CHAPTER IX
A MERRY TIME
"Yes, I say it's a shame!" cried Jack, indignantly.
"Perfectly awful," confirmed Dray.
"Our meeting is at nine," announced Walter, "and when I went on thesoup shift, I did not agree to do the waiting. That's not my part."
Ed tucked an end of white mosquito netting in his belt, draped itjauntily, and appeared ready to do the "waiting." Walter was fryingbacon and eggs on the oil stove. Jack threw dishes at theoilcloth-covered table in imitation of a game of quoits, and he rarelymissed the mark. They were about to have breakfast, and in spite ofthe difficulties encountered in the way of modern improvements omittedin the arrangement of Camp Couldn't (the camp got that name for amillion reasons), the boys were having a fine time.
"That coffee will be cold," protested Dray, "and my doctor says coldcoffee is slow poison. I prefer my poison quick." The joke aboutDray's doctor was that Dray never knew a doctor other than the medicalinspector at school. He had such astonishingly good health that theyused the idea of sickness in reference to him as a "counter irritant."
"But this stove is a trifle small," said Walter. "What do you say webuy that one from Camp Cattle? It's a peach."
"If the Cattle crowd have a good stove they won't sell it," repliedJack. "You will likely find a second-hand flue in it, or a rubber hoseleader. Those boys are brilliant. If we need a new stove let it befrom Duke's, with a cast-iron guarantee."
"Right-o," seconded Dray. "The cast-iron is always useful about acamp. But I say, what about the racket at the Mote last night? Thatsister of yours, Jack, is wasting her talents. She ought to be chiefof a detective bureau."
"Cora is all right," Jack returned, proudly. "And while we are on thesubject, and not to brag, of course, I might say that some of theother girls are in the same class. First few years they came out tothe woods I used to be rather doubtful, but now we often find that themaids can take care of the masters; don't we, Wallie? More of thatodor, please. I wonder why bacon turns all to odor when it's cookedup!"
"There are only two more pieces of odor left," complained Walter, "andI'd like the smell myself."
"Oh, all right. I have had more than enough." Jack waved a disdainfulhand loftily. "I believe, as it is, I should be more careful what Ieat."
A huge, very hard bun, the sort found only in bakeries near Summerresorts, hit Jack squarely in the face. Without any comment he caughtit, cut it in half, and with a tin spoon plastered it with butter.Then he put "the lid on it," and tried to get it between his teeth. Itwas heroic exercise, but Jack had been trained at a reputable college,and had learned to eat what he wanted.
"But those duffers, the land men," continued Dray, "what are theyafter the girls for? I had an idea one of them must be trying to claimrelationship with the fair Freda. He kept so close to her when she wasout after Denny."
"Relationship!" Jack repeated, with a laugh. "You almost hit it, Dray.I guess the bear would like to be her first cousin, for he is tryingto get her goods and chattels from her."
"How?"
"Oh, we must not go into that; at least not just yet. I promised Coranot to be hasty with Moran. He's the 'gent' who is supposed to bepresident of the company."
"The one who wears the Panama? I wonder if anyone would think of hastein connection with that duffer. It took him just one hour to buy threesoft crabs from some kids at the dock yesterday," said Walter. "Iwouldn't like to be his messmate. But I don't like his eye; it's madeon the bias."
"Yes, always looks as if it were going to slip out of the socket,"confirmed Jack. "Well, I hope the girls won't go in too deep withtheir schemes. Those fellows are from little old N'Yawk."
"Quick!" whispered Walter. "There's that Black. If he lays eyes onyour plates he'll lick them."
The last morsels of food were crammed into mouths before the call fromthe neighboring camper was answered.
"Come right in," Ed said, finally, "and help yourself. Have you hadyour grape fruit?"
"Oh, no," sighed Tom Black, "I didn't feel exactly right thismorning." (He brushed a brown hand across his brow.) "Nerves, Iguess."
"Nerves? Grub!" shouted Jack. "Didn't I see a can marked 'soup' inyour back yard this a. m.?"
"Might have, but I didn't. Else I would have had soup."
"There were grubbers around last night," went on Jack, "and we thoughtwe found a thread that matches your sweater, sticking to a nail in ourgrub box."
"My sweater is not ripped that I can see," replied Tom, innocently,"but if you are so kind I might take it. Don't think we put our sewingboxes in the kit, come to think of it."
"It will be ripped presently," announced Ed. "We have reason tosuspect the Cattle; in fact, we have engaged counsel."
"The motor girls, I fancy, will defend you," said Tom, nonchalantly,"but I assure you, you will have no case. We are absolutely withoutgrub; in fact, our case is pitiable."
"And you had a 'Doins' last night," Dray reminded him. "Now, Tom, wewant to be fair, but we have arranged to form a housewives' league forthe purpose of swiping systematically. For instance," (here he got aburnt match and tried to trace something on the oilcloth), "if we havecompany, and no olives, we could go over to your cupboard, take abottle and deposit in its stead, say, a can of beans."
"Great!" shouted Tom, tossing up his cap, that landed on the flamingoil stove. "You should not waste oil," he said, as he rescued the cap."It's always wise to turn out the stove when you take off the pan."
"The meeting is to be held in our living room," Ed said, pointingoutside to a bench made of a tree limb _au naturel_. "When we haveformed our committees and settled on our constitution----"
This last word seemed to give every boy present a sort of agony, foreach began to "feel for his constitution," as if that important partof his physique had been lost in the camp woods.
"I wish you could settle my constitution," remarked Tom. "Once I getthat settled, I don't care what happens."
"Now, quit your fooling," returned Walter. "I have an engagement and Iwould like to get my housework done. Tom, help yourself to a towel,and be careful not to wipe the plates on a glass towel. You can tellthe difference by the border. The dish towel is all border, the centeror hole went up on the oil stove, a little trick our stove has--itdoes not like towels. The proper towel for the glasses is that onewith the black line drawn through the middle. The black line is notimportant, it was put there with a single wipe of the spark plug fromthe _Lassie_. Ed did it, very neatly."
Tom took the towel tossed to him, and, as only a boy can, began to drythe dishes that Walter was piling in front of him. First he patted andrubbed the towel on one side of the dish that lay before him; then heturned the same dish over with a bang and repeated the patting andrubbing on the other side. After that he gave the plate a spin. If itlanded right side up he left it so; if the trade-mark showed hecounted it a "foul," and tried the trick again. How boys can get workdone that way is always a mystery to girls, who find the same playlabor.
"Do I stay for lunch?" Tom asked. "I suppose when a fellow helps withthe general housework he is entitled to his 'keep.'"
"Oh, we would just love to have you," replied Jack, with mockseriousness, "but the fact is, we are all invited out. We lunch on the_Chelton_ to-day," and he strutted around with such wide sweepingcurves, and twists, that he knocked from the narrow board table everylast bit of butter the "Couldn'ts" had in their camp. Gingerly hescooped up the top lump, that lay on the store dish, but the scrapshad to be scraped up with the egg turner, and the spot on the floor(they had a board floor in the camp) had to be washed up with the dishwater, when Walter finally relinquished that important commodity.
"More careful next time," commanded Dray. "I'm off to call themeeting. Where's that dinner bell?"
The "bell," a very old and very large tray, was found outside underthe bench, and with a good strong stick Dray beat it furiously, untilit might easily be heard by every camper on the grounds. At the firstsignal boys came scampering
from all directions. Some carriedtowels--too much excited to drop them in their camps; others dashedthrough the woods with sweaters on their arms, and reluctant necktiesin their fists, for it was early and the campers had scarcely time tomake "careful" toilets.
"Grub?" they asked in chorus. "Let us see it? Lead us to it!"
"Grub nothing!" replied Walter. "You just get outside on that bench,the overflow can take the reserved seats on the nice green moss. Thismeeting has been called for the purpose of organizing the Housewives'League of Crystal Bay."
"Aoo-oo-ou--oh!" came a groaning reply from those who felt able togroan. "And I left sugar in my coffee cup," wailed he with the dishtowel.
"And there were perfectly good crumbs at my place," sighed Teddy, aboy with so many colors in his face that they called him "Rainbow."
"Come to order!" called Jack, banging on the tent table, which was toserve as the chairman's desk. "Every camp must qualify."
"We do! We do!" shouted the majority, the rest being engaged in arough and tumble for places near the "door."
"The purpose of this meeting," went on Jack, ducking a lump of mosstossed in lieu of a bouquet, "is to formulate plans, whereby thehumans of Prowlers' Paradise may continue to defy the birds of theair, and the beasts of the field, and live in a perfectly human way."
"Hurrah for the humans!" shouted Rainbow, and the cheers that followeddid more than merely consume time.
"Let me explain," interrupted Dray, pushing Jack from his place, andtaking the stand pompously. "We have been the victims of prowlers. Wehave lost our soup; we also lost our cans of milk--in fact, the cruelones took everything but our appetites, and now we propose to put astop to such depredations. We will form a league to borrow and tolend, also to pay back, but he who taketh his brother's soup andreturneth not a can of beans shall be expelled from the Prowlers'Paradise!"
"We did lose five small cans of milk," reiterated Walter to Dave, thehead or chief of a big camp called "We-like-it," "and if we find therowdy who took that he shall be court-martialed."
A commotion then started that broke up the meeting. The boys, inrolling and tumbling about, rolled Dainty, so-called because he nevercould get enough to eat, and because his quest showed in unweighablepounds of fat, deliberately down the small hill at the side of CampCouldn't. Two of the Cattle did the rolling, and as Dainty made onefull turn a can of milk squirmed out of his pocket.
"Robber! Thief! Traitor!" screamed the rollers, and then poor Daintywas lugged back to the camp.
Making the charge against him, and making an example of him would betoo sad a tale for words; sufficient to say that the meeting adjournedat the request of a peace commission.
When the last visitor had been "shooed" away and the Couldn'ts hadcarefully prepared for the lunch to be taken on the _Chelton_(although Ed claimed that Walter had appropriated his most becomingtie, and that the shade of tan rather marred Wallie's own "tannery"effect), the boys finally put the camp flap down good and tight, andwere off to the bay.