Part 7 (1/2)

On board s.h.i.+p it looks quite easy to throw the ring over the stick, but what with the motion of the vessel and poor calculation, it more often rolls to one side than makes a ringer.

On sh.o.r.e it is not so easy, either. The ground, from being pounded so often by the iron quoits, becomes powdery, the stake is harder to find as the player finds out. One ringer, out of a dozen throws, would be called very fine playing.

It is lots of sport; good to train the eye for measuring distances, the arms to curb their strength, just as the least little bit too much muscle sends the quoits 'way off, and last, teaches one to have infinite patience.

Shuffle Board.

Like quoits, we play this game at Camp as well as at sea. Compare our dandy big table at Camp with firm floor to stand on with the deck of a s.h.i.+p. You cannot begin to make the scores at sea that you can on land.

With the best of intentions you send your board along, thinking it will send your opponents off while giving you an added score. Does it do that for you? Well, not always. Most of the time yours goes off or stays on the wrong square, deducting your score while adding to theirs.

On our table at Camp the chances are better for both sides. We play many a spirited game for fun during the season. When the final contests take place this indoor game, as well as any other one, has its turn. Sides are chosen, the losers dropping out while the winners play each other.

When the contestants get down to two men the final game is played. As usual, the winner receives a prize.

For the smaller fry the games of checkers, dominoes, etc., etc., offer a chance to even the littlest Camper to compete and win a prize.

Most of the boys would engage in these pastimes for fun, even if there was not any reward offered, but the promise of some prize always stirs up the indolent and timid boy.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIII.

Visitors.

After the boys are settled at Camp for a few weeks they begin to look forward to a visit from some of their folks. They plan what they are going to do and what points of interest they will take them to, and hope with all their heart, soul and mind that a large box of good things may be sent up for the tent.

What does it matter if they are forbidden to receive such articles?

Either by begging, pleading or some other excuse they let the Director know that this is their first offence. They will only eat a little at a time, and divide it with a lot of boys, thus lessening the danger of overeating, and getting the credit of being generous at one and the same time.

Some parents take long trips themselves while their children are with us. Other parents plan to come as a surprise.

When they drive or auto in the first feeling that most mothers have is amazement at the undressed condition of their offspring. As quickly as they can get out of carriage or automobile they hasten to b.u.t.ton up the s.h.i.+rt, if the boy has one on, or to plead with him to put one on if his is off. They feel the breezes blow and s.h.i.+ver at the thought of the boys sleeping in such open tents; advise that the tent flaps be tightly closed at night for fear of the boys taking cold.

They seem to think we are a hardened, cruel crowd because we laugh at their fears. It is not one bit of use trying to convince mother because she won't be convinced. So we save our breath for father. Here we have some ground upon which to sow our seed. We invite him to stay a day or two; ”Peel off,” we tell him, and ”be a boy again. Go in swimming. Go out in a boat. Try a game of ball. Play a set of tennis. Do a little sprint around the running track. We can offer you a lot more sports if you will stay and visit us,” we tell him.

In the evenings we can play shuffle board, have some good music, some singing that will make the cats on the back fence green with envy; then last, but not least, we can have a camp-fire. Have you ever been out in the country and helped build a real camp-fire?

After supper every one is pressed into service to help gather the wood.

Little chaps stagger along under heavier loads than they can carry, dropping two pieces for every one they pick up, but never saying die. I just love those little gritty kids.

The bigger boys and instructors carry regular old trees, reminding one of an army of ants struggling along manfully to move their quarters.

One or two capable men, who have the art of building bonfires down to a fine point, stay on the field to receive the wood, pile it up and start the fire going.

That is the preliminary only. Are we going to have a corn roast? Then the juicy ears of corn, two for every boy, are brought up to the field.