CHAPTER XIII
AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE
THERE was no sign of the other trampers when Blue Bonnet and Knightreached the little grotto; and descending to the Big Spring they foundeven that charming spot deserted.
Blue Bonnet looked around in surprise.
"Do you suppose we've missed them on the way down?" Raising her voiceshe gave her ranch-call--"Ho, ye ho, ho!"
"--ho ho!" the hill sent back; but no feminine or masculine voiceanswered the well-known notes.
Blue Bonnet, child of the open, then looked at the sun and the shadowsand gave an exclamation of astonishment. "It's past noon! They've goneback to camp. My, I'll have to hurry--it's my turn to cook lunch."
She darted impetuously down the hillside, and Knight found himselfcompelled to move briskly in order to keep up with her. They went toofast for conversation, but once Blue Bonnet paused long enough to sayover her shoulder--"You'll come to lunch, won't you?"
"Catch me refusing now I know who the cook is!" he replied gaily.
The path opened at last on the open space before _Poco Tiempo_. Therewas sound of voices and laughter, and yes--the clink of dishes! BlueBonnet turned a rueful face to Knight--"Do you hear that? They won'tsay a thing to me!"
"I am armed,--trust me to protect you," he declaimed theatrically.
They had to pass through the "kitchen" first, and there the clutter ofempty pots and pans told their own story. From the dining-room theothers caught sight of the tardy pair and a wild hubbub at once arose.
"Tramps!"
"Set the dogs on them!"
"Why don't you work for a living?"
Knight's eyes twinkled as he looked from Blue Bonnet's amazedcountenance to the teasing faces about the table. Lunch was evidentlynot only ready but largely consumed.
"What are you eating so early for?" Blue Bonnet demanded.
"Early!"
"Twenty minutes past one!"
"No--!" Blue Bonnet gasped, subsiding on the end of the bench andfanning her hot face with her hat. "Now, isn't that the funniestthing?"
"I'm glad you see the point of your own joke," retorted Kitty. "Wehave decided to give you a week's notice to get a new place."
"I engage her on the spot," said Knight. "It's all my fault."
"We won't give her a reference," said Kitty.
"You needn't--if you'll just give me food," said Blue Bonnet. "Alec,make room for Knight beside you, will you? We're both starved. Whomade the muffins?"
"Guess," said Kitty, relenting and passing her the nearly empty plate.
Sarah intercepted it. "I'll get you some hot ones." And she rosehastily.
Blue Bonnet laughed. "Now I know! Grandmother, did you help Sarah?"
Mrs. Clyde nodded. "The girls came back so hungry I thought we hadbetter not wait for the chief cook. No one knew where you were."
"I'm going to wear a cow-bell after this," Blue Bonnet declared."Sarah, if I could make such muffins I'd insist upon cooking everymeal."
"I reckon you don't need any protection," Knight said in an undertone.
"Oh, there's safety in numbers. Wait till Amanda catches me alone! Wetwo will have to get dinner now." She buttered her third muffin andthen glanced happily around the table. "I've a lovely scheme," shehinted.
"Did you ever see any one so bowed down with penitence?" asked Kitty;adding promptly, "What's the scheme?"
"It's to invite Alec and Knight to get down logs, make us a hugebonfire and--"
"That's just like Blue Bonnet," Kitty broke in, "--she'll let you dothe work and she'll do the _rest_!"
"--and then invite them to a party," Blue Bonnet went onimperturbably.
"'She'll do the grand with a lavish hand,'" quoted Alec. "We're yourmen. A Party--with a big P--is what our souls have been pining for.Where shall we build the festive pyre?"
"In the open space between the two camps. There'll be no danger to thetrees there and plenty of room to sit around it. I'll tell Miguel tobring up one of the wagon horses to drag logs,--I want a perfectlymammoth fire."
"You ought to have been a man, Blue Bonnet," Debby remarked, "--youwould have made such a wonderful general. Your ability to put otherpeople to work amounts to positive genius."
But Blue Bonnet had already gone in search of Miguel, with Alec andKnight in her train. For the rest of the afternoon the "General"demonstrated that she could not only put other people to work, butcould work herself, to advantage. While the boys--whose forces hadbeen augmented by the addition of Sandy, Smith, Brown and Jones--gotdown logs and built them into a miniature log cabin, Blue Bonnet madegreat preparations for the Party. She spread all her Indian blanketsat a proper distance from the bonfire-to-be; distributed thebuck-board seats judiciously, planning to add the dining-room benchesas soon as supper was out of the way; whittled great quantities oflong willow wands to a sharp point, maintaining great secrecy as tothe use to which the latter were to be put; and stacked many boxes ofthe delectable pinoche in a convenient spot.
Hardly had these preparations been completed when Amanda announcedthat it was time to begin cooking dinner. Blue Bonnet looked at heraghast.
"I think it's maddening," she declared. "We are in a continual stateof washing up after one meal and getting ready for another. And thisis what Grandmother calls 'simplicity'--! It would be aheap--much--simpler if I could just say--'Lisa, we'll have dinner atsix.' That would end it,--and what could be simpler?"
"What shall we have?" asked Amanda, considering that subject more tothe point.
"Baked potatoes, then we won't have to peel them,--I'd as soon skin arabbit. And Gertrudis cooked a leg of lamb, so that we'll only have towarm it up."
"Shall we try hot bread?" asked Amanda.
"Certainly not! Hot bread twice to-day already--we'll all haveindigestion. We've stacks of loaves, and bread and maple syrup is goodenough camp fare for any one. If we're going in for the simple life,let's be simple."
"That reminds me of something we translated in the German class," saidAmanda. "'Man ist was er isst'--and it means 'one is what one eats.'And another German said 'Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you whatyou are.'"
"Do you mean to tell me that if I live on angel-cake I'll grow to beangelic?" demanded Blue Bonnet.
"Hardly!" laughed Amanda. "It would take a good deal more than that!No offence, Blue Bonnet,--I like you best when you're--the otherthing. The Germans are always arguing about something or other. Weused to take sides in class and nearly come to blows."
"You should have taken French," said Blue Bonnet, before she thought.
"You didn't think that last March!" Amanda teased; and the next momentcould have bitten her tongue out for the thoughtless speech. BlueBonnet did not smile; it was evident that the memory of the day whenall the members of the French class except herself had "cut" was stilla bitter one.
"I'll wash the potatoes," Amanda offered in amend for having touched apainful chord.
"All right!" Blue Bonnet beamed acceptance of the kind intention andhanded over the pan without hesitation. "I'll make up a hot fire, andwe'll get everything started and the table set,--then you and I aregoing to the Spring."
"Oh, are we?" asked Amanda blankly. One never knew what scheme lurkedin the back of Blue Bonnet's head.
"For table decorations. I saw some ferns and wild honeysuckle near thebank, and it won't take much time to gather enough for the table."
"Decorating the table isn't 'simple,' is it?" Amanda asked ratherprovokingly.
"If you know anything simpler than a wildflower, I'd like to be shownit," retorted Blue Bonnet. "Come on, we must do some tall hustling."
The "tall hustling" got the table set in a rather sketchy fashion;hurried the potatoes into a scorching oven; placed the already cookedroast in the top of the same oven at the same time; and saw BlueBonnet and Amanda headed for the Spring, bearing a fruit-jar and thecamp's only carving-knife, just as Uncle Joe came up the bank with afine string of speckled trout.
"All ready to fry,
Honey," he said, holding them up proudly.
"Hide them quick!" cried Blue Bonnet in alarm, "shooing" him backtowards the creek.
Used as he was to Blue Bonnet's impetuosity, this move of hers filledhim with amazement. "What's the matter,--they're perfectly goodtrout!" he urged.
"They're lovely. But I wouldn't fry one for ten million dollars! Keepthem for breakfast, Uncle Joe,--Sarah will know how to do thembeautifully."
With an understanding chuckle, Uncle Joe went off to cache his stringof beauties in a cool place along the creek; and Blue Bonnet andAmanda continued their quest for ferns.
As they were returning, crowned with success, they met the Senora justback from a stroll with Mrs. Judson. The three other girls werealready sitting suggestively about the board.
"There," said Blue Bonnet triumphantly, as she deposited the fruit-jarin the centre of the table with its graceful ferns and honeysuckletrailing over the oil-cloth, "feast on that!"
"I call that a pretty slim dinner," said Kitty.
Blue Bonnet, disdaining the insinuation, departed rather hastily tothe kitchen, drawn thither by a strong odor and a still strongersuspicion of disaster. The sheet-iron stove was red-hot. Catching up acloth she flung open the oven door, and then backed abruptly away fromthe cloud of acrid yellow smoke that rolled thickly into her face.
"Oh, Blue Bonnet!" wailed Amanda. "Everything's burned to a cinder! Weshouldn't have gone off."
Blue Bonnet's only reply was a violent fit of coughing. The smokecontinued to pour in dense billows from the oven. "Grab the pans,quick!" she managed to choke out.
Amanda made a valiant dive through the smoke, and had just time toseize the pans from the top and bottom of the oven, when she, too, wasovercome, and in the paroxysm of coughing that followed threatened toburst a blood-vessel. Finally with crimson faces and streaming eyes,both cooks gazed ruefully down on the black marbles that had beenpotatoes, and the charred drum-stick that had once been a leg ofspring lamb.
"Keep back--no trespassing!" called Blue Bonnet as the other girls,scenting fun as well as the odor of burning things, came running fromthe dining-room. "This is our funeral and we don't want any mourners!"She waved them back peremptorily, at the same time screening the ruinswith her apron.
The discomfited We are Sevens returned to their seats, and a momentlater there came the sound of spoons being vigorously thumped on thetable.
"We want dinner!" came imperiously from the hungry girls.
Amanda looked imploringly at her partner. "What shall we do?"
Blue Bonnet thought hard for a moment. All at once her brow cleared."Here, take the meat, go find a gopher-hole and push that bone downinto it as far as it will go. The potatoes can't be burned all theway through,--we'll scrape what's left into a bowl. And I'll tellUncle Joe I've changed my mind,--we'll have the trout for dinner. And,Amanda, you'll hurry back, won't you, and put the fish in the pan--Isimply can't touch 'em!"
Each sped to fulfil her allotted task, and in an incredibly shortspace of time a family of gophers was sniffing about a strange objectblocking their front door; and a pan of fragrant trout sputtered ontop of the little stove. As Blue Bonnet set the great platter ofperfectly browned fish in front of her grandmother, there was aflattering "ah!" of anticipation that repaid--almost repaid, her forthe previous bad quarter of an hour. Canned pears and the cookies thatshould have been saved for future emergencies, completed a dinnerwhich was voted "not half bad" by the other girls, who secretlymarvelled at getting any dinner at all. No one noticed that neitherBlue Bonnet nor Amanda partook of potatoes, and there proved to beample for the rest.
"I'll wash the dishes, Amanda," Blue Bonnet offered, when at last thatnight-mare of a dinner was over. "I ought to walk over red-hotplowshares, or wear a hair-shirt or something as a penance for my sinsof this day. Lacking both plowshares and shirt, I'll substitutedish-washing. And you may bear me witness--I'd take the hair-shirt ifI had my choice!"
It was a very weary Blue Bonnet who turned the dishpan upside down andhung the dish-cloth on a bush to dry. The long tramp of the morning,the preparations for the bonfire party, and then the exhaustingexperience of getting dinner, had tired even her physique, which hadseldom known fatigue.
"I wish we could dis-invite the company," she said to Amanda.
"So do I," groaned her partner. "Fancy having to sit around a bonfireand sing 'merrily we roll along'--! It makes me ache all over."
Later, when the inmates of both camps were gathered in a great circleabout the fire, singing, jesting and story-telling, both girls forgottheir weariness and might have been heard singing the same "merrily weroll along" with great zest and vocal strength.
The bonfire did its builders proud and without any preparatory sulkingor coaxing burst almost at once into pillars of soaring flame. Therewas a backing away at first on the part of the spectators as theintense heat began to scorch the circle of faces; then a gradualdrawing near again. It was not until the flames had died down and thelogs were a mass of glowing coals that Blue Bonnet handed around herwillow-wands. Each one was now tipped with a white ball, puffy, roundand mysterious.
To most of the boys this was an innovation, and they had to be shownhow to hold the white globules over the coals until they splutteredand swelled to bursting.
"Now eat them!" she commanded. There was a chary tasting and then anecstatic cry--"Marshmallows!"
The rapidity with which the tin boxes were emptied might have appalleda less generous provider than Blue Bonnet; but she had relied uponUncle Cliff to fill her order for marshmallows, and consequently feltno fear of "going short."
When little Bayard had consumed his ninth "moth-ball" as he persistedin calling the sweets, his mother rose to take her brood home. Mr.Judson bent to lift Joe who had fallen asleep in Sarah's arms, andthen turned to Blue Bonnet. "Good-night," he said, holding out hisfree hand and smiling down into the girl's tired face; "this is thefirst time I ever partook of toasted moonshine, and I've enjoyed myinitiation."
Carita kissed her impulsively. "It's the loveliest party I've everbeen to," she whispered.
Blue Bonnet looked wistfully after the departing group. "Aren'tfamilies the nicest things in all the world?" she asked Sarah, as shesank on the blanket beside this member of a numerous clan.
"The very nicest." And Sarah, whose arms still felt the warmth oflittle Joe, stared into the fire with eyes that saw in the coals thepicture of a family in far-off Woodford.
There were a few more songs; an eighth or ninth rendition of
"Meet me, dearest Mandy, By the water-melion vine"--
for the benefit of Amanda, who hated it, and then the rest rosereluctantly to depart.
"It's the swellest thing in the bonfire line I've ever attended,"Sandy assured Mrs. Clyde; and she could excuse the phrase because ofthe undoubted enthusiasm of the speaker.
Half a dozen of the boys tramped away in a bunch, and there floatedback to the group about the fire the rhythmic refrain of "Good-night,ladies!" until it finally died away in a sleepy murmur.
Only the older boys had lingered and they, after making arrangementsfor a horse-back ride on the morrow, slowly straggled away.
"Where's Blue Bonnet?" asked Alec; he was one of the last, loiteringfor a final word with his hostess.
"She was sitting by me a little while ago," said Sarah, lookingtowards the Navajo.
The spot was in shadow, but as they looked in that direction, a logfell, and a slender flame sprang up. In the light they saw BlueBonnet, curled up on the bright blanket, with her head pillowed on herarm.
She was fast asleep.