Part 38 (1/2)
Mrs. Morrow appeared at this moment with the announcement that it was nine o'clock, and according to camp rules all Pioneers were to be in bed by that hour, so the girls sounded a parting cheer and then hurried to their tents. The few who loitered, as if reluctant to leave their friends across the lake, heard an old-time good-night song with one or two variations in words that added to its charms ring out clearly:
”Good-night, campers, Good-night campers, Good-night campers, We're going to leave you now!
Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along; Merrily we roll along, o'er the dark blue sea.”
A few moments before six the next morning Nathalie opened her eyes, yawned drowsily, and then rolled over to see Helen staring at her from the opposite bed with wide-open eyes.
”Oh, I have had such a delicious sleep,” she cried. ”I don't believe I wakened from the time I touched the pillow. Helen, isn't it just too lovely up here in these woods? Did you hear that whippoorwill toot just after we got into bed? And these bough beds, aren't they the coziest-”
”Well, you'll get coziest with a vengeance, Blue Robin,” was Helen's terse reply, ”if you don't get into your bathing-suit-” Helen ended with a shrill scream as the bugle's blast sounded with startling clearness in the still morning air.
But Nathalie was already half-way into her suit. The last b.u.t.ton was caught. ”There, I'm ready before you, Miss Poke!” she taunted gleefully, as the second call sounded. The two girls tripped lightly across the open s.p.a.ce in front of the tents thickly strewn with pine needles and thus on down to the boathouse pier.
Just a moment and a slim figure was seen leaping through the air, then Nathalie arose like a mermaid from the sea, blowing and puffing the water from her mouth as she floated for a moment on her back and swam gracefully back to the bank. As she reached shallow water she stood up and waved her hand to a group of s.h.i.+vering ones on the bank crying, ”Oh, come on, kiddies!
”Sure, it's cold!” she nodded to a faint remonstrance from a timorous one, ”but you'll get heated if you'll take the plunge!”
Out from her dip, with the wish that it could have been longer, she hurried to her tent; after a rub came the dressing, the picking up of her clothes, the putting her bed to air, and then the call for breakfast.
After this meal came the event of the day, the naming of the camp, the tents, and the boats. Camp duties were soon disposed of and then there was a general stampede to Mrs. Morrow's bungalow, where the Sport, as chairman of this committee, stood waving the Stars and Stripes on the roof of the veranda.
A cheer arose a few moments later when its bright colors fluttered gently to and fro in the morning wind from the flag staff that had been hoisted over the Director's abiding-place, and the girls, quickly forming in line, gave the flag salute. The Star Spangled Banner was then sung with a heartiness that found its echo in the woods, the very leaves on the trees seeming to rustle in reverence to the country's honored emblem.
The campers now gathered before Mrs. Van Vorst's bungalow, where, from a high flagstaff erected by Peter, a white flag fluttered gracefully to the breezes, disclosing in red letters the words, ”Camp Laff-a-Lot.”
Beneath this flag curled a smaller one, also white, bearing in blue letters, ”The Girl Pioneers of America.”
Some one was just about to mount a ladder placed against the flagstaff when Nathalie, with sudden thought, turned and whispered to Mrs. Morrow, who immediately signaled to Helen. Helen nodded as she listened to her Director, and then stepping forward stood before Nita who, with her mother and Ellen, was a joyful spectator of this camp demonstration. A sudden look of delight overspread her face as she heard what Helen had to say, and then after a hurried a.s.sent from Mrs. Van Vorst, Nita with the help of Peter had mounted the ladder, holding a bottle of water in her hand.
A swing of the bottle, a crash of gla.s.s, a stream of water trickling down the pole, and Nita in a voice somewhat faint at first, but that grew louder as she caught Nathalie's eye, cried, ”Summer camp of the Girl Pioneers of America, I name thee, Camp Laff-a-Lot!” Wild bursts of applause now broke forth, even Ellen and Peter doing their share, the former tearing off her ap.r.o.n and flapping it vigorously, while the latter brandished his hat hilariously, stopping every moment or so to rub the back of his hand across his eyes. ”Sure,” as he afterwards confessed to Nathalie, ”it was enough to make any one weep with joy to see Miss Nita spilling all over with happiness!”
As the Pioneers hastened to the boat-house they saw a diminutive figure standing on the top of its little square cupola. With many flourishes of her bottle Carol-who had been elected to this honor-chimed jubilantly, ”Boat-house, in memory of the s.h.i.+p that crossed the unknown sea to carry the founders of this nation to its sh.o.r.es, I now name thee, 'The Mayflower'!”
And so the naming continued, the little log summer-house being honored by the name of Ann Burras, a pioneer of the Jamestown colony, known as the first white bride in America. The tent loaned by Mrs. Van Vorst was dubbed ”The Three Guardian Angels,” in appreciation of the services of Ann Drummond, Sarah Cottin, and Mrs. Cheisman, also of the Jamestown company, sometimes known as ”The White Ap.r.o.n Brigade,” as during the Bacon rebellion they were placed in front of a trench where Bacon's men were digging, to prevent Governor Berkeley from firing on the Fort.
The ”Grub House” was to be known as the ”Common House,” a most appropriate name, the campers declared, as it contained their food and ammunition, just as the little log hut known by that name held the necessities to sustain and defend the lives of the Pilgrims in the Plymouth settlement.
The doctor's army tent was named the ”Three Margarets,” to honor Margaret Brent of Maryland, the first woman suffragist, Margaret Draper, the first woman to publish a newspaper, and Margaret Duncan, the first of her s.e.x in the new world to engage in mercantile life. Helen and Nathalie's tent was to be known as the ”Two Anns,” out of respect to Ann Hutchinson, the first club woman, and Ann Bradstreet, the first American poetess.
The boats were quickly honored with the names _Priscilla_, _Mary Chilton_, _Annetje Jans_, and _Polly Prevoorst_, while shady retreats, lofty trees, and rocky coves were named anew to do homage to those women who helped their good sires build the foundation of this great Republic, by being faithful, enduring wives and mothers.
At eleven o'clock the girls a.s.sembled on the sh.o.r.es of the Lake for a life-saving drill. Forming in line at a given signal, each girl quickly unfastened her red necktie, and turning swiftly to the right tied one end of it in a square knot to her neighbor's. This red life-line was then thrown to the sinker-as the girls dubbed Edith, who was playing the part of the person drowning. She hurriedly grabbed this necktie rope and was drawn ash.o.r.e by her comrades.
The girls found that this drill not only made them keen and alert, training them to keep cool heads, but helped to give them reliance as well as courage, and-heaps of fun.
The bathers were now lined up for a swimming contest, each girl at the toot of the horn making a wild dash for the water, and swimming out as far as she could to the stake-boat, manned by the doctor, anch.o.r.ed some distance from sh.o.r.e. This contest was to determine not only who could swim, and the best swimmers, but those who had the greatest amount of strength and endurance, who would be able to train others not so competent.
Nathalie, who had spent a number of summers at a seaside resort and therefore was at home in the water, found to her surprise that she, Helen, and Edith were the three best swimmers of the campers. This was as much of a surprise to her as to the Pioneers, for, supposing that she was a swimmer of only average skill, she had never even told that she could swim.
Drills and contests being over, the girls were allowed to do as they liked, and so were soon gambolling about in the water, having the merriest time running races in the more shallow water, ducking one another, or teaching some more timid one to swim or dive.
Nathalie and Helen had rowed out some distance from sh.o.r.e and were practicing diving by jumping from the boat. ”Now!” Helen would shout as they stood poised in the center, ”One! Two! Three!” The next instant there would be a flash of pointed hands, a sweep of blue bathing-suits-like bluebirds skimming through the air-a splash, and then first one head would appear and then the other, each one blowing and puffing water from her eyes and nose like a porpoise.
”O dear,” exclaimed Nathalie suddenly as the two girls sat sunning themselves in the boat, ”here comes the Sport. I wonder what she is up to now!”