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A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story

by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin · English · Gutenberg #3147 · 331,135 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story

Author: Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin


        
Release date: March 1, 2002 [eBook #3147]
                Most recently updated: March 1, 2022

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3147

Credits: David Price


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SUMMER IN A CANYON: A CALIFORNIA STORY ***


                          [Picture: Book cover]





                           A Summer in a Cañon


                         A CALIFORNIA STORY: _By_
                           KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]

                          GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD.
                12 AND 13 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
                                  LONDON
                                   1914

                          _All rights reserved_

                                * * * * *

                          _Popular Edition_ 1914
                             _Reprinted_ 1914

                                * * * * *




CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE
  CHAPTER II THE JOURNEY
  CHAPTER III LIFE IN THE CAÑON—THE HEIR APPARENT LOSES HIMSELF
  CHAPTER IV RHYME AND REASON
  CHAPTER V THE FOREST OF ARDEN—GOOD NEWS
  CHAPTER VI QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT
  CHAPTER VII POLLY’S BIRTHDAY: FIRST HALF IN WHICH SHE REJOICES AT THE MERE FACT OF HER EXISTENCE
  CHAPTER VIII POLLY’S BIRTHDAY: SECOND HALF
  CHAPTER IX ROUND THE CAMP-FIRE
  CHAPTER X MORE CAMP-FIRE STORIES
  CHAPTER XI BREAKING CAMP




            SCENE: _A Camping Ground in the Cañon Las Flores_.

                           PEOPLE IN THE TENTS.

DR. PAUL WINSHIP        _Mine Host_.
MRS. TRUTH WINSHIP      _The Guardian Angel_.
DICKY WINSHIP           _A Small Scamp of Six Years_.
BELL WINSHIP            _The Camp Poetess_.
POLLY OLIVER            _A Sweet but Saucy Lass_.
MARGERY NOBLE           _A Nut-Brown Mayde_.
PHILIP NOBLE            _The Useful Member_.
GEOFFREY STRONG         _A Harvard Boy_.
JACK HOWARD             _Prince of Mischief_.
HOP YET                 _A Heathen Chinee_.
PANCHO GUTIERREZ        _A Mexican man-of-all-work_.




CHAPTER I
PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE


                   ‘One to make ready, and two to prepare.’

IT was nine o’clock one sunny California morning, and Geoffrey Strong
stood under the live-oak trees in Las Flores Cañon, with a pot of black
paint in one hand and a huge brush in the other. He could have handled
these implements to better purpose and with better grace had not his arms
been firmly held by three laughing girls, who pulled not wisely, but too
well. He was further incommoded by the presence of a small urchin who
lay on the dusty ground beneath his feet, fastening an upward clutch on
the legs of his trousers.

There were three large canvas tents directly in front of them, yet no one
of these seemed to be the object of dissension, but rather a redwood
board, some three feet in length, which was nailed on a tree near by.

‘Camp Frolic! Please let us name it Camp Frolic!’ cried Bell Winship,
with a persuasive twitch of her cousin’s sleeve.

‘No, no; not Camp Frolic,’ pleaded Polly Oliver. ‘Pray, pray let us have
Camp Ha-Ha; my heart is set upon it.’

‘As you are Strong, be merciful,’ quoted Margery Noble, coaxingly; ‘take
my advice and call it Harmony Camp.’

At this juncture, a lovely woman, whose sweet face and smile made you
love her at once, came up the hill from the brookside. ‘What, what!
still quarrelling, children?’ she asked, laughingly. ‘Let me be
peacemaker.  I’ve just asked the Doctor for a name, and he suggests Camp
Chaparral.  What do you say?’

Bell released one coat-tail.  ‘That isn’t wholly bad,’ she said,
critically, while the other girls clapped their hands with approval; for
anything that Aunt Truth suggested was sure to be quite right.

‘Wait a minute, good people,’ cried Jack Howard, flinging his
fishing-tackle under a tree and sauntering toward the scene of action.
‘Suppose we have a referee, a wise and noble judge.  Call Hop Yet, and
let him decide this all-important subject.’

His name being sung and shouted in various keys by the assembled company,
Hop Yet appeared at the door of the brush kitchen, a broad grin on his
countenance, a plucked fowl in his hand.

Geoffrey took the floor.  ‘Now, Hop Yet, you know I got name, you got
name, everybody got name.  We want name this camp: you sabe?  Miss Bell,
she say Camp Frolic.  Frolic all same heap good time’ (here he executed a
sort of war-dance which was intended to express wild joy).  ‘Miss
Pauline, she say Camp Ha-Ha, big laugh: sabe?  Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!’
(chorus joined in by all to fully illustrate the subject).  ‘Miss Madge,
she say Camp Harmony.  Harmony all same heap quiet time, plenty eat,
plenty drink, plenty sleep, no fight, no too muchee talk.  Mrs. Winship,
she say Camp Chaparral: you sabe?  Chaparral, Hop Yet.  Now what you
say?’

Hop Yet seemed to regard the question with mingled embarrassment and
amusement, but being a sharp and talkative Chinaman gave his answer
promptly: ‘Me say Camp Chap-lal heap good name; plenty chap-lal all
lound; me hang um dish-cloth, tow’l, little boy’s stockin’, on
chap-lal; all same clo’se-line velly good.  Miss Bell she flolic, Miss
Polly she ha! ha! allee same Camp Chap-lal.’

And so Camp Chaparral it was; the redwood board flaunted the assertion
before the eyes of the public (which was a rather limited one, to be
sure) in less than half an hour, and the artist, after painting the words
in rustic letters a foot long, cut branches of the stiff, ungracious
bushes and nailed them to the tree in confirmation and illustration of
the fact.  He then carefully deposited the paint-pot in a secret place,
where it might be out of sight and touch of a certain searching eye and
mischievous hand well known and feared of him; but before the setting sun
had dropped below the line of purple mountain tops, a small boy, who will
be known in these annals as Dicky Winship, might have been seen sitting
on the empty paint-pot, while from a dingy pool upon the ground he was
attempting to paint a copy of the aforesaid inscription upon the side of
a too patient goat, who saw no harm in the operation.  He was alone, and
very, very happy.

[Picture: He was attempting to paint a copy of the aforesaid inscription]

And now I must tell you the way in which all this began.  You may not
realise it, dear young folks, but this method of telling a story is very
much the fashion with grown-up people, and of course I am not to blame,
since I didn’t begin it.

The plan is this: You must first write a chapter showing all your people,
men, women, children, dogs, and cats, in a certain place, doing certain
things.  Then you must go back a year or two and explain how they all
happen to be there.  Perhaps you may have to drag your readers
twenty-five years into the regions of the past, and show them the first
tooth of your oldest character; but that doesn’t matter a bit,—the
further the better.  Then, when everybody has forgotten what came to pass
in the first chapter, you are ready to take it up again, as if there had
never been any parenthesis.  However, I shall not introduce you to the
cradles, cribs, or trundle-beds of my merry young campers, but merely ask
you to retrace your steps one week, and look upon them in their homes.

On one of the pleasantest streets of a certain little California town
stood, and still stands for aught I know, a pretty brown cottage, with
its verandahs covered with passion-vine and a brilliant rose-garden in
front.  It is picturesque enough to attract the attention of any
passer-by, and if you had chosen to peep through the crevices in the
thick vines and look in at the open window, you might have thought it
lovelier within than without.

It was a bright day, and the gracious June sunshine flooded the room with
yellow light.  Three young girls, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old,
were seated in different parts of the large room, plying industrious
crochet needles and tatting shuttles.  Three pairs of bright eyes were
dancing with fun and gladness; and another pair, the softest and clearest
of all, looked out from a broad white bed in the corner,—tired eyes, and
oh, so patient, for the health-giving breezes wafted in from the blue
ocean and carried over mountain tops and vine-covered slopes had so far
failed to bring back Elsie Howard’s strength and vigour.

The graceful, brown-haired girl with the bright, laughter-loving face,
was Bell Winship.  She of the dancing blue eyes, pink cheeks, and
reckless little sun-bonnet was Pauline, otherwise Polly Oliver.  Did you
ever know a Polly without some one of these things?  Well, my Polly had
them all, and, besides, a saucy freckled nose, a crown of fluffy,
reddish-yellow hair, and a shower of coaxing little pitfalls called
dimples round her pretty mouth.  She made you think of a sunbeam, a
morning songbird, a dancing butterfly, or an impetuous little crocus just
out after the first spring shower.  Dislike her?  You couldn’t.  Approve
of her?  You wouldn’t always.  Love her?  Of course; you couldn’t help
yourself,—I defy you.

To be sure, if you prefer a quiet life, and do not want to be led into
exploits of all kinds, invariably beginning with risk, attended with
danger, and culminating in despair, you had better not engage in an
intimate friendship with Miss Pauline Oliver, but fix your affections on
the quiet, thoughtful, but not less lovable girl who sits by the bedside
stroking Elsie Howard’s thin white hand.  Nevertheless, I am obliged to
state that Margery Noble herself, earnest, demure, and given to
reflection, was Polly’s willing slave and victim.  However, I’ve
forgotten to tell you that Polly was as open and frank as the daylight,
at once torrid and constant in her affections, brave, self-forgetting as
well as self-willed; and that though she did have a tongue just the least
bit saucy, she used it valiantly in the defence of others.  ‘She’ll come
out all right,’ said a dear old-fashioned grandfather of hers whom she
had left way back in a Vermont farmhouse.  ‘She’s got to be purged o’
considerable dross, but she’ll come out pure gold, I tell you.’

Pretty, wise, tender Margery Noble, with her sleek brown braids, her
innocent, questioning eyes, her soft voice, willing hands, and shy, quiet
manners!  ‘She will either end as the matron of an orphan asylum or as
head-nurse in a hospital.’  So Bell Winship often used to say; but then
she was chiefly celebrated for talking nonsense, and nobody ever paid
much attention to her.  But if you should crave a breath of fresh air, or
want to believe that the spring has come, just call Bell Winship in, as
she walks with her breezy step down the street.  Her very hair seems
instinct with life, with its flying tendrils of bronze brightness and the
riotous little curls on her brow and temples.  Then, too, she has a
particularly jaunty way of putting on her jacket, or wearing a flower or
a ribbon; and as for her ringing peal of laughter, it is like a chime of
silver bells.

Elsie Howard, the invalid friend of the girls, was as dear to them as
they were to each other.  She kept the secrets of the ‘firm’; mourned
over their griefs and smiled over their joys; was proud of their talents
and tenderly blind to their faults.  The little wicker rocking-chair by
the bedside was often made a sort of confessional, at which she presided,
the tenderest and most sympathetic little priestess in the universe; and
every afternoon the piazza, with its lattice of green vines, served as a
mimic throne-room, where she was wont to hold high court, surrounded by
her devoted subjects.  Here Geoffrey Strong used often to read to the
assembled company _David Copperfield_, _Alice in Wonderland_, or snatches
from the magazines, while Jack Howard lazily stretched himself under the
orange-trees and braided lariats, a favourite occupation with California
boys.  About four o’clock Philip Noble would ride up from his father’s
fruit ranch, some three miles out on the San Marcos road, and, hitching
his little sorrel mare Chispa at the gate, stay an hour before going to
the post-office.

This particular afternoon, however, was not one of Elsie’s bright ones,
and there was no sign of court or invalid queen on the piazza.  The
voices of the girls floated out from Elsie’s bedroom, while the boys,
too, seemed to be somewhere in the vicinity, for there was a constant
stirring about as of lively preparation, together with noise of hammering
and sawing.

‘If you were only going, Elsie, our cup of happiness would be full,’
sighed Bell.

‘Not only would it be full, Bell, but it would be running over, and we
should positively stand in the slop,’ said Polly.  ‘No, you needn’t frown
at me, miss; that expression is borrowed from no less a person than
Sydney Smith.’

‘Don’t think any more about me,’ smiled Elsie.  ‘Perhaps I can come down
in the course of the summer.  I know it will be the happiest time in the
world, but I don’t envy you a bit; in fact, I’m very glad you’re going,
because you’ll have such a lovely budget of adventures to tell me when
you come back.’

‘When we come back, indeed!’ exclaimed Bell.  ‘Why, we shall write long
round-robin letters every few days, and send them by the team.  Papa says
Pancho will have to go over to the stage station at least once a week for
letters and any provisions we may need.’

‘Oh, won’t that be delightful,—almost as good as being there myself!
And, Margery dear, you must make them tell me every least little thing
that happens.  You know they are such fly-aways that they’ll only write
me when they learn to swim, or shoot a wildcat, or get lost in the woods.
I want to know all the stupid bits: what you have for dinner, how and
where you sleep, how your camp looks, what you do from morning till
night, and how Dicky behaves.’

‘I can tell you that beforehand,’ said Bell, dolefully.  ‘Jack will shoot
him by mistake on Thursday; he will be kicked by the horses Friday, and
bitten by tarantulas and rattlesnakes Saturday; he will eat poison oak on
Sunday, get lost in the cañon Monday, be eaten by a bear Tuesday, and
drowned in the pool Wednesday.  These incidents will complete his first
week; and if they produce no effect on his naturally strong constitution,
he will treat us to another week, containing just as many mishaps, but no
duplicates.’

By the time this dismal prophecy was ended the other girls were in a
breathless fit of laughter, though all acknowledged it was likely to be
fulfilled.

‘I went over the camping-ground last summer,’ said Margery.  ‘You know it
is quite near papa’s sheep ranch, and it is certainly the most beautiful
place in California.  The tents will be pitched at the mouth of the
cañon, where there is a view of the ocean, and just at the back will be a
lovely grove of wild oaks and sycamore-trees.’

‘Oh, won’t it be delicious!’ sighed Elsie.  ‘I feel as if I could sniff
the air this minute.  But there!  I won’t pretend that I’m dying for
fresh air, with the breath of the sea coming in at my south window, and a
whiff of jasmine and honeysuckle from the piazza.  That would be
nonsense.  Are your trunks packed?’

‘Trunks!’ exclaimed Polly.  ‘Would you believe it, our clothes are packed
in gunny-sacks!  We start in our camping-dresses, with ulsters for the
steamer and dusters for the long drive.  Then we each have—let me see
what we have: a short, tough riding-skirt with a jersey, a bathing-dress,
and some gingham morning-gowns to wear about the camp at breakfast-time.’

‘And flannel gowns for the night, and two pairs of boots, and a
riding-cap and one hat apiece,’ added Margery.

‘But oh, Elsie, my dear, you should see Dicky in his camping-suits,’
laughed Bell.  ‘They are a triumph of invention on mamma’s part.  Just
imagine! one is of some enamelled cloth that was left over from the new
carriage cushions; it is very shiny and elegant; and the other, truly, is
of soft tanned leather, and just as pretty as it can be.  Then he has
hob-nailed, copper-toed boots, and a hat that ties under his chin.  Poor
little man, he has lost his curls, too, and looks rather like a convict.’

Mrs. Howard came in the door while Bell was speaking, and laughed
heartily at the description of Dicky’s curious outfit.  ‘What time do you
start?’ she asked, as she laid a bunch of mignonette on Elsie’s table.

‘At eleven to-morrow morning,’ Bell answered.  ‘Everything is packed.  We
are to start in the steamer, and when we come to our old landing, about
forty miles down the coast, we are to get off and take a three-seated
thorough-brace wagon, and drive over to Las Flores Cañon.  Pancho has
hired a funny little pack mule; he says we shall need one in going up the
mountain, and that the boys can take him when they go out shooting,—to
carry the deer home, you know.’

‘If I can bring Elsie down, as I hope, we must come by land,’ said Mrs.
Howard.  ‘I thought we could take two days for the journey, sleeping at
the Burtons’ ranch on the way.  The doctor says that if she can get
strength enough to bear the ride, the open-air life will do her good,
even if she does nothing but lie in the hammock.’

‘And be waited upon by six willing slaves,’ added Polly.

‘And be fed on canned corned beef and tomato stew,’ laughed Bell.

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Margery.  ‘Hop Yet is a splendid cook, if he has
anything to cook, and we’ll feed her on broiled tidbits of baby venison,
goat’s milk, wild bees’ honey, and cunning little mourning doves, roasted
on a spit.’

‘Good gracious,’ cried Bell, ‘what angels’ food! only I would as soon
devour a pet canary as a mourning dove.  But to think that I’ve been
trying to diet for a week in order to get intimate with suffering and
privation!  Polly came to stay with me one night, and we slept on the
floor, with only a blanket under us, and no pillow; it was perfectly
horrid.  Polly dreamed that her grandfather ate up her grandmother, and I
that Dicky stabbed the Jersey calf with a pickle-fork.’

‘Horrors!’ ejaculated Margery; ‘that’s a pleasant prospect for your
future bedfellows.  I hope the gophers won’t make you nervous, gnawing
and scratching in the straw; I got used to them last summer.  But we
really must go, darling,’ and she stooped to kiss Elsie good-bye.

‘Well, I suppose you ought,’ she answered.  ‘But remember you are to
start from this gate; Aunt Truth has promised me the fun of seeing you
out of sight.’

The girls went out at a side door, and joined the boys, who were busily
at work cleaning their guns on the broad western porch.

‘How are you coming on?’ questioned Polly.

‘Oh, finely,’ answered Jack, who always constituted himself chief
spokesman, unless driven from the rostrum by some one possessed of a
nimbler tongue.  ‘I only hope your feminine togs are in half as good
order.’

‘We take no baggage to speak of,’ said Bell, loftily.  ‘Papa has cut us
down to the very last notch, and says the law allows very few pounds on
this trip.’

‘The less the better,’ quoth Geoff, cheerily; ‘then you’ll have to polish
up your mental jewels.’

‘Which you consider imitation, I suppose,’ sniffed Polly.

‘Perish the thought!’ cried Jack.  ‘But, speaking of mental jewels, you
should see the arrangements Geoff has made for polishing his.  He has
actually stuck in six large volumes, any one of which would be a remedy
for sleeplessness.  What are you going to study, Miss Pol-y-on-o-mous
Oliver?’

‘Now, Jack, let us decide at once whether you intend to be respectful or
not.  I don’t propose to expose myself to your nonsense for two months
unless you make me good promises.’

‘Why, that wasn’t disrespectful.  It is my newest word, and it simply
means having many titles.  I’m sure you have more than most people.’

‘Very well, then!  I’ll overlook the irreverence this time, and announce
that I shall not take anything whatever to read, but simply reflect upon
what I know already.’

‘That may last for the first week,’ said Bell, slyly, ‘but what will you
do afterward?’

‘I’ll reflect upon what you don’t know,’ retorted Polly.  ‘That will
easily occupy me two months.’

Fortunately, at the very moment this stinging remark was made, Phil Noble
dashed up to the front gate, flung his bridle over the hitching-post, and
lifted his hat from a very warm brow.

‘Hail, chief of the commissary department!’ cried Geoffrey, with mock
salute.  ‘Have you despatched the team?’

‘Yes; everything is all right,’ said Phil, breathlessly, delivering
himself of his information in spasmodic bursts of words.  ‘Such a lot of
work it was! here’s the list.  Pancho will dump them on the ground and
let us settle them when we get there.  Such a load!  You should have seen
it!  Hardly room for him to sit up in front with the Chinaman.  Just hear
this,’ and he drew a large document from what Polly called ‘a back-stairs
pocket.’

‘Forty cans corned beef, four guns, three Dutch cheeses, pickles,
fishing-tackle, flour, bacon, three bushels onions, crate of dishes,
Jack’s banjo, potatoes, Short History of the English People, cooking
utensils, three hair pillows, box of ginger-snaps, four hammocks, coffee,
cartridges, sugar, Macaulay’s Essays, Pond’s extract, sixteen hams,
Bell’s guitar, pop-corn, molasses, salt, St. Jacob’s Oil, Conquest of
Mexico, sack of almonds, flea-powder, and smoked herring.  Whew!  I
packed them all myself.’

‘In precisely that order?’ questioned Polly.

‘In precisely that order, Miss Oliver,’ returned Phil, urbanely.  ‘Any
one who feels that said packing might be improved upon has only to mount
the fleet Arabian yonder’ (the animal alluded to seized this moment to
stand on three legs, hang his head, and look dejected), ‘and, giving him
the rein, speed o’er the trackless plain which leads to San Miguel,
o’ertake the team, and re-pack the contents according to her own
satisfaction.’

‘No butter, nor eggs, nor fresh vegetables?’ asked Margery.  ‘We shall
starve!’

‘Not at all,’ quoth Jack.  ‘Polly will gracefully dispose a horse-blanket
about her shoulders, to shield her from the chill dews of the early morn,
mount the pack mule exactly at cock-crow everyday, and ride to a
neighbouring ranch where there are tons of the aforesaid articles
awaiting our consumption.’

‘Can you see me doing it, girls?  Does it seem entirely natural?’ asked
Polly, with great gravity.

‘Now hear my report as chairman of the committee of arrangements,’ said
Geoffrey Strong, seating himself with dignity on a barrel of nails.  ‘The
tents, ropes, tool-boxes, bed-sacks, blankets, furniture, etc., all went
down on Monday’s steamer, and I have a telegram from Larry’s Landing
saying that they arrived in good order, and that a Mexican gentleman who
owns a mammoth wood-cart will take them up to-morrow when we go
ourselves.  The procession will move at one P.M., wind and weather
permitting, in the following order:—

‘1.  Chief Noble on his gallant broncho.

‘2.  Commander Strong on his ditto, ditto.

‘3.  Main conveyance or triumphal chariot, driven by Aide-de-Camp John
Howard, and carrying Dr. and Mrs. Winship, our most worshipful and
benignant host and hostess; Master Dick Winship, the heir-apparent; three
other young persons not worth mentioning; and four cans of best leaf
lard, which I omitted to put with the other provisions.

‘4.  Wood-cart containing baggage, driven by Señor Don Manuel Felipe
Hilario Noriega from Dead Wood Gulch.

‘5.  One small tan terrier.’

‘Oh, Geoff, Geoff, pray do stop! it’s too much!’ cried the girls in a fit
of laughter.

‘Hurrah!’ shouted Jack, tossing his hat into a tall eucalyptus-tree in
his excitement, ‘Tent life for ever!’

‘Good-bye, ye pomps and vanities!’ chanted Bell, kissing her hand in
imaginary farewell.  ‘Verily the noisy city shall know us no more, for we
depart for the green forests.’

‘And the city will not be as noisy _when_ you depart,’ murmured Jack,
with an impudence that luckily passed unnoticed.

‘If Elsie could only come too!’ sighed Polly.

                                * * * * *

Wednesday morning dawned as bright and beautiful as all mornings are wont
to dawn in Southern California.  A light mist hung over the old adobe
mission church, through which, with its snow-white towers and cold,
clear-cut lines, it rose like a frozen fairy castle.  Bell opened her
sleepy eyes with the very earliest birds, and running to the little oval
window, framed with white-rose vines, looked out at the new day just
creeping up into the world.

‘Oh dear and beautiful home of mine, how charming, how charming you are!
I wonder if you are not really Paradise!’ she said, dreamily; and the
marvel is that the rising sun did not stop a moment in sheer surprise at
the sight of this radiant morning vision; for the oval window opening to
the east was a pretty frame, with its outline marked by the dewy
rose-vine covered with hundreds of pure, half-opened buds and swaying
tendrils, and she stood there in it, a fair image of the morning in her
innocent white gown.  Her luminous eyes still mirrored the shadowy
visions of dreamland, mingled with dancing lights of hope and joyful
anticipation; while on her fresh cheeks, which had not yet lost the
roundness of childhood, there glowed, as in the eastern skies, the faint
pink blush of the morning.

The town is yet asleep, and in truth it is never apt to be fairly wide
awake.  The air is soft and balmy; the lovely Pacific, a quivering,
sparkling sheet of blue and grey and green flecked with white foam,
stretches far out until it is lost in the rosy sky; and the mountains,
all purple and pink and faint crimson and grey, stand like sentinels
along the shore.  The scent of the roses, violets, and mignonette mingled
with the cloying fragrance of the datura is heavy in the still air.  The
bending, willowy pepper-trees show myriad bunches of yellow blossoms,
crimson seed-berries, and fresh green leaves, whose surface, not
rain-washed for months, is as full of colour as ever.  The palm-trees
rise without a branch, tall, slender, and graceful, from the warmly
generous earth, and spread at last, as if tired of their straightness,
into beautiful crowns of fans, which sway toward each other with every
breath of air.  Innumerable butterflies and humming-birds, in the hot,
dazzling sunshine of noonday, will be hovering over the beds of sweet
purple heliotrope and finding their way into the hearts of the
passion-flowers, but as yet not the faintest whirr of wings can be heard.
Looking eastward or westward, you see either brown foot-hills, or, a
little later on, emerald slopes whose vines hang heavy with the
half-ripened grapes.

And hark!  A silvery note strikes on the dewy stillness.  It is the
mission bell ringing for morning mass; and if you look yonder you may see
the Franciscan friars going to prayers, with their loose grey gowns,
their girdle of rope, their sandaled feet, and their jingling rosaries;
and perhaps a Spanish señorita, with her trailing dress, and black shawl
loosely thrown over her head, from out the folds of which her two dark
eyes burn like gleaming fires.  A solitary Mexican gallops by, with gayly
decorated saddle and heavily laden saddle-bags hanging from it; perhaps
he is taking home provisions to his wife and dark-eyed babies who live up
in a little dimple of the mountain side, almost hidden from sight by the
olive-trees.  And then a patient, hardy little mustang lopes along the
street, bearing on his back three laughing boys, one behind the other, on
a morning ride into town from the _mesa_.

The mist has floated away from the old mission now, the sun has climbed a
little higher, and Bell has come away from the window in a gentle mood.

‘Oh, Polly, I don’t see how anybody can be wicked in such a beautiful,
beautiful world.’

‘Humph!’ said Polly, dipping her curly head deep into the water-bowl, and
coming up looking like a little drowned kitten.  ‘When you want to be
hateful, you don’t stop to think whether you’re looking at a cactus or a
rosebush, do you?’

‘Very true,’ sighed Bell, quite silenced by this practical illustration.
‘Now I’ll try the effect of the landscape on my temper by dressing Dicky,
while he dances about the room and plays with his tan terrier.’

But it happened that Dicky was on his very best behaviour, and stood as
still as a signpost while being dressed.  It is true he ate a couple of
matches and tumbled down-stairs twice before breakfast, so that after
that hurried meal Bell tied him to one of the verandah posts, that he
might not commit any act vicious enough to keep them at home.  As he had
a huge pocket full of apricots he was in perfect good-humour, not taking
his confinement at all to heart, inasmuch as it commanded a full view of
the scene of action.  His amiability was further increased, moreover, by
the possession of a bright new policeman’s whistle, which was carefully
tied to his button-hole by a neat little silk cord, and which his fond
parents intended that he should blow if he chanced to fall into danger
during his rambles about the camp.  We might as well state here, however,
that this precaution proved fruitless, for he blew it at all times and
seasons; and everybody became so hardened to its melodious shriek that
they paid no attention to it whatever,—history, or fable, thus again
repeating itself.

Mr. and Mrs. Noble had driven Margery and Phil into town from the fruit
ranch, and were waiting to see the party off.

Mrs. Oliver was to live in the Winship house during the absence of the
family, and was aiding them to do those numberless little things that are
always found undone at the last moment.  She had given her impetuous
daughter a dozen fond embraces, smothering in each a gentle warning, and
stood now with Mrs. Winship at the gate, watching the three girls, who
had gone on to bid Elsie good-bye.

‘I hope Pauline won’t give you any trouble,’ she said.  ‘She is so apt to
be too impulsive and thoughtless.’

‘I shall enjoy her,’ said sweet Aunt Truth, with that bright, cordial
smile of hers that was like a blessing.  ‘She has a very loving heart,
and is easily led.  How pretty the girls look, and how different they
are!  Polly is like a thistledown or a firefly, Margery like one of our
home Mayflowers, and I can’t help thinking my Bell like a sunbeam.’

The girls did look very pretty; for their mothers had fashioned their
camping-dresses with much care and taste, taking great pains to make them
picturesque and appropriate to their summer life ‘under the greenwood
tree.’

Over a plain full skirt of heavy crimson serge Bell wore a hunting jacket
and drapery of dark leaf-green, like a bit of forest against a sunset.
Her hair, which fell in a waving mass of burnished brightness to her
waist, was caught by a silver arrow, and crowned by a wide soft hat of
crimson felt encircled with a bird’s breast.

Margery wore a soft grey flannel, the colour of a dove’s throat, adorned
with rows upon rows of silver braid and sparkling silver buttons; while
her big grey hat had nothing but a silver cord and tassel tied round it
in Spanish fashion.

Polly was all in sailor blue, with a distractingly natty little
double-breasted coat and great white rolling collar.  Her hat swung in
her hand, as usual, showing her boyish head of sunny auburn curls, and
she carried on a neat chatelaine a silver cup and little clasp-knife, as
was the custom in the party.

‘It’s very difficult,’ Polly often exclaimed, ‘to get a dress that will
tone down your hair and a hat that will tone up your nose, when the first
is red and the last a snub!  My nose is the root of all evil; it makes
people think I’m saucy before I say a word; and as for my hair, they
think I must be peppery, no matter if I were really as meek as Moses.
Now there’s Margery, the dear, darling mouse!  People look at her two
sleek braids, every hair doing just what it ought to do and lying
straight and smooth, and ask, “Who is that sweet girl?”  There’s
something wrong somewhere.  I ought not to suffer because of one small,
simple, turned-up nose and a head of hair which reveals the glowing tints
of autumn, as Jack gracefully says.’

‘Here they come!’ shouted Jack from the group on the Howards’ piazza.
‘Christopher Columbus, what gorgeousness!  The Flamingo, the Dove, and
the Blue-jay!  Good-morning, young ladies; may we be allowed to travel in
the same steamer with your highnesses?’

‘You needn’t be troubled,’ laughed Bell.  ‘We shall not disclose these
glories until we reach the camp.  But you are dressed as usual.  What’s
the matter?’

‘Why, the fact is,’ answered Geoffrey, ‘our courage failed us at the last
moment.  We donned our uniforms, and looked like brigands, highway
robbers, cowboys, firemen,—anything but modest young men; and as it was
too warm for ulsters, we took refuge in civilised raiment for to-day.
When we arrive, you shall behold our dashing sombreros fixed up with
peacock feathers, and our refulgent shirts, which are of the most
original style and decoration.’

‘Aboriginal, in fact,’ said Jack.  ‘We have broad belts of alligator
skin, pouches, pistols, bowie-knives, and tan-coloured shoes; but we
dislike to flaunt them before the eyes of a city public.’

‘Here they are!’ cried Geoffrey, from the gate.  ‘Uncle, and aunt, and
Dicky, and—good gracious!  Is he really going to take that wretched tan
terrier?’

‘Won’t go without him,’ said Bell, briefly.  ‘There are cases where it is
better to submit than to fight.’

So the last good-byes were said, and Elsie bore up bravely; better,
indeed, than the others, who shed many a furtive tear at leaving her.
‘Make haste and get well, darling,’ whispered the girls, lovingly.

‘Pray, pray, dear Mrs. Howard, bring her down to us as soon as possible.
We’ll take such good care of her,’ teased Bell, with one last squeeze,
and strong signs of a shower in both eyes.

‘Come, girls and boys,’ said kind Dr. Paul, ‘the steamer has blown her
first whistle, and we must be off.’

Oh, how clear and beautiful a day it was, and how charmingly gracious
Dame Ocean looked in her white caps and blue ruffles!  Even the
combination steamboat smell of dinner, oil, and close air was obliterated
by the keen sea-breeze.

The good ship Orizaba ploughed her way through the sparkling, sun-lit
waves, traversing quickly the distance which lay between the young people
and their destination.  They watched the long white furrow that stretched
in her wake, the cloud of black smoke which floated like a dark shadow
above the laughing crests of the waves, and the flocks of sea-gulls
sailing overhead, with wild shrill screams ever and anon swooping down
for some bit of food flung from the ship, and then floating for miles on
the waves.

How they sung ‘Life on the Ocean Wave,’ ‘Bounding Billow,’ and ‘Rocked in
the Cradle of the Deep!’  How Jack chanted,—

       ‘I wish I were a fish,
          With a great long tail;
       A tiny little tittlebat,
          A wiggle or a whale,
    In the middle of the great blue sea.  Oh, my!’

‘Oh, how I long to be there!’ exclaimed Philip, ‘to throw aside all the
formal customs of a wicked world I abhor, and live a free life under the
blue sky!’

‘Why, Philip Noble!  I never saw you inside of a house in my life,’ cried
Polly.

‘Oh, yes; you’re mistaken.  I’ve been obliged to eat most of my meals in
the house, and sleep there; but I don’t approve of it, and it’s a trial
to be borne with meekness only when there’s no remedy for it.’

‘Besides,’ said Jack, ‘even when we are out-of-doors we are shelling the
reluctant almond, poisoning the voracious gopher, pruning grape-vines,
and “sich.”  Now I am only going to shoot to eat, and eat to shoot!’

‘Hope you’ve improved since last year, or you’ll have a low diet,’
murmured Phil, in an undertone.

‘The man of genius must expect to be the butt of ridicule,’ sighed Jack,
meekly.

‘But you’ll not repine, although your heartstrings break, will you?’ said
Polly, sympathisingly; ‘especially in the presence of several witnesses
who have seen you handle a gun.’

‘How glad I am that I’m too near-sighted to shoot,’ said Geoffrey, taking
off the eye-glasses that made him look so wise and dignified.  ‘I shall
lounge under the trees, read Macaulay, and order the meals.’

‘I shall need an assistant about the camp,’ said Aunt Truth, smilingly;
‘but I hardly think he’ll have much time to lounge; when everything else
fails, there’s always Dicky, you know.’

Geoffrey looked discouraged.

‘And, furthermore, I declare by the nose of the great Tam o’ Shanter that
I will cut down every tree in the vicinity ere you shall lounge under
it,’ said Jack.

‘Softly, my boy.  Hill’s blue-gum forest is not so very far away.  You’ll
have your hands full,’ laughed Dr. Paul.

Here Margery and Bell joined the group after a quick walk up and down the
deck.

‘Papa,’ said Bell, excitedly, ‘we certainly are nearing the place.  Do
you see that bend in the shore, and don’t you remember that the landing
isn’t far below?’

‘Bell’s bump of locality is immense.  There are nineteen bends in the
shore exactly like that one before we reach the landing.  How many knots
an hour do you suppose this ship travels, my fair cousin?’ asked
Geoffrey.

‘I could tell better,’ replied Bell calmly, ‘if I could ever remember how
many knots made a mile, or how many miles made a knot; but I always
forget.’

‘Oh, see!  There’s a porpoise!’ cried Jack.  ‘Polly, why is a porpoise
like a water-lily?’

But before he could say ‘Guess,’ Phil, Geoff, and the girls had drawn
themselves into a line, and, with a whispered ‘One, two, three,’ to
secure a good start, replied in concert, ‘We-give-it-up!’

‘What a deafening shout!’ cried Aunt Truth, coming out of the cabin.
‘What’s the matter, pray?’

‘Nothing, aunty,’ laughed Polly.  ‘But we have formed a society for
suppressing Jack’s conundrums, and this is our first public meeting.  How
do you like the watchword?’

Aunt Truth smiled.  ‘It was very audible,’ she said.  ‘Yours is evidently
not a secret society.’

‘I wish I could find out who originated this plan,’ quoth Jack,
murderously.  ‘But I suppose it’s one of you girls, and I can’t revenge
myself.  Oh, when will this barrier between the sexes be removed!’

‘I trust not in your lifetime,’ shuddered Polly, ‘or we might as well
begin to “stand round our dying beds” at once.’




CHAPTER II
THE JOURNEY


    ‘Away, away, from men and towns,
    To the wild wood and the downs,
    To the silent wilderness.’

WHATEVER the distance was in reality, the steamer had consumed more time
than usual, and it was quite two o’clock, instead of half-past twelve, as
they had expected, before they were landed on the old and almost
forgotten pier, and saw the smoke of the Orizaba as she steamed away.

After counting over their bags and packages to see if anything had been
forgotten, they looked about them.

             [Picture: Coach of people being drawn by horses]

There was a dirty little settlement, a mile or two to the south,
consisting of a collection of tumble-down adobe houses which looked like
a blotch on the brown hillside; a few cattle were browsing near by, and
the locality seemed to be well supplied with lizards, which darted over
the dusty ground in all directions.  But the startling point of the
landscape was that it showed no sign of human life, and Pancho’s orders
had been to have Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega and his
wood-cart on hand promptly at half-past twelve.

‘Can Pancho have forgotten?’

‘Can he have lost his way and never arrived here at all?’

‘Can Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega have grown tired of waiting
and gone off?’

‘Has Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega been drinking too much
aguardiente and so forgotten to come?’

‘Has Pancho been murdered by highway robbers, and served up into stew for
their evening meal?’

‘With Hop Yet for dessert!  Oh, horrible!’  These were some of the
questions and exclamations that greeted the ears of the lizards, and
caused them to fly over the ground in a more excited fashion than ever.

‘One thing is certain.  If Pancho has been stupid enough to lose his way
coming fifty miles down the coast, I’ll discharge him,’ said Dr. Winship,
with decision.

‘When you find him,’ added Aunt Truth, prudently.

‘Of course.  But really, mamma, this looks discouraging; I am afraid we
can’t get into camp this evening.  Shall we go up to the nearest ranch
house for the night, and see what can be done to-morrow?’

‘Never!’ exclaimed the young people, with one deafening shout.

‘Never,’ echoed Philip separately.  ‘I have vowed that a bed shall not
know me for three months, and I’ll keep my vow.’

‘What do you say to this, Uncle Doc?’ said Geoffrey.  ‘Suppose you go up
to the storehouse and office,—it’s about a mile,—and see if the goods are
there all right, and whether the men saw Pancho on his way up to the
cañon.  Meanwhile, Phil and I will ride over here somewhere to get a
team, or look up Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega.  Jack can stay
with Aunt Truth and the girls, to watch developments.’

‘But, papa, can’t we pitch the camp to-night, somehow?’ asked Bell,
piteously.

‘I don’t see how.  We are behindhand already; and if we get started
within an hour we can’t reach the ground I selected before dark and we
can’t choose any nearer one, because if Pancho is anywhere in creation he
is on the identical spot I sent him to.’

‘But, Dr. Paul, I’ll tell you what we could do,’ suggested Jack.  ‘If we
get any kind of a start, we can’t fail to reach camp by seven or eight
o’clock at latest.  Now it’s bright moonlight, and if we find Pancho,
he’ll have the baggage unloaded, and Hop Yet will have a fire lighted.
What’s to prevent our swinging the hammocks for the ladies?  And we’ll
just roll up in our blankets by the fire, for to-night.  Then we’ll get
to housekeeping in the morning.’

This plan received a most enthusiastic reception.

‘Very well,’ replied the Doctor.  ‘If you are all agreed, I suppose we
may as well begin roughing it now as at any time.’

You may have noticed sometimes, after having fortified yourself against a
terrible misfortune which seemed in store for you, that it didn’t come,
after all.  Well, it was so in this case; for just as Dr. Winship and the
boys started out over the hillside at a brisk pace, an immense cloud of
dust, some distance up the road, attracted their attention, and they came
to a sudden standstill.

The girls held their breath in anxious expectation, and at length gave an
irrepressible shout of joy and relief when there issued from the dense
grey cloud the familiar four-horse team, with Daisy, Tule Molly,
Villikins, and Dinah, looking as fresh as if they had not been driven a
mile, tough little mustangs that they were.

A long conversation in Spanish ensued, which, being translated by Dr.
Winship, furnished all necessary information concerning the delay.

S. D. M. F. H. N. stated that Pancho was neither faithless nor stupid,
but was waiting for them on the camping-ground, and that as the goods
were already packed in his wood-cart he would follow them immediately.
So the whole party started without more delay; Dr. and Mrs. Winship,
Master Paul, Jack Howard, and the three girls riding in the wagon, while
Geoffrey and Philip galloped ahead on horseback.

It was a long, dusty, tiresome ride; and Dicky, who had been as good all
day as any saint ever carved in marble and set in a niche, grew rather
warm, cross, and hungry, although he had been consuming ginger-snaps and
apricots since early morning.  After asking plaintively for the fiftieth
time how long it would be before dinner, he finally succumbed to his
weariness, and dropping his yellow head, that was like a cowslip ball, in
his mother’s lap, he fell asleep.

But the young people, whose eyes were not blinded by hunger and sleep,
found more than enough to interest them on this dusty California road,
winding as it did through grand old growths of trees, acres and acres of
waving grain, and endless stretches of gorgeous yellow mustard, the
stalks of which were five or six feet high, almost hiding from view the
boys who dashed into the golden forest from time to time.

At the foot of the hill they passed an old adobe hut, with a crowd of
pretty, swarthy, frowzy Mexican children playing in the sunshine, while
their mother, black-haired and ample of figure, occupied herself in
hanging great quantities of jerked beef on a sort of clothes-line running
between the eucalyptus-trees.

The father, a wild-looking individual in a red shirt and enormous hat,
came from behind the hut, unhitched the stout little broncho tied to the
fence, gave the poor animal a desperately tight ‘cinch,’ threw himself
into the saddle without touching his foot to the lumbering wooden
stirrups, and, digging his spurs well into the horse’s sides, was out of
sight in an instant, leaving only a huge cloud of dust to cover his
disappearance.

‘How those fellows do ride!’ exclaimed Dr. Winship, savagely.  ‘I wish
they were all obliged to walk until they knew how to treat a horse.’

‘Then they’d walk straight into the millennium,’ said Jack, sagely, ‘for
their cruelty seems to be an instinct.’

‘But how beautifully they ride, too!’ said Polly.  ‘Mamma and I were
sitting on the hotel piazza the other day, watching two young Spaniards
who were performing feats of horsemanship.  They dropped four-bit pieces
on the dusty road, and riding up to them at full speed clutched them from
the ground in some mysterious way that was perfectly wonderful.  Then
Nick Gutierrez mounted a bucking horse, and actually rolled and lighted a
cigarette while the animal bucked with all his might.’

‘See that cunning, cunning _muchachita_, mamma!’ cried Bell; for, as they
stopped at the top of the hill to let the horses breathe, one of the
little Mexican children ran after them, holding out a handful of glowing
yellow poppies.

She was distractingly pretty, with a beauty that is short-lived with the
people of her race.  The afternoon sun shone down fiercely on her waving
coal-black locks, and brought a rich colour to her nut-brown cheek; she
had one little flimsy, ragged garment, neither long, broad, nor thick,
which hung about her picturesquely; and, with her soft, dark, sleepy
eyes, the rows of little white teeth behind her laughing red mouth, and
the vivid yellow blossoms in her tiny outstretched hand, she was a very
charming vision.

‘_Como te llamas_, _muchachita_?’  (What is your name, little one?) asked
Bell, airing her Spanish, which was rather good.

‘Teresita,’ she answered, with a pretty accent, as she scratched a set of
five grimy little toes to and fro in the dusty ground.

‘Throw her a bit, papa,’ whispered Bell; and, as he did so, Teresita
caught the piece of silver very deftly, and ran excitedly back to the
centre of the chattering group in front of the house.

‘How intense everything is in California!  Do you know what I mean,
mamma?’ said Bell.  ‘The fruit is so immense, the cañons so deep, the
trees so big, the hills so high, the rain so wet, and the drought so
dry.’

‘The fleas so many, the fleas so spry,’ chanted Jack, who had perceived
that Bell was talking in rhyme without knowing it.  ‘California is just
the place for you, Bell; it gives you a chance for innumerable adjectives
heaped one on the other.’

‘I don’t always heap up adjectives,’ replied Bell, with dignity.  ‘When I
wish to describe you, for instance, I simply say “that hateful boy,” and
let it go at that.’

Jack retired to private life for a season.

‘I’d like to paint a picture of Teresita,’ said Margery, who had a pretty
talent for sketching, ‘and call it The Summer Child, or some such thing.
I should think the famous old colour artists might have loved to paint
this gorgeous flame-tinted poppy.’

‘Not poppy,—eschscholtzia,’ corrected Jack, coming rapidly to the surface
again, after Bell’s rebuke, and delivering himself of the
tongue-confusing word with a terrible grimace.

‘I’m not writing a botany,’ retorted Margery; ‘and I can never remember
that word, much less spell it.  I don’t see how it grows under such an
abominable Russian name.  It’s worse than ichthyosaurus.  Do you remember
that funny nonsense verse?—

    “I is for ichthyosaurus,
    Who lived when the world was all porous;
       But he fainted with shame
       When he first heard his name,
    And departed a long while before us.”’

‘The Spaniards are more poetic,’ said Aunt Truth, ‘for they call it _la
copa de oro_, the golden cup.  Oh, see them yonder!  It is like the Field
of the Cloth of Gold.’

The sight would have driven a royal florist mad with joy: a hillside that
was a swaying mass of radiant bloom, a joyous carnival of vivid colour,
in which the thousand golden goblets, turned upward to the sun, were
dancing, and glowing, and shaming out of countenance the purple and blue
and pink masses which surrounded them on every side.

‘You know Professor Pinnie told us that every well-informed young girl
should know at least the flora of her own State,’ said Jack, after the
excitement had subsided.

‘Well, one thing is certain: Professor Pinnie never knew the _state_ of
his own _flora_, or at least he kept his wife sorting and arranging his
specimens all the time; and I think he’s a regular old frump,’ said
Polly, irreverently, but meeting Aunt Truth’s reproving glance, which
brought a blush and a whispered ‘Excuse me,’ she went on, ‘Well, what I
mean is, he doesn’t know any more than other people, after all; for he
cares for nothing but bushes and herbs and seeds and shrubs and roots and
stamens and pistils; and he can’t tell whether a flower is lovely or not,
he is so crazy to find out where it belongs and tie a tag round it.’

‘I must agree with Polly,’ laughed Jack.  ‘Why, I went to ride with him
one day in the Cathedral Oaks, and he made me get off my horse every five
minutes to dig up roots and tie them to the pommel of his old saddle, so
that we came into town looking like moving herbariums.  The stable-man
lifted him on to his horse when he started, I suppose, and he would have
been there yet if he hadn’t been helped off.  Bah!’  For Jack had a
supreme contempt for any man who was less than a centaur.

By this time they had turned off the main thoroughfare, and were
travelling over a bit of old stage road which was anything but easy
riding.  There they met some men who were driving an enormous band of
sheep to a distant ranch for pasture, which gave saucy Polly the chance
to ask Dr. Winship, innocently, why white sheep ate so much more than
black ones.

He fell into the trap at once, and answered unsuspectingly, in a
surprised tone, ‘Why, do they?’ giving her the longed-for opportunity to
respond, ‘Yes, of course, because there are so many more of ’em; don’t
you see?’

‘You are behind the times, Dr. Paul,’ said Jack.  ‘That’s an ancient
joke.  Just look at those sheep, sir.  How many are there?  Eight
hundred, say?’

‘Even more, I should think,—a thousand, certainly; and rather thin they
look, too.’

‘I should imagine they might,’ said Bell, sympathetically.  ‘When I first
came to California I never could see how the poor creatures found
anything to eat on these bare, brown hillsides, until the farmers showed
me the prickly little burr clover balls that cover the ground.  But see,
mamma! there are some tiny lambs, poor, tired, weak-legged little things;
I wonder if they will live through the journey.’

‘Which reminds me,’ said Jack, giving Villikins a touch of the whip,
‘that nothing is so calculated to disturb your faith in and love for
lambs as life on a sheep ranch.  Innocent!  Good gracious!  I never saw
such—such—’

‘Gasping, staggering, stuttering, stammering tom-fools,’ interposed Bell.
‘That’s what Carlyle called _one_ Lamb,—dear Mr. “Roast Pig” Charles; and
a mean old thing he was, too, for doing it.’

‘Well, it is just strong enough to apply to the actual lamb; not the lamb
of romance, but the lamb of reality.  You can’t get him anywhere; he
doesn’t know enough.  He won’t drive, he can’t follow; he’s too stupid.
Why, I went out for a couple of ’em once, that were lost in the cañon.  I
found them,—that was comparatively easy; but when I tried to get them
home, I couldn’t.  At last, after infinite trouble, I managed to drive
them up on to the trail, which was so narrow there was but one thing for
a rational creature to do, and that was to go ahead.  Then, if you’ll
believe me, those idiots kept bleating and getting under the horse’s
fore-feet; finally, one of them, the champion simpleton, tumbled over
into the cañon, and I tied the legs of the other one together, and
carried him home on the front of my saddle.’

‘They are innocent, any way,’ insisted Margery.  ‘I won’t believe they’re
not.  I can’t bear these people who interfere with all your cherished
ideas, and say that Columbus didn’t discover America, and Shakespeare
wasn’t Shakespeare, and William Tell didn’t shoot the apple.’

‘Nevertheless, I claim that the lamb is not half so much an emblem of
innocence as he is of utter and profound stupidity.  There is that
charming old lyric about Mary’s little lamb; I can explain that.  After
he came to school (which was an error of judgment at the very beginning),
he made the rumpus, you know—

    “And then the teacher turned him out,
       But still he lingered nee-ar,
    And waited patiently about
       Till Mary did appee-ar.”

Of course he did.  He didn’t know enough to go home alone.

    “And then he ran to her and laid
       His head upon her arr-um,
    As if to say, ‘I’m not afraid;
       You’ll keep me from all harr-um.’”

As if a lamb could be capable of that amount of reasoning!  And then

    “‘What makes the lamb love Mary so?
       The eager children cry;
    ‘Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,’
       The teacher did reply.”

And might have added that as Mary fed the lamb three times a day and
twice on Sundays, he probably not only knew on which side his daily bread
was buttered, but also who buttered it.’

‘Dreadful boy!’ laughed Bell.  ‘Polly, pray lower the umbrella; we are
going to meet some respectable people, and we actually are too dirty to
be seen.  I have really been eating dust.’

‘They must be equally dusty,’ said Polly, sagely.  ‘Why, it is the
Burtons, from Tacitas ranch!’

The Burton ranch wagon was drawn up, as its driver recognised Dr.
Winship, and he proceeded to cheer the spirits of the party by telling
them that he had passed Pancho two hours before, and that he was busily
clearing rubbish from the camping-ground.  This was six o’clock, and by a
little after eight the weary, happy party were seated on saddle-blankets
and carriage-cushions round a cheery camp-fire, eating a frugal meal,
which tasted sweeter than nectar and ambrosia to their keen appetites.

The boys expressed their intention of spending the night in unpacking
their baggage and getting to rights generally, but Dr. Winship placed a
prompt and decisive veto on this proposition, and they submitted
cheerfully to his better judgment.

Getting to bed was an exciting occupation for everybody.  Dicky was first
tucked up in a warm nest of rugs and blankets, under a tree, and sank
into a profound slumber at once, with the happy unconsciousness of
childhood.  His father completed the preparations for his comfort by
opening a huge umbrella and arranging it firmly over his head, so that no
falling leaf might frighten him and no sudden gust of air blow upon his
face.

Bell stood before her hammock, and meditated.  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘going
to bed is a simple matter after all, when you have shorn it of all
useless formalities.  Let me see: I generally walk to and fro in the
room, eating a bunch of grapes or an orange, look out of the window five
or ten minutes, brush my hair, read my chapter in the Bible, take my book
and study Spanish five minutes, on the principle of that abnormal woman
who learned ninety-six languages while she was waiting for the kettle to
boil in the morning—’

‘Must have been a slow boiler,’ interrupted Polly, wickedly. ‘Seems to
me it would have been economy to sell it and buy a new one.’

‘Oh, Polly! you are so wilfully stupid! The kettle isn’t the point—but
the languages.  Besides, she didn’t learn all the ninety-six while the
kettle was boiling once, you know.’

‘Oh, didn’t she? That alters the case. Thank you,’ said Polly,
sarcastically.

‘Now observe me,’ said Bell.  ‘I have made the getting into a hammock a
study.  I first open it very wide at the top with both hands; then,
holding it in that position, I gracefully revolve my body from left to
right as upon an imaginary swivel; meantime I raise my right foot
considerably from mother earth, with a view to passing it over the
hammock’s edge.  Every move is calculated, you perceive, and produces its
own share of the perfect result; the method is the same that Rachel used
in rehearsing her wonderful tragic poses.  I am now seated in the
hammock, you observe, with both hands extending the net from side to side
and the right foot well in position; I now raise the left foot with a
swift but admirably steady movement, and I am—Help!  Help!!  Murder!!!’

‘In short, you are not in, but out,’ cried Polly, in a burst of laughter;
for Bell had leaned too far to the right, and on bringing the other foot
in, with its ‘swift but admirably steady’ motion, she gave a sudden
lurch, pulled the hammock entirely over herself and fell out head first
on the other side, leaving her feet tangled in its meshes.  ‘Shall we
help her out, Meg?  She doesn’t deserve it, after that pompous oration
and attempt to show off her superior abilities.  Nevertheless, she always
accepts mercy more gracefully than justice.  Heave ahoy, my hearties!’

Bell was extricated, and looked sufficiently ashamed.

‘We are much obliged for the lesson,’ said Margery, ‘but the method is
open to criticism; so I think we’ll manage in our ordinary savage way.
We may not be graceful or scientific, but we get in, which is the main
point.’

The hammocks did not prove the easiest of nests, as the girls had
imagined.  In fact, to be perfectly candid about the matter, the wicked
flea of California, which man pursueth but seldom catcheth, is apt, on
many a summer night, to interfere shamelessly with slumber.  On this
particular night he was fairly rampant, perhaps because sweet humanity on
which to feed was very scarce in that cañon.

‘Good-night, girls!’ called Jack, when matters seemed to be finally
settled for sleep.  ‘Bell, you must keep one eye open, for the coyotes
will be stealing down the mountain in a jiffy, and yours is the first
hammock in the path.’

‘Of course,’ moaned Bell,—‘that’s why the girls gave me this one; they
knew very well that one victim always slakes the animals’ thirst for
blood.  Well, let them come on.  I shiver with terror, but my only hope
is that I may be eaten in my sleep, if at all.’

    ‘There was a young party named Bell,
    Who slept out of doors for a spell;
       When asked how she fared,
       She said she was scared,
    But otherwise doing quite well.

‘How’s that?’ asked Jack.  ‘I shall be able to drive Bell off her own
field, with a little practice.’

‘Go to sleep!’ roared Dr. Paul.  ‘In your present condition of mind and
body you are not fit for poetry!’

‘That’s just the point, sir,’ retorted Jack, slyly, ‘for, you remember,
poets are not _fit_, but _nascitur_,—don’t you know?’ and he retired
under his blanket for protection.

But quiet seemed to be impossible: there were all sorts of strange
sounds; and the moon, too, was so splendid that they almost felt as if
they were lying beneath the radiance of a calcium light; while in the
dark places, midst the branches of thick foliage, the owls hooted
gloomily.  If you had happened to be an owl in that vicinity, you might
have heard not only the feverish tossing to and fro of the girls in the
hammocks, but many dismal sighs and groans from Dr. Winship and the boys;
for the bare ground is, after all, more rheumatic than romantic, and they
too tumbled from side to side, seeking comfort.

But at midnight quiet slumber had descended upon them, and they presented
a funny spectacle enough to one open-eyed watcher.  A long slender
sycamore log was extended before the fire, and constituted their pillow;
on this their heads reposed, each decorated with a tightly fitting silk
handkerchief; then came a compact, papoose-like roll of grey blanket,
terminated by a pair of erect feet, whose generous proportions soared to
different heights.  There was a little snoring, too; perhaps the log was
hollow.

At midnight you might have seen a quaintly despondent little figure,
whose curly head issued from a hooded cloak, staggering hopelessly from a
hammock, and seating herself on a mossy stump.  From the limpness of her
attitude and the pathetic expression of her eyes, I fear Polly was
reviewing former happy nights spent on spring-beds; and at this
particular moment the realities of camping-out hardly equalled her
anticipations.  Whatever may have been her feelings, however, they were
promptly stifled when a certain insolent head reared itself from its
blanket-roll, and a hoarse voice cackled, ‘Pretty Polly!  Polly want a
cañon?’  At this insult Miss Oliver wrapped her drapery about her and
strode to her hammock with the air of a tragedy queen.




CHAPTER III
LIFE IN THE CAÑON—THE HEIR APPARENT LOSES HIMSELF


    ‘Know’st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom,
    Where the gold orange glows in the green thicket’s gloom;
    Where the wind, ever soft, from the blue heaven blows,
    And groves are of myrtle, and olive, and rose?’

ON the next morning, as we have seen, they named their summer home Camp
Chaparral, and for a week or more they were the very busiest colony of
people under the sun; for it takes a deal of hard work and ingenuity to
make a comfortable and beautiful dwelling-place in the forest.

The best way of showing you how they accomplished this is to describe the
camp after it was nearly finished.

The two largest bedroom tents were made of bright awning cloth, one of
red and white, the other of blue and white, both gaily decorated with
braid.  They were pitched under the same giant oak, and yet were nearly
forty feet apart; that of the girls having a canvas floor.  They were not
quite willing to sleep on the ground, so they had brought empty bed-sacks
with them, and Pancho’s first duty after his arrival had been to drive to
a neighbouring ranch for a great load of straw.

In a glorious tree near by was a ‘sky parlour,’ arranged by a few boards
nailed high up in the leafy branches, and reached from below by a
primitive ladder.  This was the favourite sitting-room of the girls by
day, and served for Pancho’s bedroom at night.  It was beautiful enough
to be fit shelter for all the woodland nymphs, with its festoons of
mistletoe and wild grape-vines; but Pancho was rather an unappreciative
tenant, even going so far as to snore in the sacred place!

Just beyond was a card-room,—imagine it—in which a square board, nailed
on a low stump, served for a table, where Dr. Paul and the boys played
many a game of crib, backgammon, and checkers.  Here, too, all Elsie’s
letters were written and Bell’s nonsense verses, and here was the
identical spot where Jack Howard, that mischievous knight of the brush,
perpetrated those modern travesties on the ‘William Henry pictures,’ for
Elsie’s delectation.

The dressing-room was reached by a path cut through bushes to a charming
little pool.  Here were unmistakable evidences of feminine art:
looking-glasses hanging to trees, snowy wash-cloths, each bearing its
owner’s initials, adorning the shrubs, while numerous towels waved in the
breeze.  Between two trees a thin board was nailed, which appeared to be
used, as nearly as the woodpeckers could make out, as a toothbrush rack.
In this, Philip, the skilful carpenter, had bored the necessary number of
holes, and each one contained a toothbrush tied with a gorgeous ribbon.

In this secluded spot Bell was wont to marshal every morning the entire
force of ‘the toothbrush brigade’; and, conducting the drill with much
ingenuity, she would take her victims through a long series of military
manœuvres arranged for the toothbrush.  Oh, the gaspings, the chokings
and stranglings, which occurred when she mounted a rock by the edge of
the pool, and after calling in tones of thunder,

    ‘Brush, brothers, brush with care!
    Brush in the presence of the commandaire!’

ordered her unwilling privates to polish their innocent molars to the
tune of ‘Hail, Columbia,’ or ‘Auld Lang Syne’!  And if they became
mutinous, it was Geoffrey who reduced them to submission, and ordered
them to brush for three mornings to the tune of ‘Bluebells of Scotland’
as a sign of loyalty to their commander.

As for the furnishing of the camp, there were impromptu stools and tables
made of packing-boxes and trunks, all covered with bright Turkey-red
cotton; there were no less than three rustic lounges and two arm-chairs
made from manzanita branches, and a Queen Anne bedstead was being slowly
constructed, day by day, by the ambitious boys for their beloved Elsie.

One corner of each tent was curtained off for a bath-room, another for a
clothes-press, and there were a dozen devices for comfort, as Dr. Winship
was opposed to any more inconvenience than was strictly necessary.  Dr.
and Mrs. Winship and little Dicky occupied one tent, the boys another,
and the girls a third.

When Bell, Polly, and Margery emerged from their tent on the second
morning, they were disagreeably surprised to see a large placard over the
front entrance, bearing the insolent inscription, ‘Tent Chatter.’  They
said nothing; but on the night after, a committee of two stole out and
glued a companion placard, ‘Tent Clatter,’ over the door of their
masculine neighbours.  And to tell the truth, one was as well deserved as
the other; for if there was generally a subdued hum of conversation in
the one, there never failed to be a perfect din and uproar in the other.

Under a great sycamore-tree stood the dining-table, which consisted of
two long, wide boards placed together upon a couple of barrels; and not
far away was the brush kitchen, which should have been a work of art, for
it represented the combined genius of American, Mexican, and Chinese
carpenters, Dr. Winship, Pancho, and Hop Yet having laboured in its
erection.  It really answered the purpose admirably, and looked quite
like a conventional California kitchen; that is, it was ten feet square,
and contained a table, a stove, and a Chinaman.

The young people, by the way, had fought bitterly against the stove,
protesting with all their might against taking it.  Polly and Jack
declared that they would starve sooner than eat anything that hadn’t been
cooked over a camp-fire.  Bell and Philip said that they should stand in
front of it all the time, for fear somebody would ride through the cañon
and catch them camping out with a stove.  Imagine such a situation; it
made them blush.  Margery said she wished people weren’t quite so
practical, and wouldn’t ruin nature by introducing such ugly and
unnecessary things.  She intended to point the moral by drawing a picture
of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden,—Eve bending over a cook-stove and
Adam peeling apples with a machine.  Geoffrey scoffed at Margery’s
sentimentalism, put on his most trying air, and declared that if he had
his pork and onions served up ‘hot and reg’lar,’ he didn’t care how she
had her victuals cooked.

They were all somewhat appeased, however, when they found that Dr.
Winship was as anxious as they for an evening camp-fire, and merely
insisted upon the stove because it simplified the cookery.  Furthermore,
being an eminently just man, he yielded so far as to give them permission
to prepare their own meals on a private camp-fire whenever they desired;
and this effectually stopped the argument, for no one was willing to pay
so heavy a price for effect.

The hammocks, made of gaily-coloured cords, were slung in various
directions a short distance from the square tent, which, being the family
sitting-room, was the centre of attraction.  It was arranged with a gay
canopy, twenty feet square.  Three sides were made by hanging full
curtains of awning cloth from redwood rods by means of huge brass rings.
These curtains were looped back during the day and dropped after dark,
making a cosy and warm interior from which to watch the camp-fire on cool
evenings.

As for the Cañon de Las Flores itself, this little valley of the flowers,
it was beautiful enough in every part to inspire an artist’s pencil or a
poet’s pen; so quiet and romantic it was, too, it might almost have been
under a spell,—the home of some sleepy, enchanted princess waiting the
magic kiss of a princely lover.  It reached from the ocean to the
mountains, and held a thousand different pictures on which to feast the
eye; for Dame Nature deals out beauty with a lavish hand in this land of
perpetual summer, song, and sunshine.  There were many noble oak-trees,
some hung profusely with mistletoe, and others with the long, Spanish
greybeard moss, that droops from the branches in silvery lines, like
water spray.  Sometimes, in the moonlight, it winds about the oak like a
shroud, and then again like a filmy bridal veil, or drippings of mist
from a frozen tree.

Here and there were open tracts of ground between the clumps of trees,
like that in which the tents were pitched,—sunny places, where the earth
was warm and dry, and the lizards blinked sleepily under the stones.

Farther up the cañon were superb bay-trees, with their glossy leaves and
aromatic odour, and the madroño, which, with its blood-red skin, is one
of the most beautiful of California trees, having an open growth, like a
maple, bright green lustrous leaves, and a brilliant red bark, which
peels off at regular seasons, giving place to a new one of delicate
pea-green.

There were no birches with pure white skin, or graceful elms, or fluffy
pussy willows, but so many beautiful foreign things that it would seem
ungrateful to mourn those left behind in the dear New England woods; and
as for flowers, there are no yellow and purple violets, fragile anemones,
or blushing Mayflowers, but in March the hillsides are covered with red,
in April flushed with pink and blue, in May brilliant with yellow
blossoms; and in the cañons, where the earth is moist, there are flowers
all the year.

And then the girls would never forgive me if I should forget the superb
yucca, or Spanish bayonet, which is as beautiful as a tropical queen.
Its tall, slender stalk has no twigs or branches, but its leaves hang
down from the top like bayonet-blades; and oh, there rises from the
centre of them such a stately princess of a flower, like a tree in
itself, laden with cream-white, velvety, fragrant blossoms.

The boys often climbed the hillsides and brought home these splendid
treasures, which were placed in pails of water at the tent doors, to shed
their luxuriant beauty and sweetness in the air for days together.  They
brought home quantities of Spanish moss, and wild clematis, and manzanita
berries too, with which to decorate the beloved camp; and even Dicky
trotted back with his arms full of gorgeous blossoms and grasses, which
he arranged with great taste and skill in mugs, bottles, and cans on the
dining-table.

Can’t you see what a charming place it was?  And I have not begun to tell
you the half yet; for there was always a soft wind stirring the leaves in
dreamy music, and above and through this whispered sound you heard the
brook splashing over its pebbly bed,—splashing and splashing and laughing
all it possibly could, knowing it would speedily be dried up by the
thirsty August sun.  Every few yards part of the stream settled down
contentedly into a placid little pool, while the most inquisitive and
restless little drops flowed noisily down to see what was going on below.
The banks were fringed with graceful alders and poison-oak bushes, vivid
in crimson and yellow leaves, while delicate maiden-hair ferns grew in
miniature forests between the crevices of the rocks; yet, with the
practicality of Chinese human nature, Hop Yet used all this beauty for a
dish-pan and refrigerator!

Now, confess that, after having seen exactly how it looks, you would like
to rub a magic lamp, like Aladdin, and wish yourself there with our merry
young sextette.  For California is a lovely land and a strange one, even
at this late day, when her character has been nearly ruined by dreadful
stories, or made ridiculous by foolish ones.

When you were all babies in long clothes, some people used to believe
that there were nuggets of gold to be picked up in the streets, and that
in the flowery valleys, flowing with milk and honey, there grew groves of
beet-trees, and forests of cabbages, and shady bowers of squash-vines;
and they thought that through these fertile valleys strode men of curious
mien, wild bandits and highway robbers, with red flannel shirts and many
pockets filled with playing-cards and revolvers and bowie-knives; and
that when you met these frightful persons and courteously asked the time
of day, they were apt to turn and stab you to the heart by way of
response.

Now, some of these things were true, and some were not, and some will
never happen again; for the towns and cities no longer conduct themselves
like headstrong young tomboys out on a lark, but have grown into ancient
and decorous settlements some twenty-five or thirty years old.

Perhaps California isn’t really so interesting since she began to learn
manners; but she is a land of wonders still, with her sublime mountains
and valleys; her precious metals; her vineyards and orchards of lemons
and oranges, figs, limes, and nuts; her mammoth vegetables, each big
enough for a newspaper story; her celebrated trees, on the stumps of
which dancing-parties are given; her vultures; her grizzly bears; and her
people, drawn from every nook and corner of the map—pink, yellow, blue,
red, and green countries.  And though the story of California is not
written, in all its romantic details, in the school-books of to-day, it
is a part of the poetry of our late American history, full of strange and
thrilling scenes, glowing with interest and dramatic fire.

I know a little girl who crossed the plains in that great ungeneraled
army of fifteen or twenty thousand people that made the long and weary
journey to the land of gold in 1849.  She tells her children now of the
strange, long days and months in the ox-team, passing through the heat
and dust of alkali deserts, fording rivers, and toiling over steep
mountains.  She tells them how at night she often used to lie awake,
curled up in her grey blanket, and hear the men talking together of the
gold treasures they were to dig from the ground—treasures, it seemed to
her childish mind, more precious than those of which she read in The
Arabian Nights.  And from a little hole in the canvas cover of the old
emigrant wagon she used to see the tired fathers and brothers, worn and
footsore from their hard day’s tramp, some sleeping restlessly, and
others guarding the cattle or watching for Indians, who were always
expected, and often came; and the last thing at night, when her eyes were
heavy with sleep, she peered dreamily out into the darkness to see the
hundreds of gleaming camp-fires, which dotted the plain as far as the eye
could reach.

                                * * * * *

You will have noticed that this first week of camp-life was a quiet one,
spent mostly by the young people in getting their open-air home
comfortably arranged, making conveniences of all kinds, becoming
acquainted with the cañon so far as they could, and riding once or twice
to neighbouring ranches for hay or provisions.

Dr. Winship believed in a good beginning; and, as this was not a week’s
holiday, but a summer campaign, he wanted his young people to get fully
used to the situation before undertaking any of the exciting excursions
in prospect.  So, before the week was over, they began to enjoy sound,
dreamless sleep on their hard straw beds, to eat the plain fare with
decided relish, to grow a little hardy and brown, and quite strong and
tough enough for a long tramp or horseback ride.

After a religious devotion to cold cream for a few nights, Polly had
signified her terrible intention of ‘letting her nose go.’  ‘I disown
it!’ she cried, peeping in her tiny mirror, and lighting up her too rosy
tints with a tallow candle.  ‘Hideous objick, I defy thee!  Spot and
speckle, yea, burn to a crisp, and shed thy skin afterwards!  I care not.
Indeed, I shall be well rid of thee, thou—h’m—thou—well, leopard, for
instance.’

One beautiful day followed another, each the exact counterpart of the one
that had preceded it; for California boys and girls never have to say
‘wind and weather permitting’ from March or April until November.  They
always know what the weather is going to do; and whether this is an
advantage or not is a difficult matter to settle conclusively.

New England boys affirm that they wouldn’t live in a country where it
couldn’t rain any day it felt like it, and California lads retort that
they are glad their dispositions are not ruined by the freaks of New
England weather.  At all events, it is a paradise for would-be campers,
and any one who should assert the contrary would meet with energetic
opposition from the loyal dwellers in Camp Chaparral.

Bell returned one day from a walk which she had taken by herself, while
the other girls were off on some errand with the Doctor.  After luncheon
she drew them mysteriously into the square tent, and lowered the
curtains.

‘What is it?’ Polly whispered, with an anxious expression of countenance.
‘Have you lost your gold thimble again, or your temper, or have you
discovered a silver mine?’

‘I have found,’ she answered mysteriously, ‘the most beautifully secret
place you ever beheld.  It will be just the spot for us to write and
study in when we want to be alone; or it will even do for a theatre; and
it is scarcely more than half a mile up the cañon.’

‘How did you find it?’ asked Margery.

‘As I was walking along by the brookside, I saw a snake making its way
through the bushes, and—’

‘Goodness!’ shrieked Polly, ‘I shall not write there, thank you.’

‘Goose!  Just wait a minute.  I looked at it, and followed at a distance;
it was a harmless little thing; and I thought, for the fun of it, I would
just push blindly on and see what I should find, because we are for ever
walking in the beaten path, and I long for something new.’

‘A bad instinct,’ remarked Madge, ‘and one which will get you into
trouble, so you should crush it in its infancy.’

‘Well, I took up my dress and ploughed through the chaparral, until I
came, in about three minutes of scratching and fighting, to an open
circular place about as large as this tent.  It was exactly round, which
is the curious part of it; and in the centre was one stump, covered with
moss and surrounded by great white toadstools.  How any one happened to
go in there and cut down a single tree I can’t understand, nor yet how
they managed to bring out the tree through the tangled brush.  It is so
strange that it seems as if there must be a mystery about it.’

‘Certainly,’ said Margery promptly. ‘A tragedy of the darkest kind!
Some cruel wretch has cut down, in the pride and pomp of its beauty, one
sycamore-tree; its innocent life-blood has stained the ground, and given
birth to the white toadstools which mark the spot and testify to the
purity of the victim.’

‘Well,’ continued Bell, impressively, ‘I knew I could never find it
again; and I wanted so much you should see it that I took the ball of
twine we always carry, unrolled it, and dropped the thread all the way
along to the brookside, like Phrygia, or Melpomene, or Anemone, or
whatever her name was.’

‘Or Artesia, or Polynesia, or Euthanasia,’ interrupted Polly.  ‘I think
the lady you mean is Ariadne.’

‘Exactly.  Now we’ll take papa to see it, and then we’ll fit it up as a
retreat.  Won’t it be charming?  We’ll call it the Lone Stump.’

‘Oh, I like that; it makes me shiver!’ cried Polly.  ‘I’m going to write
an ode to it at once.  Ahem!  It shall begin—let me see—

    ‘O lonely tree,
    What cruel “he”
    Did lay thee low?
    Tell us the facts;
    Did cruel axe
    Abuse thee so?’

‘Sublime!  Second verse,’ said Bell slowly, with pauses between the
lines:—

    ‘Or did a gopher,
    The wicked loafer,
    Gnaw at thy base,
    And, doing so,
    Contrive to go,
    And leave no trace?’

‘Oh dear!’ sighed Margery; ‘if you will do it, wait a minute.

    ‘O toadstools white,
    Pray give us light
    Upon the question.
    Did gopher gnaw,
    And live in awe
    Of indigestion?’

‘Good!’ continued Bell:—

    ‘Or did a man
    Malicious plan
    The good tree’s ruin,
    And leave it so
    Convenient low,
    A seat for Bruin?

For travelling grizzlies, you know.  We may go there and see a hungry
creature making a stump-speech, while an admiring audience of
grasshoppers and tarantulas seat themselves in a circle on the
toadstools.’

‘Charming prospect!’ said Madge.  ‘I don’t think I care to visit the Lone
Stump or pass my mornings there.’

‘Nonsense, dear child; it is just like every other part of the cañon,
only a little more lonely.  It is not half a mile from camp, and hardly a
dozen steps from the place where the boys go so often to shoot quail.’

‘Very well,’ said the girls.  ‘We must go there to-morrow morning; and
perhaps we’d better not tell the boys,—they are so peculiar.  Jack will
certainly interfere with us in some way, if he hears about it.’

‘Now let us take our books and run down by the pool for an hour or two,’
said Bell.  ‘Papa and the boys are all off shooting, and mamma is lying
down.  We can have a cool, quiet time; the sunshine is so hot here by the
tents.’

Accordingly, they departed, as they often did, for one of the prolonged
chats in which school-girls are wont to indulge, and which so often, too,
are but idle, senseless chatter.

These young people, however, had been fortunate in having the wisest and
most loving guardianship, so that all their happy young lives had been
spent to good purpose.  They had not shirked study, and so their minds
were stocked with useful information; they had read carefully and
digested thoroughly whatever they had read, so that they possessed a good
deal of general knowledge.  The girls were bright, sensible, industrious
little women, who tried to be good, too, in the old-fashioned sense of
the word; and full of fun, nonsense, and chatter as they were among
themselves, they never forgot to be modest and unassuming.

The boys were pretty well in earnest about life, too, with good ambitions
and generous aspirations.  They had all been studying with Dr. Winship
for nearly two years; and that means a great deal, for he was a real
teacher, entering into the lives of his pupils, sympathising with them in
every way, and leading them, through the study of nature, of human
beings, and of God, to see the beauty and meaning of life.

Geoffrey Strong, of course, was older than the rest, having completed his
junior year at college; but Dr. Winship, who was his guardian, thought it
wiser for him to rest a year and come to him in California, as his
ambition and energy had already led him into greater exertions than his
age or strength warranted.  He was now studying medicine with the good
Doctor, but would go back to the ‘land of perpetual pie’ in the fall and
complete his college course.

A splendid fellow he was,—so earnest, thoughtful, and wise; so gravely
tender in all his ways to Aunt Truth, who was the only mother he had ever
known; so devoted to Dr. Winship, who loved him as his own elder son.

What will Geoffrey Strong be as a man?  The twig is bent, and it is safe
to predict how the tree will incline.  His word will be as good as his
bond; he will be a good physician, for his eye is quick to see suffering,
and his hand ready to relieve it; little children with feverish cheeks
and tired eyes will love to clasp his cool, strong hand; he will be
gentle as a woman, yet thoroughly manly, as he is now, for he has made
the most of his golden youth, and every lad who does that will have a
golden manhood and a glorious old age.

As for Philip Noble, he was a dear, good, trustworthy lad too; kindly,
generous, practical, and industrious; a trifle slow and reserved,
perhaps, but full of common sense,—the kind of sense which, after all, is
most uncommon.

Bell once said: ‘This is the difference between Philip and Geoffrey,—one
does, and the other is.  Geoff is the real Simon-pure ideal which we
praise Philip for trying to be,’—a very good description for a little
maiden whose bright eyes had only looked into life for sixteen summers.

And now we come to Jack Howard, who never kept still long enough for any
one to write a description of him.  To explain how he differed from
Philip or Geoffrey would be like bringing the Equator and the Tropic of
Cancer together for purposes of comparison.

If there were a horseback ride, Jack rode the wildest colt, was oftenest
thrown and least often hurt; if a fishing-party, Jack it was who caught
all the fish, though he made more noise than any one else, and followed
no rules laid down in _The Complete Angler_.

He was very often in trouble; but his misdemeanours were those of pure
mischief, and were generally atoned for when it was possible.  He
excelled in all out-of-door sports.  And indeed, if his prudence had at
all kept pace with his ability, he might have done remarkable things in
almost any direction; but he constantly overshot the mark, and people
looked to him for the dazzling brilliancy and uncertainty of a meteor,
but never for the steady glow of a fixed star.

Just now, Jack was a good deal sobered, and appeared at his very best.
The teaching of Dr. Paul and the companionship of Geoffrey had done much
for him, while the illness of his sister Elsie, who was the darling of
his heart, acted constantly as a sort of curb upon him; for he loved her
with all the ardour and passion which he gave to everything else.  You
might be fearful of Jack’s high spirits and riotous mirth, of his
reckless actions and heedless jokes, but you could scarcely keep from
admiring the boy; for he was brave and handsome and winsome enough to
charm the very birds off the bush, as Aunt Truth acknowledged, after
giving him a lecture for some misdemeanour.

The three girls made their way a short distance up the cañon to a place
which they called Prospect Pool, because it was so entirely shut in from
observation.

‘Dear old Geoff!’ said Bell, throwing her shawl over a rock and opening
her volume of Carlyle.  ‘He has gone all through this for me, and written
nice little remarks on the margin,—explanations and things, and
interrogations where he thinks I won’t know what is meant and had better
find out,—bless his heart!  What have you brought, Margery?  By the way,
you must move your seat away from that clump of poison-oak bushes; we
can’t afford to have any accidents which will interfere with our fun.  We
have all sorts of new remedies, but I prefer that the boys should
experiment with them.’

‘It’s the softest seat here, too,’ grumbled Margery.  ‘We must get the
boys to cut these bushes down.  Why, you haven’t any book, you lazy
Polly.  Are you going to sleep, or shall you chatter and prevent our
reading?’

‘Neither,’ she answered.  ‘Here is a doughnut which I propose to send
down the red pathway of fate; and here a pencil and paper with which I am
going to begin our round-robin letter to Elsie.’

‘That’s good!  She has only had notes from Jack and one letter from us,
which, if I remember right, had nothing in it.’

‘Thanks!  I wrote it,’ sniffed Bell.

‘Well, I meant it had no news—no account of things, you know.’

‘No, I wouldn’t descend to writing news, and I leave accounts to the
butcher.’

‘Stop quarrelling, girls!  This is my plan: I will begin in my usual
rockety style, sometimes maliciously called the Pollyoliver method;
Margery will take up the thread sedately; Bell will plunge in with a
burst of enthusiasm and seventeen adjectives, followed by a verse of poor
poetry; Geoff will do the sportive or instructive, just as he happens to
feel; and Phil will wind up the letter by some practical details which
will serve as a key to all the rest.  Won’t it be a box of literary
bonbons for her to read in bed, poor darling!  Let me see!  I represent
the cayenne lozenges, sharp but impressive; Margery will do for jujube
paste, which I adore,—mild, pleasant, yielding, delicious.’

‘Sticky and insipid!’ murmured Madge, plaintively.

‘Not at all, my dear.  Bell stands for the peppermints; Jack for
chocolates, “the ladies’ delight”; Geoffrey for a wine-drop, altogether
good, but sweetest in its heart; Phil—let me see!  Phil is like—what is
he like?’

‘No more like candy than a cold boiled potato,’ said his sister.

‘He is _candid_,’ suggested Bell.  ‘Let us call him rock-candy, pure,
healthful, and far from soft.’

‘Or marshmallow,’ said Margery, ‘good, but tough.’

‘Or caramel,’ laughed Polly; ‘it always sticks to a point.’

‘Thanks, gentle creatures,’ said a voice from the bushes on the other
side of the pool, and Phil stalked out from his covert, like a wounded
deer.

‘How long have you been in there, villain?’ cried Bell.

‘Ever since lunch; but I only waked from a sound sleep some twenty
minutes ago.  I’ve heard a most instructive conversation—never been more
amused in my life; don’t know whether I prefer being a cold boiled potato
or a ladies’-delight!’

‘You haven’t any choice,’ snapped Polly, a trifle embarrassed at having
been overheard.

‘I’m glad it was my own sister who called me a c. b. p. (the most
loathsome thing in existence, by the way), because sisters never
appreciate their brothers.’

‘I didn’t call you a c. b. p.,’ remonstrated Margery.  ‘I said you were
no more like candy than a c. b. p.  There is a difference.’

‘Is there?  My poor brain fails to grasp it.  But never mind; I’ll
forgive you.’

‘Listeners never hear good of themselves,’ sighed Polly.

‘Are you writing a copy-book, Miss Oliver?  I didn’t want to listen; it
was very painful to my feelings, but I was too sleepy to move.’

‘And now our afternoon is gone, and we have not read a word,’ sighed
little Margery.  ‘I never met two such chatterboxes as you and Polly.’

‘And to hear us talk is a liberal education,’ retorted Polly.

‘Exactly,’ said Philip, dryly, ‘Come, I’ll take the books and shawls.
It’s nearly five o’clock, and we shall hear Hop Yet blowing his lusty
dinner-horn presently.’

‘Why didn’t you go off shooting with the others?’ asked Margery.

‘Stayed at home so they’d get a chance to shoot.’

‘Why, do you mean you always scare the game away?’ inquired Polly,
artlessly.

‘No; I mean that I always do all the shooting, and the others get
discouraged.’

‘Clasp hands over the bloody chasm,’ said Bell, ‘and let us smoke the
pipe of peace at dinner.’

Philip and Bell came through the trees, and, as they neared the camp, saw
Aunt Truth sitting at the door of Tent Chatter, looking the very picture
of comfort, as she drew her darning-needle in and out of an unseemly rent
in one of Dicky’s stockings.  Margery and Polly came up just behind, and
dropped into her lap some beautiful branches of wild azalea.

‘Did you have a pleasant walk, dears?’ she asked.

‘Yes, indeed, dear auntie.  Now, just hold your head perfectly still,
while we decorate you for dinner.  We will make Uncle Doc’s eyes fairly
pop with admiration.  Have you been lonely without us?’

‘Oh, not a bit.  You see there has been a good deal of noise about here,
and I felt as if I were not alone.  Hop Yet has been pounding soap-root
in the kitchen, and I hear the sound of Pancho’s axe in the distance,—the
Doctor asked him to chop wood for the camp-fire.  Was Dicky any trouble?
Where is he?’

‘Why, darling mother, are you crazy?’ asked Bell.  ‘If you think a
moment, he was in the hammock and you were lying down in the tent when we
started.’

‘Why, I certainly thought I heard him ask to go with you,’ said Mrs.
Winship, in rather an alarmed tone.

‘So he did; but I told him it was too far.’

‘I didn’t hear that; in fact, I was half asleep; I was not feeling well.
Ask Hop Yet; he has been in the kitchen all the afternoon.’

Hop Yet replied, with discouraging tranquillity, ‘Oh, I no know.  I no
sabe Dicky; he allee time lun loun camp; I no look; too muchee work.  I
chop hash—Dicky come in kitch’—make heap work—no good.  I tell him go
long—he go; bime-by you catchum; you see.’  Whereupon he gracefully
skinned an onion, and burst into a Chinese song, with complete
indifference as to whether Dicky lived or died.

‘Perhaps he is with Pancho; I’ll run and see!’ cried Polly, dashing
swiftly in the direction of the sky-parlour.  But after a few minutes she
ran back, with a serious face.  ‘He’s not there; Pancho has not seen him
since lunch.’

‘Well, I’ve just happened to think,’ said pale Aunt Truth, ‘that papa
came into the tent for some cartridges, after you left, and of course he
took Dick with him.  I don’t suppose it is any use to worry.  He always
does come out right; and I have told him so many times never on any
account to go away from the camp alone that he surely would not do it.
Papa and the boys will be home soon, now.  It is nearly six o’clock, and
I told them that I would blow the horn at six, as usual.  If they are too
far away to hear it, they will know the time by the sun.’

‘Well,’ said Bell, anxiously, ‘I hope it is all right.  Papa is so strict
that he won’t be late himself.  Did all the boys go with him, mamma?’

‘Yes, all but Philip.’

‘Oh, then Dicky must be with them,’ said Margery, consolingly.  ‘Geoffrey
always takes him wherever he can.’

So the girls went into the tent to begin their dinner toilet, which
consisted in carefully brushing burrs and dust from their pretty dresses,
and donning fresh collars and stockings, with low ties of russet leather,
which Polly declared belonged only to the stage conception of a camping
costume; then, with smoothly brushed hair and bright flower-knots at
collar and belt, they looked charming enough to grace any drawing-room in
the land.

The horn was blown again at six o’clock, Aunt Truth standing at the
entrance of the path which led up the cañon, shading her anxious eyes
from the light of the setting sun.—

‘Here they come!’ she cried, joyously, as the welcome party appeared in
sight, guns over shoulder, full game-bags, and Jack and Geoff with a few
rabbits and quail hanging over their arms.

The girls rushed out of the tent.  Bell took in the whole group with one
swift glance, and then turned to her mother, who, like most mothers,
believed the worst at once, and grew paler as she asked:

‘Papa, where is little Dick?’

‘Dick!  Why, my dear, he has not been out with us.  What do you mean?’

‘Are you sure you didn’t take him?’ faltered Aunt Truth.

‘Of course I am.  Good heavens!  Doesn’t any one know where the child
is?’ looking at the frightened group.

‘You know, uncle,’ said Geoffrey, ‘we started out at three o’clock.  I
noticed Dicky playing with his blocks in our tent, and said good-bye to
him.  Did you see him when you came back for the cartridges?’

‘Certainly I did; he called me to look at his dog making believe go to
sleep in the hammock.’

‘We girls went down to the pool soon after that,’ said Bell, tearfully.
‘He asked to go with us, and I told him it was too far, and that he’d
better stay with mamma, who would be all alone.  He said “Yes” so sweetly
I couldn’t mistrust him.  Oh, was it my fault, papa?  Please don’t say it
was!’ and she burst into a passion of sobs.

‘No, no, my child, of course it was not.  Don’t cry; we shall find him.
Go and look about the camp, Geoff, while we consider for a minute what to
do.’

‘If there is any fault, it is mine, for going to sleep,’ said poor Aunt
Truth; ‘but I never dreamed he would dare to wander off alone, my poor
little disobedient darling!  What shall we do?’

‘Have you spoken to Pancho and Hop Yet?’ asked Phil.

‘Yes; they have seen nothing.’

Hop Yet just at this moment issued from his kitchen with an immense
platter of mutton-stew and dumplings, which he deposited on the table.
On being questioned again, he answered as before, with the greatest
serenity, intimating that Dicky would come home ‘heap bime-by’ when he
got ‘plenty hungly.’  He seemed to think a lost boy or two in a family
rather a trifle than otherwise, and wound up his unfeeling remarks with
the practical one, ‘Dinner all leady; you no eat mutton, he get cold!
Misser Wins’, I no find pickle; you catchum!’

‘I don’t believe he would care if we all died right before his eyes,’
muttered Polly, angrily.  ‘I should just like to see a Chinaman’s heart
once, and find out whether it was made of resin, or cuttle-fish, or
what.’

‘Well,’ said Phil, as Dr. Winship came through the trees from the
card-room, ‘we must start out this instant, and of course we can find him
somehow, somewhere; he hasn’t been gone over two hours, and he couldn’t
walk far, that’s certain.  Now, Uncle Doc, shall we all go different
ways, and leave the girls here to see if he doesn’t turn up?’

‘Oh, papa,’ cried Bell, ‘do not leave us at home! We can hunt as well
as any one; we know every foot of the cañon. Let me go with Geoff, and
we’ll follow the brook trail.’

‘Very well.  Now, mamma, Pancho and I will go down to the main road, and
you wait patiently here.  Make all the noise you can, children; and the
one who finds him must come back to the camp and blow the horn.  Hop Yet,
we go now; if Dicky comes back, you blow the horn yourself, will you?’

‘All light, boss.  You eat um dinner now; then go bime-by; mutton heap
cold; you—’

‘Dinner!’ shouted Jack.  ‘Confound your impudence!  If you say dinner
again, I’ll cut the queue off your stupid head.’

‘Good!’ murmured Polly, giving a savage punch to her blue Tam o’ Shanter
cap.

‘Jack, Jack!’ remonstrated Aunt Truth.

‘I know, dear auntie; but the callous old heathen makes me so mad I can’t
contain myself.  Come, Margery, let’s be off.  Get your shawl; and hurrah
for the one who comes back to blow the horn first!  I’ll wager you ten to
one I’ll have Dick in auntie’s lap inside the hour!’—at which Aunt
Truth’s eyes brightened, and she began to take heart again.  But as he
tore past the brush kitchen and out into the woods, dragging Madge after
him at a breathless pace, he shut his lips together rather grimly,
saying, ‘I’d give five hundred dollars (s’posin’ I had a cent) to see
that youngster safe again.’

‘Tell me one thing, Jack,’ said Margery, her teeth chattering with
nervousness; ‘are there any animals in this cañon that would attack him?’

‘Oh, of course it is possible that a California lion or a wild-cat might
come down to the brook to drink—they have been killed hereabouts—but I
hardly believe it is likely; and neither do I believe they would be apt
to hurt him, any way, for he would never attack them, you know.  What I
am afraid of is that he has tumbled over the rocks somewhere in climbing,
or tangled himself up in the chaparral.  He couldn’t have made off with a
pistol, could he?  He is up to all such tricks.’

Presently the cañon began to echo with strange sounds, which I have no
doubt sent the owls, birds, and rabbits into fits of terror; for the boys
had whistles and pistols, while Polly had taken a tin pan and a hammer.
She had gone with Phil out behind the thicket of manzanita bushes, and
they both stood motionless, undecided where to go.

‘Oh, Phil, I can’t help it; I must cry, I am so frightened.  Let me sit
down a second.  Yes, I know it’s an ant-hill, and I shouldn’t care if it
were a hornets’ nest—I deserve to be stung.  What do you think I said to
Margery this morning?  That Dicky was a perfect little marplot, and
spoiled all our fun, and I wished he were in the bottom of the Red Sea;
and then I called him a k-k-k-ill-joy!’ and Polly buried her head in her
blue Tam, and cried a good, honest, old-fashioned cry.

‘There, chirk up, poor little soul, and don’t you fret over a careless
speech, that meant nothing at all.  I’ve wished him in the Red Sea more
than once, but I’m blessed if I ever do it again.  Come, let’s go over
yonder, where we caught the young owl; Dicky may have wanted to try that
little game again.’

So they went on, calling, listening, then struggling on again, more
anxious every moment, but not so thoroughly dazed as Bell, who had rocked
her baby-brother in his cradle, and to whom he was the embodiment of
every earthly grace, if not of every heavenly virtue.

‘I might have known this would happen,’ she said, miserably.  ‘He is so
careless that, if we ever find him again, we must keep him tied to
something.’

‘Take care of your steps, dear,’ said Geoff, ‘and munch this cracker, or
you won’t have strength enough to go on with me.  I wish it were not
getting so dark; the moment the sun gets behind these mountain-tops the
light seems to vanish in an instant.—Dick-y!’

‘Think of the poor darling out in this darkness—hungry, frightened, and
alone,’ sighed Bell.  ‘It’s past his bed-time now.  Oh, why did we ever
come to stay in this horrible place!’

‘You must not blame the place, dear; we thought it the happiest in the
world this morning.  Here we are by the upper pool, and the path stops.
Which way had we better go?’

‘I’ve been here before to-day,’ said Bell; ‘we might follow the trail I
made.  But where is my string?  Light a match, Geoff, please.’

‘What string?  What do you mean?’

‘Why, I found a beautiful spot this morning, and, fearing I shouldn’t
remember the way again, I took out my ball of twine and dropped a white
line all the way back, like Ariadne; but I don’t see it.  Where can it
have disappeared—unless Jack or Phil took it to tease me?’

‘Oh no; I’ve been with them all day.  Perhaps a snake has swallowed it.
Come.’

But a bright idea had popped into Bell’s head.  ‘I want to go that way,
Geoff, dear; it’s as good as any other, and there are flowers just the
other side, in an open, sunny place; perhaps he found them.’

‘All right; let’s go ahead.’

‘The trouble is, I don’t know which way to go.  Here is the rock; I
remember it was a spotted one, with tall ferns growing beside it.  Now I
went—let me see—this way,’ and they both plunged into the thick brush.

‘Bell, Bell, this is utter nonsense!’ cried Geoff.  ‘No child could crawl
through this tangle.’

‘Dicky could crawl through anything in this universe, if it was the wrong
thing; he isn’t afraid of beast, bird, or fish, and he positively enjoys
getting scratched,’ said Bell.

Meanwhile, what had become of this small hero, and what was he doing?  He
was last seen in the hammock, playing with the long-suffering terrier,
Lubin, who was making believe go to sleep.  It proved to be entirely a
make-believe; for, at the first loosening of Dicky’s strangling hold upon
his throat, he tumbled out of the hammock and darted into the woods.
Dicky followed, but Lubin was fleet of foot, and it was a desperate and
exciting race for full ten minutes.

At length, as Lubin heard his little master’s gleeful laugh, he realised
that his anger was a thing of the past; consequently, he wheeled about
and ran into Dicky’s outstretched arms, licking his face and hands
exuberantly in the joy of complete forgiveness.

By this time the voice of conscience in Dicky’s soul—and it was a very,
very still, small one on all occasions—was entirely silenced.  He strayed
into a sunny spot, and picked flowers enough to trim his little sailor
hat, probably divining that this was what lost children in Sunday-school
books always did, and it would be dishonourable not to keep up the
superstition.  Then he built a fine, strong dam of stones across the
brook, wading to and fro without the bother of taking off his shoes and
stockings, and filled his hat with rocks and sunk it to the bottom for a
wharf, keeping his hat-band to tie an unhappy frog to a bit of bark, and
setting him afloat as the captain of a slave-ship.  When, at length, the
struggling creature freed himself from his bonds and leaped into the
pool, Dicky played that he was a drowning child, and threw Lubin into the
water to rescue him.

In these merry antics the hours flew by unnoticed; he had never been
happier in his life, and it flashed through his mind that if he were left
entirely to himself he should always be good.

‘Here I’ve been a whole day offul good by my lone self; haven’t said one
notty word or did one notty fing, nor gotted scolded a singul wunst, did
I, Lubin?  I guess we better live here; bettent we, Lubin?  And ven we
wunt git stuck inter bed fur wettin’ our feets little teenty mites of wet
ev’ry singul night all the livelong days, will we, Lubin?’

But this was a long period of reflection for Master Dicky, and he capered
on, farther and farther, the water sozzling frightfully in his little
copper-toed boots.  At length he sat down on a stone to rest himself,
and, glancing aimlessly about, his eyes fell on a white string, which he
grasped with alacrity, pulling its end from beneath the stone on which he
sat.

‘Luby Winship, the anjulls gaved me this string fur ter make an offul
splendid tight harness for you, little Luby; and you can drag big heavy
stones.  Won’t that be nice?’

Lubin looked doubtful, and wagged his tail dissentingly, as much as to
say that his ideas of angel ministrations were a trifle different.

But there was no end to the string!  How very, very curious!  Dicky wound
and wound and crept and crept along, until he was thoroughly tired but
thoroughly determined to see it through; and Lubin, meanwhile, had seized
the first convenient moment, after the mention of the harness, to retire
to the camp.

At length, oh joy! the tired and torn little man, following carefully the
leading-string, issued from the scratching bushes into a clean,
beautiful, round place, with a great restful-looking stump in the centre,
and round its base a small forest of snowy toadstools.  What could be a
lovelier surprise!  Dicky clapped his hands in glee as he looked at them,
and thought of a little verse of poetry which Bell had taught him:

    ‘Some fairy umbrellas came up to-day
    Under the elm-tree, just over the way,
    And as we have had a shower of rain,
    The reason they came is made very plain:
    To-night is the woodland fairies’ ball,
    And drops from the elm-tree might on them fall,
    So little umbrellas wait for them here,
    And under their shelter they’ll dance without fear.
    Take care where you step, nor crush them, I pray,
    For fear you will frighten the fairies away.’

‘Oh!’ thought Dicky, in a trance of delight, ‘now I shall go to the
fairies’ ball, and see ’em dance under the cunning little teenty
umberells; and wunt they be mad at home when nobuddy can’t see ’em but
just only me!  And then if that potry is a big whopper, like that there
uvver one—’laddin-lamp story of Bell’s—I’ll just pick evry white
toadstool for my papa’s Sunday dinner, and she sha’n’t never see a singul
fairy dance.’

But he waited very patiently for a long, long time that seemed like
years, for Lubin had disappeared; and all at once it grew so dark in this
thickly-wooded place that Dicky’s courage oozed out in a single moment,
without any previous warnings as to its intention.  The toadstools looked
like the ghosts of little past-and-gone fairy umbrellas in the darkness,
and not a single fairy couple came to waltz under their snowy canopies,
or exchange a furtive kiss beneath their friendly shadows.

Dicky thought the situation exceedingly gloomy, and, without knowing it,
followed the example of many older people, who, on being deserted by man,
experienced their first desire to find favour with God.  He was not in
the least degree a saintly child, but he felt instinctively that this was
the proper time for prayer; and not knowing anything appropriate to the
occasion, he repeated over and over again the time-worn plaint of
childhood:—

    ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,
    I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
    If I should die before I wake,
    I pray the Lord my soul to take.  Amen.’

Like older mortals of feeble faith, he looked for an immediate and
practical answer, in the shape, perhaps, of his mother, with his little
night-gown and bowl of bread and milk.

‘My sakes alive!’ he grumbled between his sobs, ‘they’re the meanest
fings I ever saw.  How long do they s’pose I’m goin’ to wait for ’em in
this dark?  When the bears have et me up in teenty snips, then they’ll be
saterfied, I guess, and wisht they’d tookened gooder care of me—a little
speck of a boy, lefted out in this dark, bear-y place, all by his lone
self.  O—oo—oo—oh!’ and he wound up with a murderous yell, which had
never failed before to bring the whole family to his side.

His former prayer seeming to be in vain, he found a soft place, brushed
it as clean as possible, and with difficulty bending his little stiff,
scratched body into a kneeling position, he prayed his nightly postscript
to ‘Now I lay me’: ‘God bless papa, ’n’ mamma, ’n’ Bell, ’n’ Jack, ’n’
Madge, ’n’ Polly, ’n’ Phil, ’n’ Geoff, ’n’ Elsie.’  Then, realizing that
he was in a perilous position, and it behooved him to be as pious as
possible, he added: ‘And please bless Pancho, ’n’ Hop Yet, ’n’ Lubin, ’n’
the goat—not the wild goat up on the hill, but my goat, what got sick to
his stummick when I painted him with black letters.’

What a dreadful calamity, to be sure, if the wrong goat had been blessed
by mistake!  His whole duty performed, he picked the toadstools for his
papa’s Sunday dinner, and, leaning his head against the lone stump, cried
himself to sleep.

                  [Picture: And cried himself to sleep]

But relief was near, though he little suspected it as he lay in the
sound, dreamless sleep which comes only to the truly good.  There was a
crashing sound in the still darkness, and Bell plunged through the thick
underbrush with a cry of delight.

‘He is here!  Dear, dear Geoff, he is all here!  I knew it, I knew it!
Hurrah!—no, I mean—thank God!’ she said softly as she stooped down to
kiss her mischievous little brother.

‘But what a looking creature!’ exclaimed Geoff, as he stooped over the
recovered treasure.  ‘See, Bell, his curls are glistening with pitch, his
dress is torn into ribbons, and his hands—ugh, how dirty!’

‘Poor little darling, he is thoroughly used up,’ whispered Bell, wiping
tears of joy from her brown eyes.  ‘Now, I’ll run home like lightning to
blow the horn; and you carry Dicky, for he is too sleepy and stiff to
walk; and, Geoff’—(here she laid an embarrassed hand on his
shoulder)—‘I’m afraid he’ll be awfully cross, but you’ll not mind it,
will you?  He’s so worn-out.’

‘Not I,’ laughed Geoff, as he dropped a brotherly kiss on Bell’s pale
cheek.  ‘But I’ve no idea of letting you go alone; you’re tired to death,
and you’ll miss the path.  I wish I could carry you both.’

‘Tired—afraid!’ cried Bell, with a ringing laugh, while Dicky woke with a
stare, and nestled on Geoffrey’s shoulder as if nothing had happened.
‘Why, now that this weight is lifted off my heart, I could see a path in
an untravelled forest!  Good-bye, you dear, darling, cruel boy!  I must
run, for every moment is precious to mamma.’  And with one strangling
hug, which made Dicky’s ribs crack, she dashed off.

Oh how joyously, how sweetly and tunefully, the furious blast of the old
cracked dinner-horn fell on the anxious ears in that cañon.  It seemed
clearer and more musical than a chime of silver bells.

In a trice the wandering couples had gathered jubilantly round the
camp-fire, all embracing Bell, who was the heroine of the hour—entirely
by chance, and not though superior vision or courage, as she confessed.

It was hardly fifteen minutes when Geoff strode into the ring with his
sorry-looking burden, which he laid immediately in Aunt Truth’s lap.

‘Oh my darling!’ she cried, embracing him fondly.  ‘To think you are
really not dead, after all!’

‘No, he is about as alive as any chap I ever saw.’  And while the happy
parents caressed their restored darling, Geoff gathered the girls and
boys around the dinner-table, and repeated some of Dicky’s remarks on the
homeward trip.

It seems that he considered himself the injured party, and with great
ingenuity laid all the blame of the mishap on his elders.

‘Nobuddy takes care of me, anyhow,’ he grumbled.  ‘If my papa wasn’t a
mean fing I’d orter to have a black nurse with a white cap and apurn,
like Billy Thomas, ’n’ then I couldn’t git losted so offul easy.  An’ you
all never cared a cent about it either, or you’d a founded me quicker ’n
this—’n’ I’ve been hungry fur nineteen hours, ’n’ I guess I’ve been gone
till December, by the feelin’, but you was too lazy to found me ’f I
freezed to def—’n’ there ain’t but one singul boy of me round the whole
camp, ’n’ ’t would serveded you right if I had got losted for ever; then
I bet you wouldn’t had much fun Fourth of July ’thout my two bits ’n’ my
fire-crackers!’

It was an hour or two before peace and quiet were restored to the camp.
The long-delayed dinner had to be eaten; and to Hop Yet’s calm delight,
it was a very bad one.  Dicky’s small wounds were dressed with sweet oil,
and after being fed and bathed he was tucked lovingly into bed, with a
hundred kisses or more from the whole party.

A little rest and attention had entirely restored his good-humour; and
when Dr. Paul went into the tent to see that all was safe for the night,
he found him sitting up in bed with a gleeful countenance, prattling like
a little angel.

‘We had an offul funny time ’bout my gittin’ losted, didn’t we, mamma?’
chuckled he, with his gurgling little laugh.  ‘Next time I’m goin’ to get
losted in annover bran’-new place where no-bud-dy can find me!  I fink it
was the nicest time ’cept Fourth of July, don’t you, mamma?’  And he
patted his mother’s cheek and imprinted an oily kiss thereon.

‘Truth,’ said the Doctor, with mild severity, ‘I know you don’t believe
in applying the slipper, but I do think we should arrange some plan for
giving that child an idea of the solemnity of life.  So far as I can
judge, he looks at it as one prolonged picnic.’

‘My sentiments exactly!’ cried Bell, energetically.  ‘I can’t stand many
more of these trying scenes; I am worn to a “shadder.”’

Dicky tucked his head under his mother’s arm, with a sigh of relief that
there was one person, at least, whose sentiments were always favourable
and always to be relied upon.

‘I love you the best of anybuddy, mamma,’ whispered he, and fell asleep.




CHAPTER IV
RHYME AND REASON


                A BUDGET OF LETTERS FROM THE CAMP MAIL-BAG

    ‘The letter of a friend is a likeness passing true.’

OUR friend Polly was seated in a secluded spot whence all but her had
fled; her grave demeanour, her discarded sun-bonnet, her corrugated brow,
all bespoke more than common fixedness of purpose, the cause of which
will be discovered in what follows.

              [Picture: Polly was seated in a secluded spot]



I.  FROM THE COUNTESS PAULINA OLIVERA TO HER FRIEND AND CONFIDANTE, THE
LADY ELSIE HOWARD. {100a}


       _Scene_: _A sequestered nook in the Valley of the Flowers_.

                                           CAMP CHAPARRAL, _July_ 6, 188–.

The countess is discovered at her ommerlu {100b} writing-table.  A light
zephyr {100c} plays with her golden locks {100d} and caresses her Grecian
{100e} nose—a nose that carries on its surface a few trifling freckles,
which serve but to call attention to its exquisite purity of outline and
the height of its ambition.  Her eyes reflect the changing shadows of
moonlight, and her mouth is one fit for sweet sounds; {100f} yet this
only gives you a faint idea of the beauteous creature whose fortunes we
shall follow in our next number. {100g}

I have given that style a fair trial, my dear darling, but I cannot stand
it another minute, not being familiar with the language of what our cook
used to call the ‘fuddal aristocracy’ (feudal, you know).

I, your faithful Polly, am seated in the card-room, writing with a
dreadful pen which Phil gave me yesterday.  Its internal organs are
filled with ink, which it disgorges when _pressed_ to do so, but just now
it is ‘too full for utterance,’ as you will see by the blots.

We have decided not to make this a real round-robin letter, like the
last, because we want to write what we like, and not have it read by the
person who comes next.

I have been badgered to death over my part of the communication sent to
you last week, for the young persons connected with this camp have a
faculty of making mountains out of mole-hills, as you know, and I have to
suffer for every careless little speech.  However, as we didn’t wish to
bore you with six duplicate letters, we invented a plan for keeping off
each other’s ground, and appointed Geoff a committee of one to settle our
line of march.  It is to be a collective letter, made up of individual
notes; and these are Geoff’s sealed orders, which must be obeyed, on pain
of dismissal from the camp:

    No. 1 (Polly) is to amuse!

    No. 2 (Phil)  . . . inform.

    No. 3 (Geoff) . . . edify!!

    No. 4 (Madge) . . . gossip.

    No. 5 (Bell)  . . . versify.

    No. 6 (Jack)  . . . illustrate.

So, my dear, if you get any ‘information’ or happen to be ‘edified’ by
what I write, don’t mention it for worlds!  (I just screamed my fears
about this matter to Jack, and he says ‘I needn’t fret.’  I shall
certainly slap that boy before the summer is over.)

I could just tell you a lovely story about Dicky’s getting lost in the
woods the day before yesterday, and our terrible fright about him, and
how we all joined in the boy-hunt, until Geoff and Bell found him at the
Lone Stump; but I suppose the chronicle belongs to Phil’s province, so I
desist.  But what can I say?  Suppose I tell you that Uncle Doc and the
boys have been shooting innocent, _tame_ sheep, skinning and cutting them
up on the way home, and making us believe for two days that we were
eating venison; and we never should have discovered the imposition had
not Dicky dragged home four sheep-skins from the upper pool, and told us
that he saw the boys ‘_peeling them off a venison_.’  Perhaps Phil may
call this information, and Margery will vow that it is gossip and belongs
to her; any way, they consider it a splendid joke, and chuckle themselves
to sleep over it every night; but I think the whole affair is perfectly
maddening, and it makes me boil with rage to be taken in so easily.  Such
a to-do as they make over the matter you never saw; you would think it
was the first successful joke since the Deluge.  (That wasn’t a _dry_
joke, was it?  Ha, ha!)

This is the way they twang on their harp of a thousand strings.  At
breakfast, this morning, when Jack passed me the corn-bread, I said
innocently, ‘Why, what have we here?’  ‘It is manna that fell in the
night,’ answered Jack, with an exasperating snicker.  ‘You didn’t know
mutton, but I thought, being a Sunday-school teacher, you would know
something about manna.’  (_N.B._—He alludes to that time I took the
infant class for Miss Jones, and they all ran out to see a military
funeral procession.)  ‘I wish you knew something about manners,’ snapped
I; and then Aunt Truth had to warn us both, as usual.  Oh dear! it’s a
weary world.  I’d just like to get Jack at a disadvantage once!

We climbed Pico Negro yesterday.  Bell, Geoff, Phil, and I had quite an
experience in losing the trail.  I will tell you about it.  Just as—

(Goodness me! what have I written?  Oh, Elsie, pray excuse those
_horizontal evidences_ of my forgetfulness and disobedience.  I have
bumped my head against the table three times, as penance, and will now
try to turn my thoughts into right channels.  This letter is a
black-and-white evidence that _I_ have not a frivolous order of mind, and
have always been misunderstood from my birth up to this date.)

We have had beautiful weather since—but no, of course Phil will tell you
about the weather, for that is scarcely an amusing topic.  I do want to
be as prudent as possible, for Uncle Doc is going to read all the letters
(not, of course, aloud) and see whether we have fulfilled our specific
obligations.

(I just asked Bell whether ‘specific’ had a ‘c’ or an ‘s’ in the middle,
and she answered ‘“c,” of course,’ with such an air, you should have
heard her!  I had to remind her of the time she spelled ‘Tophet’ with an
‘f’ in the middle; then she subsided.)

(I just read this last paragraph to Madge, to see if she called it
gossip, as I was going to take it out if it belonged to her topic, but
she said No, she didn’t call it gossip at all—that she should call it
slander!)

You don’t know how we all long to see you, dear darling that you are.  We
live in the hope of having you with us very soon, and meanwhile the
beautiful bedstead is almost finished, and a perfect success.  (I wish to
withdraw the last three quarters of that sentence, for obvious reasons!!)

Dear, dear!  Geoffrey calls ‘Time up,’ and I’ve scarcely said anything I
should.  Never, never again will I submit to this method of
correspondence; it is absolutely petrifying to one’s genius.  When I am
once forced to walk in a path, nothing but the whole out-of-doors will
satisfy me.

I’m very much afraid I haven’t amused you, dear,—

    But when I lie in the green kirkyard,
    With the mould upon my breast,
    Say not that ‘She did well or ill,’
    Only, ‘She did her best.’

Now, do you think that will interfere with Bell, when it’s only a
quotation?  Any way, it’s so appropriate that Uncle Doc will never have
the heart to strike it out.  The trouble is that Geoff thinks all the
poetry in the universe is locked up in Bell’s head, and if she once
allows it to escape, Felicia Hemans and the rest will be too discouraged
ever to try again!  (I can’t remember whether F. H. is alive or not, and
am afraid to ask, but you will know that I don’t mean to be
disrespectful.)

Laura, Anne, and Scott Burton were here for the play, and Laura is coming
down again to spend the week.  I can’t abide her, and there will probably
be trouble in the camp.

The flame of my genius blazes high just now, but Geoff has spoken, and it
must be snuffed.  So good-bye!

                       _Sizz-z-z_!! and I’m _out_!

                                                              POLLIOLIVER.



II.  FROM PHILIP TO ELSIE.


                                           CAMP CHAPARRAL, _July_ 8, 188–.

MY DEAR ELSIE,—I believe I am to inform you concerning the daily doings
of our party, not on any account, however, permitting myself to
degenerate into ‘gossip’ or ‘frivolous amusement.’

They evidently consider me a quiet, stupid fellow, who will fulfil such a
task with no special feeling of repression, and I dare say they are quite
right.

They call me the ‘solid man’ of the camp, which may not be very high
praise, to be sure, as Geoffrey carries his head in the clouds, and Jack
is—well, Jack is Jack!  So, as the light of a tallow dip is valuable in
the absence of sun and moon, I am raised to a fictitious reputation.

We fellows have had very little play so far, for the furnishing of the
camp has proved an immense undertaking, although we have plenty of the
right sort of wood and excellent tools.

We think the work will pay, however, as Dr. Paul has about decided to
stay until October, or until the first rain.  He writes two or three
hours a day, and thinks that he gets on with his book better here than at
home.  As for the rest of us, when we get fairly to rights we shall have
regular study hours and lose no time in preparing for the examinations.

I suppose you know that you have a full bedroom set in process of
construction.  I say ‘suppose you know,’ because it is a profound secret,
and the girls could never have kept it to themselves as long as this.

The lounging-chair is my allotted portion, and although it is a
complicated bit of work, I accepted it gladly, feeling sure that you
would use it oftener than any of the other pieces of furniture.  I shall
make it so deliciously easy that you will make me ‘Knight of the Chair,’
and perhaps permit me to play a sort of devoted John Brown to your
Victoria.  You will need one dull and prosy squire to arrange your
pillows, so that you can laugh at Jack’s jokes without weariness, and
doze quietly while Geoff and Uncle Doc are talking medicine.

Of course the most exciting event of the week was the mysterious
disappearance and subsequent restoration of the Heir-Apparent; but I feel
sure somebody else will describe the event, because it is uppermost in
all our minds.

Bell, for instance, would dress it up in fine style.  She is no
historian, but in poetry and fiction none of us can touch her; though, by
the way, Polly’s abilities in that direction are a good deal underrated.
It’s as good as a play to get her after Jack when he is in one of his
teasing moods.  They are like flint and steel, and if Aunt Truth didn’t
separate them the sparks would fly.  With a girl like Polly, you have
either to lie awake nights, thinking how you’ll get the better of her, or
else put on a demeanour of gentleness and patience, which serves as a
sort of lightning-rod round which the fire of her fun will play all day
and never strike.  Polly is a good deal of a girl.  She seems at first to
have a pretty sharp tongue, but I tell you she has a heart in which there
is swimming-room for everybody.  This may not be ‘information’ to you,
whom we look upon as our clairvoyant, but it would be news to most
people.

Uncle Doc, Bell, Geoff, Polly, Meg, and I started for the top of Pico
Negro the other morning.  Bell rode Villikins, and Polly took a mule,
because she thought the animal would be especially sure-footed.  He was;
in fact, he was so sure-footed that he didn’t care to move at all, and we
had to take turns in beating him up to the top.  We boys walked for
exercise, which we got to our hearts’ content.

It is only five or six miles from the old Mountain Mill (a picture of
which Jack will send you), and the ascent is pretty stiff climbing,
though nothing terrific.  We lost the trail once, and floundered about in
the chaparral for half an hour, till Bell began to make a poem on the
occasion, when we became desperate, and dashed through a thicket of
brush, tearing ourselves to bits, but stumbling on the trail at last.
The view from the top is simply superb.  The valleys below are all yellow
with grain-fields and green with vineyards, with here and there the roofs
of a straggling little settlement.  The depression in the side of the
mountain (you will observe it in the picture) Polly says has evidently
been ‘bitten out’ by a prehistoric animal, and it turns out to be the
loveliest little cañon imaginable.

We have had one novel experience—that of seeing a tarantula fight; and
not between two, but five, tarantulas.  We were about twenty miles from
camp, loping along a stretch of hot, dusty road.  Jack got off to cinch
his saddle, and so we all stopped a moment to let our horses breathe.  As
I was looking about, at nothing in particular, I noticed a black ball in
the deep dust at the side of the road.  It suddenly rolled over on itself
and I called to the boys to watch the fun.  We got off, hitched our
horses, and approached cautiously, for I had seen a battle of the same
kind before.  There they were—five huge, hairy, dirty, black creatures,
as large as the palm of Dicky’s hand, all locked in deadly combat.  They
writhed and struggled and embraced, their long, curling legs fastening on
each other with a sound that was actually like the cracking of bones.  It
takes a little courage to stand and watch such a proceeding, for you feel
as if the hideous fellows might turn and jump for you; but they were
doubtless absorbed in their own battle, and we wanted to see the affair
to the end, so we took the risk, if there was any.  At last they showed
signs of weariness, but we prodded them up with our riding-whips,
preferring that they should kill each other, rather than do the thing
ourselves.  Finally, four of them lay in the dust, doubled up and
harmless, slain, I suppose, by their own poison.  One, the conquering
hero, remained, and we dexterously scooped him into a tomato-can that
Jack had tied to his saddle for a drinking-cup, covered him up with a
handkerchief, and drew lots as to who should carry him home to Dr. Paul.

Knowing that the little beasts were gregarious, we hunted about for a
nest, which we might send to you after ousting its disagreeable occupant.
After much searching, we found a group of them—quite a tarantula village,
in fact.  Their wonderful little houses are closed on the outside by a
circular, many-webbed mesh, two or three inches across, and this web
betrays the spider’s den to the person who knows the tricks of the trade.
Directly underneath it you come upon the tiny circular trap-door, which
you will notice in the nest we send with these letters.  You will see how
wonderfully it is made, with its silken weaving inside, and its bits of
bark and leaves outside; and I know you will admire the hinge, which the
tarantula must have invented, and which is as pretty a bit of workmanship
as the most accomplished mechanic could turn out.  We tore away the web
and the door from one of the nests, and then poured water down the hole.
The spider was at home, came out as fast as his clumsy legs would carry
him, and clutched the end of the stick Jack held out to him.  Then we
tumbled him into the tomato-can just as he appeared to be making for us.
The two didn’t agree at all.  One of them despatched the other on the way
home—the same hero who had killed the other four; but, on hearing his
bloody record, Aunt Truth refused to have him about the camp; so we gave
him an alcohol bath, and you shall see his lordship when you come.  As
Dr. Paul says they have been known to clear fourteen feet at a jump,
perhaps you will feel happier to know that he is in alcohol, though their
bite is not necessarily fatal if it is rightly cared for.

The girls have been patronising the landscape by naming every peak,
valley, grove, and stream in the vicinity; and as there is nobody to
object, the names may hold.

We carry about with us a collection of strong, flat stakes, which have
various names painted on them in neat black letters.  Jack likes that
kind of work, and spends most of his time at it; for now that Dr. Paul
has bought a hundred acres up here, we are all greatly interested in its
improvement.

Geoff has named the mountain Pico Negro, as I told you, and the little
cañon on its side is called the Giant’s Yawn.  Then we have—

  Mirror Pool,

  The Lone Stump,

  Field of the Cloth-of-Gold,

  Cosy Nook,

  The Imp’s Wash-Bowl,

  Dunce-Cap Hill,

  The Saint’s Rest, and

  Il Penseroso Fall (in honour of Dicky, who was nearly drowned there).

If anybody fails to call these localities by their proper names he has to
pay a fine of five cents, which goes towards beautifying the place.  Dr.
Paul has had to pay two fines for Bell, three for Aunt Truth, and seven
for Dicky; so he considers it an ill-judged arrangement.

Our encampment is supposed to be in the Forest of Arden, and Jack has
begun nailing verses of poetry on the trees, like a second Orlando, save
that they are not love-poems at all, but appropriate quotations from
Wordsworth or Bryant.  And this brings me to our thrilling rendition of
the play ‘As You Like It,’ last evening; but it is deserving of more than
the passing notice which I can give it here.

One thing, however, I must tell you, as the girls will not write it of
themselves—that, although Bell carried off first honours and fairly
captivated the actors as well as the audience, all three of them looked
bewitching and acted with the greatest spirit, much better than we
fellows did.

Of course we didn’t give the entire play, and we had to ‘double up’ on
some of the characters in the most ridiculous fashion; but the Burtons
helped out wonderfully, Scott playing Oliver, and Laura doing Audrey.
They were so delighted with the camp that Aunt Truth has invited them to
come again on Saturday and stay a week.

At the risk of being called conceited I will also state that we boys
consider that the stage management was a triumph of inventive art; we
worked like beavers for two days, and the results were marvellous, ‘if I
do say so as shouldn’t.’

Just consider we were ‘six miles from a lemon,’ as Sydney Smith would
say, and yet we transformed all out of doors, first into an elegant
interior, and then into a conventional stage forest.

A great deal of work is available for other performances, and so we do
not regret it a bit; we propose doing ‘As You Like It’ again when you are
down here, and meanwhile we give diversified entertainments which Jack
calls variety shows, but which in reality are very chaste and elegant
occasions.

The other night we had a minstrel show, wearing masks of black cambric,
with red mouths painted on them; you should have seen us, all in a dusky
semicircle, seated on boards supported by nail-kegs: it was a scene
better imagined than described.  This is certainly the ideal way to live
in summer-time, and we should be perfectly happy and content if you could
only shake off your troublesome cough and come to share our pleasure.  We
feel incomplete without you; and no matter how large our party may grow
as the summer progresses, there will always be a vacant niche that none
can fill save the dear little Saint who is always enshrined therein by
all her loyal worshippers, and by none more reverently than her friend,

                                                          PHILIP S. NOBLE.



III.  THE KNIGHT OF THE SPECTACLES TAKES THE QUILL.


This paper is writ unto her most Royal Highness, our beloved Gold Elsie,
Queen of our thoughts and Empress of all hearts.

You must know, most noble Lady, that one who is your next of kin and high
in the royal favour has laid upon us a most difficult and embarrassing
task.

In our capacity as Director of the Court Games, we humbly suggested the
subjects for the weekly bulletin which your Highness commanded to be
written; but, alas, with indifferent success; for the Courtiers growled
and the Ladies-in-waiting howled at the topics given them for
consideration.

On soliciting our own subjects from the Privy Councillor and Knight of
the Brush, Lord John Howard, he revengefully ordered me to ‘edify’ your
Majesty with wise utterances; as if such poor, rude words as mine could
please the ear that should only listen to the singing of birds, the
babbling of brooks, or the silvery tongue of genius!

When may your devoted subjects hope to see their gracious Sovereign again
in their midst?

The court is fast drifting into dangerous informalities of conduct.  The
Princess Bell-Pepper partakes of the odoriferous onion at each noon-day
meal, so that a royal salute would be impossible; the hands of the
Countess Paulina look as if you might have chosen one of your attendants
from ‘Afric’s sunny fountains, or India’s coral strand’; and as for the
Court Chaplain, Rev. Jack-in-the-Pulpit, he has woefully forsaken the
manners of the ‘cloth,’ and insists upon retaining his ancient title of
Knight of the Brush; the Duchess of Sweet Marjoram alone continues
circumspect in walk and mien, for blood will tell, and she is more Noble
than the others.

In our capacity of Court Physician we have thrice relieved your youthful
page, Sir Dicky Winship, of indigestion, caused by too generous
indulgence in the flowing bowl—of milk and cherries; we have also
prescribed for his grace the Duke of Noble, whose ducal ear was poisoned
by the insidious oak leaf.

Your private box awaits you in the Princess’ Theatre, and your Majesty’s
special interpreters of the drama will celebrate your arrival as
gorgeously as it deserves.

The health of our dearly beloved Sovereign engages the constant thought
of all her loyal and adoring subjects; they hope ere long to cull a
wreath of laurel with their own hands and place it on a brow which needs
naught but its golden crown of hair to affirm its queenly dignity.  And
as for crown jewels, has not our Empress of Hearts a full store?—two
dazzling sapphires, her eyes; a string of pearls, her teeth; her lips two
rubies; and when she opens them, diamonds of wisdom issue therefrom!

Come! and let the sight of thy royal charms gladden the eyes of thy
waiting people!  Issued under the hand of

                                               SIR GEOFFREY STRONG, Bart.,
                           _Court Physician and Knight of the Spectacles_.



IV.  MARGERY’S CONTRIBUTION.


                                               COSY NOOK, _July_ 11, 188–.

MY OWN DEAR ELSIE,—Your weekly chronicle is almost ready for Monday’s
stage, and I am allowed to come in at the close with as many pages of
‘gossip’ as I choose; which means that I may run on to my heart’s content
and tell you all the little things that happen in the chinks between the
great ones, for Uncle Doc has refused to read this part of the letter.

First for some commissions: Aunt Truth asks if your mother will kindly
select goods and engage Mrs. Perkins to make us each a couple of Scotch
gingham dresses.  She has our measures, and we wish them simple,
full-skirted gowns, like the last; everybody thinks them so pretty and
becoming.  Bell’s two must be buff and pink, Polly’s grey and green, and
mine blue and brown.  We find that we haven’t clothes enough for a three
months’ stay; and the out-of-door life is so hard upon our ‘forest suits’
that we have asked Mrs. Perkins to send us new ones as soon as possible.

We have had a very busy and exciting week since Polly began this letter,
for there have been various interruptions and an unusual number of
visitors.

First, there was our mountain climb to the top of Pico Negro; Phil says
he has written you about that, but I hardly believe he mentioned that he
and the other boys worried us sadly by hanging on to the tails of our
horses as they climbed up the steepest places.  To be sure they were so
awfully tired that I couldn’t help pitying them; but Uncle Doc had tried
to persuade them not to walk, so that it was their own fault after all.
You cannot imagine what a dreadful feeling it gives one to be climbing a
slippery, rocky path, and know that a great heavy boy is pulling your
horse backwards by the tail.  Polly insisted that she heard her mule’s
tail break loose from its moorings, and on measuring it when she got back
to camp she found it three inches longer than usual.

The mule acted like original sin all day, and Polly was so completely
worn-out that she went to bed at five o’clock; Jack was a good deal the
worse for wear too, so that they got on beautifully all day.  It is queer
that they irritate each other so, for I am sure that there is no lack of
real friendship between them; but Jack is a confirmed tease, and he seems
to keep all his mischief bottled up for especial use with Polly.  I have
tried to keep him out of trouble, as you asked me; and although it gives
me plenty to do, I am succeeding tolerably well, except in his dealings
with Polly.  I lecture him continually, but ‘every time he opens his
mouth he puts his foot in it.’

Polly was under a cloud the first of the week.  Villikins was sick, and
Dr. Winship sent her to Aunt Truth for a bottle of sweet oil.  Aunt Truth
was not in sight, so Polly went to the box of stores and emptied a whole
quart bottle of salad oil into a pail, and Villikins had to take it,
_wheel or whoa_ (Jack’s joke!).  Auntie went to make the salad dressing
at dinner-time, and discovered her loss and Polly’s mistake.  It was the
last bottle; and as we can’t get any more for a week, the situation was
serious, and she was very much tried.  Poor Polly had a good cry over her
carelessness, and came to the dinner-table in a very sensitive frame of
mind.  Then what should Jack do but tell Dicky to take Villikins a head
of lettuce for his supper, and ask Polly why she didn’t change his name
from Villikins to Salad-in!  Polly burst into tears, and left the table,
while Dr. Paul gave Jack a scolding, which I really think he deserved,
though it was a good joke.  The next morning, the young gentleman put on
a pair of old white cotton gloves and his best hat, gathered her a
bouquet of wild flowers, and made her a handsome apology before the whole
party; so she forgave him, and they are friends—until the next quarrel.

On the night before the play, Laura and Scott Burton arrived on
horseback, and the next morning the rest of the family appeared on the
scene.  We had sent over to see if Laura would play Audrey on so short
notice, and bring over some odds and ends for costumes.  We actually had
an audience of sixteen persons, and we had no idea of playing before
anybody but Aunt Truth and Dicky.

There were three of the Burtons, Pancho, Hop Yet, the people from the
dairy farm, and a university professor from Berkeley, with eight
students.  They were on a walking tour, and were just camping for the
night when Scott and Jack met them, and invited them over to the
performance.  Geoffrey and Phil were acquainted with three of them, and
Uncle Paul knew the professor.

Laura, Anne, and Scott went home the next morning, but came back in two
days for their week’s visit.  The boys like Scott very much; he falls
right into the camp ways, and doesn’t disturb the even current of our
life; and Anne, who is a sweet little girl of twelve, has quite taken
Dicky under her wing, much to our relief.

With Laura’s advent, however, a change came over the spirit of our
dreams, and, to tell the truth, we are not over and above pleased with
it.  By the way, she spent last summer at the hotel, and you must have
seen her, did you not?  Anyway, Mrs. Burton and Aunt Truth were old
school friends, and Bell has known Laura for two years, but they will
never follow in their mothers’ footsteps.  Laura is so different from her
mother that I should never think they were relations; and she has managed
to change all our arrangements in some mysterious way which we can’t
understand.  I get on very well with her; she positively showers favours
upon me, and I more than half suspect it is because she thinks I don’t
amount to much.  As for the others, she rubs Polly the wrong way, and I
believe she is a little bit jealous of Bell.

You see, she is several months older than the rest of us, and has spent
two winters in San Francisco, where she went out a great deal to parties
and theatres, so that her ideas are entirely different from ours.

She wants every single bit of attention—one boy to help her over the
brooks, one to cut walking-sticks for her, another to peel her oranges,
and another to read Spanish with her, and so on.  Now, you know very well
that she will never get all this so long as Bell Winship is in camp, for
the boys think that Bell drags up the sun when she’s ready for him in the
morning, and pushes him down at night when she happens to feel sleepy.

We, who have known Bell always, cannot realise that any one can help
loving her, but there is something in Laura which makes it impossible for
her to see the right side of people.  She told me this morning that she
thought Bell had grown so vain and airy and self-conscious that it was
painful to see her.  I could not help being hurt; for you know what Bell
is—brimful of nonsense and sparkle and bright speeches, but just as open
as the day and as warm as the sunshine.  If she could have been spoiled,
we should have turned her head long ago; but she hasn’t a bit of silly
vanity, and I never met any one before who didn’t see the pretty charm of
her brightness and goodness—did you?

And yet, somehow, Laura sticks needles into her every time she speaks.
She feels them, too, but it only makes her quiet, for she is too proud
and sensitive to resent it.  I can see that she is different in her ways,
as if she felt she was being criticised.  Polly is quite the reverse.  If
anybody hurts her feelings she makes creation scream, and I admire her
courage.

Aunt Truth doesn’t know anything about all this, for Laura is a different
girl when she is with her or Dr. Paul; not that she is deceitful, but
that she is honestly anxious for their good opinion.  You remember Aunt
Truth’s hobby that we should never defend ourselves by attacking any one
else, and none of us would ever complain, if we were hung, drawn, and
quartered.

Laura was miffed at having to play Audrey, but we didn’t know that she
could come until the last moment, and we were going to leave that part
out.

‘I don’t believe you appreciate my generosity in taking this thankless
part,’ she said to Bell, when we were rehearsing.  ‘Nobody would ever
catch you playing second fiddle, my dear.  All leading parts reserved for
Miss Winship, by order of the authors, I suppose.’

‘Indeed, Laura,’ Bell said, ‘if we had known you were coming we would
have offered you the best part, but I only took Rosalind because I knew
the lines, and the girls insisted.’

‘You’ve trained the girls well—hasn’t she, Geoffrey?’ asked Laura, with a
queer kind of laugh.

But I will leave the unpleasant subject.  I should not have spoken of it
at all except that she has made me so uncomfortable to-day that it is
fresh in my mind.  Bell and Polly and I have talked the matter all over,
and are going to try and make her like us, whether she wants to or not.
We have agreed to be just as polite and generous as we possibly can, and
see if she won’t ‘come round,’ for she is perfectly delighted with the
camp, and wants to stay a month.

Polly says she is going to sing ‘Home Sweet Home’ to her every night, and
drop double doses of the homoeopathic cure for home-sickness into her
tea, with a view of creating the disease.

Good-bye, and a hundred kisses from your loving

                                                              MARGERY DAW.



V.  THE CAMP POETESS ADDS HER STORE OF MENTAL RICHES TO THE GENERAL FUND.


MY DARLING,—I have a thousand things to tell you, but I cannot possibly
say them in rhyme, merely because the committee insists upon it.  I send
you herewith all the poetry which has been written in camp since last
Monday, and it has been a very prosy week.

I have given them to papa, and he says that the best of my own, which are
all bad enough, is the following hammock-song.

I thought it out while I was swinging Margery, and here it is!—

    To—fro,
    Dreamily, slow,
    Under the trees;
    Swing—swing,
    Drowsily sing
    The birds and the bees;
    Sleep—rest,
    Slumber is best,
    Wakefulness sad;
    Rest—sleep,
    Forget how to weep,
    Dream and be glad!

Papa says it is all nonsense to say that slumber is best and wakefulness
sad; and that it is possible to tell the truth in poetry.  Perhaps it is,
but why don’t they do it oftener, then?  And how was he to know that
Polly and Jack had just gone through a terrible battle of words in which
I was peacemaker, and that Dicky had been as naughty as—Nero—all day?
These two circumstances made me look at the world through blue glasses,
and that is always the time one longs to write poetry.

I send you also Geoff’s verses, written to mamma, and slipped into the
box when we were playing Machine Poetry:—

    I know a woman fair and calm,
       Whose shining tender eyes
    Make, when I meet their earnest gaze,
       Sweet thoughts within me rise.

    And if all silver were her hair,
       Or faded were her face,
    She would not look to me less fair,
       Nor lack a single grace.

    And if I were a little child,
       With childhood’s timid trust,
    I think my heart would fly to her,
       And love—because it must!

    And if I were an earnest man,
       With empty heart and life,
    I think—(but I might change my mind)—
       She’d be my chosen wife!

Isn’t that pretty?  Oh, Elsie!  I hope I shall grow old as beautifully as
mamma does, so that people can write poetry to me if they feel like it!
Here is Jack’s, for Polly’s birthday; he says he got the idea from a real
poem which is just as silly as his:—

    A pollywog from a wayside brook
       Is a goodly gift for thee;
    But a milk-white steed, or a venison sheep,
       Will do very well for me.

    For you a quivering asphodel
       (Two ducks and a good fat hen),
    For me a withering hollyhock
       (For seven and three are ten!).

    Rose-red locks and a pug for thee
       (The falling dew is chill),
    A dove, a rope, and a rose for me
       (Oh, passionate, pale-blue pill!).

    For you a greenery, yallery gown
       (Hath one tomb room for four?),
    Dig me a narrow gravelet here
       (Oh, red is the stain of gore!!).

I told Jack I thought it extremely unhitched, but he says that’s the
chief beauty of the imitation.

I give you also some verses intended for Polly’s birthday, which we shall
celebrate, when the day arrives, by a grand dinner.

You remember how we tease her about her love for tea, which she cannot
conceal, but which she is ashamed of all the same.

Well!  I have printed the poem on a card, and on the other side Margery
has drawn the picture of a cross old maid, surrounded by seven cats, all
trying to get a drink out of her tea-cup.  Then Geoff is going to get a
live cat from the milk ranch near here, and box it up for me to give to
her when she receives her presents at the dinner-table.  Won’t it be fun?

                              OWED TO POLLY
                         BECAUSE OF HER BIRTHDAY.

    She camps among the untrodden ways
       Forninst the ‘Mountain Mill’;
    A maid whom there are few to praise
       And few to wish her ill.

    She lives unknown, and few could know
       What Pauline is to me;
    As dear a joy as are to her
       Her frequent cups of tea.

    A birthday this dear creature had,
       Full many a year ago;
    She says she is but just fifteen,
       Of course she ought to know.

    But still this gift I bring to her,
       Appropriate to her age,
    Regardless of her stifled scorn,
       Or well conceal-ed rage!

    She smiles upon these tender lines,
       As you all plainly see,
    But when she meets me all alone,
       How different it will be!

Now comes Geoff’s, to be given with a pretty little inkstand:—

    There was a young maiden whose thought
    Was so airy it couldn’t be caught;
       So what do you think?
       We gave her some ink,
    And captured her light-winged thought.

Here is Jack’s last on Polly:—

    There’s a pert little poppet called Polly,
    Who frequently falls into folly!
       She’s a terrible tongue
       For a ‘creetur’ so young,
    But if she were dumb she’d be jolly!

I helped Polly with a reply, and we delivered it five minutes later:—

    I’d rather be deaf, Master Jack,
    For if only one sense I must lack,
       To be rid of your voice
       I should always rejoice,
    Nor mourn if it never came back!

And now good-night and good-bye until I am allowed to write you my own
particular kind of letter.

The girls and boys are singing round the camp-fire, and I must go out and
join them in one song before we go to bed.

                                          Yours with love, now and always,
                                                                     BELL.

_P.S._—Our ‘Happy Hexagon’ has become a sort of ‘Obstreperous Octagon.’
Laura and Scott Burton are staying with us.  Scott is a good deal of a
bookworm, and uses very long words; his favourite name for me at present
is Calliope; I thought it was a sort of steam-whistle, but Margery thinks
it was some one who was connected with poetry.  We don’t dare ask the
boys; will you find out?



VI.


                                          CAMP CHAPARRAL, _July_ 13, 188–.
                                                           STUDIO RAPHAEL.

DEAR LITTLE SIS,—The enclosed sketches speak for themselves, or at least
I hope they do.  Keep them in your private portfolio, and when I am
famous you can produce them to show the public at what an early age my
genius began to sprout.

At first I thought I’d make them real ‘William Henry’ pictures, but
concluded to give you a variety.

Can’t stop to write another line; and if you missed your regular letter
this week you must not growl, for the sketches took an awful lot of time,
and I’m just rushed to death here anyway.

Love to mother and father.

                                                      Your loving brother.
                                                                      JACK

_P.S._—Polly says you need not expect to recognise that deer by his
portrait, should you ever meet him, as no one could expect to get a
_striking_ likeness at a distance of a half-mile.  But, honestly, we have
been closer than that to several deer.




CHAPTER V
THE FOREST OF ARDEN—GOOD NEWS


    ‘From the East to western Ind,
    No jewel is like Rosalind;
    Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
    Through all the world bears Rosalind;
    All the pictures, fairest lined,
    Are but black to Rosalind;
    Let no face be kept in mind,
    But the fair of Rosalind.’

The grand performance of ‘As You Like It’ must have a more extended
notice than it has yet received, inasmuch as its double was never seen on
any stage.

The reason of this somewhat ambitious selection lay in the fact that our
young people had studied it in Dr. Winship’s Shakespeare class the
preceding winter, but they were actually dumb with astonishment when Bell
proposed it for the opening performance in the new theatre.

‘I tell you,’ she argued, ‘there are not many pieces which would be
effective when played out of doors by dim candle-light, but this will be
just as romantic and lovely as can be.  You see it can be played just “as
you like it.”’

Philip and Aunt Truth wanted a matinée performance, but the girls
resisted this plan very strongly, feeling that the garish light of day
would be bad for the makeshift costumes, and would be likely to rob them
of what little courage they possessed.

‘We give the decoration of the theatre entirely into your hands, boys,’
Polly had said on the day before the performance.  ‘You have some of the
hardest work done already, and can just devote yourselves to the
ornamental part; but don’t expect any more ideas from us, for you will
certainly be disappointed.’

‘I should think not, indeed!’ cried Bell, energetically.  ‘Here we have
the wall decorations for the first scene, and all the costumes besides;
and the trouble is, that three or four of them will have to be made
to-morrow, after Laura comes with the trappings of war.  I hope she will
get here for dinner to-night; then we can decide on our finery, and have
a rough rehearsal.’

‘Well, girls!’ shouted Jack, from the theatre, ‘come and have one
consultation, and then we’ll let you off.  Phil wants to change the
location altogether.’

‘Oh, nonsense!’ cried Madge, as the three girls ran towards the scene of
action.  ‘It’s the only suitable place within a mile of the camp.’

‘I think it will be simply perfect, when you have done a little more
cutting,’ said Bell.  ‘Just see our advantages: First, we have that
rising knoll opposite the stage, which is exactly the thing for audience
seats; then we have a semicircular background of trees and a flat place
for the stage, which is perfectly invaluable; last of all, just gaze upon
that madroño-tree in the centre, and the oak on the left; why, they are
worth a thousand dollars for scenery.’

‘Especially in the first scene—ducal interior, or whatever it is,’ said
Phil, disconsolately.

‘Jingo! that is a little embarrassing,’ groaned Jack.

‘Not at all,’ said Polly, briskly.  ‘There is plenty of room to set the
interior in front of those trees.  It can be all fixed beforehand, and
just whisked away for good at the end of the first act.’

‘That’s true,’ said Geoff, thoughtfully.  ‘But we can’t have any Adam’s
cottage.  We talked it over last night, and decided it “couldn’t be
did.”’

‘Did you indeed!’ exclaimed Bell, sarcastically.  ‘Then allow me to
remark that you three boys represent a very obtuse triangle.’

‘Thanks, most acid Rosalind!’ murmured Geoff, meekly.  ‘Could you deign,
as spokesman of the very acute triangle, to suggest something?’

‘Certainly.  There is the rear of the brush kitchen in plain sight, to
convey the idea of a rustic hut.  To be sure, it’s a good distance to the
left, but let the audience screw round in their seats when they hear the
voices, and Adam, Oliver, and Orlando can walk out carelessly, and go
through their scene right there.’

‘Admirable!’ quoth Geoff.  ‘We bow to your superior judgment.’

‘What an inspiration that was to bring those Chinese lanterns for the
Fourth of July; they have just saved us from utter ruin,’ said Margery,
who was quietly making leaf-trimming.

‘Yes, the effect is going to be perfectly gorgeous!’ exclaimed Polly,
clasping her hands in anticipation.  ‘How many have we?  Ten?  Oh, that’s
splendid; and how many candles?’

‘As many as we care to use,’ Phil answered, from the top of the ladder
where he was at work.  ‘And look at my arrangement for holding them to
these trees.  Aren’t they immense?’

‘By the way,’ said Bell, ‘don’t forget the mossy banks under those trees,
for stage seats; and make me some kind of a thing on the left side, to
swoon on when I sniff Orlando’s gory handkerchief.’

‘A couple of rocks,’ suggested Jack.

‘Not exactly,’ replied the critical Rosalind, with great dignity.  ‘I am
black and blue already from practising my faint, and I expect to shriek
with pain when I fall to-morrow night.’

‘St. Jacob’s Oil relieves stiffened joints, smooths the wrinkles from the
brow of care, soothes lacerated feelings, and ’ushes the ’owl of
hinfancy,’ remarked Geoffrey serenely, as he prepared to build the
required mossy banks.

‘My dear cousin (there are times when I am glad it is only second
cousin), have you a secret contract to advertise a vulgar patent
medicine? or why this eloquence?’ laughed Bell.

‘And, Jack,’ suggested Polly, ‘you don’t seem to be doing anything; fix a
stump for me to sit on while Orlando and Rosalind are making love.’

‘All right, countess.  I’d like to see you stumped once in my life.
Shall we have the canvases brought for stage carpets?’

‘We say no,’ cried Rosalind, firmly.  ‘We shall be a thousand times more
awkward stumbling over stiff billows of carpet.  Let’s sweep the ground
as clean and smooth as possible, and let it go for all the scenes.’

‘Yes, we shall then be well _grounded_ in our parts,’ remarked Phil,
hiding his head behind a bunch of candles.

‘Take care, young man,’ laughed Polly, ‘or you may be “run to earth”
instead.’

‘Or be requested by the audience to get up and dust,’ cried the
irrepressible Jack, whose wit was very apt to be of a slangy character.
‘Now let us settle the interior, or I shall go mad.’

‘Bell and I have it all settled,’ said Geoffrey, promptly.  ‘The
background is to be made of three sheets hung over a line, and the two
sides will be formed of canvas carpets; the walls will have Japanese
fans, parasols, and—’

‘Jupiter!’ exclaimed Jack, who, as knight of the brush, felt compelled to
be artistic.  ‘Imagine a ducal palace, in the year so many hundred and
something, decorated with Japanese bric-a-brac!  I blush for you.’

‘Now, Jack, we might as well drop the whole play as begin to think of the
‘nakkeronisms,’ or whatever the word is.  I have got to wear an old white
wrapper to the wrestling-match, but I don’t complain,’ said Polly.

Just here Bell ran back from the kitchen, exclaiming:

‘I have secured Pancho for Charles the Wrestler.  Oh, he was fearfully
obstinate! but when I told him he would only be on the stage two minutes,
and would not have to speak a word, but just let Geoff throw him, he
consented.  Isn’t that good?  Did you decide about the decorations?’

‘It will have to be just as we suggested,’ answered Margery.  ‘Fans,
parasols, flowers, and leaves, with the madroño-wood furniture scattered
about, sheep-skins, etc.’

‘A few venison rugs, I presume you mean,’ said Geoffrey, slyly.  ‘Say,
Polly, omit the cold cream for once, will you?  You don’t want to
outshine everybody.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied.  ‘I will endeavour to take care of my own
complexion, if you will allow me.  As for yours, you look more like
Othello than Orlando.’

‘Come, come, girls,’ said industrious Margery, ‘let us go to the tent and
sew.  It is nothing but nonsense here, and we are not accomplishing
anything.’

So they wisely left the boys to themselves for the entire day, and
transformed their tent into a mammoth dressmaking establishment, with
clever Aunt Truth as chief designer.

                                * * * * *

The intervening hours had slipped quickly away, and now the fatal moment
had arrived, and everything was ready for the play.

The would-be actresses were a trifle excited when the Professor and his
eight students were brought up and introduced by Jack and Scott Burton;
and, as if that were not enough, who should drive up at the last moment
but the family from the neighbouring milk ranch, and beg to be allowed
the pleasure of witnessing the performance.  Mr. Sandford was the
gentleman who had sold Dr. Winship his land, and so they were cordially
invited to remain.

All the cushions and shawls belonging to the camp were arranged carefully
on the knoll, for audience seats; it was a brilliant moonlight night, and
the stage assumed a very festive appearance with its four pounds of
candles and twelve Chinese lanterns.

Meanwhile the actors were dressing in their respective tents.  Bell’s
first dress was a long pink muslin wrapper of Mrs. Burton’s, which had
been belted in and artistically pasted over with bouquets from the
cretonne trunk covers, in imitation of flowered satin; under this she
wore a short blue lawn skirt of her own, catching up the pink muslin on
the left side with a bouquet of wild roses, and producing what she called
a ‘positively Neilson effect.’

Her bright hair was tossed up into a fluffy knot on the top of her head;
and with a flat coronet of wild roses and another great bunch at her
belt, one might have gone far and not have found a prettier Rosalind.

‘I declare, you are just too lovely—isn’t she, Laura?’ asked Margery.

‘Yes, she looks quite well,’ answered Laura, abstractedly, being much
occupied in making herself absurdly beautiful as Audrey.  ‘Of course the
dress fits horridly, but perhaps it won’t show in the dim light.’

‘Oh, is it very bad?’ sighed Bell, plaintively; ‘I can’t see it in this
glass.  Well, the next one fits better, and I have to wear that the
longest.  Shall I do your hair, Laura?’

‘No—thanks; Margery has such a capital knack at hair-dressing, and she
doesn’t come on yet.’

During this conversation Polly was struggling with Aunt Truth’s trained
white wrapper.  It was rather difficult to make it look like a court
dress; but she looked as fresh and radiant as a rose in it, for the
candle-light obliterated every freckle, and one could see nothing but a
pair of dancing eyes, the pinkest of cheeks, and a head running over with
curls of ruddy gold.

‘Now, Bell, criticise me!’ she cried, taking a position in the middle of
the tent, and turning round like a wax figure.  ‘I have torn out my hair
by the roots to give it a “done up” look, and have I succeeded? and shall
I wear any flowers with this lace surplice? and what on earth shall I do
with my hands? they’re so black they will cast a gloom over the stage.
Perhaps I can wrap my handkerchief carelessly round one, and I’ll keep
the other round your waist, considerable, tucked under your Watteau
pleat.  Will I do?’

‘Do?  I should think so!’ and Bell eyed her with manifest approval.
‘Your hair is very nice, and your neck looks lovely with that lace
handkerchief.  As for flowers, why don’t you wear a great mass of yellow
and white daisies?  You’ll be as gorgeous as—’

‘As a sunset by Turner,’ said Laura, with a glance at Polly’s auburn
locks.  ‘Seems to me this is a mutual admiration society, isn’t it?’ and
she sank languidly into a chair to have her hair dressed.

‘Yes, it is,’ cried Polly, boldly; ‘and it’s going to “continner.” Meg,
you’re a darling in that blue print and pretty hat. I’ll fill my
fern-basket with flowers, and you can take it, s0 as to have something
in your hand to play with. You look nicer than any Phœbe I ever saw,
that’s a fact. And now, hurrah! we’re all ready, and there’s the boys’
bell, so let us assemble out in the kitchen. Oh dear! I believe I’m
frightened, in spite of every promise to the contrary.’

When the young people saw each other for the first time in their stage
costumes there was a good deal of merriment and some honest admiration.
Geoff looked very odd without his eyeglasses and with the yellow wig that
was the one property belonging to this star dramatic organisation.

The girls had not succeeded in producing a great effect with the
masculine costumes, because of insufficient material.  But the boys had
determined not to wear their ordinary clothes, no matter what happened;
so Jack had donned one of Hop Yet’s blue blouses for his Sylvius dress,
and had ready a plaid shawl to throw gracefully over one shoulder
whenever he changed to the Banished Duke.

His Sylvius attire was open to criticism, but no one could fail to admire
his appearance as the Duke, on account of a magnificent ducal head-gear,
from which soared a bunch of tall peacock feathers.

‘Oh, Jack, what a head-dress for a Duke!’ laughed Margery; ‘no wonder
they banished you.  Did you offend the court hatter?’

Phil said that at all events nobody could mistake him for anything but a
fool, in his ‘Touchstone’ costume, and so he was jest-er going to be
contented.

Scott Burton was arranging Pancho’s toilette for the wrestling-match, and
meanwhile trying to raise his drooping spirits; and Rosalind was vainly
endeavouring to make Adam’s beard of grey moss stay on.

While these antics were going on behind the scenes, the audience was
seated on the knoll, making merry over the written programmes, which had
been a surprise of Geoff’s, and read as follows:—

                          THE PRINCESS’ THEATRE.
                             July 10th, 188–.

                                * * * * *

               APPEARANCE OF THE GREATEST DRAMATIC COMPANY
                             ON EARTH (FACT).

                    THE COOLEST THEATRE IN THE WORLD.

                                * * * * *

          A Royal Galaxy and _Boyaxy_ of Artists in the play of
                            _AS YOU LIKE IT_,
                  By William Shakespeare, or Lord Bacon.

                                * * * * *

                                  CAST.

    ‘_Alas_! _unmindful of their doom_, _the little victims play_;
    _No sense have they of ills to come_, _or cares beyond to-day_.’

ROSALIND                The Lady Bell-Pepper. (Her greatest
                        creation.)
CELIA                   The Countess Paulina.
PHŒBE                   The Duchess of Sweet Marjoram.
AUDREY                  A talented Incognita of the Court.
ORLANDO                 Hennery Irving Salvini Strong.  (Late from
                        the Blank Theatre, Oil City.)
ADAM                    Dr. Paul Winship.  (By kind permission of his
                        manager, Mrs. T. W.)
BANISHED DUKE /         Lord John Howard        Lightning Change
SYLVIUS                                         Artist.
TOUCHSTONE / JACQUE     Duke of Noble
 (_N.B._—The Duke of Noble has played the ‘fool’ five million times.)
OLIVER                  Mr. Scott Burton.  (Specially engaged.)
CHARLES THE WRESTLER    Pancho Muldoon Sullivan.  (His first
                        appearance.)

The Comb Orchestra will play the Music of the Future.

The Usher will pass pop-corn between the Acts.  Beds may be ordered at
10.30.

                                * * * * *

The scene between Adam and Orlando went off with good effect; and when
Celia and Rosalind came through the trees in an affectionate attitude,
and Celia’s blithe voice broke the stillness with, ‘I pray thee,
Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry,’ there was a hearty burst of applause
which almost frightened them into silence.

At the end of the first act everybody was delighted; the stage-manager,
carpenter, scene-shifter, costumier, and all the stars were called
successively before the curtain.

Hop Yet declared it was ‘all the same good as China theatre’; and every
one agreed to that criticism without a dissenting voice.

To be sure, there was an utter absence of stage-management, and all the
‘traditions’ were remarkable for their absence; but I fancy that the
spirits of Siddons and Kemble, Macready and Garrick, looked down with
kind approval upon these earnest young actors as they recited the
matchless old words, moving to and fro in the quaint setting of trees and
moonlight, with an orchestra of cooing doves and murmuring zephyrs.

                         [Picture: Forest scene]

The forest scenes were intended to be the features of the evening, and in
these the young people fairly surpassed themselves.  Any one who had seen
Neilson in her doublet and hose of silver-grey, Modjeska in her shades of
blue, and Ada Cavendish in her lovely suit of green, might have thought
Bell’s patched-up dress a sorry mixture; yet these three brilliant stars
in the theatrical firmament might have envied this little Rosalind the
dewy youth and freshness that so triumphed over all deficiencies of
costume.

Margery’s camping-dress of grey, shortened to the knee, served for its
basis.  Round the skirt and belt and sleeves were broad bands of
laurel-leaf trimming.  She wore a pair of Margery’s long grey stockings
and Laura’s dainty bronze Newport ties.  A soft grey chudda shawl of Aunt
Truth’s was folded into a mantle to swing from the shoulder, its fringes
being caught up out of sight, and a laurel-leaf trimming added.  On her
bright wavy hair was perched a cunning flat cap of leaves, and, as she
entered with Polly, leaning on her manzanita staff, and sighing, ‘Oh
Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!’ one could not wish a lovelier stage
picture.

And so the play went on, with varying fortunes. Margery was frightened
to death, and persisted in taking Touchstone’s speeches right out of
his mouth, much to his discomfiture. Adam’s beard refused to stay on;
so did the moustache of the Banished Duke, and the clothes of Sylvius.
But nothing could dampen the dramatic fire of the players, nor destroy
the enthusiasm of the sympathetic audience.

Dicky sat in the dress-circle, wrapped in blankets, and laughed himself
nearly into convulsions over Touchstone’s jokes, and the stage business
of the Banished Duke; for it is unnecessary to state that Jack was not
strictly Shakespearean in his treatment of the part.

As for Polly, she enjoyed being Celia with all her might, and declared
her intention of going immediately on the ‘regular’ stage; but Jack
somewhat destroyed her hopes by affirming that her nose and hair wouldn’t
be just the thing on the metropolitan boards, although they might pass
muster in a backwoods theatre.

                                * * * * *

‘Hello!  What’s this?’ exclaimed Philip, one morning.  ‘A visitor?
Yes—no!  Why, it’s Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega coming up the
cañon!  He’s got a loaded team, too!  I wonder if Uncle Doc is expecting
anything.’

The swarthy gentleman with the long name emerged from one cloud of dust
and disappeared in another, until he neared the gate where Philip and
Polly were standing.

Philip opened the gate, and received a bow of thanks which would have
made Manuel’s reputation at a Spanish court.

‘Going up to camp?’

‘Si, señor.’

‘Those things for us?’

‘Si, señor.’

‘What are they?’

‘Si, señor.’

‘Exactly!  Well, are there any letters?’

‘Si, señor.’  Whereupon he drew one from his gorgeously-decorated leather
belt.

Philip reached for it, and Polly leaned over his shoulder, devoured with
curiosity.

‘It’s for Aunt Truth,’ she said; ‘and—yes, I am sure it is Mrs. Howard’s
writing; and if it is—’

Hereupon, as Manuel spoke no English, and neither Philip nor Polly could
make inquiries in Spanish, Polly darted to the cart in her usual meteoric
style, put one foot on the hub of a wheel and climbed to the top like a
squirrel, snatched off a corner of the canvas cover, and cried
triumphantly, ‘I knew it!  Elsie is coming!  Here’s a tent, and some
mattresses and pillows.  Hurry!  Help me down, quick!  Oh, slow-coach!
Keep out of the way and I’ll jump!  Give me the letter.  I can run faster
than you can.’  And before the vestige of an idea had penetrated Philip’s
head, nothing could be seen of Polly but a pair of twinkling heels and
the gleam of a curly head that caught every ray of the sun and turned it
into ruddier gold.

It was a dusty, rocky path, and up-hill at that; but Polly, who was
nothing if not ardent, never slackened her pace, but dashed along until
she came in sight of the camp, where she expended her last breath in one
shrill shriek for Aunt Truth.

It was responded to promptly.  Indeed, it was the sort of shriek that
always commands instantaneous attention; and Aunt Truth came out of her
tent prepared to receive tragic news.  Bell followed; and the entire
family would have done the same had they been in camp.

Polly thrust the letter into Mrs. Winship’s hand, and sank down
exhausted, exclaiming, breathlessly, ‘There’s a mattress—and a
tent—coming up the cañon.  It’s Elsie’s, I know.  Philip is down at the
gate—with the cart—but I came ahead.  Phew! but it’s warm!’

‘What!’ cried Bell, joyfully.  ‘Elsie at the gate!  It can’t be true!’
And she darted like an arrow through the trees.

‘Come back! come back!’ screamed Polly.

‘Elsie is not at the gate.  Don S. D. M. F. H. N. is there with a team
loaded down with things.  Isn’t it from Mrs. Howard, Aunt Truth?’

‘Yes, it is.  Written this morning from Tacitas Rancho.  Why, how is
this?  Let me see!’

                                         TACITAS RANCHO, _Monday morning_.

DEAR TRUTH,—You will be surprised to receive a letter from me, written
from Tacitas.  But here we are, Elsie and I; and, what is better, we are
on our way to you.

(‘I knew it!’ exclaimed the girls.)

Elsie has been growing steadily better for three weeks.  The fever seems
to have disappeared entirely, and the troublesome cough is so much
lessened that she sleeps all night without waking.  The doctor says that
the camp-life will be the very best thing for her now, and will probably
complete her recovery.

(‘Oh, joy, joy!’ cried the girls.)

I need not say how gladly we followed this special prescription of our
kind doctor’s, nor add that we started at once.

(‘Oh, Aunt Truth, there is nobody within a mile of the camp; can’t I,
_please_ can’t I turn one little hand-spring, just one little lady-like
one?’ pleaded Polly, dancing on one foot and chewing her sun-bonnet
string.

‘No, dear, you can’t!  Keep quiet and let me read.’)

Elsie would not let me tell you our plans any sooner, lest the old story
of a sudden ill turn would keep us at home; and I think very likely that
she longed to give the dear boys and girls a surprise.

We arrived at the Burtons’ yesterday.  Elsie bore the journey exceedingly
well, but I would not take any risks, and so we shall not drive over
until day after to-morrow morning.

(‘You needn’t have hurried quite so fast, Polly dear.’)

I venture to send the tent and its belongings ahead to-day, so that Jack
may get everything to rights before we arrive.

The mattress is just the size the girls ordered; and of course I’ve told
Elsie nothing about the proposed furnishing of her tent.

I am bringing my little China boy with me, for I happen to think that,
with the Burtons, we shall be fourteen at table.  Gin is not quite a
success as a cook, but he can at least wash dishes, wait at table, and
help Hop Yet in various ways; while I shall be only too glad to share all
your housekeeping cares, if you have not escaped them even in the
wilderness.

I shall be so glad to see you again; and oh, Truth, I am so happy, so
happy, that, please God, I can keep my child after all!  The weary burden
of dread is lifted off my heart, and I feel young again.  Just think of
it!  My Elsie will be well and strong once more!  It seems too good to be
true.

Always your attached friend,

                                                             JANET HOWARD.

Mrs. Winship’s voice quivered as she read the last few words, and Polly
and Bell threw themselves into each other’s arms and cried for sheer
gladness.

‘Come, come, dears!  I suppose you will make grand preparations, and
there is no time to lose.  One of you must find somebody to help Philip
unload the team.  Papa and the boys have gone fishing, and Laura and
Margery went with them, I think.’  And Mrs. Winship bustled about,
literally on hospitable thoughts in-tent.

Polly tied on her sun-bonnet with determination, turned up her sleeves as
if washing were the thing to be done, and placed her arms akimbo.

‘First and foremost,’ said she, her eyes sparkling with excitement,
‘first and foremost, I am going to blow the horn.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Aunt Truth.  ‘Are you crazy, Polly?  It is scarcely
ten o’clock, and everybody would think it was dinnertime, and come home
at once.’

‘No, they’d think something had happened to Dicky,’ said Bell, ‘and that
would bring them in still sooner.’

‘Of course!  I forgot.  But can’t I blow it earlier than usual?  Can’t I
blow it at half-past eleven instead of twelve?  We can’t do a thing
without the boys, and they may not come home until midnight unless we do
something desperate.  Oh, delight!  There’s Don S. D. M. F. H. N., and
Phil has found Pancho to help unload.’

‘Isn’t it lucky that we decided on the place for Elsie’s tent, and saved
it in case she should ever come?’ said Bell.  ‘Now Philip and Pancho can
set it up whenever they choose.  And isn’t it fortunate that we three
stayed at home to-day, and refused to fish? now we can plan everything,
and then all work together when they come back.’

Meanwhile Polly was tugging at an immense bundle, literally tooth and
nail, as she alternated trembling clutches of the fingers with frantic
bites at the offending knot.

Like many of her performances, the physical strength expended was out of
all proportion to the result produced, and one stroke of Philip’s knife
accomplished more than all her ill-directed effort.  At length the bundle
of awning cloth stood revealed.  ‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful?’ she cried, ‘it
will be the very prettiest tent in camp; can’t I blow the horn?’

‘Look, mamma,’ exclaimed Bell, ‘it is green and grey, in those pretty
broken stripes, and the edge is cut in lovely scollops and bound with
green braid.  Won’t it look pretty among the trees?’

Aunt Truth came out to join the admiring group.

‘O-o-o-h!’ screamed Polly.  ‘There comes a piece of the floor.  They’ve
sent it all made, in three pieces.  What fun!  We’ll have it all up and
ready to sleep in before we blow the horn!’

‘And here’s a roll of straw matting,’ said Phil, depositing a huge bundle
on the ground near the girls.  ‘I’ll cut the rope to save your teeth!’

‘Green and white plaid!’ exclaimed Bell.  ‘Well!  Mrs. Howard did have
her wits about her!’

‘Oh, do let me blow the horn!’ teased the irrepressible Polly.

‘Here are a looking-glass and a towel-rack and a Shaker rocking-chair,’
called Philip; ‘guess they’re going to stay the rest of the summer.’

‘Yes, of course they wouldn’t want a looking-glass if they were only
going to stay a month or two,’ laughed Bell.

‘Dear Aunt Truth, if you won’t let me turn a single decorous little
hand-spring, or blow the horn, or do anything nice, will you let us use
all that new white mosquito-netting?  Bell says that it has been in the
storehouse for two years, and it would be just the thing for decorating
Elsie’s tent.’

‘Why, of course you may have it, Polly, and anything else that you can
find.  There!  I hear Dicky’s voice in the distance; perhaps the girls
are coming.’

Bell and Polly darted through the swarm of tents, and looked up the
narrow path that led to the brook.

Sure enough, Margery and Laura were strolling towards home with little
Anne and Dick dangling behind, after the manner of children.  Margery
carried a small string of trout, and Dick the inevitable tin pail in
which he always kept an unfortunate frog or two.  The girls had
discovered that he was in the habit of crowding the cover tightly over
the pail and keeping his victims shut up for twenty-four hours, after
which, he said, they were nice and tame—so very tame, as it transpired,
that they generally gave up the ghost in a few hours after their release.
Margery had with difficulty persuaded him of his cruelty, and the cover
had been pierced with a certain number of air-holes.

‘Guess the loveliest thing that could possibly happen!’ called Bell at
the top of her voice.

‘Elsie has come,’ answered Margery in a second, nobody knew why; ‘let me
hug her this minute!’

‘With those fish?’ laughed Polly.  ‘No! you’ll have to wait until day
after to-morrow, and then your guess will be right.  Isn’t it almost too
good to be true?’

‘And she is almost well,’ added Bell, joyfully, slipping her arm through
Margery’s and squeezing it in sheer delight.  ‘Mrs. Howard says she is
really and truly better.  Oh, if Elsie Howard in bed is the loveliest,
dearest thing in the world, what will it be like to have her out of it
and with us in all our good times!’

‘Has she always been ill since you knew her?’ asked Laura.

‘Yes; a terrible cold left her with weakness of the lungs, and the
doctors feared consumption, but thought that she might possibly outgrow
it entirely if she lived in a milder climate; so Mrs. Howard left home
and everybody she cared for, and brought Elsie to Santa Barbara.  Papa
has taken an interest in her from the first, and as far as we girls are
concerned, it was love at first sight.  You never knew anybody like
Elsie!’

‘Is she pretty?’

‘Pretty!’ cried Polly, ‘she is like an angel in a picture-book!’

‘Interesting?’

‘Interesting!’ said Bell, in a tone that showed the word to be too feeble
for the subject; ‘Elsie is more interesting than all the other girls in
the other world put together!’

‘Popular?’

‘Popular!’ exclaimed Margery, taking her turn in the oral examination, ‘I
don’t know whether anybody can be popular who is always in bed; but if
it’s popular to be adored by every man, woman, child, and animal that
comes anywhere near her, why then Elsie is popular.’

‘And is she a favourite with boys as well as girls?’

‘Favourite!’ said Bell.  ‘Why, they think that she is simply perfect!  Of
course she has scarcely been able to sit up a week at a time for a year,
and naturally she has not seen many people; but, if you want a boy’s
opinion, just ask Philip or Geoffrey.  I assure you, Laura, after you
have known Elsie a while, and have seen the impression she makes upon
everybody, you will want to go to bed and see if you can do likewise.’

‘It isn’t just the going to bed,’ remarked Margery, sagely.

‘And it isn’t the prettiness either,’ added Polly; ‘though if you saw
Elsie asleep, a flower in one hand, the other under her cheek, her hair
straying over the pillow (O for hair that would stray anywhere!), you
would expect every moment to see a halo above her head.’

‘I don’t believe it is because she is good that everybody admires her
so,’ said Laura, ‘I don’t think goodness in itself is always so very
interesting; if Elsie had freckles and a snub nose’—(‘Don’t mind me!’
murmured Polly)—‘you would find that people would say less about her
wonderful character.’

‘There are things that puzzle me,’ said Polly, thoughtfully.  ‘It seems
to me that if I could contrive to be ever so good, nobody ever would look
for a halo round my head.  Now, is it my turned-up nose and red hair that
make me what I am, or did what I am make my nose and hair what they
are—which?’

‘We’ll have to ask Aunt Truth,’ said Margery; ‘that is too difficult a
thing for us to answer.’

‘Wasn’t it nice I catched that big bull-frog, Margie?’ cried Dick, his
eyes shining with anticipation.  ‘Now I’ll have as many as seven or
’leven frogs and lots of horned toads when Elsie comes, and she can help
me play with ’em.’

When the girls reached the tents again, the last article had been taken
from the team and Manuel had driven away.  The sound of Phil’s hammer
could be heard from the carpenter-shop, and Pancho was already laying the
tent floor in a small, open, sunny place, where the low boughs of a
single sycamore hung so as to protect one of its corners, leaving the
rest to the full warmth of the sunshine that was to make Elsie entirely
well again.

‘I am tired to death,’ sighed Laura, throwing herself down in a bamboo
lounging-chair.  ‘Such a tramp as we had! and after all, the boys
insisted on going where Dr. Winship wouldn’t allow us to follow, so that
we had to stay behind and fish with the children; I wish I had stayed at
home and read _The Colonel’s Daughter_.’

‘Oh, Laura!’ remonstrated Margery, ‘think of that lovely pool with the
forests of maiden-hair growing all about it!’

‘And poison-oak,’ grumbled Laura.  ‘I know I walked into some of it and
shall look like a perfect fright for a week.  I shall never make a
country girl—it’s no use for me to try.’

‘It’s no use for you to try walking four miles in high-heeled shoes, my
dear,’ said Polly, bluntly.

‘They are not high,’ retorted Laura, ‘and if they are, I don’t care to
look like a—a—cow-boy, even in the backwoods.’

‘I’m an awful example,’ sighed Polly, seating herself on a stump in front
of the tent, and elevating a very dusty little common-sense boot.  ‘Sir
Walter Raleigh would never have allowed me to walk on his velvet cloak
with that boot, would he, girls?  Oh, wasn’t that romantic, though? and
don’t I wish that I had been Queen Elizabeth!’

‘You’ve got the _hair_,’ said Laura.

‘Thank you!  I had forgotten Elizabeth’s hair was red; so it was.  This
is my court train,’ snatching a tablecloth that hung on a bush near by,
and pinning it to her waist in the twinkling of an eye,—‘this my
farthingale,’ dangling her sun-bonnet from her belt,—‘this my sceptre,’
seizing a Japanese umbrella,—‘this my crown,’ inverting a bright tin
plate upon her curly head.  ‘She is just alighting from her chariot,
_thus_; the courtiers turn pale, _thus_; (why don’t you do it?) what
shall be done?  The Royal Feet must not be wet.  “Go round the puddle?
Prit, me Lud, ’Od’s body!  Forsooth!  Certainly not!  Remove the puddle!”
she says haughtily to her subjects.  They are just about to do so, when
out from behind a neighbouring chaparral bush stalks a beautiful young
prince with coal-black hair and rose-red cheeks.  He wears a rich velvet
cloak, glittering with embroidery.  He sees not her crown, her hair
outshines it; he sees not her sceptre, her tiny hand conceals it; he sees
naught save the loathly mud.  He strips off his cloak and floats it on
the puddle.  With a haughty but gracious bend of her head the Queen
accepts the courtesy; crosses the puddle, _thus_, waves her sceptre,
_thus_, and saying, “You shall hear from me by return mail, me Lud,” she
vanishes within the castle.  The next morning she makes Sir Walter
British Minister to Florida.  He departs at once with a cargo of tobacco,
which he exchanges for sweet potatoes, and everybody is happy ever
after.’

The girls were convulsed with mirth at this historical romance, and, as
Mrs. Winship wiped the tears of merriment from her eyes, Polly seized the
golden opportunity and dropped on her knees beside her.

‘Please, Aunt Truth, we can’t get the white mosquito-netting because Dr.
Winship has the key of the storehouse in his pocket, and so—may—I—blow
the horn?’

Mrs. Winship gave her consent in despair, and Polly went to the oak-tree
where the horn hung and blew all the strength of her lungs into blast
after blast for five minutes.

‘That’s all I needed,’ she said, on returning; ‘that was an escape-valve,
and I shall be lady-like and well-behaved the rest of the day.’




CHAPTER VI
QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT


    ‘An hour and friend with friend will meet,
    Lip cling to lip and hand clasp hand.’

‘NOW, Laura,’ asked Bell, when quiet was restored, ‘advise us about
Elsie’s tent.  We want it to be perfectly lovely; and you have such good
taste!’

‘Let me think,’ said Laura.  ‘Oh, if she were only a brunette instead of
a blonde, we could festoon the tent with that yellow tarlatan I brought
for the play!’

‘What difference does it make whether she is dark or light?’ asked Bell,
obtusely.

‘Why, a room ought to be as becoming as a dress—so Mrs. Pinkerton says.
You know I saw a great deal of her at the hotel; and oh, girls! her
bedroom was the most exquisite thing you ever saw!  She had a French
toilet-table, covered with pale blue silk and white marquise
lace,—perfectly lovely,—with yards and yards of robin’s-egg blue watered
ribbon in bows; and on it she kept all her toilet articles, everything in
hammered silver from Tiffany’s with monograms on the back,—three or four
sizes of brushes, and combs, and mirrors, and a full manicure set.  It
used to take her two hours to dress; but it was worth it.  Oh, such
gorgeous tea-gowns as she had!  One of old rose and lettuce was a perfect
dream!  She always had her breakfast in bed, you know.  I think it’s
delightful to have your breakfast before you get up, and dress as slowly
as you like.  I wish mamma would let me do it.’

‘What does she do after she gets dressed in her rows of old lettuce—I
mean her old rows of lettuce?’ asked Polly.

‘Do?  Why really, Polly, you are too stupid!  What do you suppose she
did?  What everybody else does, of course.’

‘Oh!’ said Polly, apologetically.

‘How old is Mrs. Pinkerton?’ asked Margery.

‘Between nineteen and twenty.  There is not three years’ difference in
our ages, though she has been married nearly two years.  It seems so
funny.’

‘Only nineteen!’ cried Bell.  ‘Why, I always thought that she was old as
the hills—twenty-five or thirty at the very least.  She always seemed
tired of things.’

‘Well,’ said Laura, in a whisper intended to be too low to reach Mrs.
Winship’s tent, ‘I don’t know whether I ought to repeat what was told me
in confidence, but the fact is—well—she doesn’t like Mr. Pinkerton very
well!’

The other girls, who had not enjoyed the advantages of city life and
travel, looked as dazed as any scandalmonger could have desired.

‘Don’t like him!’ gasped Polly, nearly falling off the stump.  ‘Why,
she’s married to him!’

‘Where on earth were you brought up?’ snapped Laura.  ‘What difference
does that make?  She can’t help it if she doesn’t happen to like her
husband, can she?  You can’t make yourself like anybody, can you?’

‘Well, did she ever like him?’ asked Margery; ‘for she’s only been
married a year or two, and it seems to me it might have lasted that long
if there was anything to begin on.’

‘But,’ whispered Laura, mysteriously, ‘you see Mr. Pinkerton was very
rich and the Dentons very poor.  Mr. Denton had just died, leaving them
nothing at all to live on, and poor Jessie would have had to teach
school, or some dreadful thing like that.  The thought of it almost
killed her, she is so sensitive and so refined.  She never told me so in
so many words, but I am sure she married Mr. Pinkerton to save her mother
from poverty; and I pity her from the bottom of my heart.’

‘I suppose it was noble,’ said Bell, in a puzzled tone, ‘if she couldn’t
think of any other way, but—’

‘Well, did she try very hard to think of other ways?’ asked Polly.  ‘She
never looked especially noble to me.  I thought she seemed like a
die-away, frizzlygig kind of a girl.’

‘I wish, Miss Oliver, that you would be kind enough to remember that Mrs.
Pinkerton is one of my most intimate friends,’ said Laura, sharply.  ‘And
I do wish, also, that you wouldn’t talk loud enough to be heard all
through the cañon.’

The colour came into Polly’s cheeks, but before she could answer, Mrs.
Winship walked in, stocking-basket in hand, and seated herself in the
little wicker rocking-chair.  Polly’s clarion tones had given her a clue
to the subject, and she thought the discussion needed guidance.

‘You were talking about Mrs. Pinkerton, girls,’ she said, serenely.  ‘You
say you are fond of her, Laura, dear, and it seems very ungracious for me
to criticise your friend; that is a thing which most of us fail to bear
patiently.  But I cannot let you hold her up as an ideal to be
worshipped, or ask the girls to admire as a piece of self-denial what I
fear was nothing but indolence and self-gratification.  You are too young
to talk of these things very much; but you are not too young to make up
your mind that when you agree to live all your life long with a person,
you must have some other feeling than a determination not to teach
school.  Jessie Denton’s mother, my dear Laura, would never have asked
the sacrifice of her daughter’s whole life; and Jessie herself would
never have made it had she been less vain, proud, and luxurious in her
tastes, and a little braver, more self-forgetting and industrious.  These
are hard words, dear, and I am sorry to use them.  She has gained the
riches she wanted,—the carriages and servants, and tea-gowns, and
hammered silver from Tiffany’s, but she looks tired and disappointed, as
Bell says; and I’ve no doubt she is, poor girl.’

‘I don’t think you do her justice, Mrs. Winship; I don’t, indeed,’ said
Laura.

‘If you are really attached to her, Laura, don’t make the mistake of
admiring her faults of character, but try to find her better qualities,
and help her to develop them.  It is a fatal thing when girls of your age
set up these false standards, and order their lives by them.  There are
worse things than school-teaching, yes, or even floor-scrubbing or
window-washing.  Lovely tea-gowns and silver-backed brushes are all very
pretty and nice to have, if they are not gained at the sacrifice of
something better.  I should have said to my daughter, had I been Mrs.
Denton, “We will work for each other, my darling, and try to do whatever
God gives us to do; but, no matter how hard life is, your heart is the
most precious thing in the world, and you must never sell that, if we
part with everything else.”  Oh, my girls, my girls, if I could only make
you believe that “poor and content is rich, and rich enough.”  I cannot
bear to think of your growing year by year into the conviction that these
pretty glittering things of wealth are the true gold of life which
everybody seeks.  Forgive me, Laura, if I have hurt your feelings.’

‘I know you would never hurt anybody’s feelings, if you could help it,
Mrs. Winship,’ Laura answered, with a hint of coldness in her voice,
‘though I can’t help thinking that you are a little hard on poor Jessie;
but, even then, one can surely like a person without wishing to do the
very same things she does.’

‘Yes, that is true,’ said Mrs. Winship, gravely.  ‘But one cannot
constantly justify a wrong action in another without having one’s own
standard unconsciously lowered.  What we continually excuse in other
people we should be inclined by and by to excuse in ourselves.  Let us
choose our friends as wisely as possible, and love them dearly, helping
them to grow worthier of our love at the same time we are trying to grow
worthier of theirs; because “we live by admiration, hope, and love,” you
know, but not by admiring and loving the wrong things.

‘But there is the horn, and I hear the boys.  Let us come to luncheon,
and tell our good news of Elsie.’

 [Picture: Music score and words: With incredible energy.  The horn!  The
  horn!  The lus-ty, lus-ty horn!  ’Tis not a thing to laugh to scorn, A
                        thing to laugh to scorn!]

Long before the boys appeared in sight, their voices rang through the
cañon in a chorus that woke the echoes, and presently they came into
view, bearing two quarters and a saddle of freshly killed mutton, hanging
from a leafy branch swung between Jack’s sturdy shoulder and Geoff’s.

‘A splendid “still hunt” this morning, Aunt Truth!’ exclaimed Jack.
‘Game plenty and not too shy, dogs in prime condition, hunters ditto.
Behold the result!’

The girls could scarcely tell whether or no Laura was offended at Aunt
Truth’s unexpected little lecture.  She did not appear quite as
unrestrained as usual, but as everybody was engaged in the preparations
for Elsie’s welcome there was a general atmosphere of hilarity and
confusion, so that no awkwardness was possible.

The tool-shop resounded with blows of hammer and steel.  Dicky was under
everybody’s feet, and his ‘seven or ten frogs,’ together with his
unrivalled collection of horned toads, were continually escaping from
their tin pails and boxes in the various tents, and everybody was obliged
to join in the search to recover and re-incarcerate them, in order to
keep the peace.

Hop Yet was making a gold and silver cake, with ‘Elsie’ in pink letters
on chocolate frosting.  Philip had pitched the new tent so that in one
corner there was a slender manzanita-tree which had been cropped for some
purpose or other.  He had nailed a cross-piece on this, so that it
resembled the letter T, and was now laboriously boring holes and fitting
in pegs, that Elsie might have a sort of closet behind her bed.

As for the rustic furniture, the girls and boys declared it to be too
beautiful for words.  They stood in circles about it and admired it
without reserve, each claiming that his own special piece of work was the
gem of the collection.  The sunlight shining through the grey and green
tints of the tent was voted perfection, Philip’s closet a miracle of
ingenuity, the green and white straw matting an inspiration.

The looking-glass had been mounted on a packing-box, and converted by
Laura into a dressing-table that rivalled Mrs. Pinkerton’s; for green
tarlatan and white mosquito-netting had been so skilfully combined that
the traditional mermaid might have been glad to make her toilet there
‘with a comb and a glass in her hand.’  The rest of the green and white
gauzy stuff had been looped from the corners of the tent to the centre of
the roof-piece, and delicate tendrils of wild clematis climbed here and
there as if it were growing, its roots plunged in cunningly hidden
bottles of water.  Bell had gone about with pieces of awning cloth and
green braid, and stitched an elaborate system of pockets on the inside of
the tent wherever they would not be too prominent.  There were tiny
pockets for needle-work, thimbles, and scissors, medium-sized pockets for
soap and combs and brushes, bigger pockets for shoes and slippers and
stockings, and mammoth pockets for anything else that Elsie might ordain
to put in a pocket.

By four o’cloc

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