Winona of the Camp Fire Part 20

"I have the list," said Helen.

"Then check the things off, dear, as the men lift them out," said Mrs.

Bryan.

So Helen read from her list as the barrels and boxes were carried away, and the girls listened in awe, for this is what she read:

One and a half barrels of flour.

Fifteen pounds shortening.

("It's a special kind," explained Helen. "You can use it for cakes, as well as frying and other things.")

Fifteen pounds rice.

Fifteen pounds beans.

Five pounds baking-powder.

Three sides of bacon.

Sixty-five pounds of sugar.

Ten pounds of cocoa.

Case and a half of evaporated milk.

("And the extra cans Winnie bought to support the cat on," interrupted Louise. "We can steal those if the worst comes to the worst.")

Two barrels of potatoes.

Six jugs of mola.s.ses.

One dozen cans each peas and corn.

Eight pounds of salt pork.

"All present and accounted for," said Mrs. Bryan, as the men who had been loaned with the wagon rolled the barrels and carried the boxes off to a little tarred shack near the spring. "We'll have to buy b.u.t.ter and eggs and fresh fruit and vegetables as we go along. They'll keep in the spring, for it seems to be ice-cold."

"And did just things to eat for us cost all that beautiful eighty dollars we made at all the cake-sales?" asked Florence indignantly. She had helped make fudge for those sales, and she felt as if they had been her personal venture.

"It came to about fifty-five dollars, wholesale," said Helen, looking down at the itemized list she held. "We figured out that the other thirty dollars would just about keep us in the green things and dairy things we had to have. The corn and peas are in case we're weatherbound and can't get fresh vegetables."

"And how long did you say we could live on that perfect mountain of food?" inquired Nataly Lee's mournful voice from where she was lying on the gra.s.s with her knapsack under her head.

"Three weeks, no more," said Helen briskly. "If we want to stay we shall have to earn more money."

"I think we could," mused Winona thoughtfully.

"But what about the tents?" asked Elizabeth curiously. She was a quiet, competent little thing. "I don't see where the money for them comes in."

"That's the most splendid thing of all," smiled Mrs. Bryan, as the men began to slide ten dusty-looking tents out of the wagon. "Mr. Gedney, the Scoutmaster, called up Mr. Bryan just before I was going shopping for tents, and told me about these in case we wanted them. They belonged to the National Guard, and the State had condemned them, because they were shabbier than some politician or other liked them to be. So the Scouts were offered them at a ridiculously low price, if they would only take enough. Rather than let such a bargain go by the Scouts took them all, though there were more than they needed. And Mr. Gedney says we may use these, and needn't pay for them till next winter."

The girls agreed that it certainly was luck, and followed on down to see the tents put up-ten little brown tents in a row, with two cots and a box-dressing-table in each.

"You'll have to stow your clothes underneath the cots," explained Mrs.

Bryan. "And I expect each of you to learn how to put up and take down her own tent."

"Beads!" exploded Louise.

"Exactly," said Mrs. Bryan.

"We only have extra under-things," said Marie, "and one dress-up frock apiece, besides our camp clothes and ceremonial dresses. We don't need much room."

By the time the tents had been a.s.signed and the cots made up, supper was ready, and Mrs. Bryan summoned them to it by blowing a clear little whistle she wore. The girls had expected to turn to and get their own supper. So they were very much surprised to find Mrs. Bryan's black maid Grace, and Mrs. Hunter's Jenny smiling behind the long trestles in the mess-tent, setting steaming dishes up and down the table.

"This is a special treat," explained Mrs. Bryan. "We're all tired to-night, and we hadn't time to do any cooking ourselves anyway, so I let Grace and Jenny do it. But to-morrow morning camp life begins. We'll draw lots for a.s.signment to duties, after supper."

The girls stood up behind their seats for a moment and said grace, then sat down, and ate as if they had never seen food before. It was a very civilized meal, soup, roasts and dessert, all sent over by the mothers in the tonneau of the Bryan car, as the cooks and the provisions had been. It tasted good, but everyone looked forward with joy to real camp cooking.

"Wait till you see how I can broil venison steak," threatened Louise, as she ate a very large helping of despised roast beef from a mere unromantic cow.

"Where'll you get the venison? Pick it?" called back Winona from the other side of the table.

"No, she's going to grow it!" said Elizabeth.

"Nothing of the kind!" said Louise cheerfully. "All you do is to go out with a gun, and stalk till you find a magnificent moose feeding peacefully among the underbrush."

"Suppose there isn't any underbrush?" inquired Edith's languid voice from the table's other end.

"Then you carry some out with you and scatter it around for the deer to eat out of," said Louise undisturbed. "Don't interrupt the lesson on natural history, please. You stand, moved by the beauty of the sight, for a long time. Then, recalled to yourself by the thought of the seven starving little Blue Birds at home, you draw your revolver to your shoulder and are about to fire."

"Sure it's a revolver?" asked Winona skeptically.

"Well, your pistol, then-they're all the same thing. Just then the moose lifts his head and looks at you mournfully out of his large, deer-like eyes. You almost relent. But you nerve yourself and fire-one crashing shot between the eyes. Then you throw the moose across your shoulders and carry it home-and there's your venison steak."

"It sounds more like a venison mis-steak to me," said Winona. "I suppose you're going hunting to-morrow morning, Louise?"

But Louise had just arrived at her dessert.

"I scorn to reply," was all she said as she retired into her ice-cream.

After supper the girls lay about on the gra.s.s, while Winona and Marie and Mrs. Bryan put slips of paper in a double boiler. The girls drew lots to decide which should be camp cooks and camp orderlies for the first week: four for the cooking, four for buying provisions and policing the camp, and four for the dish-washing and preparing vegetables.

"That leaves one girl over," spoke up Adelaide, sitting up under a tree.

Mrs. Bryan shook her head. "No," she said, "it doesn't, because somebody has to look after the Blue Birds every week. I'm going to appoint Marie Hunter, because she hasn't any small sisters, and it won't be such an old story to her to look after little girls. So there are just enough people to go around. Rise up and draw lots out of the boiler, girls!"

"I'd rather wash every dish in camp than chaperon the infants!" said Louise aside; and drew a slip marked "Dish-Washing" on the spot. "If I got all my wishes as quickly as that, how nice it would be!" she sighed, and lay down with her arm around little Bessie. Louise had not a pa.s.sion for washing dishes.

Then Adelaide drew a cooking slip. So did Winona and Elizabeth and Lilian Brown, one of the girls who had joined later. Anna Morris, Dorothy Gray and Edith Hillis drew the other dish-washing slips and Helen Bryan, Nataly Lee, Gladys Williams and the other Brown sister, Gertrude, were a.s.signed the police and provision duty. At the end of the week everybody was to shift to something else.

"It seems to me the camp orderlies have the best of it," said Helen, yawning. "What do we do, Nannie?"

"You see that everyone remembers to make up her bed in the morning, you sweep out the camp, carry water from the spring. You have to see, too, that the camp is kept in fruit and vegetables-in other words, walk to a farmhouse about a mile away every other day to buy provisions. We mustn't break into our canned goods except in an emergency. You are really the people who are responsible for the camp's running smoothly."

"Carry water!" said Nataly with a gasp. "Won't we get our clothes wet?"

"Wear a waterproof, love," said Louise. "I'm going to ask to have Nataly a.s.signed to bring me all my water for dishes," she whispered to Winona, beside her. "I'm sure it will have an elevating effect on her character."