Part 10 (2/2)
They had decided to sleep in the Englishman's cabin, as the little log house that went with the property was always called, but Miss Somerville had made them promise to burn sulphur candles before they went in and was deeply grieved because her beloved nephew refused to carry with him a quart bottle of crude carbolic acid that she felt was necessary to ward off germs.
It was late in the afternoon as the faithful Ford chugged its way up the mountain road to the site of the proposed camp. The boys had stopped at the station at Greendale and taken in all the tools they could stow away, determined to begin work at excavating the first thing in the morning.
”Let's lay out the ground this afternoon,” proposed Lewis.
”There's nothing to lay out since the four pine trees mark the corners.
I, for one, am going to lay out myself and rest and try to decide which one of your cousins is the most beautiful.”
”Douglas, of course! The others can't hold a candle to her, although Helen is some looker and Nan has certainly got something about her that makes a fellow kind of blink. And that Lucy is going to grow up to her long legs some day and maybe step ahead of all of them.”
”Well, I'm mighty glad you thought about giving me this job of working for such nice gals.” These young men always spoke of themselves as being in the employ of the Carter girls, and all the time they were building the camp they religiously kept themselves to certain hours as though any laxity would be cheating their bosses. Besides, the regular habits that two years at West Point had drilled into them would have been difficult to break.
”I don't know how to loaf,” complained Lewis. ”That's the d.i.c.kens of it.”
”Me, neither!”
”They say the Government makes machines of its men.”
”True! I am a perpetual motion machine.”
They were busily engaged on their first morning in the mountains, plying pick and shovel. They bent their brave young shoulders to the task with evident enjoyment in the work. When they did straighten up to get the kinks out of their backs, they looked out across a wonderful country which they fully appreciated as being wonderful, but raving about landscapes and Nature was not in their line and they would quickly bend again to the task in a somewhat shamefaced way.
The orchards of Albemarle County in Virginia are noted and the green of an apple tree in May is something no one need be ashamed to admire openly, but all these boys would say on the subject was:
”Good apple year, I hope.”
”Yep! Albemarle pippins are sho' good eats.”
Moving mountains was not quite so easy as they had expected it to be.
They remembered what Mr. Lane had said about excavating when the sun showed it to be high noon and after five hours' steady work they had made but little impression on the pile they were to dig away.
”Gee, we make no impression at all!” said Lewis. ”I verily believe little Bobby Carter could have done as much as we have if he had been turned loose to play mud pies here.”
”Well, let's stop and eat. I haven't laughed for an hour,” and Bill gave out one of his guffaws that echoed from peak to peak and started two rabbits out of the bushes and actually dislodged a great stone that went rolling down the side of the mountain into an abyss below. At least, his laugh seemed to be the cause but Bill declared it was somebody or something, and to be sure a little mountain boy came from behind a boulder, grinning from ear to ear.
”What be you uns a-doin'?”
”Crocheting a shawl for Aunty,” said Lewis solemnly.
”Well, we uns is got a mule an' a scoop that could make a shawl fer Aunty quicker'n you uns.” This brought forth another mighty peal from Bill and another stone rolled down the mountain side.
”Good for you, son!” exclaimed Lewis. ”Suppose you fetch the mule here this afternoon and we'll have a sewing bee. What do you say, Bill? Do you believe we would ever in the world get this dirt moved?”
”Doubt it.”
”Do you uns want we uns to drive the critter? We uns mostly goes along 'thout no axtra chawge.”
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