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CHAPTER IX
JOHN JARLEY, EXILE

This could be no day of leisure for the Go-Ahead Club. To get settled in camp was the first task–and that no small one.

There was the plank flooring to be laid in the big tent, the cook-tent to be erected, and the floor laid in that. There was a sheet-iron stove to erect, with a smoke pipe to the outside, and an asbestos “blanket” to wrap around the pipe to keep the canvas of the tent-top from scorching.

There were the swinging shelves to put up, fastened to the ridge-pole of the cook-tent, on which certain supplies could be kept out of the reach of the wood mice and other small vermin. Indeed, there were a dozen and one things of moment to see about, beside bringing over to the camp a selection of the stores–and their extra clothes–from John Jarley’s shack by the boat landing.

Wyn was a competent girl and knew something about using a hammer and a saw. The flooring planks for both tents had been assembled at Denton, and were numbered; but after they got the sleepers laid Wyn realized that she and her mates had tackled more of a task than they had expected.

“And the boys will be just as busy as they can be to-day,” she said to the other girls. “It’s a wonder if everything they owned didn’t get soaked last evening.

“Now, we can’t depend upon the Busters to give us any assistance just now. Doubt if we see ‘hide nor hair’ of them to-day. But we need somebody to make these floors properly. There! Bess has stuck a splinter into her hand already.”

“Plague take the old board!” snapped Bess, dropping it and sucking on a ragged little wound in her hand.

“You see,” Wyn said, quickly. “I’m going to get some help. Anybody want to walk over to Jarley’s with me?”

“Are you going to get that man to come here?” demanded Bess, sharply.

“Don’t see what else there is to do–do you, Bessie?”

“Isn’t there anybody else to help us around here? There must be other squatters.”

“I do not know of any. We chance to know the Jarleys – ”

“Not I!” cried Bess, shaking her head. “I don’t know them–and I won’t know them.”

“All right. You and Grace and Percy take the pails and try for some berries in the woods yonder. I saw some ripe ones this morning. Fresh picked berries will add nicely to our bill-of-fare; isn’t that so, Mrs. Havel?”

“Quite so, my dear,” replied the widow, and buried herself in her book again, for, as she had told the girls, she had not come here to work; they must treat her as a guest.

“Are you going to stop with Mrs. Havel, Mina?” continued Wyn. “Then come along with me, Frank. We’ll go over and see if the Jarleys bite. Bess is afraid they will!”

“She was telling us all about John Jarley,” said Wyn’s chum, as the two left the camp on the green knoll. “Do you suppose he stole that motor boat and the box of silver statuettes?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Wyn, briskly. “But I know that he and Polly are very poor, and with a motor boat and five thousand dollars’ worth of silver, it looks to me as though they would be very foolish to suffer the privations they do. It’s nasty gossip, that’s all it is.”

“Well, Bess says the man stole from her father years ago – ”

“I don’t know much about that, either,” interrupted Wynifred. “But I think Bess is overstepping the line of exact truth when she says John Jarley stole from her father. They were doing business together, and Mr. Lavine accused Jarley of ‘selling him out’ in a real estate deal.

“I asked my father about it. Father says the whole business was a little misty, at best. If Jarley did all Lavine said, he merely was guilty of being false to his friend and partner. It is doubtful if he made much out of it. But Lavine talked loudly and long; he had lots of friends even then. The talk and all fairly hounded the Jarleys out of town.

“And now,” said Wyn, warmly, “the Lavines are rich and the Jarleys have always been poor. Mr. Jarley is an exile from his old home and such friends as he had in Denton. It is really a shame, I think–and you’ll say so, too, when you see what a splendid girl Polly is.”

The two girls had followed the edge of the lake toward the landing, instead of taking the path through the wood. Suddenly they came in sight of the float and shack, with the several boats in Mr. Jarley’s keeping.

Back from the shore was a tiny cottage, painted red, its window sash and door striped with yellow. It was a gay little cot, and everything about it was as neat and as gaily painted as a Dutch picture.

As Wyn and Frank came down the hill they saw Polly Jarley run out of the house and down to the landing. Her father was busy there at an overturned boat–evidently caulking the seams.

The boatman’s girl did not see her visitors coming; but Wyn and Frank got a good view of her, and the latter exclaimed to Wyn:

“Why! she’s as pretty as a picture! She’s handsome! If she only had on nice clothes she would be a perfect beauty.”

“Wouldn’t she?” returned Wyn, happily. “I think my Polly Jolly is just the dearest looking creature. Isn’t she brown? And what pretty feet and hands she has!”

Polly wore a very short skirt, patched and stained. Her blouse was open at the throat, so that the soft roundness of the curve of her shoulder was plainly visible.

Out of the open neck of the blouse her deeply tanned throat rose like a bronze column; the roses in her cheeks and on her lips relieved the sun-darkened skin. Her hair was in two great plaits and it was evident that she seldom troubled about a hat. She was lithe, graceful as she could be, and bubbling over with good health if not good spirits.

And this was a morning–after the rain–to make even a lachrymose person lively. The smell of all growing things was in the nostrils–the warmth of the sun lapped one about like a mantle–it was a beautiful, beautiful day,–one to be remembered.

Wyn shouted and started running down the hill. Polly heard her, turned to see who it might be who called, and recognizing her friend, set out to meet her quite as eagerly.

“Oh, Miss Wynifred!” cried the boatman’s daughter.

“Polly Jolly! This is Frank Cameron.” She kissed Polly warmly. “How fine you look, Polly! Tell me! will all we girls look as healthy and be as strong as you are, by the autumn? You’re a picture!”

“A pretty shabby one, I fear, Miss Wyn,” protested Polly, yet smiling. “I am in the very oldest clothes I have, for there is much dirty work to be done around here. We have hardly got ready for the summer yet. Father has been so lame.”

“And you must introduce me to your father, Polly,” Wyn said, quickly. “We have something for him to do–if he will be so kind.”

“All you need to do is to say what it is, Wynifred,” responded Polly, warmly. “If either of us can do anything for you we will only be too glad.”

The three girls walked to the spot where Mr. Jarley was engaged upon his boat. He was not at all the sort of a person whom the girls from town had expected to see. The boatmen and woodsmen who sometimes drifted into Denton were rough characters. This man, after being ten years and more in the woods, savored little of the rough life he had followed.

He was a small man, very neat in his suit of brown overalls, with grizzled hair, a short-cropped gray mustache, and without color in his face save the coat of tan his out-of-door life had given him.

There was a gentle, deprecatory air about him that reminded Wyn strongly of Polly herself. But this manner was almost the only characteristic that father and daughter had in common.

Mr. Jarley was low-spoken, too; he listened quietly and with an air of deference to what Wyn had to propose.

“Surely I will come around and do all I can to aid you, Miss Mallory,” he said. “You shall pick out the stores you think you will need, and we will take a boat around to your camp. Your stores will be perfectly safe here–if you wish to risk them in my care,” he added.

“Of course, sir. And we expect to pay you for keeping them. If we have a long spell of rainy weather the dampness would be bound to spoil things in our tents.”

“True. This corrugated iron shack will keep the stores dry, and the door has a good padlock,” returned Mr. Jarley. “Now, you young ladies pick out what you wish carried over to the camp and I will soon be at your service.”

“Isn’t he nice?” whispered Wyn to Frank, when Polly had run into the house for something, and Mr. Jarley himself was out of hearing.

“Why! he is a perfect gentleman!” exclaimed Frank. “How can Bess talk as she does about him? I am surprised at her.”

“And these other people about here, too!” declared Wyn, warmly. “What an evil tongue Gossip has! That man–Shelton, is his name?–at the other end of the lake, who has accused Mr. Jarley of stealing his boat and the silver statues, ought to be punished.”

“Well–of course–we don’t know anything more about the Jarleys than these other people,” observed Frank, doubtfully.

“I judge people by their appearance a good deal, I suppose,” admitted Wyn. “And mother tells me that is a poor way to judge. Just the same, I feel that the Jarleys are being maligned. And I would love to help them.”

“Well! there isn’t much chance to do that unless you can prove that he is honest, after all,” remarked Frank.

“I know it. Everything is going to tell against him unless the lost boat and the images can be found. I wonder where it was sunk? Do you suppose Polly would tell us just where the accident happened?”

“Ask her.”

“I will, if I get a chance,” declared Wyn. “And wouldn’t it be fine if we girls could find the sunken boat and the box belonging to Dr. Shelton, and clear up the whole trouble?”

“Even that would not satisfy Bessie Lavine,” said Frankie, with a little laugh. “You know–Bess is ‘awful sot in her ways.’ When she has made up her mind that a thing is so, you can’t shake it out of her with a charge of dynamite!”

“You never tried the dynamite; did you, Frank?” queried Wyn, smiling.

“No! But I’ve wanted to–at times.”

“Bessie is like her father–obstinate. It is a family trait Yet, once get her turned around–show her that she has been wrong and unfair to anybody–and she can’t do too much for her to prove how sorry she is.”

“That’s right! look how she talked against the boys–especially against Dave Shepard. And now you can just wager she won’t be able to do enough for him to show how grateful she is for being pulled out of the water,” laughed Frank.

Mr. Jarley was ready to load the boat for them, and Polly came back with the key to the shack. Polly could not go over to the camp, for both she and her father could not leave the landing at once. Some fishermen might come along at any time to hire a boat. The season was opening now, and after the “lean months” that had gone by, the Jarleys had to be on the watch for every dollar that might come their way.

“It seems an awfully hard life for such a man–and for Polly,” whispered Wyn to her companion. “I’d just love to have Polly for a member of our club.”

“So would I,” agreed Frank. “She’s just as sweet as she can be. But Bess would go right up in the air!”

“Oh, I know it,” sighed Wyn. “Somehow we have got to make Bessie Lavine see the error of her ways. Oh, dear! why can’t people be nice to each other all the time?”

“Goodness me, Wyn Mallory!” exclaimed Frank. “What do you expect while there still remains ‘original sin’ in the world? That seems to have been left out of your constitution; but most of the rest of us have our share.”

CHAPTER X
THE “HAPPY DAY”

That day the camp upon the hill overlooking Lake Honotonka was completed. Mr. Jarley was very helpful, for beside laying the floors of the two tents, and setting up the stove, he built for the girls an open-air fireplace of flat rocks, dragged up from the shore; set up their plank dining table, cut and set three posts for their clothes-line (for they were to do their own laundry work), dug shallow ditches all around the tents, with a drain to carry off any water that might collect; built an “overlook-seat” at the foot of a big birch which overhung the water, and did countless other little services which most of the Go-Ahead Club appreciated.

Bessie Lavine did not come back from the berrying expedition until Mr. Jarley had gone back to the landing; and of course she hadn’t much to say about the change in the appearance of things. But the other girls were enthusiastic.

“And now we must have a name for the camp,” said Mrs. Havel, as they sat down to the oilcloth-covered table to dinner.

The arrangements for cooking and eating were of the simplest; yet everything was neat. Using oilcloth saved laundry, and using paper napkins was likewise a help. The food was served daintily, if simply, and although all the girls were used to much finer table service at home, the hearty appetites engendered by the pure air of lake and forest made even coarse food taste delicious.

They were all instantly enthusiastic over their chaperone’s suggestion. Half a dozen names were suggested on the spur of the moment; but no particular one met the approval of all the girls, immediately.

“We’ll have to draw lots,” suggested Mina.

“No! let’s each write down the best names we can think of, and then vote on them,” said Bess.

“Goody!” cried Frank. “We must have a name that fits, but is pretty and not too ‘hifalutin’,’ as my grandmother would say.”

“Naming the camp is all very well, girls,” said Wyn, seriously, rapping on the table for order. “But there are more important things to decide. The work of the camp is to be properly apportioned – ”

“Oh, dear me!” groaned Grace. “Have we got to work? After traipsing over four miles of huckleberry pasture all the morning I feel as though I had done my share for to-day.”

“And she ate as many as she picked!” cried Bess. “Oh, I’m going to tell on you, Miss! You’re not going to crawl out of your fair share.”

“I didn’t enlist to work,” declared Grace, with some sullenness. “What’s the fun of camping out if one has to work like a slave all the time?”

“And we haven’t even begun!” cried Frank. “For shame, Gracie!”

“Now, none of the members of the Go-Aheads, I feel sure,” quoth Wyn, quietly, “will try to escape her just burden. To have the fun of camping out under canvas we must each do our share of the work quickly and cheerfully. We will divide up the tasks, and change them about weekly. Of course, Mrs. Havel is not supposed to lift her hand. She is our guest.”

“Oh, but auntie is going to show us how to make pancakes,” cried Percy.

“I’ll learn to do that,” said Grace, brightening up. “For I love ’em.”

“Of course–piggy-wiggy!” scoffed Bess. “Come, Wyn, you set us our tasks and any girl who kicks about ’em shall be fined.”

“We’ll do better than that. We will use Mina’s idea of drawing lots about the work. There are certain things to be done each week–each day, of course. Two girls must ’tend fires and cook; two girls must air and make beds, clean up about the tents, and wait on table if needed; the other two must get up early and go for the milk and vegetables, gather berries, and do odd jobs. The girls who do the ‘chamber work’ should wash the dishes, too, for the cooks will be too tired and heated after preparing the meals to clean up the tables and mess with the dishwashing.

“Now are those three divisions satisfactory? Every third week, you see, the two who go for the milk, etcetera, will have an easy job. Is it agreed?”

There was no objection raised to this plan, and the girls paired off as they usually did–Wyn and Frank together, Grace and Percy, and Bess and Mina.

Then they drew straws–really grass blades of three lengths–to see which couple should do which. It fell to the lot of Bess and Mina to cook for a week. Grace and Percy Havel were “chambermaids,” and Wyn and Frank Cameron had the good luck to get the shortest blade of grass.

“Of course, I’d have to work hard two weeks before getting a chance to rest,” grumbled Grace. “Probably something will happen after we’re here a fortnight, and we’ll all have to go home.”

“It would take something awful to send me home from this beautiful spot in a fortnight,” cried Mina.

“Just my luck if you all got smallpox, or something equally contagious,” growled Grace.

“Then you certainly would be fortunate for once–if you escaped it,” chuckled Wyn.

“Not a bit of it. They’d quarantine you here, and have nurses, and lots of nice jellies and ices for you; while poor unlucky me would be packed back to Denton for the rest of the summer–and after working like a slave, dishwashing, and sweeping, and making beds, and cooking, and the like, for two whole weeks.”

Despite Grace’s complaints, the club as a whole was satisfied with the arrangements for taking care of the camp. There had been a secondary consideration in the minds of all their mothers when permission was obtained for the Go-Aheads to spend the summer under canvas. Mrs. Evelyn Havel was a wondrously good housekeeper. She had been trained in domestic science, too. And she had promised to have an oversight of each girl’s work and to teach them, from time to time, many helpful domestic things.

This phase of the camping-out plan Wyn had “played up” in getting the consent of all the parents; and for one, Wyn was determined to carry the scheme through. When they went back to Denton in the fall she proposed to be a good “plain cook” herself, and she hoped the other girls would fall in cheerfully with the project also. She knew Mrs. Havel would do all she could toward teaching them.

The work once apportioned to them, the girls’ minds could be given more particularly to the naming of the camp. But they would not decide upon it until bedtime. However, all six cudgeled their brains to invent striking names.

It was decided that only one name could be suggested by each girl, and this would give them a list of six to choose from. Oddly enough both Mina and Grace chose the same–Camp Pleasant. It looked as though that name had a lead at the start.

Frank suggested Birch Tree Camp–for there was an enormous birch on the knoll at the foot of which Mr. Jarley had set up a bench for them.

“Now you, Bess?” said Wyn, as mistress of ceremonies.

“Camp Pleasant is all right,” admitted Miss Lavine; “only it is not very distinctive. I expect there are thousands of Camp Pleasants–don’t you think so?”

“What’s the matter with my name?” demanded Frank Cameron.

“I find the same fault with it,” replied Bess. “It is not distinctive enough. Now, I don’t know that I have the right idea; but I believe that calling the camp after our club wouldn’t be so bad. And it would mean something.”

“Go-Ahead Camp? Or Camp Go-Ahead?” cried Grace.

“There’s nothing romantic about it, that’s sure,” objected Mina.

“Goodness me! we’re not looking for romance, I hope,” cried the strong-minded Bess.

“Bess is a suffragette in embryo–I declare!” cried Frank, laughing.

“How does Camp Cheer sound?” suggested Percy. “Now, that’s real nice, I think.”

“Say, we’ve got to vote on them, anyway,” said Grace. “We’ve got two votes for Camp Pleasant, Mina.”

“But hold on!” cried Frank. “Here’s one hasn’t been heard from. The shrinking violet of all our crew! What’s the matter, Wynnie? Can’t you decide on a name?”

“I thought of one last evening when we were paddling over here from the Forge–before the rain,” admitted the captain.

“Well! for pity’s sake!” gasped Grace. “That’s before we even knew it was to have a name.”

“I didn’t think particularly about naming the camp,” said Wyn, reflectively, “but from the water, with the squall working up behind us, and the last light of the day lingering on this little hill, the name flashed into my mind.”

“What is it?” chorused the others. “Do tell us, Wyn!”

“Green Knoll.”

“Just that?” cried Grace. “‘Green Knoll’? Why! It was green; wasn’t it?”

“I remember how green it seemed from the lake,” added Bess. “It’s not a silly name, either. It means something.”

“I take it all back about ‘Birch Tree Camp,’” declared Frank. “‘Green Knoll.’ There’s a dignity about that–as our assistant principal, Miss Hutchins, would say.”

“It’s a fine name, I think,” admitted Percy Havel, slowly. “I withdraw Camp Cheer. It may not be so cheerful here all the time–especially if we catch smallpox, as Grace says. But it will always be green up here on the knoll.”

“As long as we are here to see it, at least,” agreed Frankie, nodding.

“Say! our Camp Pleasant is swamped!” cried Grace. “What say, Mina? Shall we surrender?”

“Green Knoll sounds very pretty,” agreed the sweet-tempered Mina Everett.

“Oh, girls! do you really all like it?” Wyn cried.

“I vote aye!” said Frank, with emphasis. The other four followed in quick succession.

“Why, that’s lovely of you!” cried the captain of the club. “I–I was afraid nobody would like it but myself.”

“It’s so appropriate,” said Bess.

“It’s all right,” Frank declared. “I wonder what the Busters will call their camp?”

“They named it last fall,” said Wyn. “Dave told me. It is Cave-in-the-Wood Camp. Not so bad–eh?”

“Pretty good for a parcel of boys,” observed Bess.

“Well, I’m glad the worry’s over,” yawned Grace. “Let’s go to bed. You know, Percy, we’ve got to work like slaves to-morrow, so it behooves us to get to bed betimes.”

“Mercy!” cried Frankie, “they’ll be wanting to make up the cots before we are out of them in the morning. Come on! let’s all turn in.”

There was a general roll-call at daybreak the next morning. Wynifred and Frank were not the only ones to get up as soon as day approached, although to them had been allotted the task of going to Windmill Farm for the milk and the day’s supply of vegetables.

They had agreed the night before to venture into the water. The boys always bragged about this early morning dip, which was a rule of their camp.

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to do anything those boys do,” declared Bess, with her usual contempt for the vaunted superiority of the other sex. “If they can run down and plunge right into the water, right out of bed, why can’t we?”

So even Grace–who had her doubts about it–ventured on this second morning. They slipped out of their sleeping clothes and into bathing suits. There was a little chill in the air; but Wyn assured them the water would be warmer than the air and–if they remained in half an hour, or so–the sun would be up and his rays would warm them when they came out.

And Wyn’s prophecy was proven right. The six girls disported in the lake like a flock of ducks. Mrs. Havel, however, would not let them remain more than twenty minutes. The sun had shot up, then, and already the green knoll was warm in his first rays.

Wyn and Frank scurried into their clothes and hurried away to the farm for the milk and vegetables. Frank saw the windmill on the summit of the hill, and nothing would do but she must run up and inspect it. The breeze was rising and the farmer, who was likewise the miller, was preparing to “grind a grist.”

“We’ve got a good bit of grain on hand; but we’ve not had wind enough of daytimes lately to grind a handful,” he said. “I can’t invite you inside, young ladies, because when they set up this mill for me they made the door, as you see, right behind the sails. When the arms are in motion I am shut in till the grist is ground; or I stop the sails with this lever just inside the door–d’ye see?”

As the girls went back toward the house the arms began turning with a groaning sound. The wind became fresher. Round and round the long arms turned, while the canvas bellied like the sails on a boat.

Louder and louder grew the hum of the mill. The miller threw in the clutch and the stones began to grind. They heard the corn poured into the hopper, and then the shriek of the kernels as they were ground between the stones. The whole building began to shake.

“What a ponderous thing it is!” exclaimed Frank. “And see! there’s a tiny window in the roof facing the lake. I imagine you could see clear to Meade’s Forge from that window.”

“Farther than that, my dear–much farther,” said the farmer’s wife, handing Frank the basket of fresh vegetables over the garden fence. “On a clear day you can see ’way across the lake to Braisely Park. The tower of Dr. Shelton’s fine house is visible from that window. And the whole spread of the lake. But the air must be very clear.”

“Goody! We’ll bring the other girls up here some day when the mill is not running and climb to the top of the mill for the view,” declared Frank.

Bess and Mina, with some advice from Mrs. Havel, made a very good breakfast. Although neither was very domestic in her tastes, the two young cooks were on their mettle, and did the best they could. If the hot biscuits were not quite so flaky as their mothers’ own cooks made them at home, and some of the poached eggs broke in the poacher, and the broiled bacon got afire several time and “fussed them all up,” as Mina said, the general opinion of the occupants of Green Knoll Camp was that “there was no kick coming”–of course, expressed thus by the slangy Frank Cameron.

Grace would dawdle over the dishwashing, and Percy was a good second. Therefore, those two still had work on their hands when Bess sighted a motor boat coming swiftly toward their camp from the direction of Gannet Island.

“Now somebody’s going to butt in and bother us,” declared Bess. “It can’t be the Busters, I s’pose?”

“That’s exactly who it is!” cried Wyn, delightedly. “That’s the Happy Day. Dave said if his cousin, Frank Dumont, could come up here, he would bring his father’s motor boat. And he must have come yesterday when we were busy and did not see him.”

“Hurrah!” cried Frank. “A motor boat beats a canoe all to pieces.”

“The Busters are aboard, all right,” sighed Bess, after another look. “Now we’ll have a noisy time.”

“Now there’ll be something doing!” quoth Frank. “That’s the trouble with a crowd of girls. After they have played ‘Ring Around the Rosy’ and ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ they don’t know another living thing to do except to sit down and look prim and be prosy. But with boys it’s different. There’s something doing all the time.”

“You should have been a boy, Frank,” declared Bess, with some disgust.

“If I was one, I’d be hanging around your house all the time, Bessie mine,” laughed the other, hugging the boy-hater.

“Get away! I’d have Patrick turn the hose on you if you did!” cried Bess, in mock wrath.

But secretly, Miss Lavine, as well as her mates, was glad of the break in the quiet affairs of Green Knoll Camp made by the appearance of Dave Shepard and his spirited chums.

“Oh, crackey, girls! you ought to see our camp! We’ve got a regular pirates’ cave,” declared Ferdinand Roberts.

“Did your stores get wet in that awful storm?” demanded Wyn from the top of the knoll.

“Not much. We managed to cover them with the canvas. And now we’ve cleaned out the cave and it’s great. All we need is some captives to take over there and chain to the rocks,” laughed Dave.

“And fatten ’em up till they’re fit to eat,” drawled Tubby Blaisdell.

“Stop it, Tub!” cried one of his mates. “We’re not going to play cannibals, but pirates.”

“Well, in either case,” declared Bess, “you will not get captives at Green Knoll Camp.”

“Is that what you call this pretty hillock?” cried Dave. “Well, it is a beauty spot! And how nice you girls have made everything. Why! you don’t need any boys around at all.”

“That’s what I’ve always told them,” murmured Bess. “They’re only a nuisance.”

“We came over to see if we could help you,” continued Dave. “Here’s my cousin, Frank Dumont, girls. Some of you know him, anyway. This is his motor boat, and if there really is nothing we can do to help you here, why, Frank wants to take you all–with Mrs. Havel, if she is agreeable–for a trip around the lake. We’ve got supplies aboard and we’ll stop somewhere and make a picnic dinner.”

“Goody!” cried Mina. “Then we will not have to make dinner here, Bess.”

“Agreed!” announced Grace. “There will be no more dishes to wash until evening, then.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Dave said, slowly. “Of course we like to have you girls go along; but usually girls do the grub-getting and dishwashing on a picnic.”

“Nothing doing, then,” declared Frank, laughing at him. “This crowd of girls are going as invited guests, or not at all. We promise to be ornamental, but not useful.”

“You’re ornamental, all right, in those blouses and bloomers,” declared Ferd, for the girls had discarded skirts about the camp, and felt much more free and comfortable than they usually did.

“If worse comes to worst,” said Mrs. Havel, smiling, “I will be the camp drudge, boys, for I want to see the lake shore in panorama.”

“Oh, let ’em come,” drawled Tubby, still lying on his back on the little deck of the Happy Day. “They’ll get hungry some time and have to cook for us.”

And so, amid much bustle, and laughter, and raillery, the girls of Green Knoll Camp joined the boys of Cave-in-the-Wood Camp in the motor boat for a trip around the big lake.