp have company?"

"Because it's our last day of surprises," Cleo said, springing to a tree stump for a better view of the dock. "That contingent is headed this way. Let's prepare."

But surprise akin to astonishment was the only preparation noticeable.

New gasps and exclamations were plentifully in evidence, and the omissions mentioned as within the rules of too full a day were now very definitely settled upon, for even the noon-day meal was falling in arrears.

"Yep, here they come!" announced Julia solemnly.

"And the leader! Can it be a delegation from some orphanage?" asked Helen.

"It can and perhaps is," remarked Cleo. "They all carry the same shaped bundles. They're evidently not homemade."

There could be no mistake now; the parade was marching up Comalong path. Miss Mackin patted her hair and the others made motions at their ear puffs.

"If we only had some grub," whispered Julia.

"There's the cakes of wheat if they haven't grown mossy," replied Cleo. "We'll get Corey to toast them."

"Mossy!" repeated Isabel. "That box has whiskers. I looked at it this morning."

"Are we right?" came a voice from the advance guard of the procession.

"Is this Camp Comalong?"

"Yes," replied Miss Mackin with a tempered smile.

"Oh, I'm so glad. The boatman was not sure. And the children hoped this was the place; the trees looked so beautifully green."

The speaker was leader of the influx; a prim, middle-aged woman whose sincerity of soul shown through two sparkling brown eyes. It was very obvious this leader loved her task.

An awkward pause followed her remarks. Even Miss Mackin seemed at a loss for a suitable reply.

"You got our message, didn't you?" asked the brown-eyed woman, suddenly. Her charges were breaking ranks at all points.

"Why, no," stammered Mackey. "Was there a message?"

"Oh, you didn't really! Then you were not expecting us?"

Her voice wailed disappointment. All those eager little children and not expected!

"Messages are uncertain in the camps," spoke Mackey promptly, getting herself in hand, as it were, and sensing catastrophe unless prompt measures intervened. "But you are welcomed, I'm sure. These are the members of Camp Comalong, the Bobolinks," with a wave toward her amazed const.i.tuents. "We will do all we can to show you around."

Grace choked on a giggle. Show them around when they were probably famished for food!

"I am so sorry," murmured the little woman. "You see we heard you were giving up camp and going to turn it over to the needy children. We had planned an excursion, and the beaches are so rough and crowded, we just ventured to take a trip up here. The sail was delightful and--of course we have brought our lunches."

The sigh of relief that travelled the rounds of the Bobbies amounted to a secret moan of joy.

They had brought their lunches!

Instantly the girls fell to welcoming the excursionists, but the children so quickly melted into the scenery that only by the promptest of efforts were the Bobbies able to reclaim the merest fringe of the disorganized parade. How those children ran and stumbled and fell over friendly bushes!

How they called and shouted! Could there really be hidden in the camp grounds all the treasures now being simultaneously announced?

"Look-it! I've got a black-berry!"

"I've got a chestnut!" (It was a last year's acorn.)

"I--found--a--mush--a--room!" This last cry reached the ears of Corene, who quickly set after the mushroom hunters. There should be no sudden deaths from toad-stool poisoning at Camp Comalong.

Cleo and Grace had captured a girl with her chubby little brother. On account of the brother and his chubbiness they were more easily overtaken than the others. Louise and Isabel were trying to keep a party of four from wading in the spring, while Julia was panic-stricken at the food famine outlook. Miss Mackin talked to the strange leader, who proved to be Miss Rachel Brooks, of the Beacon Mission Settlement.

"I shouldn't have come upon you this way for the world," Miss Brooks insisted. "But I have been promising my children a picnic all summer, and they have to work so hard--those little girls. Vacation usually means harder work for such as they, for when school is dismissed the home work begins," she declared, with a show of indignation.

"That's quite true," agreed Miss Mackin, "and I often think it is a pity that our child-labor laws do not include a continuous home survey. But again: what about the tired mothers these little daughters help?"

"True, true; just a circle of trouble for them, no matter how we try to help. So when I heard that a troop of Girl Scouts were going to give up their camp for city children----"

"How did you hear it?"

"At a conference of case workers the other day. You know we meet twice weekly to discuss our problems, and to try to keep our families out of court. I managed to get clothes from the Emergency Committee, so that quite a few children who were promised this trip could come along. But they must eat their lunches now. They are surely famished," declared Miss Brooks. "Will it be all right for me to take them over to that little knoll, and let them open their boxes?"

"We will be glad to fix our camp table for them," offered Miss Mackin with qualms of conscience, for were not the Bobbies also starving by now?

"I wouldn't hear of taking your table; thank you just the same,"

replied the stranger. "Besides, you know how they feel about eating in the gra.s.s, like gypsies. They have been planning that particular joy for a long time. Sadie!" she called. "Stella! Margie!" She clapped her hands, we might say skillfully, for every clap echoed itself with a resonance peculiar to actual skilled practice.

The girls called rounded up promptly. What a flock there was of them, and how they grazed like strange cattle in new found, verdant pastures!

And it was remarkable how these youngsters clung to their lunch boxes, and gathered flowers or treasures at the same time.