The Merryweathers Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  THE CAMP

  "'HERE IS YOURS,' SAID BELL; 'NEXT TO OURS.'"]

  A LONG, low, irregular building, with a wide verandah in front, the lakerippling and ruffling almost up to the piers; beyond, great hillsrolling up and away. To right and left, boat-houses and tents; hammocksswung between the trees, fishing-rods ranged along the sides of thebuilding. This was the Camp. As the wagons drove up, Mrs. Merryweatherhurried from the house, and Mr. Merryweather and Phil came up with longstrides from the wharf. Amid a chorus of eager welcome, a babel ofquestions and answers, the travellers were helped out and escorted tothe verandah.

  "Most welcome, all!" cried Mrs. Merryweather. "Are you very tired? No?that is good! Well, but you must be hungry, I am sure. There aredoughnuts and milk on the table; or if you would rather have tea--"

  "They are not hungry, Miranda!" said Mr. Merryweather. "They cannot behungry at three o'clock. Dined at Wayport, Ferrers? Of course! Jack,show your uncle his tent! Miss Montfort--"

  "I'll show them the way, Papa!" said Gertrude. "Where is Bell, Mammy?Oh, there she is! Bell, here are Margaret and Peggy; girls, this isBell!"

  Bell Merryweather, a sturdy, blue-eyed girl with the general aspect of asnow apple, greeted the guests with a hearty shake of a powerful hand,and a cordial smile.

  "We have been looking forward so to your coming!" she said. "Don't youwant to come out to your tent? Here, I'll take your bag, Margaret; shallI say 'Margaret' at once? it will be so much nicer. This way!"

  She led the way, Margaret following, Gertrude and Peggy after them,still talking eagerly. A row of flagstones led past the boat-house, andon under solemn pines and feathery birches to where a line of tentsstood facing the water.

  "Here is yours," said Bell; "next to ours, this big one; we are three,you see. Yours is small, but I hope you can be comfortable."

  "Comfortable!" echoed Peggy; "I should think so! Oh, Margaret, do look!how perfect everything is! Oh, what ducky beds! the red blankets arejust like home; our boys have red blankets. Oh, I shall be perfectlyhappy here!"

  Margaret, accustomed to the wide spaces and ample closets of FernleyHouse, was a little bewildered at the first glance around her. The tentwas hardly bigger than the stateroom of a moderate-sized steamer. Couldtwo persons live here in anything approaching comfort? A second glanceshowed her how compactly and conveniently everything was arranged. Thenarrow cots, with their scarlet blankets and blue check pillows,stood on either side; between them was a table, with blotter of birchbark, and an inkstand made by hollowing out a quaintly shaped piece ofwood and sinking in the hollow a small glass tumbler. Above the head ofeach bed hung a long shoe-bag with many pockets, while opposite the footwere rows of hooks for dresses, a shelf on which stood pitcher, basin,etc., and a chest of drawers. All was fresh, neat, and tidy.

  "Yes, I am sure we shall be happy!" said Margaret, repeating Peggy'swords.

  "Here is the hook for your lantern," said Bell. "Here is a little jarfor crackers, but be sure to keep it covered, or the squirrels willcarry them off. I hope you will not mind a squirrel coming in now andthen? they are so tame, they come hopping in to see if we have anythingfor them; I often leave a bit of something."

  "Oh! what fun!" said Peggy. "I love to tame squirrels. Ours at home willcome and eat from our hands. Will yours do that?"

  "Not often; at least, not for me. The boys can bring them sometimes. Ithink they like boys best. But I have a dear little field-mouse whobrings me her babies to look at now and then, just to show me how theyare growing. There, now, we go on chattering, when I know you ought torest awhile, and unpack and stow away. It takes quite a bit of planningfor two persons to fit into a tent. By and by, when you are all settled,would you like to go out on the water? Hurrah! we'll come for you. Comeon, Toots!"

  The two sisters walked slowly down the long slip that led to thefloating wharf, and sat down with their feet hanging over the edge.

  "Well, Bell!" said Gertrude, eagerly.

  "Well!" said Bell, slowly.

  "What do you think of them? Isn't she lovely? and isn't Peggy a dear?"

  "Yes," said Bell. "I think you have just hit it, Toots. Peggy is a dear;just a hearty, jolly dear; but Margaret is lovely. Do you see a littlehint of Hilda? I can't tell where it is; not in the features, certainly,nor in the coloring. I think it is in the brow and eyes; a kind of noblelook; I don't know how else to put it. You wouldn't say anything falseor base to this girl, any more than you would to Hilda; you wouldn'tdare. My lamb! I speak as if falseness and baseness were the usual noteof your conversation."

  "I thought you were a trifle severe," said Gertrude, smiling. "Well,anyhow, it is a joy to have them here, and dear Colonel Ferrers, too.What shall we do this evening? Here come the boys for a council."

  The twins, Gerald and Phil, came running down the wharf, followed byJack Ferrers. The latter, whom some of my readers may have known as anawkward, "leggy" boy, was now a man. Very tall, towering three or fourinches above the six-foot Merryweathers, he still kept his boyishslenderness and spring, though the awkward angles were somehow softenedaway. He no longer stooped and shambled, but held his head up and hisshoulders back; and if he did still prance, as his uncle declared, likethe Mighty Ones of Scripture, it was not an ungraceful prancing.Briefly, Jack Ferrers was a fine-looking fellow.

  "Council of War?" asked Gerald; "or do we intrude?"

  "Sit down!" said Bell. "We were just beginning to plan the evening. Whatare your ideas, if any?"

  The boys--for they were still the boys, even if they had passed one andtwenty--stretched themselves along the wharf in picturesque attitudes.

  "I would sing!" announced Gerald. "Prose will not express my feelings atthis juncture.

  "My fertile brain is simmering, My fancy's fire is glimmering; I'd fain betake Me to the lake, When bright the moonlight's shimmering.

  "Your turn, Ferguson. Go on; the song upraise!"

  "Let me see!" said Phil. "Well--on the whole--

  "I can't agree with himmering; _My_ fancy's fire is dimmering; If you would know The thing I'd doe, Methinks I'll go a swimmering."

  "Oh! no, Phil," said Gertrude. "Not the very first night the girls arehere; it will take them a day or two to get used to camp ways, Margaretat least; and we want to do something all together, something thatColonel Ferrers will like, too. I think--"

  "Sing it! sing it!" cried Gerald. "The song upraise, Tintinnabula! noescape! 'Trimmering' is still left you."

  "Is there only one vowel?" demanded Bell, laughing. "I refuse to befettered. Wait a second!--now I have it.

  "Forbear, forbear your clamoring, And cease this hasty hammering; I think, with Jerry, 'Twere wise and merry To row by moonlight glamouring.

  Your turn, Toots!"

  "I cannot!" said Gertrude. "You know I cannot, Bell. Besides, therearen't any more rhymes."

  "Oh!" cried Gerald, "you know what you are telling, and you know whathappens to people who tell them. Perpend, Tootsina!

  "You yodel, yodel yammering, You stutter, stutter stammering; And when you cry, 'I will not try!' We know you're only shammering."

  "Gracious!" said Gertrude. "Don't you suppose I would make rhymes if Icould? It's really a dreadful thing to be the only prose member of alarge family. But Jack comforts me; you can't make them either, can you,Jack?"

  "Not to save my life!" said Jack. "Never could see how they do it."

  "But you can set them to music!" said Gertrude. "That is the delightfulthing about you."

  "And you can illustrate them! That is one of the many delightful thingsabout you!" said Jack, with a low bow.

  "'They built it up for forty miles, With mutual bows and pleasing smiles!'"

  quoted Gerald. "A truce to this badinage! Compliment, unless paid tomyself, wearies me. We go, then, in can
oes?"

  "In canoes!" replied the others in chorus.

  "'Tis well! Any special stunts in the way of arrangement?"

  "Oh!" said Jack, "in plain prose--Bell, will you come with me? It's ourturn to get supper, isn't it? and I have an idea--just a littleone--which we can talk over while we are getting it."

  "Oh, guard it, guard it tenderly, Thy one idea--thy first!"

  sang Gerald.

  "And we, the while, console ourselves; 'Twill be the last, at worst!

  Nay! nay!" he went on, as Jack seized him by the shoulders, and made amotion toward the water.

  "Duck not the bard, the tuneful bard, Who all thy soul reveals; To hear the truth, I own, is hard, Yet dry thy tearful squeals!"

  "False construction!" said Bell. "You cannot dry squeals."

  "They were tearful ones!" Gerald protested. "It was the tears I wouldhave dried. Tears, idle tears, I know not whence they come; tears fromthe depth of some despairing fiddler."

  "Suppose you dry _up_!" said Jack, dipping Gerald's head lightly in thewater.

  "No ducking between swims!" proclaimed Phil. "Law of the Medes andPersians!"

  "Besides, it is time to be making the fire!" said Bell, rising. "Leavehim to his conscience, Jack, and come along!"

  "Yes, leave me to me conscience!" said Gerald.

  "'Twill cradle me with songs of Araby; Arrah be aisy! hear it sing to me!"

  "Jerry, what _has_ got into you?" asked Gertrude, a few minutes later,when Phil had followed the others to the house, leaving the two Reds, astheir mother called them, together. "Has the rhyming spider bitten you?you are really wild!"

  "Nice little sister!" said Gerald, rolling over, and resting his headon Gertrude's knee. "Nice little red-haired, cream-colored, comfortablesister! If I were as good-looking as you, Toots, who knows? As itis--but still I am happy, my child, happy! I say! Toots!"

  "Yes, Jerry!"

  "What do you think of her?"

  "Oh, Jerry, she is a darling!"

  "_Dixisti!_" cried Gerald. "Thou hast spoken."