mm , ^ W/ //v v N ^-' m u/nnFL IN 7\ STORY BANCROFT LIBRARY 4- THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA THE BIRDS' CHRISTMAS CAROL. Illustrated. Square i2mo, boards, 50 cents. THE STORY OF PATSY. Illustrated. Square i2mo, boards, 60 cents. A SUMMER IN A CANON. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.50. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. A SUMMER IN A CANON A CALIFORNIA STORY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN AUTHOR OF " THE BIRDS' CHRISTMAS CAROL," " THE STORY OF PATSY," ETC. rk BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY Copyright, 1889, BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. Bancroft Library CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE 1 CHAPTER II. THE JOURNEY 32 CHAPTER III. LIFE IN THE CANON. THE HEIR APPARENT LOSES HIMSELF 63 CHAPTER IV. RHYME AND REASON 99 CHAPTER V. THE FOREST OF ARDEN. GOOD NEWS 133 CHAPTER VL QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT 164 CHAPTER VH. POLLY'S BIRTHDAY : FIRST HALF 188 CHAPTER VIH. POLLY'S BIRTHDAY : SECOND HALF 203 iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. ROUND THE CAMP-FIRE 232 CHAPTER X. MORE CAMP-FIRE STORIES 249 CHAPTER XL BREAKING CAMP ...... ... 268 SCENE : A Camping Ground in the Canon Las Flores. PEOPLE IN THE TENTS. DR. PAUL WINSHIP Mine Host. MRS. TRUTH WINSHIP .... The Guardian Angel. DICKY WINSHIP A Small Scamp of Six Years. BELL WINSHIP The Camp Poetess. POLLY OLIVER A Sweet but Saucy Lass. MARGERY NOBLE A Nut-Brown Mayde. PHILIP NOBLE The Useful Member. GEOFFREY STRONG . . . . A Harvard Boy. JACK HOWARD Prince of Mischief- Hop YET A Heathen Chinee. PANCHO GUTIERREZ . . A Mexican man-of-all-work. CHAPTER I. PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. " One to make ready, and two to prepare." IT was nine o'clock one sunny California morning, and Geoffrey Strong stood under the live-oak trees in Las Flores Canon, with a pot of black paint in one hand and a huge brush in the other. He could have handled these implements to better purpose and with better grace had not his arms been firmly held by three laughing girls, who pulled not wisely, but too well. He was further incommoded by the presence of a small urchin who lay on the 2 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. dusty ground beneath his feet, fastening an upward clutch on the legs of his trousers. There were three large canvas tents directly in front of them, yet no one of these seemed to be the object of dissension, but rather a red wood board, some three feet in length, which was nailed on a tree near by. " Camp Frolic ! Please let us name it Camp Frolic ! " cried Bell Winship, with a persuasive twitch of her cousin's sleeve. " No, no ; not Camp Frolic," pleaded Polly Oliver. " Pray/pray let us have Camp Ha-Ha ; my heart is set upon it." "As you are Strong, be merciful," quoted Margery Noble, coaxingly; "take my advice and call it Harmony Camp." At this juncture, a lovely woman,, whose sweet face and smile made you love her at once, came up the hill from the brookside. " What, what ! still quarreling, children ? " she asked, laughingly. " Let me be peacemaker. I 've just asked the Doctor for a name, and he suggests Camp Chaparral. What do you say ? " Bell released one coat-tail. " That is n't wholly bad," she said, critically, while the other girls clapped their hands with approval ; for anything that aunt Truth suggested was sure to be quite right. PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 3 "Wait a minute, good people," cried Jack Howard, flinging his fishing tackle under a tree and sauntering toward the scene of action. " Suppose we have a referee, a wise and noble judge. Call Hop Yet, and let him decide this all-important subject." His name being sung and shouted in vari ous keys by the assembled company, Hop Yet appeared at the door of the brush kitchen, a broad grin on his countenance, a plucked fowl in his hand. Geoffrey took the floor. " Now, Hop Yet, you know I got name, you got name, everybody got name. We want name this camp : you sabe ? Miss Bell, she say Camp Frolic. Frolic all same heap good time " (here he executed a sort of war-dance which was intended to ex press wild joy). " Miss Pauline, she say Camp Ha-Ha, big laugh : sabe ? Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! " (chorus joined in by all to fully illus trate the subject). " Miss Madge, she say Camp Harmony. Harmony all same heap quiet time, plenty eat, plenty drink, plenty sleep, no fight, no too muchee talk. Mrs. Winship, she say Camp Chaparral : you sabe ? Chaparral, Hop Yet. Now what you say ? " Hop Yet seemed to regard the question with mingled embarrassment and amusement, but 4 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. being a sharp and talkative Chinaman gave his answer promptly : " Me say Camp Chap-lal heap good name ; plenty chap-lal all lound ; me hang um dish-cloth, tow'l, little boy's stocking on chap-lal; all same clo'se-line velly good. Miss Bell she flolic, Miss Polly she ha! ha! allee same Camp Chap-lal." And so Camp Chaparral it was ; the redwood board flaunted the assertion before the eyes of the public (which was a rather limited one, to be sure) in less than half an hour, and the artist, after painting the words in rustic letters a foot long, cut branches of the stiff, ungra cious bushes and nailed them to the tree in confirmation and illustration of the fact. He then carefully deposited the paint-pot in a secret place, where it might be out of sight and touch of a certain searching eye and mis chievous hand well known and feared of him ; but before the setting sun had dropped below the line of purple mountain tops, a small boy, who will be known in these annals as Dicky Winship, might have been seen sitting on the empty paint-pot, while from a dingy pool upon the ground he was attempting to paint a copy of the aforesaid inscription upon the side of a too patient goat, who saw no harm in the oper ation. He was alone and very, very happy. PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 5 And now I must tell you the way in which all this began. You may not realize it, dear young folks, but this method of telling a story is very much the fashion with grown-up peo ple, and of course I am not to blame, since I did n't begin it. The plan is this: You must first write a chapter showing all your people, men, women, children, dogs, and cats, in a certain place, doing certain things. Then you must go back a year or two and explain how they all hap pen to be there. Perhaps you may have to drag your readers twenty-five years into the regions of the past, and show them the first tooth of your oldest character ; but that does n't matter a bit, -the further the better. Then, when everybody has forgotten what came to pass in the first chapter, you are ready to take it up again, as if there had never been any parenthesis. However, I shall not introduce you to the cradles, cribs, or trundle-beds of my merry young campers, but merely ask you to retrace your steps one week, and look upon them in their homes. On one of the pleasantest streets of a cer tain little California town stood, and still stands for aught I know, a pretty brown cot tage, with its verandas covered with passion- 6 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. vine and a brilliant rose-garden in front. It is picturesque enough to attract the attention of any passer-by, and if you had chosen to peep through the crevices in the thick vines and look in at the open window, you might have thought it lovelier within than without. It was a bright day, and the gracious June sunshine flooded the room with yellow light. Three young girls, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, were seated in different parts of the large room, plying industrious crochet needles and tatting shuttles. Three pairs of bright eyes were dancing with fun and gladness ; and another pair, the softest and clearest of all, looked out from a broad white bed in the cor ner, tired eyes, and oh, so patient, for the health-giving breezes wafted in from the blue ocean and carried over mountain tops and vine- covered slopes had so far failed to bring back Elsie Howard's strength and vigor. The graceful, brown-haired girl, with the bright, laughter-loving face, was Bell Winship. She of the dancing blue eyes, pink cheeks, and reckless little sun-bonnet was Pauline, otherwise Polly Oliver. Did you ever know a Polly without some one of these things? Well, my Polly had them all, and, besides, a saucy freckled nose, a crown of fluffy, reddish-yellow PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 1 hair, and a shower of coaxing little pitfalls called dimples round her pretty mouth. She made you think of a sunbeam, a morning song bird, a dancing butterfly, or an impetuous little crocus just out after the first spring shower. Dislike her? You could n't. Approve of her? You would n't always. Love her ? Of course ; you could n't help yourself, I defy you. To be sure, if you prefer a quiet life, and do not want to be led into exploits of all kinds, invariably beginning with risk, attended with danger, and culminating in despair, you had better not engage in an intimate friendship with Miss Pauline Oliver, but fix your affections on the quiet, thoughtful, but not less lovable girl who sits by the bedside stroking Elsie Howard's thin white hand. Nevertheless, I am obliged to state that Margery Noble herself, earnest, demure, and given to reflection, was Polly's willing slave and victim. However, I 've for gotten to tell you that Polly was as open and frank as the daylight, at once torrid and con stant in her affections, brave, self-forgetting as well as self-willed ; and that though she did have a tongue just the least bit saucy, she used it valiantly in the defense of others. " She '11 come out all right," said a dear old-fashioned grandfather of hers whom she had left way 8 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. back in a Vermont farmhouse. " She 's got to be purged o' considerable dross, but she '11 come out pure gold, I tell you." Pretty, wise, tender Margery Noble, with her sleek brown braids, her innocent, questioning eyes, her soft voice, willing hands, and shy, quiet manners ! " She will either end as the matron of an orphan asylum or as head nurse in a hospital." So Bell Winship often used to say; but then she was chiefly celebrated for talking nonsense, and nobody ever paid much attention to her. But if you should crave a breath of fresh air, or want to believe that the spring has come, just call Bell Winship in, as she walks with her breezy step down the street. Her very hair seems instinct with life, with its flying tendrils of bronze brightness and the riotous little curls on her brow and temples. Then, too, she has a particularly jaunty way of" putting on her jacket, or wearing a flower or a ribbon ; and as for her ringing peal of laughter, it is like a chime of silver bells. Elsie Howard, the invalid friend of the girls, was as dear to them as they were to each other. She kept the secrets of the " firm ; " mourned over their griefs and smiled over their joys ; was proud of their talents and tenderly blind jto their faults. The little wicker rocking-chair PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 9 by the bedside was often made a sort of con fessional, at which she presided, the tenderest and most sympathetic little priestess in the uni verse ; and every afternoon the piazza, with its lattice of green vines, served as a mimic throne- room, where she was wont to hold high court, surrounded by her devoted subjects. Here Geoffrey Strong used often to read to the as sembled company " David Copperfield," " Alice in Wonderland," or snatches from the maga zines, while Jack Howard lazily stretched him self under the orange-trees and braided lariats, a favorite occupation with California boys. About four o'clock Philip Noble would ride up from his father's fruit ranch, some three miles out on the San Marcos road, and, hitch ing his little sorrel mare Chispa at the gate, stay an hour before going to the post-office. .This particular afternoon, however, was not one of Elsie's bright ones, and there was no sign of court or invalid queen on the piazza. The voices of the girls floated out from Elsie's bedroom, while the boys, too, seemed to be somewhere in the vicinity, for there was a con stant stirring about as of lively preparation, together with noise of hammering and sawing. " If you were only going, Elsie, our cup of happiness would be full," sighed Bell. 10 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 66 Not only would it be full, Bell, but it would be running over, and we should positively stand in the slop," said Polly. " No, you need n't frown at me, miss ; that expression is borrowed from no less a person than Sydney Smith." " Don't think any more about me," smiled Elsie. " Perhaps I can come down in the course of the summer. I know it will be the happiest time in the world, but I don't envy you a bit ; in fact, I 'm very glad you 're going, because you '11 have such a lovely budget of adventures to tell me when you come back." " When we come back, indeed ! " exclaimed Bell. " Why, we shall write long round-robin letters every few days, and send them by the team. Papa says Pancho will have to go over to the stage station at least once a week for letters and any provisions we may need." " Oh, won't that be delightful, almost as good as being there myself ! And, Margery dear, you must make them tell me every least little thing that happens. You know they are such fly-aways that they '11 only write me when they learn to swim, or shoot a wildcat, or get lost in the woods. I want to know all the stupid bits : what you have for dinner, how and where you sleep, how your camp looks, what you do from morning till night, and how Dicky behaves." PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 11 " I can tell you that beforehand/' said Bell, dolefully. "Jack will shoot him by mistake on Thursday ; he will be kicked by the horses Friday, and bitten by tarantulas and rattlesnakes Saturday ; he will eat poison oak on Sunday, get lost in the canon Monday, be eaten by a bear Tuesday, and drowned in the pool Wednes day. These incidents will complete his first week ; and if they produce no effect on his naturally strong constitution, he will treat us to another week, containing just as many mishaps, but no duplicates." By the time this dismal prophecy was ended the other girls were in a breathless fit of laugh ter, though all acknowledged it was likely to be fulfilled. " I went over the camping-ground last sum mer," said Margery. " You know it is quite near papa's sheep ranch, and it is certainly the most beautiful place in California. The tents will be pitched at the mouth of the canon, where there is a view of the ocean, and just at the back will be a lovely grove of wild oaks and sycamore-trees." " Oh, won't it be delicious ! " sighed Elsie. " I feel as if I could sniff the air this minute. But there ! I won't pretend that I 'm dying for fresh air, with the breath of the sea coming in 12 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. at my south window, and a whiff of jasmine and honeysuckle from the piazza. That would be nonsense. Are your trunks packed ? " "Trunks ! " exclaimed Polly. " Would you believe it, our clothes are packed in gunny- sacks ! We start in our camping-dresses, with ulsters for the steamer and dusters for the long drive. Then we each have let me see what we have : a short, tough riding-skirt with a jersey, a bathing-dress, and some gingham morning-gowns to wear about the camp at breakfast time." " And flannel gowns for the night, and two pairs of boots, and a riding-cap and one hat apiece," added Margery. "But oh, Elsie, my dear, you should see Dicky in his camping-suits," laughed Bell. " They are a triumph of invention on mamma's part. Just imagine ! one is of some enameled cloth that was left over from the new carriage cushions ; it is very shiny and elegant ; and the other, truly, is of soft tanned leather, and just as pretty as it can be. Then he has hob-nailed, copper-toed boots, and a hat that ties under his chin. Poor little man, he has lost his curls, too, and looks rather like a convict." Mrs. Howard came in the door while Bell was speaking, and laughed heartily at the PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 13 description of Dicky's curious outfit. " What time do you start ? " she asked, as she laid a bunch of mignonette on Elsie's table. "At eleven to-morrow morning," Bell an swered. " Everything is packed. We are to start in the steamer, and when we come to our old landing, about forty miles down the coast, we are to get off and take a three-seated thorough-brace wagon, and drive over to Las Flores Canon. Pancho has hired a funny little pack mule ; he says we shall need one in going up the mountain, and that the boys can take him when they go out shooting, to carry the deer home, you know." " If I can bring Elsie down, as I hope, we must come by land," said Mrs. Howard. "I thought we could take two days for the journey, sleeping at the Burtons' ranch on the way. The doctor says that if she can get strength enough to bear the ride, the open-air life will do her good, even if she does nothing but lie in the hammock." " And be waited upon by six willing slaves," added Polly. "And be fed on canned corned beef and tomato stew," laughed Bell. " Not a bit of it," said Margery. Hop Yet is a splendid cook, if he has anything to cook, 14 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. and we '11 feed her on broiled tidbits of baby venison, goat's milk, wild bees' honey, and cun ning little mourning doves, roasted on a spit." "Good gracious," cried Bell, "what angels' food ! only I would as soon devour a pet canary as a mourning dove. But to think that I 've been trying to diet for a week in order to get intimate with suffering and privation ! Polly came to stay with me one night, and we slept on the floor, with only a blanket under us, and no pillow ; it was perfectly horrid. Polly dreamed that her grandfather ate up her grand mother, and I that Dicky stabbed the Jersey calf with a pickle-fork." " Horrors ! " ejaculated Margery ; " that 's a pleasant prospect for your future bedfellows. I hope the gophers won't make you nervous, gnawing and scratching in the straw ; I got used to them last summer. But we really must go, darling," and she stooped to kiss Elsie good-by. " Well, I suppose you ought," she answered. " But remember you are to start from this gate ; aunt Truth has promised me the fun of seeing you out of sight." The girls went out at a side door, and joined the boys, who were busily at work cleaning their guns on the broad western porch. PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 15 " How are you coming on ? " questioned Polly. " Oh, finely/' answered Jack, who always constituted himself chief spokesman, unless driven from the rostrum by some one possessed of a nimbler tongue. " I only hope your fem inine togs are in half as good order." " We take no baggage to speak of," said Bell, loftily. " Papa has cut us down to the very last notch, and says the law allows very few pounds on this trip." " The less the better," quoth Geoff cheerily ; " then you '11 have to polish up your mental jewels." " Which you consider imitation, I suppose," sniffed Polly. " Perish the thought ! " cried Jack. " But, speaking of mental jewels, you should see the arrangements Geoff has made for polishing his. He has actually stuck in six large vol umes, any one of which would be a remedy for sleeplessness. What are you going to study, Miss Pol-y-on-o-mous Oliver ? " " Now, Jack, let us decide at once whether you intend to be respectful or not. I don't propose to expose myself to your nonsense for two months unless you make me good promises." " Why, that was n't disrespectful. It is my 16 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. newest word, and it simply means having many titles. I 'm sure you have more than most people." " Very well, then ! I '11 overlook the irrever ence this time, and announce that I shall not take anything whatever to read, hut simply reflect upon what I know already." " That may last for the first week," said Bell, slyly, " but what will you do afterward? " " 1 11 reflect upon what you don't know," retorted Polly. " That will easily occupy me two months." Fortunately, at the very moment this sting ing remark was made, Phil Noble dashed up to the front gate, flung his bridle over the hitch- ing-post, and lifted his hat from a very warm brow. " Hail, chief of the commissary department ! " cried Geoffrey, with mock salute. " Have you dispatched the team ? " "Yes; everything is all right," said Phil, breathlessly, delivering himself of his informa tion in spasmodic bursts of words. " Such a lot of work it was ! here 's the list. Pancho will dump them on the ground and let us settle them when we get there. Such a load ! You should have seen it ! Hardly room for him to sit up in front with the Chinaman. Just hear PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 17 this/' and he drew a large document from what Polly called " a back-stairs pocket." " Forty cans corned beef, four guns, three Dutch cheeses, pickles, fishing tackle, flour, bacon, three bushels onions, crate of dishes, Jack's banjo, potatoes, ' Short History of the Eng lish People,' cooking utensils, three hair pil lows, box of ginger-snaps, four hammocks, coffee, cartridges, sugar, ' Macaulay's Essays,' Pond's extract, sixteen hams, Bell's guitar, pop-corn, molasses, salt, St. Jacob's oil, ( Con quest of Mexico,' sack of almonds, flea powder, and smoked herring. Whew ! I packed them all myself." " In precisely that order ? " questioned Polly. "In precisely that order, Miss Oliver," re turned Phil, urbanely. " Any one who feels that said packing might be improved upon has only to mount the fleet Arabian yonder " (the animal alluded to seized this moment to stand on three legs, hang his head, and look dejected), " and, giving him the rein, speed o'er the track less plain which leads to San Miguel, o'ertake the team, and re-pack the contents according to her own satisfaction." " No butter, nor eggs, nor fresh vegetables ? " asked Margery. " We shall starve ! " " Not at all," quoth Jack. " Polly wiU grace- 18 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. fully dispose a horse-blanket about her shoul ders, to shield her from the chill dews of the early morn, mount the pack mule exactly at cock-crow every day, and ride to a neighboring ranch where there are tons of the aforesaid articles awaiting our consumption." " Can you see me doing it, girls ? Does it seem entirely natural ? " asked Polly, with great gravity. " Now hear my report as chairman of the com mittee of arrangements," said Geoffrey Strong, seating himself with dignity on a barrel of nails. " The tents, ropes, tool-boxes, bed-sacks, blankets, furniture, etc., all went down on Monday's steamer, and I have a telegram from Larry's Landing saying that they arrived in good order, and that a Mexican gentleman who owns a mammoth wood-cart will take them up to-morrow when we go ourselves. The proces sion wih 1 move at one P. M., -wind and weather permitting, in the following order : " 1. Chief Noble on his gallant broncho. " 2. Commander Strong on his ditto, ditto. " 3. Main conveyance or triumphal chariot, driven by Aid-de-Camp John Howard, and car rying Dr. and Mrs. Winship, our most worship ful and benignant host and hostess; Master Dick Winship, the heir apparent ; three other PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 19 young persons not worth mentioning 1 ; and four cans of best leaf lard, which I omitted to put with the other provisions. " 4. Wood-cart containing baggage, driven by Senor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega from Dead Wood Gulch. " 5. One small tan terrier." " Oh, Geoff, Geoff, pray do stop ! it 's too much ! " cried the girls in a fit of laughter. " Hurrah ! " shouted Jack, tossing his hat into a tall eucalyptus-tree in his excitement. " Tent life forever ! " " Good-by, ye pomps and vanities ! " chanted Bell, kissing her hand in imaginary farewell. " Verily the noisy city shall know us no more, for we depart for the green forests." " And the city will not be as noisy when you depart," murmured Jack, with an impudence that luckily passed unnoticed. " If Elsie could only come too ! " sighed Polly. Wednesday morning dawned as bright and beautiful as all mornings are wont to dawn in Southern California. A light mist hung over the old adobe mission church, through which, with its snow-white towers and cold, clear-cut lines, it rose like a frozen fairy castle. Bell 20 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. opened her sleepy eyes with the very earliest birds, and running to the little oval window, framed with white-rose vines, looked out at the new day just creeping up into the world. " dear and beautiful home of mine, how charming, how charming you are ! I wonder if you are not really Paradise ! " she said, dreamily ; and the marvel is that the rising sun did not stop a moment in sheer surprise at the sight of this radiant morning vision ; for the oval window opening to the east was a pretty frame, with its outline marked by the dewy rose- vine covered with hundreds of pure, half -opened buds and swaying tendrils, and she stood there in it, a fair image of the morning in her in nocent white gown. Her luminous eyes still mirrored the shadowy visions of dreamland, mingled with dancing lights of hope and joyful anticipation ; while on her fresh cheeks, which had not yet lost the roundness of childhood, there glowed, as in the eastern skies, the faint pink blush of the morning. The town is yet asleep, and in truth it is never apt to be fairly wide awake. The air is soft and balmy ; the lovely Pacific, a quivering, sparkling sheet of blue and gray and green flecked with white foam, stretches far out until it is lost in the rosy sky ; and the moun- PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 21 tains, all purple and pink and faint crimson and gray, stand like sentinels along the shore. The scent of the roses, violets, and mignonette mingled with the cloying fragrance of the datura is heavy in the still air. The bending, willowy pepper-trees show myriad bunches of yellow blossoms, crimson seed-berries, and fresh green leaves, whose surface, not rain-washed for months, is as full of color as ever. The palm- trees rise without a branch, tall, slender, and graceful, from the warmly generous earth, and spread at last, as if tired of their straightness, into beautiful crowns of fans, which sway to ward each other with every breath of air. In numerable butterflies and humming-birds, in the hot, dazzling sunshine of noonday, will be hovering over the beds of sweet purple helio trope and finding their way into the hearts of the passion-flowers, but as yet not the faintest whir of wings can be heard. Looking eastward or westward, you see either brown f ookhills, or, a little later on, emerald slopes whose vines hang heavy with the half-ripened grapes. And hark ! A silvery note strikes on the dewy stillness. It is the mission bell ringing for morning mass ; and if you look yonder you may see the Franciscan friars going to prayers, with their loose gray gowns, their girdle of 22 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. rope, their sandaled feet, and their jingling rosaries ; and perhaps a Spanish senorita, with her trailing dress, and black shawl loosely thrown over her head, from out the folds of which her two dark eyes burn like gleaming fires. A solitary Mexican gallops by, with gayly decorated saddle and heavily laden sad dle-bags hanging from it ; perhaps he is taking home provisions to his wife and dark-eyed babies who live up in a little dimple of the mountain side, almost hidden from sight by the olive-trees. And then a patient, hardy little mustang lopes along the street, bearing on his back three laughing boys, one behind the other, on a morning ride into town from the mesa. The mist has floated away from the old mis sion now, the sun has climbed a little higher, and Bell has come away from the window in a gentle mood. " Oh, Polly, I don't see how anybody can be wicked in such a beautiful, beautiful world." " Humph ! " said Polly, dipping her curly head deep into the water-bowl, and coming up looking like a little drowned kitten. " When you want to be hateful, you don't stop to think whether you 're looking at a cactus or a rose bush, do you ? " " Very true," sighed Bell, quite silenced by PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 23 this practical illustration. " Now I '11 try the effect of the landscape on my temper by dress ing Dicky, while he dances about the room and plays with his tan terrier." But it happened that Dicky was on his very best behavior, and stood as still as a sign post while being dressed. It is true he ate a couple of matches and tumbled down-stairs twice before breakfast, so that after that hur ried meal Bell tied him to one of the veranda posts, that he might not commit any act vicious enough to keep them at home. As he had a huge pocket full of apricots he was in perfect good-humor, not taking his confinement at all to heart, inasmuch as it commanded a full view of the scene of action. His amiability was further increased, moreover, by the possession of a bright new policeman's whistle, which was carefully tied to his button-hole by a neat little silk cord, and which his fond parents intended that he should blow if he chanced to fall into danger during his rambles about the camp. We might as well state here, however, that this precaution proved fruitless, for he blew it at all times and seasons; and everybody became so hardened to its melodious shriek that they paid no attention to it whatever, history, or fable, thus again repeating itself. 24 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. Mr. and Mrs. Noble had driven Margery and Phil into town from the fruit ranch, and were waiting to see the party off. Mrs. Oliver was to live in the Win ship house during the absence of the family, and was aid ing them to do those numberless little things that are always found undone at the last moment. She had given her impetuous daugh ter a dozen fond embraces, smothering in each a gentle warning, and stood now with Mrs. Winship at the gate, watching the three girls, who had gone on to bid Elsie good-by. " I hope Pauline won't give you any trouble," she said. " She is so apt to be too impulsive and thoughtless." "I shall enjoy her," said sweet aunt Truth, with that bright, cordial smile of hers that was like a blessing. " She has a very loving heart, and is easily led. How pretty the girls look, and how different they are ! Polly is like a thistledown or a firefly, Margery like one of our home Mayflowers, and I can't help think ing my Bell like a sunbeam." The girls did look very pretty ; for their mothers had fashioned their camping-dresses with much care and taste, taking great pains to make them picturesque and appropriate to their summer life " under the greenwood tree." PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 25 Over a plain full skirt of heavy crimson serge Bell wore a hunting jacket and drapery of dark leaf -green, like a bit of forest against a sunset. Her hair, which fell in a waving mass of burnished brightness to her waist, was caught by a silver arrow, and crowned by a wide soft hat of crimson felt encircled with a bird's breast. Margery wore a soft gray flannel, the color of a dove's throat, adorned with rows upon rows of silver braid and sparkling silver but tons ; while her big gray hat had nothing but a silver cord and tassel tied round it in Spanish fashion. Polly was all in sailor blue, with a distract- ingly natty little double-breasted coat and great white rolling collar. Her hat swung in her hand, as usual, showing her boyish head of sunny auburn curls, and she carried on a neat chatelaine a silver cup and little clasp knife, as was the custom in the party. " It 's very difficult," Polly often exclaimed, " to get a dress that will tone down your hair and a hat that will tone up your nose, when the first is red and the last a snub ! My nose is the root of all evil ; it makes people think I 'm saucy before I say a word ; and as for my hair, they think I must be peppery, no matter 26 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. if I were really as meek as Moses. Now there 's Margery, the dear, darling mouse ! People look at her two sleek braids, every hair doing just what it ought to do and lying straight and smooth, and ask, 'Who is that sweet girl ? ' There 's something wrong some where. I ought not to suffer because of one small, simple, turned-up nose and a head of hair which reveals the glowing tints of au tumn, as Jack gracefully says." " Here they come ! " shouted Jack from the group on the Howards' piazza. "Christopher Columbus, what gorgeousness ! The Flamingo, the Dove, and the Blue-jay ! Good morning, young ladies ; may we be allowed to travel in the same steamer with your highnesses ? " "You needn't be troubled," laughed Bell. " We shall not disclose these glories until we reach the camp. But you are dressed as usual. What 's the matter ? " " Why, the fact is," answered Geoffrey, " our courage failed us at the last moment. We donned our uniforms, and looked like bri gands, highway robbers, cowboys, firemen, anything but modest young men ; and as it was too warm for ulsters, we took refuge in civilized raiment for to-day. When we arrive, you shall behold our dashing sombreros fixed up PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 27 with peacock feathers, and our refulgent shirts, which are of the most original style and deco ration." " Aboriginal, in fact/' said Jack. " We have broad belts of alligator skin, pouches, pistols, bowie-knives, and tan-colored shoes ; but we dislike to flaunt them before the eyes of a city public." " Here they are ! " cried Geoffrey, from the gate. " Uncle, and aunt, and Dicky, and good gracious ! Is he really going to take that wretched tan terrier?" 66 Won't go without him," said Bell, briefly. " There are cases where it is better to submit than to fight." So the last good-bys were said, and Elsie bore up bravely ; better, indeed, than the others, who shed many a furtive tear at leaving her. " Make haste and get well, darling," whispered the girls, lovingly. " Pray, pray, dear Mrs. Howard, bring her down to us as soon as possible. We '11 take such good care of her," teased Bell, with one last squeeze, and strong signs of a shower in both eyes. " Come, girls and boys," said kind Dr. Paul, (6 the steamer has blown her first whistle, and we must be off." 28 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. Oh, how clear and beautiful a day it was, and how charmingly gracious Dame Ocean looked in her white caps and blue ruffles ! Even the combination steamboat smell of din ner, oil, and close air was obliterated by the keen sea breeze. The good ship Orizaba ploughed her way through the sparkling, sun-lit waves, traversing quickly the distance which lay between the young people and their destination. They watched the long white furrow that stretched in her wake, the cloud of black smoke which floated like a dark shadow above the laughing crests of the waves, and the flocks of sea-gulls sailing overhead, with wild shrill screams ever and anon swooping down for some bit of food flung from the ship, and then floating for miles on the waves. How they sung " Life on the Ocean Wave," " Bounding Billow," and " Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep " ! How Jack chanted, " I wish T were a fish, With a great long tail ; A tiny little tittlebat, A wiggle or a whale, In the middle of the great blue sea. Oh, my ! " " Oh, how I long to be there ! " exclaimed Philip, " to throw aside all the formal customs PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 29 of a wicked world I abhor, and live a free life under the blue sky ! " " Why, Philip Noble ! I never saw you in side of a house in my life," cried Polly. " Oh, yes ; you 're mistaken. I 've been obliged to eat most of my meals in the house, and sleep there; but I don't approve of it, and it 's a trial to be borne with meekness only when there 's no remedy for it." " Besides," said Jack, " even when we are out-of-doors we are shelling the reluctant al mond, poisoning the voracious gopher, pruning grape-vines, and ' sich.' Now I am only going to shoot to eat, and eat to shoot ! " " Hope you 've improved since last year, or you '11 have a low diet," murmured Phil, in an undertone. " The man of genius must expect to be the butt of ridicule," sighed Jack, meekly. " But you '11 not repine, although your heart strings break, will you ? " said Polly, sympa- thizingly ; " specially in the presence of several witnesses who have seen you handle a gun." " How glad I am that I 'm too near-sighted to shoot," said Geoffrey, taking off the eye glasses that made him look so wise and digni fied. " I shall lounge under the trees, read Macaulay, and order the meals." 30 PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. " I shall need an assistant about the camp/' said aunt Truth, smilingly ; " but I hardly think he '11 have much time to lounge ; when everything else fails, there 's always Dicky, you know." Geoffrey looked discouraged. " And, furthermore, I declare by the nose of the great Tarn O'Shanter that I will cut down every tree in the vicinity ere you shall lounge under it," said Jack. " Softly, my boy. Hill's blue gum forest is not so very far away. You '11 have your hands full," laughed Dr. Paul. Here Margery and Bell joined the group, after a quick walk up and down the deck. " Papa," said Bell, excitedly, " we certainly are nearing the place. Do you see that bend in the shore, and don't you remember that the landing is n't far below ? " " Bell's bump of locality is immense. There are nineteen bends in the shore exactly like that one before we reach the landing. How many knots an hour do you suppose this ship travels, my fair cousin ? " asked Geoffrey. " I could tell better," replied Bell, calmly, " if I could ever remember how many knots made a mile, or how many miles made a knot \ but I always forget." PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE. 31 " Oh, see ! There 's a porpoise ! " cried Jack. " Polly, why is a porpoise like a water-lily ? " But before he could say " Guess/' Phil, Geoff, and the girls had drawn themselves into a line, and, with a whispered " One, two, three," to secure a good start, replied in concert, "We-give-it-up!" " What a deafening shout ! " cried aunt Truth, coming out of the cabin. " What 's the matter, pray?" " Nothing, aunty," laughed Polly. " But we have formed a society for suppressing Jack's conundrums, and this is our first public meet ing. How do you like the watchword ? " Aunt Truth smiled. " It was very audible," she said. "Yours is evidently not a secret society." " I wish I could find out who originated this plan," quoth Jack, murderously. " But I sup pose it 's one of you girls, and I can't revenge myself. Oh, when will this barrier between the sexes be removed ! " " I trust not in your lifetime," shuddered Polly, " or we might as well begin to ' stand round our dying beds ' at once." CHAPTER II. THE JOURNEY. " Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs, To the silent wilderness." TTTHATEVER the distance was in reality, T the steamer had consumed more time than usual, and it was quite two o'clock, in stead of half past twelve, as they had expected, before they were landed on the old and almost forgotten pier, and saw the smoke of the Ori zaba as she steamed away. After counting over their bags and packages to see if anything had been forgotten, they looked about them. There was a dirty little settlement, a mile or two to the south, consisting of a collection of tumble-down adobe houses, which looked like a blotch on the brown hillside ; a few cattle were browsing near by, and the locality THE JOURNEY. 33 seemed to be well supplied with lizards, which darted over the dusty ground in all directions. But the startling point of the landscape was that it showed no sign of human life, and Pancho's orders had been to have Senor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega and his wood- cart on hand promptly at past half twelve. " Can Pancho have forgotten ? " o " Can he have lost his way and never arrived here at all?" " Can Seiior Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega have grown tired of waiting and gone, off?" " Has Senor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega been drinking too much aguardiente and so forgotten to come ? " " Has Pancho been murdered by highway robbers, and served up into stew for their even ing meal ? " " With Hop Yet for dessert ! Oh, horrible ! " These were some of the questions and excla mations that greeted the ears of the lizards, and caused them to fly over the ground in a more excited fashion than ever. " One thing is certain. If Pancho has been stupid enough to lose his way coming fifty miles down the coast, I '11 discharge him," said Dr. Winship, with decision. 34 THE JOURNEY. "When you find him," added aunt Truth, prudently. " Of course. But really, mamma, this looks discouraging ; I am afraid we can't get into camp this evening. Shall we go up to the nearest ranch house for the night, and see what can be done to-morrow ? " " Never ! " exclaimed the young people, with one deafening shout. " Never," echoed Philip separately. "I have vowed that a bed shall not know me for three months, and I '11 keep my vow." " What do you say to this, uncle Doc ? " said Geoffrey. " Suppose you go up to the storehouse and office, it 's about a mile, and see if the goods are there all right, and whether the men saw Pancho on his way up to the canon. Meanwhile, Phil and I will ride over here somewhere to get a team, or look up Senor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega. Jack can stay with aunt Truth and the girls, to watch developments." " But, papa, can't we pitch the camp to night, somehow ? " asked Bell, piteously. "I don't see how. We are behindhand already ; and if we get started within an hour we dan't reach the ground I selected before dark ; and we can't choose any nearer one, be- THE JOURNEY. 35 cause if Pancho is anywhere in creation he is on the identical spot I sent him to." " But, Dr. Paul, I '11 tell you what we could do/' suggested Jack. " If we get any kindjof a start, we can't fail to reach camp by seven or eight o'clock at latest. Now it 's bright moon light, and if we find Pancho, he '11 have the baggage unloaded, and Hop Yet will have a fire lighted. What 's to prevent our swinging the hammocks for the ladies ? And we '11 just roll up in our blankets by the fire, for to-night. Then we '11 get to housekeeping in the morn- ing." This plan received a most enthusiastic recep tion. " Very well," replied the Doctor. " If you are all agreed, I suppose we may as well begin roughing it now as at any time." You may have noticed sometimes, after hav ing fortified yourself against a terrible misfor tune which seemed in store for you, that it didn't come, after all. Well, it was so in this case ; for just as Dr. Winship and the boys started out over the hillside at a brisk pace, an immense cloud of dust, some distance up the road, attracted their attention, and they came to a sudden standstill. The girls held their breath in anxious expec- 36 THE JOURNEY. tation, and at length gave an irrepressible shout of joy and relief when there issued from the dense gray cloud the familiar four-horse tqam, with Daisy, Tule Molly, Villikins and Dinah, looking as fresh as if they had not been driven a mile, tough little mustangs that they were. A long conversation in Spanish ensued, which, being translated by Dr. Winship, fur nished all necessary information concerning the delay. S. D. M. F. H. N. stated that Pancho was neither faithless nor stupid, but was waiting for them on the camping-ground, and that as the goods were already packed in his wood-cart he would follow them immediately. So the whole party started without more delay; Dr. and Mrs. Winship, Master Paul, Jack Howard, and the three girls riding in the wagon, while Geoffrey and Philip galloped ahead on horse back. It was a long, dusty, tiresome ride ; and Dicky, who had been as good all day as any saint ever carved in marble and set in a niche, grew rather warm, cross, and hun gry, although he had been consuming gin ger-snaps and apricots since early morning. After asking plaintively for the fiftieth time THE JOURNEY. 37 how long it would be before dinner, he finally succumbed to his weariness, and dropping his yellow head, that was like a cowslip ball, in his mother's lap, he fell asleep. But the young people, whose eyes were not blinded by hunger and sleep, found more than enough to interest them on this dusty Califor nia road, winding as it did through grand old growths of trees, acres and acres of waving grain, and endless stretches of gorgeous yellow mustard, the stalks of which were five or six feet high, almost hiding from view the boys who dashed into the golden forest from time to time. At the foot of the hill they passed an old adobe hut, with a crowd of pretty, swarthy, frowzy Mexican children playing in the sun shine, while their mother, black-haired and ample of figure, occupied herself in hanging great quantities of jerked beef on a sort of clothes-line running between the eucalyptus- trees. The father, a wild-looking individual in a red shirt and enormous hat, came from behind the hut, unhitched the stout little broncho tied to the fence, gave the poor animal a desper ately tight " cinch," threw himself into the saddle without touching his foot to the lum- 88 THE JOURNEY. bering wooden stirrups, and, digging his spurs well into the horse's sides, was out of sight in an instant, leaving only a huge cloud of dust to cover his disappearance. " How those fellows do ride ! " exclaimed Dr. Winship, savagely. " I wish they were all obliged to walk until they knew how to treat a horse." " Then they 'd walk straight into the mil lennium," said Jack sagely, " for their cruelty seems to be an instinct." " But how beautifully they ride, too ! " said Polly. " Mamma and I were sitting on the hotel piazza the other day, watching two young Spaniards who were performing feats of horse manship. They dropped four-bit pieces on the dusty road, and riding up to them at full speed clutched them from the ground in some mysterious way that was perfectly wonderful. Then Nick Gutierrez mounted a bucking horse, and actually rolled and lighted a cigarette while the animal bucked with all his might." " See that cunning, cunning muchachita, mamma ! " cried Bell ; for, as they stopped at the top of the hill to let the horses breathe, one of the little Mexican children ran after them, holding out a handful of glowing yellow poppies. THE JOURNEY. 39 She was distractingly pretty, with a beauty that is short-lived with the people of her race. The afternoon sun shone down fiercely on her waving coal-black locks, and brought a rich color to her nut-brown cheek; she had one little flimsy, ragged garment, neither long, broad, nor thick, which hung about her pic turesquely ; and, with her soft, dark, sleepy eyes, the rows of little white teeth behind her laugh ing red mouth, and the vivid yellow blossoms in her tiny outstretched hand, she was a very charming vision. " Como te llamas, muchachita ? " (What is your name, little one ?) asked Bell, airing her Spanish, which was rather good. (( Teresita," she answered, with a pretty ac cent, as she scratched a set of five grimy little toes to and fro in the dusty ground. " Throw her a bit, papa," whispered Bell ; and, as he did so, Teresita caught the piece of silver very deftly, and ran excitedly back to the centre of the chattering group in front of the house. " How intense everything is in California ! Do you know what I mean, mamma ? " said Bell. " The fruit is so immense, the canons so deep, the trees so big, the hills so high, the rain so wet, and the drought so dry." 40 THE JOURNEY. " The fleas so many, the fleas so spry/' chanted Jack, who had perceived that Bell was talking in rhyme without knowing it. " Cali fornia is just the place for you, Bell ; it gives you a chance for innumerable adjectives heaped one on the other." " I don't always heap up adjectives/' replied Bell, with dignity. " When I wish to describe you, for instance, I simply say 'that hateful boy/ and let it go at that." Jack retired to private life for a season. " I 'd like to paint a picture of Teresita," said Margery, who had a pretty talent for sketching, " and call it The Summer Child, or some such thing. I should think the famous old color artists might have loved to paint this gorgeous flame-tinted poppy." " Not poppy, eschscholtzia," corrected Jack, coming rapidly to the surface again, after Bell's rebuke, and delivering himself of the tongue-confusing word with a terrible gri mace. " I 'm not writing a botany," retorted Mar gery ; " and I can never remember that word, much less spell it. I don't see how it grows under such an abominable Russian name. It 's worse than ichthyosaurus. Do you remember that funny nonsense verse ? THE JOURNEY. 41 " I is for ichthyosaurus, Who lived when the world was all porous ; But he fainted with shame When he first heard his name, And departed a long while before us." " The Spaniards are more poetic/' said aunt Truth, " for they call it la copa de oro, the golden cup. Oh, see them yonder ! It is like the Field of the Cloth of Gold." The sight would have driven a royal florist mad with joy : a hillside that was a swaying mass of radiant bloom, a joyous carnival of vivid color, in which the thousand golden gob lets, turned upward to the sun, were dancing, and glowing, and shaming out of countenance the purple and blue and pink masses which surrounded them on every side. " You know Professor Pinnie told us that every well-informed young girl should know at least the flora of her own State/' said Jack, after the excitement had subsided. " Well, one thing is certain : Professor Pinnie never knew the state of his own flora, or at least he kept his wife sorting and arranging his specimens all the time ; and I think he 's a reg ular old frump," said Polly, irreverently, but meeting aunt Truth's reproving glance, which brought a blush and a whispered " Excuse me," she went on, " Well, what I mean is, he does n't 42 THE JOURNEY. know any more than other people, after all ; for he cares for nothing but bushes and herbs and seeds and shrubs and roots and stamens and pistils ; and he can't tell whether a flower is lovely or not, he is so crazy to find out where it belongs and tie a tag round it." "I must agree with Polly/' laughed Jack. " Why, I went to ride with him one day in the Cathedral Oaks, and he made me get off my horse every five minutes to dig up roots and tie them to the pommel of his old saddle, so that we came into town looking like moving herbariums. The stable-man lifted him on to his horse when he started, I suppose, and he would have been there yet if he had n't been helped off. Bah ! " For Jack had a supreme contempt for any man who was less than a centaur. By this time they had turned off the main thoroughfare, and were traveling over a bit of old stage road which was anything but easy riding. There they met some men who were driving an enormous band of sheep to a distant ranch for pasture, which gave saucy Polly the chance to ask Dr. Winship, innocently, why white sheep ate so much more than black ones. He fell into the trap at once, and answered unsuspectingly, in a surprised tone, "Why, THE JOURNEY. 43 do they ? " giving her the longed-for opportu nity to respond, " Yes, of course, because there are so many more of 'em ; don't you see ? " " You are behind the times, Dr. Paul," said Jack. " That 's an ancient joke. Just look at those sheep, sir. How many are there ? Eight hundred, say ? " " Even more, I should think, a thousand, certainly ; and rather thin they look, too." "I should imagine they might," said Bell, sympathetically. " When I first came to Cali fornia I never could see how the poor creatures found anything to eat on these bare brown hill sides, until the farmers showed me the prickly little burr clover balls that cover the ground. But see, mamma ! there are some tiny lambs, poor tired, weak-legged little things ; I wonder if they will live through the journey." " Which reminds me," said Jack, giving Vil- likins a touch of the whip, "that nothing is so calculated to disturb your faith in and love for lambs as life on a sheep ranch. Innocent ! Good gracious ! I never saw such such " " Gasping, staggering, stuttering, stammer ing torn-fools," interposed Bell. " That 's what Carlyle called one Lamb, dear Mr. 'Koast Pig ' Charles ; and a mean old thing he was, too, for doing it." 44 THE JOURNEY. " Well, it is just strong enough to apply to the actual lamb ; not the lamb of romance, but the lamb of reality. You can't get him any where ; he does n't know enough. He won't drive, he can't follow ; he 's too stupid. Why, I went out for a couple of 'em once, that were lost in the canon. I found them, that was comparatively easy ; but when I tried to get them home, I could n't. At last, after infinite trouble, I managed to drive them up on to the trail, which was so narrow there was but one thing for a rational creature to do, and that was to go ahead. Then, if you '11 believe me, those idiots kept blaating and getting under the horse's fore-feet; finally, one of them, the champion simpleton, tumbled over into the canon, and I tied the legs of the other one together, and carried him home on the front of my saddle." " They are innocent, any way," insisted Mar gery. " I won't believe they 're not. I can't bear these people who interfere with all your cherished ideas, and say that Columbus did n't discover America, and Shakespeare was n't Shakespeare, and William Tell did n't shoot the apple." 66 Nevertheless, I claim that the lamb is not half so much an emblem of innocence as he is THE JOURNEY. 45 of utter and profound stupidity. There is that charming old lyric about Mary's little lamb ; I can explain that. After he came to school (which was an error of judgment at the very beginning), he made the rumpus, you know, " And then the teacher turned him out, But still he lingered nee-ar, And waited patiently about Till Mary did appee-ar. Of course he did. He did n't know enough to go home alone. " And then he ran to her and laid His head upon her arr-um, As if to say, I 'm not afraid ; You '11 keep me from all harr-um.' As if a lamb could be capable of that amount of reasoning ! And then " What makes the lamb love Mary so ? ' The eager children cry ; * Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know/ The teacher did reply. And might have added that as Mary fed the lamb three times a day and twice on Sundays, he probably not only knew on which side his daily bread was buttered, but also who but tered it." "Dreadful boy!" laughed Bell. "Polly, pray lower the umbrella ; we are going to meet 46 THE JOURNEY. some respectable people, and we actually are too dirty to be seen. I have really been eating dust." ' "They must be equally dusty/' said Polly, sagely. " Why, it is the Burtons, from Tacitas ranch ! " The Burton ranch wagon was drawn up, as its driver recognized Dr. Winship, and he pro ceeded to cheer the spirits of the party by telling them that he had passed Pancho two hours before, and that he was busily clearing rubbish from the camping-ground. This was six o'clock, and by a little after eight the weary, happy party were seated on saddle- blankets and carriage-cushions round a cheery camp-fire, eating a frugal meal, which tasted sweeter than nectar and ambrosia to their keen appetites. The boys expressed their intention of spend ing the night in unpacking their baggage and getting to rights generally, but Dr. Winship placed a prompt and decisive veto on this prop osition, and they submitted cheerfully to his better judgment. Getting to bed was an exciting occupation for everybody. Dicky was first tucked up in a warm nest of rugs and blankets, under a tree, and sank into a profound slumber at once, THE JOURNEY. 47 with the happy unconsciousness of childhood. His father completed the preparations for his comfort by opening a huge umbrella and ar ranging it firmly over his head, so that no fall ing leaf might frighten him and no sudden gust of air blow upon his face. Bell stood before her hammock, and med itated. " Well/' she said, " going to bed is a simple matter, after all, when you have shorn it of all useless formalities. Let me see : I generally walk to and fro in the room, eating a bunch of grapes or an orange, look out of the window five or ten minutes, brush my hair, read my chapter in the Bible, take my book and study Spanish five minutes, on the prin ciple of that abnormal woman who learned ninety-six languages while she was waiting for the kettle to boil in the morning " " Must have been a slow boiler," interrupted Polly, wickedly. " Seems to me it would have been economy to sell it and buy a new one. " " Oh, Polly ! you are so willfully stupid ! The kettle is n't the point but the lan guages. Besides, she did n't learn all the ninety-six while the kettle was boiling once, you know." "Oh, didn't she? That alters the case. Thank you," said Polly, sarcastically. 48 THE JOURNEY. "Now observe me/' said Bell. "I have made the getting into a hammock a study. I first open it very wide at the top with both hands ; then, holding it in that position, I gracefully revolve my body from left to right as upon an imaginary swivel ; meantime I raise my right foot considerably from mother earth, with a view to passing it over the hammock's edge. Every move is calculated, you perceive, and produces its own share of the perfect re sult ; the method is the same that Rachel used in rehearsing her wonderful tragic poses. I am now seated in the hammock, you observe, with both hands extending the net from side to side and the right foot well in position ; I now raise the left foot with a swift but admirably steady movement, and I am Help ! Help ! ! Mur der !!! " " In short, you are not in, but out," cried Polly, in a burst of laughter ; for Bell had leaned too far to the right, and on bringing the other foot in, with its " swift but admirably steady" motion, she gave a sudden lurch, pulled the hammock entirely over herself and fell out head first on the other side, leaving her feet tangled in its meshes. " Shall we help her out, Meg ? She does n't deserve it, after that pom pous oration and attempt to show off her supe- THE JOURNEY. 49 rior abilities. Nevertheless, she always accepts mercy more gracefully than justice. Heave ahoy, my hearties ! " Bell was extricated, and looked sufficiently ashamed. " We are much obliged for the lesson/' said Margery, " but the method is open to criticism ; so I think we '11 manage in our ordinary savage way. We may not be graceful or scientific, but we get in, which is the main point." The hammocks did not prove the easiest of nests, as the girls had imagined. In fact, to be perfectly candid about the matter, the wicked flea of California, which man pursueth but sel dom catcheth, is apt, on many a summer night, to interfere shamelessly with slumber. On this particular night he was fairly rampant, perhaps because sweet humanity on which to feed was very scarce in that canon. " Good - night, girls ! " called Jack, when matters seemed to be finally settled for sleep. " Bell, you must keep one eye open, for the coyotes will be stealing down the mountain in a jiffy, and yours is the first hammock in the path." " Of course," moaned Bell, " that 's why the girls gave me this one; they knew very well that one victim always slakes the animals' 50 THE JOURNEY. thirst for blood. Well, let them come on. I shiver with terror, but my only hope is that I may be eaten in my sleep, if at all." " There was a young party named Bell, Who slept out-of-doors for a spell ; When asked how she fared, She said she was scared, But otherwise doing quite well. "How's that?" asked Jack. "I shall be able to drive Bell off her own field, with a lit tle practice." " Go to sleep ! " roared Dr. Paul. " In your present condition of mind and body you are not fit for poetry ! " " That 's just the point, sir," retorted Jack, slyly, " for, you remember, poets are uotjit, but nascitur, don't you know ? " and he retired under his blanket for protection. But quiet seemed to be impossible : . there were all sorts of strange sounds ; and the moon, too, was so splendid that they almost felt as if they were lying beneath the radiance of a cal cium light ; while in the dark places, midst the branches of thick foliage, the owls hooted gloomily. If you had happened ,to be an owl in that vicinity, you might have heard not only the feverish tossing to and fro of the girls in the hammocks, but many dismal sighs and THE JOURNEY. 51 groans from Dr. Winship and the boys ; for the bare ground is, after all, more rheumatic than romantic, and they too tumbled from side to side, seeking comfort. But at midnight quiet slumber had de scended upon them, and they presented a funny spectacle enough to one open-eyed watcher. A long slender sycamore log was extended before the fire, and constituted their pillow ; on this their heads reposed, each decorated with a tightly fitting silk handkerchief ; then came a compact, papoose-like roll of gray blanket, ter minated by a pair of erect feet, whose generous proportions soared to different heights. There was a little snoring, too ; perhaps the log was hollow. At midnight you might have seen a quaintly despondent little figure, whose curly head issued from a hooded cloak, staggering hopelessly from a hammock, and seating herself on a mossy stump. From the limpness of her attitude and the pathetic expression of her eyes, I fear Polly was reviewing former happy nights spent on spring beds ; and at this particular moment the realities of camping out hardly equaled her anticipations. Whatever may have been her feelings, however, they were promptly stifled when a certain insolent head reared itself from 52 THE JOURNEY. its blanket-roll, and a hoarse voice cackled, " Pretty Poll! Polly want a canon?" At this insult, Miss Oliver wrapped her drapery about her and strode to her hammock with the air of a tragedy queen. CHAPTER III. LIFE IN THE CA^ON. THE HEIR APPARENT LOSES HIMSELF. " Know'st thou the land where the lemonrtrees bloom, Where the gold orange glows in the green thicket's gloom ; Where the wind, ever soft, from the blue heaven blows, And groves are of myrtle and olive, and rose? " ON the next morning, as we have seen, they named their summer home Camp Chapar ral, and for a week or more they were the very busiest colony of people under the sun ; for it takes a deal of hard work and ingenuity to make a comfortable and beautiful dwelling- place in the forest. The best way of showing you how they accomplished this is to describe the camp after it was nearly finished. The two largest bedroom tents were made of 54 LIFE IN THE CANON. bright awning cloth, one of red and white, the other of blue and white, both gayly decorated with braid. They were pitched under the same giant oak, and yet were nearly forty feet apart ; that of the girls having a canvas floor. They were not quite willing to sleep on the ground, so they had brought empty bed-sacks with them, and Pancho's first duty after his arrival had been to drive to a neighboring ranch for a great load of straw. In a glorious tree near by was a " sky par lor," arranged by a few boards nailed high up in the leafy branches, and reached from below by a primitive ladder. This was the favorite sitting-room of the girls by day, and served for Pancho's bedroom at night. It was beautiful enough to be fit shelter for all the woodland nymphs, with its festoons of mistletoe and wild grape-vines ; but Pancho was rather an unap- preciative tenant, even going so far as to snore in the sacred place ! Just beyond was a card-room, imagine it ! in which a square board, nailed on a low stump, served for a table, where Dr. Paul and the boys played many a game of crib, back gammon, and checkers. Here, too, all Elsie's letters were written and Bell's nonsense verses, and here was the identical spot where Jack LIFE IN THE CANON. 55 Howard, that mischievous knight of the brush, perpetrated those modern travesties on the " William Henry pictures/' for Elsie's delecta tion. The dressing-room was reached by a path cut through bushes to a charming little pool. Here were unmistakable evidences of feminine art : looking-glasses hanging to trees, snowy wash-cloths, each bearing its owner's initials, adorning the shrubs, while numerous towels waved in the breeze. Between two trees a thin board was nailed, which appeared to be used, as nearly as the woodpeckers could make out, as a toothbrush rack. In this, Philip, the skill ful carpenter, had bored the necessary number of holes, and each one contained a toothbrush tied with a gorgeous ribbon. In this secluded spot Bell was wont to mar shal every morning the entire force of "the toothbrush brigade ; " and, conducting the drill with much ingenuity, she would take her victims through a long series of military manoeuvres arranged for the toothbrush. Oh, the gaspings, the chokings and stranglings, which occurred when she mounted a rock by the edge of the pool, and after calling in tones of thunder, " Brush, brothers, brush with care ! Brush iu the presence of the commandaire ! " 56 LIFE IN THE CANON. ordered her unwilling privates to polish their innocent molars to the tune of " Hail, Colum bia " or Auld Lang Syne " ! And if they became mutinous, it was Geoffrey who reduced them to submission, and ordered them to brush for three mornings to the tune of " Bluebells of Scotland " as a sign of loyalty to their com mander. As for the furnishing of the camp, there were impromptu stools and tables made of packing-boxes and trunks, all covered with bright Turkey red cotton ; there were no less than three rustic lounges and two armchairs made from manzanita branches, and a Queen Anne bedstead was being slowly constructed, day by day, by the ambitious boys for their beloved Elsie. One corner of each tent was curtained off for a bath-room, another for a clothes-press, and there were a dozen devices for comfort, as Dr. Winship was opposed to any more incon venience than was strictly necessary. Dr. and Mrs. Winship and little Dicky occupied one tent, the boys another, and the girls a third. When Bell, Polly, and Margery emerged from their tent on the second morning, they were disagreeably surprised to see a large placard over the front entrance, bearing the LIFE IN THE CANON. 57 insolent inscription, " Tent Chatter." They said nothing; but on the night after, a com mittee of two stole out and glued a companion placard, " Tent Clatter," over the door of their masculine neighbors. And to tell the truth, one was as well deserved as the other ; for if there was generally a subdued hum of conversation in the one, there never failed to be a perfect din and uproar in the other. Under a great sycamore-tree stood the din ing-table, which consisted of two long, wide boards placed together upon a couple of bar rels ; and not far away was the brush kitchen, which should have been a work of art, for it represented the combined genius of American, Mexican, and Chinese carpenters, Dr. Winship, Pancho, and Hop Yet having labored in its erection. It really answered the purpose ad mirably, and looked quite like a conventional California kitchen ; that is, it was ten feet square, and contained a table, a stove, and a Chinaman. The young people, by the way, had fought bitterly against the stove, protesting with all their might against taking it. Polly and Jack declared that they would starve sooner than eat anything that had n't been cooked over a camp-fire. Bell and Philip said that they 58 LIFE IN THE CANON. should stand in front of it all the time, for fear somebody would ride through the canon and catch them camping out with a stove. Imagine such a situation ; it made them blush. Margery said she wished people were n't quite so practical, and would n't ruin nature by introducing such ugly and unnecessary things. She intended to point the moral by drawing a picture of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Eve bending over a cook-stove and Adam peeling apples with a machine. Geoffrey scoffed at Margery's sentimentalism, put on his most trying air, and declared that if he had his pork and onions served up " hot and reg'lar," he did n't care how she had her victuals cooked. They were all somewhat appeased, however, when they found that Dr. Winship was as anx ious as they for an evening camp-fire, and merely insisted upon the stove because it sim plified the cookery. Furthermore, being an eminently just man, he yielded so far as to give them permission to prepare their own meals on a private camp-fire whenever they desired ; and this effectually stopped the argu ment, for no one was willing to pay so heavy a price for effect. The hammocks, made of gayly colored cords, LIFE IN THE CANON. 59 were slung in various directions a short dis tance from the square tent, which, being the family sitting-room was the centre of attrac tion. It was arranged with a gay canopy, twenty feet square. Three sides were made by hang ing full curtains of awning cloth from red wood rods by means of huge brass rings. These curtains were looped back during the day and dropped after dark, making a cozy and warm interior from which to watch the camp-fire on cool evenings. As for the Canon de las Flores itself, this little valley of the flowers, it was beautiful enough in every part to inspire an artist's pen cil or a poet's pen; so quiet and romantic it was, too, it might almost have been under a spell, the home of some sleepy, enchanted princess waiting the magic kiss of a princely lover. It reached from the ocean to the moun tains, and held a thousand different pictures on which to feast the eye ; for Dame Nature deals out beauty with a lavish hand in this land of perpetual summer, song, and sunshine. There were many noble oak-trees, some hung pro fusely with mistletoe, and others with the long, Spanish graybeard moss, that droops from the branches in silvery lines, like water spray. Sometimes, in the moonlight, it winds about 60 LIFE IN THE CAR ON. the oak like a shroud, and then again like a filmy bridal veil, or drippings of mist from a frozen tree. Here and there were open tracts of ground between the clumps of trees, like that in which the tents were pitched, sunny places, where the earth was warm and dry, and the lizards blinked sleepily under the stones. Farther up the canon were superb bay-trees, with their glossy leaves and aromatic odor, and the madrono, which, with its blood-red skin, is one of the most beautiful of California trees, having an open growth, like a maple, bright green lustrous leaves, and a brilliant red bark, which peels off at regular seasons, giving place to a new one of delicate pea-green. There were no birches with pure white skin, or graceful elms, or fluffy pussy willows, but so many beautiful foreign things that it would seem ungrateful to mourn those left behind in the dear New England woods ; and as for flowers, there are no yellow and purple violets, fragile anemones, or blushing Mayflowers, but in March the hillsides are covered with red, in April flushed with pink and blue, in May bril liant with yellow blossoms ; and in the canons, where the earth is moist, there are flowers all the year. LIFE IN THE CANON. 61 And then the girls would never forgive me if I should forget the superb yucca, or Span ish bayonet, which is as beautiful as a tropical queen. Its tall, slender stalk has no twigs or branches, but its leaves hang down from the top like bayonet-blades ; and oh, there rises from the centre of them such a stately princess of a flower, like a tree in itself, laden with cream-white, velvety, fragrant blossoms. The boys often climbed the hillsides and brought home these splendid treasures, which were placed in pails of water at the tent doors, to shed their luxuriant beauty and sweetness in the air for days together. They brought home quantities of Spanish moss, and wild clematis, and manzanita berries too, with which to decorate the beloved camp ; and even Dicky trotted back with his arms full of gorgeous blossoms and grasses, which he arranged with great taste and skill in mugs, bottles, and cans on the dining-table. Can't you see what a charming place it was ? And I have not begun to tell you the half yet ; for there was always a soft wind stirring the leaves in dreamy music, and above and through this whispered sound you heard the brook splashing over its pebbly bed, splashing and splashing and laughing all it possibly could, 62 LIFE IN THE CANON. knowing it would speedily be dried up by the thirsty August sun. Every few yards part of the stream settled down contentedly into a placid little pool, while the most inquisitive and restless little drops flowed noisily down to see what was going on below. The banks were fringed with graceful alders and poison-oak bushes, vivid in crimson and yellow leaves, while delicate maiden -hair ferns grew in miniature forests between the crevices of the rocks ; yet, with the practicality of Chinese human nature, Hop Yet used all this beauty for a dish-pan and refrigerator ! Now, confess that, after having seen exactly how it looks, you would like to rub a magic lamp, like Aladdin, and wish yourself there with our merry young sextette. For California is a lovely land and a strange one, even at this late day, when her character has been nearly ruined by dreadful stories, or made ridiculous by foolish ones. When you were all babies in long clothes, some people used to believe that there were nuggets of gold to be picked up in the streets, and that in the flowery valleys, flowing with milk and honey, there grew groves of beet- trees, and forests of cabbages, and shady bowers of squash- vines ; and they thought that through LIFE IN THE CANON. 63 these fertile valleys strode men of curious mien, wild bandits and highway robbers, with red flannel shirts and many pockets filled with playing-cards and revolvers and bowie-knives; and that when you met these frightful persons and courteously asked the time of day, they were apt to turn and stab you to the heart by way of response. Now, some of these things were true, and some were not, and some will never happen again ; for the towns and cities no longer con duct themselves like headstrong young tomboys out on a lark, but have grown into ancient and decorous settlements some twenty-five or thirty years old. Perhaps California is n't really so interest ing since she began to learn manners ; but she is a land of wonders still, with her sublime mountains and valleys ; her precious metals ; her vineyards and orchards of lemons and oranges, figs, limes, and nuts ; her mammoth vegetables, each big enough for a newspaper story ; her celebrated trees, on the stumps of which dan cing-parties are given ; her vultures ; her griz zly bears; and her people, drawn from every nook and corner of the map, pink, yellow, blue, red, and green countries. And though the story of California is not written, in all its 64 LIFE IN THE CANON. romantic details, in the school-books of to-day, it is a part of the poetry of our late American history, full of strange and thrilling scenes,, glowing with interest and dramatic fire. I know a little girl w r ho crossed the plains in that great ungeneraled army of fifteen or twenty thousand people that made the long and weary journey to the land of gold in 1849. She tells her children now of the strange, long days and months in the ox-team, passing through the heat and dust of alkali deserts, fording rivers, and toiling over steep mountains. She tells them how at night she often used to lie awake, curled up in her gray blanket, and hear the men talking together of the gold treasures they were to dig from the ground, treasures, it seemed to her childish mind, more precious than those of which she read in " The Arabian Nights." And from a little hole in the canvas cover of the old emigrant wagon she used to see the tired fathers and brothers, worn and footsore from their hard day's tramp, some sleeping restlessly, and others guarding the cattle or watching for Indians, who were always expected, and often came ; and the last thing at night, when her eyes were heavy with sleep, she peered dreamily out into the dark ness to see the hundreds of gleaming camp-fires, LIFE IN THE CANON. 65 which dotted the plain as far as the eye could reach. You will have noticed that this first week of camp-life was a quiet one, spent mostly by the young people in getting their open-air home comfortably arranged, making conveni ences of all kinds, becoming acquainted with the canon so far as they could, and riding once or twice to neighboring ranches for hay or provisions. Dr. Winship believed in a good beginning ; and, as this was not a week's holiday, but a summer campaign, he wanted his young people to get fully used to the situation before under taking any of the exciting excursions in pros pect. So, before the week was over, they began to enjoy sound, dreamless sleep on their hard straw beds, to eat the plain fare with decided relish, to grow a little hardy and brown, and quite strong and tough enough for a long tramp or horseback ride. After a religious devotion to cold cream for a few nights, Polly had signified her terrible intention of " letting her nose go." " I dis own it ! " she cried, peeping in her tiny mirror, and lighting up her too rosy tints with a tallow candle. " Hideous objick, I defy thee ! Spot 66 LIFE IN THE CANON. and speckle, yea, burn to a crisp, and shed thy skin afterwards ! I care not. Indeed, I shall be well rid of thee, thou hm thou well, leopard, for instance." One beautiful day followed another, each the exact counterpart of the one that had preceded it ; for Calif ornia boys and girls never have to say " wind and weather permitting " from March or April until November. They always know what the weather is going to do ; and whether this is an advantage or not is a difficult matter to settle conclusively. New England boys affirm that they would n't live in a country where it could n't rain any day it felt like it, and California lads retort that they are glad their dispositions are not ruined by the freaks of New England weather. At all events, it is a paradise for would-be campers, and any one who should assert the contrary would meet with energetic opposition from the loyal dwellers in Camp. Chaparral. Bell returned one day from a walk which she had taken by herself, while the other girls were off on some errand with the Doctor. After luncheon she drew them mysteriously into the square tent, and lowered the curtains. "What is it?" Polly whispered, with an anxious expression of countenance. " Have LIFE IN THE CANON. 67 you lost your gold thimble again, or your tem per, or have you discovered a silver-mine ? " " I have found/' she answered mysteriously, "the most beautifully secret place you ever beheld. It will be just the spot for us to write and study in when we want to be alone ; or it will even do for a theatre; and it is scarcely more than half a mile up the canon." " How did you find it?" asked Margery. " As I was walking along by the brookside, I saw a snake making its way through the bushes, and " " Goodness ! " shrieked Polly, " I shall not write there, thank you." " Goose ! Just wait a minute. I looked at it, and followed at a distance ; it was a harm less little thing ; and I thought, for the fun of it, I would just push blindly on and see what I should find, because we are forever walking in the beaten path, and I long for something new." " A bad instinct," remarked Madge, " and one which will get you into trouble, so you should crush it in its infancy." " Well, I took up my dress and ploughed through the chaparral, until I came, in about three minutes of scratching and fighting, to an open circular place about as large as this tent. 68 LIFE IN THE CAJVON. It was exactly round, which is the curious part of it ; and in the centre was one stump, cov ered with moss and surrounded by great white toadstools. How any one happened to go in there and cut down a single tree I can't under stand, nor yet how they managed to bring out the tree through the tangled brush. It is so strange that it seems as if there must be a mystery about it." "Certainly," said Margery promptly. "A tragedy of the darkest kind! Some cruel wretch has cut down, in the pride and pomp of its beauty, one sycamore-tree ; its innocent life- blood has stained the ground and given birth to the white toadstools which mark the spot and testify to the purity of the victim." " Well," continued Bell impressively, " I knew I could never find it again ; and I wanted so much you should see it that I took the ball of twine we always carry, unrolled it, and dropped the thread all the way along to the brookside, like Phrygia, or Melpomene, or Anemone, or whatever her name was." " Or Artesia, or Polynesia, or Euthanasia," interrupted Polly. "I think the lady you mean is Ariadne." " Exactly. Now we '11 take papa to see it, and then we '11 fit it up as a retreat. Won't LIFE IN THE CANON. . 69 it be charming ? We '11 call it the Lone Stump." " Oh, I like that ; it makes me shiver ! " cried Polly. " I 'm going to write an ode to it at once. Ahem ! It shall begin let me see " O lonely tree, What cruel ' he ' Did lay thee low ? Tell us the facts ; Did cruel axe Ahuse thee so ?" " Sublime ! Second verse/' said Bell slowly, with pauses between the lines : " Or did a gopher, The wicked loafer, Gnaw at thy base, And, doing so, Contrive to go, And leave no trace ? " " Oh dear ! " sighed Margery ; " if you will do it, wait a minute. " O toadstools white, Pray give us light Upon the question. Did gopher gnaw, And live in awe Of indigestion ? " " Good ! " continued Bell : " Or did a man Malicious plan 70 LIFE IN THE CANON. The good tree's ruin, And leave it so Convenient low, As seat for Bruin ? " For traveling grizzlies, you know. We may go there and see a hungry creature making a stump-speech, while an admiring audience of grasshoppers and tarantulas seat themselves in a circle on the toadstools." " Charming prospect ! " said Madge. " I don't think I care to visit the Lone Stump or pass my mornings there." " Nonsense, dear child ; it is just like every other part of the canon, only a little more lonely. It is not half a mile from camp, and hardly a dozen steps from the place where the boys go so often to shoot quail." " Very well," said the girls. " We must go there to-morrow morning ; and perhaps we 'd better not tell the boys, they are so peculiar. Jack will certainly interfere with us in some way, if he hears about it." " Now let us take our books and run down by the pool for an hour or two," said Bell. " Papa and the boys are all off shooting, and mamma is lying down. We can have a cool, quiet time ; the sunshine is so hot here by the tents." LIFE IN THE CANON. 71 Accordingly, they departed, as they often did, for one of the prolonged chats in which school-girls are wont to indulge, and which so often, too, are but idle, senseless chatter. These young people, however, had been for tunate in having the wisest and most loving guardianship, so that all their happy young lives had been spent to good purpose. They had not shirked study, and so their minds were stocked with useful information ; they had read carefully and digested thoroughly whatever they had read, so that they possessed a good deal of general knowledge. The girls were bright, sensible, industrious little women, who tried to be good, too, in the old-fashioned sense of the word ; and full of fun, nonsense, and chatter as they were among themselves, they never forgot to be modest and unassuming. The boys were pretty well in earnest about life, too, with good ambitions and generous aspirations. They had all been studying with Dr. Winship for nearly two years; and that means a great deal, for he was a real teacher, entering into the lives of his pupils, sympathiz ing with them in every way, and leading them, through the study of nature, of human beings, and of Gad, to see the beauty and meaning of life. 72 LIFE IN THE CANON. Geoffrey Strong, of course, was older than the rest, having completed his junior year at college ; but Dr. Winship, who was his guard ian, thought it wiser for him to rest a year and come to him in California, as his am bition and energy had already led him into greater exertions than his age or strength war ranted. He was now studying medicine with the good Doctor, but would go back to the " land of perpetual pie " in the fall and com plete his college course. A splendid fellow he was, so earnest, thoughtful, and wise ; so gravely tender in all his ways to aunt Truth, who was the only mother he had ever known ; so devoted to Dr. Winship, who loved him as his own elder son. What will Geoffrey Strong be as a man ? The twig is bent, and it is safe to predict how the tree will incline. His word will be as good as his bond ; he will be a good physician, for his eye is quick to see suffering and his hand ready to relieve it ; little children with feverish cheeks and tired eyes will love to clasp his cool, strong hand ; he will be gentle as a woman, yet thoroughly manly, as he is now, for he has made the most of his golden youth, and every lad who does that will have a golden manhood and a glorious old age. LIFE IN THE CANON. 73 As for Philip Noble, he was a dear, good, trustworthy lad, too ; kindly, generous, practi cal, and industrious ; a trifle slow and reserved, perhaps, but full of common sense, the kind of sense which, after all, is most uncommon. Bell once said : " This is the difference be tween Philip and Geoffrey, one does, and the other is. Geoff is the real simon-pure ideal which we praise Philip for trying to be," a very good description for a little maiden whose bright eyes had only looked into life for sixteen summers. And now we come to Jack Howard, who never kept still long enough for any one to write a description of him. To explain how he differed from Philip or Geoffrey would be like bringing the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer together for purposes of comparison. If there were a horseback ride, Jack rode the wildest colt, was of tenest thrown and least often hurt; if a fishing-party, Jack it was who caught all the fish, though he made more noise than any one else, and followed no rules laid down in The Complete Angler. He was very often in trouble ; but his mis demeanors were those of pure mischief, and were generally atoned for when it was possible. He excelled in all out-of-door sports. And 74 LIFE IN THE CANON. indeed, if his prudence had at all kept pace with his ability, he might have done remark able things in almost any direction ; but he constantly overshot the mark, and people looked to him for the dazzling brilliancy and uncertainty of a meteor, but never for the steady glow of a fixed star. Just now, Jack was a good deal sobered, and appeared at his very best. The teaching of Dr. Paul and the companionship of Geoffrey had done much for him, while the illness of his sister Elsie, who was the darling of his heart, acted constantly as a sort of curb upon him ; for he loved her with all the ardor and passion which he gave to everything else. You might be fearful of Jack's high spirits and riotous mirth, of his reckless actions and heedless jokes, but you could scarcely keep from admiring the boy ; for he was brave and handsome and win some enough to charm the very birds off the bush, as aunt Truth acknowledged, after giving him a lecture for some misdemeanor. The three girls made their way a short dis tance up the canon to a place which they called Prospect Pool, because it was so entirely shut in from observation. " Dear old Geoff ! " said Bell, throwing her shawl over a rock and opening her volume of LIFE IN THE CANON. 75 Caiiyle. "He has gone all through this for me, and written nice little remarks on the mar gin, explanations and things, and interroga tions where he thinks I won't know what is meant and had better find out, bless his heart ! What have you brought, Margery ? By the way, you must move your seat away from that clump of poison-oak bushes ; we can't afford to have any accidents ^which will interfere with our fun. We have 411 sorts of new remedies, but I prefer that the boys should experiment with them." " It 's the softest seat here, too," grumbled Margery. " We must get the boys to cut these bushes down. Why, you have n't any book, you lazy Polly. Are you going to sleep, or shall you chatter and prevent our reading ? " " Neither," she answered. " Here is a doughnut which I propose to send down the red pathway of fate ; and here a pencil and paper with which I am going to begin our round-robin letter to Elsie." " That 's good ! She has only had notes from Jack and one letter from us, which, if I remember right, had nothing in it." " Thanks ! I wrote it," sniffed Bell. " Well, I meant it had no news, no account of things, you know." 76 LIFE IN THE " No, I would n't descend to writing news, and I leave accounts to the butcher." " Stop quarreling, girls ! This is my plan : I will begin in my usual rockety style, some times maliciously called the Polly oliver method ; Margery will take up the thread sedately ; Bell will plunge in with a burst of enthusiasm and seventeen adjectives, followed by a verse of poor poetry ; Geoff will do the sportive or in structive, just as he happens to feel ; and Phil will wind up the letter by some practical de tails which will serve as a key to all the rest. Won't it be a box of literary bonbons for her to read in bed, poor darling ! Let me see ! I represent the cayenne lozenges, sharp but impressive ; Margery will do for jujube paste, which I adore, mild, pleasant, yielding, deli cious." " Sticky and insipid ! " murmured Madge, plaintively. " Not at all, my dear. Bell stands for the peppermints ; Jack for chocolates, ' the ladies' delight ; ' Geoffrey for a wine-drop, altogether good, but sweetest in its heart ; Phil let me see ! Phil is like what is he like ? " "No more like candy than a cold boiled potato," said his sister. " He is candid" suggested Bell. " Let us LIFE IN THE CAffON. 77 call him rock-candy, pure, healthful, and far from soft." " Or marshmallow," said Margery, " good, but tough." " Or caramel," laughed Polly ; " it always sticks to a point." "Thanks, gentle creatures," said a voice from the bushes on the other side of the pool, and Phil stalked out from his covert, like a wounded deer. " How long have you been in there, villain ? " cried Bell. " Ever since lunch ; but I only waked from a sound sleep some twenty minutes ago. I 've heard a most instructive conversation never been more amused in my life ; don't know whether I prefer being a cold boiled potato or a ladies'-delight ! " " You have n't any choice," snapped Polly, a trifle embarrassed at having been overheard. 66 1 'm glad it was my own sister who called me a c. b. p. (the most loathsome thing in existence, by the way), because sisters never appreciate their brothers." " I did n't call you a c. b. p.," remonstrated Margery. " I said you were no more like candy than a c. b. p. There is a difference." " Is there ? My poor brain fails to grasp it. But never mind ; I '11 forgive you." 78 LIFE IN THE CANON. " Listeners never hear good of themselves/' sighed Polly. " Are you writing a copy-book, Miss Oliver ? I did n't want to listen ; it was very painful to my feelings, but I was too sleepy to move." " And now our afternoon is gone, and we have not read a word/' sighed little Margery. " I never met two such chatterboxes as you and Polly." " And to hear us talk is a liberal education/' retorted Polly. " Exactly/' said Philip, dryly. " Come, I '11 take the books and shawls. It 's nearly five o'clock, and we shall hear Hop Yet blowing his lusty dinner-horn presently." " Why did n't you go off shooting with the others ? " asked Margery. " Stayed at home so they 'd get a chance to shoot." " Why, do you mean you always scare the game away ? " inquired Polly, artlessly. " No ; I mean that I always do all the shoot ing, and the others get discouraged." " Clasp hands over the bloody chasm," said Bell, " and let us smoke the pipe of peace at dinner." Philip and Bell came through the trees, and, as they neared the camp, saw aunt Truth sit- LIFE IN THE CAftON. 79 ting at the door of Tent Chatter, looking the very picture of comfort, as she drew her darn ing-needle in and out of an unseemly rent in one of Dicky's stockings. Margery and Polly came up just behind, and dropped into her lap some beautiful branches of wild azalea. " Did you have a pleasant walk, dears ? " she asked. " Yes, indeed, dear auntie. Now, just hold your head perfectly still, while we decorate you for dinner. We will make uncle Doc's eyes fairly pop with admiration. Have you been lonely without us ? " " Oh, not a bit. You see there has been a good deal of noise about here, and I felt as if I were not alone. Hop Yet has been pounding soap-root in the kitchen, and I hear the sound of Pancho's axe in the distance, the Doctor asked him to chop wood for the camp-fire. Was Dicky any trouble ? Where is he ? " "Why, darling mother, are you crazy?" asked Bell. " If you think a moment, he was in the hammock and you were lying down in the tent when we started." " Why, I certainly thought I heard him ask to go with you," said Mrs. Winship, in rather an alarmed tone. " So he did ; but I told him it was too far." 80 LIFE IN THE " I did n't hear that ; in fact, I was half asleep ; I was not feeling well. Ask Hop Yet ; he has been in the kitchen all the afternoon." Hop Yet replied, with discouraging tran quillity, " Oh, I no know. I no sabe Dicky ; he allee time lun loun camp ; I no look ; too muchee work. I chop hash Dicky come in kitch' make heap work no good. I tell him go long he go ; bime-by you catchum ; you see." Whereupon he gracefully skinned an onion, and burst into a Chinese song, with complete indifference as to whether Dicky lived or died. " Perhaps he is with Pancho ; I '11 run and see ! " cried Polly, dashing swiftly in the direc tion of the sky-parlor. But after a few minutes she ran back, with a serious face. " He 's not there ; Pancho has not seen him since lunch." " Well, I Ve just happened to think," said pale aunt Truth, " that papa came into the tent for some cartridges, after you left, and of course he took Dick with him. I don't sup pose it is any use to worry. He always does come out right ; and I have told him so many times never on any account to go away from the camp alone that he surely would not do it. Papa and the boys will be home soon, now. It is nearly six o'clock, and I told them that I LIFE IN THE CANON. 81 would blow the horn at six, as usual. If they are too far away to hear it, they will know the time by the sun." " Well/' said Bell, anxiously, " I hope it is all right. Papa is so strict that he won't be late himself. Did all the boys go with him, mamma ? " "Yes, all but Philip." " Oh, then Dicky must be with them," said Margery, consolingly. " Geoffrey always takes him wherever he can." So the girls went into the tent to begin their dinner toilet, which consisted in carefully brushing burrs and dust from their pretty dresses, and donning fresh collars and stock ings, with low ties of russet leather, which Polly declared belonged only to the stage conception of a camping costume ; then, with smoothly brushed hair and bright flower-knots at collar and belt, they looked charming enough to grace any drawing-room in the land. The horn was blown again at six o'clock, aunt Truth standing at the entrance of the path which led up the canon, shading her anx ious eyes from the light of the setting sun. " Here they come ! " she cried, joyously, as the welcome party appeared in sight, guns over shoulder, full game-bags, and Jack and Geoff 82 LIFE IN THE with a few rabbits and quail hanging over their arms. The girls rushed out of the tent. Bell took in the whole group with one swift glance, and then turned to her mother, who, like most mothers, believed the worst at once, and grew paler as she asked, " Papa, where is little Dick ? " " Dick ! Why, my dear, he has not been out with us. What do you mean ? " "Are you sure you didn't take him?" fal tered aunt Truth. " Of course I am. Good heavens ! Does n't any one know where the child is ? " looking at the frightened group. " You know, uncle," said Geoffrey, " we started out at three o'clock. I noticed Dicky playing with his blocks in our tent, and said good-by to him. Did you see him when you came back for the cartridges ? " " Certainly I did ; he called me to look at his dog making believe go to sleep in the ham mock." " We girls went down to the pool soon after that/' said Bell, tearfully. "He asked to go with us, and I told him it was too far, and that he 'd better stay with mamma, who would be all alone. He said Yes so sweetly I could n't LIFE IN THE CANON. 83 mistrust him. Oh, was it my fault, papa? Please don't say it was ! " and she burst into a passion of sobs. " No, no, my child, of course it was not. Don't cry ; we shall find him. Go and look about the camp, Geoff, while we consider for a minute what to do." " If there is any fault, it is mine, for going to sleep," said poor aunt Truth ; " but I never dreamed he would dare to wander off alone, my poor little disobedient darling ! What shall we do ? " " Have you spoken to Pancho and Hop Yet ? " asked Phil. 66 Yes ; they have seen nothing." Hop Yet just at this moment issued from his kitchen with an immense platter of mutton- stew and dumplings, which he deposited on the table. On being questioned again, he answered as before, with the greatest serenity, intimating that Dicky would come home " heap bime-by " when he got " plenty hungly." He seemed to think a lost boy or two in a family rather a trifle than otherwise, and wound up his unfeel ing remarks with the practical one, "Dinner all leady ; you no eat mutton, he get cold ! Misser Wins', I no find pickle ; you catchum ! " " I don't believe he would care if we all died 84 LIFE IN THE CAR ON. right before his eyes/' muttered Polly, angrily. " I should just like to see a Chinaman's heart once, and find out whether it was made of resin, or cuttle-fish, or what." "Well," said Phil, as Dr. Winship came through the trees from the card-room, " we must start out this instant, and of course we can find him somehow, somewhere ; he has n't been gone over two hours, and he could n't walk far, that 's certain. Now, uncle Doc, shall we all go different ways, and leave the girls here to see if he does n't turn up ? " " Oh, papa," cried Bell, " do not leave us at home ! We can hunt as well as any one ; we know every foot of the canon. Let me go with Geoff, and we '11 follow the brook trail." " Very well. Now, mamma, Pancho and I will go down to the main road, and you wait patiently here. Make all the noise you can, children ; and the one who finds him must come back to the camp and blow the horn. Hop Yet, we go now ; if Dicky comes back, you blow the horn yourself, will you ? " " All light, boss. You eat um dinner now ; then go bime-by ; mutton heap cold ; you " " Dinner ! " shouted Jack. " Confound your impudence ! if you say dinner again, I '11 cut the queue off your stupid head." LIFE IN THE CANON. 85 " Good ! " murmured Polly, giving a savage punch to her blue Tarn O'Shanter cap. " Jack, Jack ! " remonstrated aunt Truth. " I know, dear auntie ; but the callous old heathen makes me so mad I can't contain my self. Come, Margery, let 's be off. Get your shawl ; and hurrah for the one who comes back to blow the horn first ! I '11 wager you ten to one I '11 have Dick in auntie's lap inside the hour ! " at which aunt Truth's eyes brightened, and she began to take heart again. But as he tore past the brush kitchen and out into the woods, dragging Madge after him at a breathless pace, he shut his lips to gether rather grimly, saying, " I 'd give five hundred dollars (s'posin' I had a cent) to see that youngster safe again." " Tell me one thing, Jack," said Margery, her teeth chattering with nervousness : " are there any animals in this canon that would attack him?" " Oh, of course it is possible that a California lion or a wild-cat might come down to the brook to drink, they have been killed here abouts, but I hardly believe it is likely ; and neither do I believe they would be apt to hurt him, any way, for he would never attack them, you know. What I am afraid of is that he 86 LIFE IN THE CA&ON. has tumbled over the rocks somewhere in climb ing, or tangled himself up in the chaparral. He could n't have made off with a pistol, could he ? He is up to all such tricks." Presently the canon began to echo with strange sounds, which I have no doubt sent the owls, birds, and rabbits into fits of terror ; for the boys had whistles and pistols, while Polly had taken a tin pan and a hammer. She had gone with Phil out behind the thicket of manzanita bushes, and they both stood motion less, undecided where to go. " Oh, Phil, I can't help it ; I must cry, I am so frightened. Let me sit down a second. Yes, I know it 's an ant-hill, and I should n't care if it were a hornet's nest, I deserve to be stung. What do you think I said to Margery this morning ? That Dicky was a perfect little marplot, and spoiled all our fun, and I wished he were in the bottom of the Eed Sea ; and then I called him a k-k-k-ill-joy ! " and Polly buried her head in her blue Tarn, and cried a good, honest, old-fashioned cry. " There, chirk up, poor little soul, and don't you fret over a careless speech, that meant nothing at all. I 've wished him in the Red Sea more than once, but I 'm blessed if I ever do it again. Come, let 's go over yonder, where LIFE IN THE CANON. 87 we caught the young owl ; Dicky may have wanted to try that little game again." So they went on, calling, listening, then struggling on again, more anxious every mo ment, but not so thoroughly dazed as Bell, who had rocked her baby-brother in his cradle, and to whom he was the embodiment of every earthly grace, if not of every heavenly virtue. " I might have known this would happen," she said, miserably. " He is so careless that, if we ever find him again, we must keep him tied to something." " Take care of your steps, dear," said Geoff, " and munch this cracker, or you won't have strength enough to go on with me. I wish it were not getting so dark ; the moment the sun gets behind these mountain-tops the light seems to vanish in an instant. Dick-y ! " " Think of the poor darling out in this dark ness, hungry, frightened, and alone," sighed Bell. " It 's past his bed-time now. Oh, why did we ever come to stay in this horrible place ! " " You must not blame the place, dear ; we thought it the happiest in the world this morn ing. Here we are by the upper pool, and the path stops. Which way had we better go ? " " I 've been here before, to-day," said Bell ; " we might follow the trail I made. But where is my string ? Light a match, Geoff, please." 88 LIFE IN THE CANON. " What string ? What do you mean ? " " Why, I found a beautiful spot this morn ing, and, fearing I should n't remember the way again, I took out my ball of twine and dropped a white line all the way back, like Ariadne ; but I don't see it. Where can it have disappeared, unless Jack or Phil took it to tease me ? " " Oh, no ; I 've been with them all day. Per haps a snake has swallowed it. Come." But a bright idea had popped into Bell's head. " I want to go that way, Geoff, dear ; it 's as good as any other, and there are flowers just the other side, in an open, sunny place ; perhaps he found them." " AU right ; let 's go ahead." " The trouble is, I don't know which way to go. Here is the rock ; I remember it was a spotted one, with tall ferns growing beside it. Now I went let me see this way," and they both plunged into the thick brush. " Bell, Bell, this is utter nonsense ! " cried Geoff. " No child could crawl through this tangle." " Dicky could crawl through anything in this universe, if it was the wrong thing; he is n't afraid of beast, bird, or fish, and he positively enjoys getting scratched," said Bell. LIFE IN THE CA$TON. 89 Meanwhile, what had become of this small hero, and what was he doing ? He was last seen in the hammock, playing with the long-suffering terrier, Lubin, who was making believe go to sleep. It proved to be entirely a make-believe ; for at the first loosening of Dicky's stran gling hold upon his throat he tumbled out of the hammock and darted into the woods. Dicky followed, but Lubin was fleet of foot, and it was a desperate and exciting race for full ten minutes. At length, as Lubin heard his little master's gleeful laugh, he realized that his anger was a thing of the past ; consequently, he wheeled about and ran into Dicky's outstretched arms, licking his face and hands exuberantly in the joy of complete forgiveness. .By this time the voice of conscience in Dicky's soul and it was a very, very still, small one on all occasions was entirely si lenced. He strayed into a sunny spot, and picked flowers enough to trim his little sailor hat, probably divining that this was what lost children in Sunday-school books always did, and it would be dishonorable not to keep up the superstition. Then he built a fine, strong dam of stones across the brook, wading to and fro without the bother of taking off his shoes 90 LIFE IN THE CANON. and stockings, and filled his hat with rocks and sunk it to the bottom for a wharf, keeping his hat-band to tie an unhappy frog to a bit of bark, and setting him afloat as the captain of a slave-ship. When, at length, the struggling creature freed himself from his bonds and leaped into the pool, Dicky played that he was a drowning child, and threw Lubin into the water to rescue him. In these merry antics the hours flew by un noticed ; he had never been happier in his life, and it flashed through his mind that if he were left entirely to himself he should always be good. " Here I 've been a whole day offul good by my lone self ; have n't said one notty word or did one notty fing, nor gotted scolded a singul wunst, did I, Lubin ? I guess we better live here ; bettent we, Lubin ? And ven we wunt git stuck inter bed fur wettin' our f eets little teenty mites of wet evry singul night all the livelong days, will we, Lubin ? " But this was a long period of reflection for Master Dicky, and he capered on, farther and farther, the water sozzling frightfully in his lit tle copper-toed boots. At length he sat down on a stone to rest himself, and, glancing aimlessly about, his eyes fell on a white string, which he LIFE IN THE CANTON. 91 grasped with alacrity, pulling its end from be neath the stone on which he sat. 66 Luby Winship, the anjulls gaved me this string fur ter make an offul splendid tight har ness for you, little Luby ; and you can drag big heavy stones ; won't that be nice ? " Lubin looked doubtful, and wagged his tail dissentingly, as much as to say that his ideas of angel ministrations were a trifle different. But there was no end to the string ! How very, very curious ! Dicky wound and wound and crept and crept along, until he was thor oughly tired but thoroughly determined to see it through ; and Lubin, meanwhile, had seized the first convenient moment, after the mention of the harness, to retire to the camp. At length, oh, joy ! the tired and torn little man, following carefully the leading - string, issued from the scratching bushes into a clean, beautiful, round place, with a great restful- looking stump in the centre, and round its base a small forest of snowy toadstools. What could be a lovelier surprise ! Dicky clapped his hands in glee as he looked at them, and thought of a little verse of poetry which Bell had taught him : " Some fairy umbrellas came up to-day Under the elm-tree, just over the way, 92 LIFE IN THE And as we have had a shower of rain, The reason they came is made very plain : To-night is the woodland fairies' ball, And drops from the elm-tree might on them fall, So little umbrellas wait for them here, And under their shelter they '11 dance without fear. Take care where you step, nor crush them, I pray, For fear you will frighten the fairies away." " Oh ! " thought Dicky, in a trance of de light, " now I shall go to the fairies' ball, and see 'em dance under the cunning little teenty umberells ; and wunt they be mad at home when nobuddy can't see 'em but just only me ! And then if that potry is a big whopper, like that there uvver one, 'laddin-lamp story of Bell's, I '11 just pick evry white toadstool for my papa's Sunday dinner, and she sha'n't never see a singul fairy dance." But he waited very patiently for a long, long time that seemed like years, for Lubin had disappeared; and all at once it grew so dark in this thickly wooded place that Dicky's courage oozed out in a single moment, without any previous warnings as to its intention. The toadstools looked like the ghosts of little past- and-gone fairy umbrellas in the darkness, and not a single fairy couple came to waltz under their snowy canopies, or exchange a furtive kiss beneath their friendly shadows. LIFE IN THE CANON. 93 Dicky thought the situation exceedingly gloomy, and, without knowing it, followed the example of many older people, who, on being deserted by man, experience their first desire to find favor with God. He was not in the least degree a saintly child, but he felt instinc tively that this was the proper time for prayer ; and not knowing anything appropriate to the occasion, he repeated over and over again the time-worn plaint of childhood : " Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen." Like older mortals of feeble faith, he looked for an immediate and practical answer, in the shape, perhaps, of his mother, with his little night-gown and bowl of bread and milk. " My sakes alive ! " he grumbled between his sobs, " they 're the meanest fings I ever saw. How long do they s'pose I 'm goin' to wait for 'em in this dark? When the bears have et me up in teenty snips, then they '11 be saterfied, I guess, and wisht they'd tookened gooder care of me, a little speck of a boy, lefted out in this dark, bear-y place, all by his lone self. 0-oo-oo-oh ! " and he wound up with a murderous yell, which had never failed before to bring the whole family to his side. 94 LIFE IN THE His former prayer seeming to be in vain, he found a soft place, brushed it as clean as pos sible, and with difficulty bending his little stiff, scratched body into a kneeling position, he prayed his nightly postscript to " Now I lay me : " " God bless papa, 'n' mamma, V Bell, V Jack, 'n' Madge, 'n' Polly, 'n' Phil, 'n' Geoff, 'n' Elsie." Then, realizing that he was in a perilous position, and it behooved him to be as pious as possible, he added : " And please bless Pancho, 'n' Hop Yet, 'n' Lubin, 'n' the goat, not the wild goat up on the hill, but my goat, what got sick to his stummick when I painted him with black letters." What a dreadful calamity, to be sure, if the wrong goat had been blessed by mistake ! His whole duty performed, he picked the toadstools for his papa's Sunday dinner, and, leaning his head against the lone stump, cried himself to sleep. But relief was near, though he little sus pected it as he lay in the sound, dreamless sleep which comes only to the truly good. There was a crashing sound in the still darkness, and Bell plunged through the thick underbrush with a cry of delight. " He is here ! Dear, dear Geoff, he is all here ! I knew it, I knew it ! Hurrah ! no, LIFE IN THE CANON. 95 I mean. Thank God ! " she said softly, as she stooped down to kiss her mischievous little brother. " But what a looking creature ! " exclaimed Geoff, as he stooped over the recovered trea sure. " See, Bell, his curls are glistening with pitch, his dress is torn into ribbons, and his hands ugh, how dirty ! " " Poor little darling, he is thoroughly used up," whispered Bell, wiping tears of joy from her brown eyes. " Now I '11 run home like lightning, to blow the horn ; and you carry Dicky, for he is too sleepy and stiff to walk ; and, Geoff " (here she laid an embarrassed hand on his shoulder), " I 'm afraid he '11 be awfully cross, but you '11 not mind it, will you ? He 's so worn out." "Not I," laughed Geoff, as he dropped a brotherly kiss on Bell's pale cheek. " But I 've no idea of letting you go alone ; you 're tired to death, and you '11 miss the path. I wish I could carry you both." " Tired afraid ! " cried Bell, with a ring ing laugh, while Dicky woke with a stare, and nestled on Geoffrey's shoulder as if nothing had happened. " Why, now that this weight is lifted off my heart, I could see a path in an untraveled forest ! Good-by, you dear, dar- 96 LIFE IN THE CANON. ling, cruel boy ! I must run, for every moment is precious to mamma." And with one stran gling hug, which made Dicky's ribs crack, she dashed off. Oh, how joyously, how sweetly and tunefully, the furious blast of the old cracked dinner- horn fell on the anxious ears in that canon ! It seemed clearer and more musical than a chime of silver bells. In a trice the wandering couples had gath ered jubilantly round the camp-fire, all embrac ing Bell, who was the heroine of the hour, entirely by chance, and not through superior vision or courage, as she confessed. It was hardly fifteen minutes when Geoff strode into the ring with his sorry-looking bur den, which he laid immediately in aunt Truth's lap. " Oh, my darling ! " she cried, embracing him fondly, " to think you are really not dead, after all ! " " No, he is about as alive as any chap I ever saw." And while the happy parents caressed their restored darling, Geoff gathered the girls and boys around the dinner-table, and repeated some of Dicky's remarks on the homeward trip. It seems that he considered himself the in- LIFE IN THE CAffON. 97 jured party, and with great ingenuity laid all the blame of the mishap on his elderg. " Nobuddy takes care of me, anyhow/' he grumbled. " If my papa was n't a mean fing I 'd orter to have a black nurse with a white cap and apurn, like Billy Thomas, 'n' then I could n't git losted so offul easy. An' you all never cared a cent about it, either, or you 'd a founded me quicker 'n this 'n' I 've been hungry fur nineteen hours, 'n' I guess I 've been gone till December, by the f eelin', but you was too lazy to found me 'f I f reezed to def 'n' there ain't but one singul boy of me round the whole camp, 'n' 't would serveded you right if I had got losted forever ; then I bet you would n't had much fun Fourth of July 'thout my two bits 'n' my fire-crackers ! " It was an hour or two before peace and quiet were restored to the camp. The long-delayed dinner had to be eaten ; and to Hop Yet's calm delight, it was a very bad one. Dicky's small wounds were dressed with sweet oil, and after being fed and bathed he was tucked lovingly into bed, with a hundred kisses or more from the whole party. A little rest and attention had entirely re stored his good-humor ; and when Dr. Paul went into the tent to see that all was safe for 98 LIFE IN THE CANON. the night, he found him sitting up in bed with a gleeful countenance, prattling like a little angel. " We had an offul funny time 'bout my git- tin' losted, did n't we, mamma ? " chuckled he, with his gurgling little laugh. " Next time I 'm goin' to get losted in annover bran'-new place where no-bud-dy can find me ! I fink it was the nicest time 'cept Fourth of July, don't you, mamma ? " And he patted his mother's cheek and imprinted an oily kiss thereon. "Truth," said the Doctor, with mild sever ity, " I know you don't believe in applying the slipper, but I do think we should arrange some plan for giving that child an idea of the solem nity of life. So far as I can judge, he looks at it as one prolonged picnic." ,"My sentiments, exactly!" cried Bell, ener getically. " I can't stand many more of these trying scenes ; I am worn to a ' shadder.' ' Dicky tucked his head under his mother's arm, with a sigh of relief that there was one person, at least, whose sentiments were always favorable and always to be relied upon. " I love you the best of anybuddy, mamma," whispered he, and fell asleep. CHAPTER IV. RHYME AND REASON. A BUDGET OF LETTERS FROM THE CAMP MAIL-BAG. " The letter of a friend is a likeness passing true." OUR friend Polly was seated in a secluded spot whence all but her had fled ; her grave demeanor, her discarded sun-bonnet, her corrugated brow, all bespoke more than com mon fixedness of purpose, the cause of which will be discovered in what follows. 100 RHYME AND REASON. I. FROM -THE COUNTESS PAULINA OLIVERA TO HER FRIEND AND CONFIDANTE, THE LADY ELSIE HOWARD.* Scene : A sequestered nook in the Valley of the Flowers. CAMP CHAPARRAL, July 6, 188-. The countess is discovered at her ommerlu * writing-table. A light zephyr 2 plays with her golden locks 3 and caresses her Grecian 4 nose, a nose that carries on its surface a few trifling freckles, which serve but to call attention to its exquisite purity of outline and the height of its ambition. Her eyes reflect the changing shadows of moonlight, and her mouth is one fit for sweet sounds ; 5 yet this only gives you a faint idea of the beauteous creature whose fortunes we shall follow in our next number. 6 I have given that style a fair trial, my dear darling, but I cannot stand it another minute, not being familiar with the language of what our cook used to call the " fuddal aristocracy " (feudal, you know). I, your faithful Polly, am seated in the card- room, writing with a dreadful pen which Phil * Foot-notes by a rival of the Countess. 1 Is that spelled right ? 2 Fifty miles an hour, Jack says. 3 Poetic license. 4 Gone back to cold cream. 5 And pie. 6 For sale at all bookstores, ten cents a copy. RHYME AND REASON. 101 gave me yesterday. Its internal organs are filled with ink, which it disgorges when pressed to do so, but just now it is " too full for utter ance/' as you will see by the blots. We have decided not to make this a real round-robin letter, like the last, because we want to write what we like, and not have it read by the person who comes next. I have been badgered to death over my part of the communication sent to you last week, for the young persons connected with this camp have a faculty of making mountains out of mole-hills, as you know, and I have to suffer for every careless little speech. However, as we did n't wish to bore you with six duplicate letters, we invented a plan for keeping off each other's ground, and appointed Geoff a com mittee of one to settle our line of march. It is to be a collective letter, made up of individual notes ; and these are Geoff's sealed orders, which must be obeyed, on pain of dismissal from the camp: No. 1 (Polly) is to amuse ! No. 2 (Phil) inform. No. 3 (Geoff) " edify ! ! No. 4 (Madge) " gossip. No. 5 (Bell) " versify. No. 6 (Jack) illustrate. 102 RHYME AND REASON. So, my dear, if you get any " information " or happen to be " edified " by what I write, don't mention it for worlds ! (I just screamed my fears about this matter to Jack, and he says " I need n't fret." I shall certainly slap that boy before the summer is over.) I could just tell you a lovely story about Dicky's getting lost in the woods the day before yesterday, and our terrible fright about him, and how we all joined in the boy-hunt, until Geoff and Bell found him at the Lone Stump ; but I suppose the chronicle belongs to Phil's province, so I desist. But what can I say ? Suppose I tell you that uncle Doc and the boys have been shooting innocent, tame sheep, skinning and cutting them up on the way home, and making us believe for two days that we were eating venison ; and we never should have discovered the imposition, had not Dicky dragged home four sheep-skins from the upper pool, and told us that he saw the boys "peeling them off of a venison" Perhaps Phil may call this information, and Margery will vow that it is gossip and belongs to her ; any way, they consider it a splendid joke, and chuckle themselves to sleep over it every night ; but I think the whole affair is perfectly mad dening, and it makes me boil with rage to be RHYME AND REASON. 103 taken in so easily. Such a to-do as they make over the matter you never saw; you would think it was the first successful joke since the Deluge. (That was n't a dry joke, was it ? Ha, ha !) This is the way they twang on their harp of a thousand strings. At breakfast, this morn ing, when Jack passed me the corn-bread, I said innocently, " Why, what have we here ? " " It is manna that fell in the night," answered Jack, with an exasperating snicker. "You did n't know mutton, but I thought, being a Sunday-school teacher, you would know some thing about manna." (N. B. He alludes to that time I took the infant class for Miss Jones, and they all ran out to see a military funeral procession.) "I wish you knew something about manners," snapped I; and then aunt Truth had to warn us both, as usual. Oh, dear ! it 's a weary world. I 'd just like to get Jack at a disadvantage once ! Wo climbed Pico Negro ycotcrday. Boll, Geoff, Phil, and I had quite looin the trail. I will tell ou about it. Juot (Goodness me ! what have I written ? Oh, Elsie, pray excuse those horizontal evidences of my forgetfulness and disobedience. I have 104 RHYME AND REASON. bumped my head against the table three times, as penance, and will now try to turn my thoughts into right channels. This letter is a black-and-white evidence that I have not a frivolous order of mind, and have always been misunderstood from my birth up to this date.) We have had beautiful weather since But no, of course Phil will tell you about the weather, for that is scarcely an amusing topic. I do want to be as prudent as possible, for uncle Doc is going to read all the letters (not, of course, aloud) and see whether we have ful filled our specific obligations. (I just asked Bell whether " specific " had a " c " or an " s " in the middle, and she answered " ' c/ of course," with such an air, you should have heard her ! I had to remind her of the time she spelled "Tophet" with an "f " in the middle ; then she subsided.) (I just read this last paragraph to Madge, to see if she called it gossip, as I was going to take it out if it belonged to her topic, but she said No, she did n't call it gossip at all, that she should call it slander !) You don't know how we all long to see you, dear darling that you are. We live in the hope of having you with us very soon, and meanwhile the beautiful bedstead is almost fin- RHYME AND REASON. 105 ished, and a perfect success. (I wish to with draw the last three quarters of that sentence, for obvious reasons ! !) Dear, dear ! Geoffrey calls " Time up/' and I 've scarcely said anything I should. Never, never again will I submit to this method of correspondence ; it is absolutely petrifying to one's genius. When I am once forced to walk in a path, nothing but the whole out-of-doors will satisfy me. I 'm very much afraid I have n't amused you, dear, But when I lie in the green kirk-yard, With the mould upon my breast, Say not that " she did well or ill," Only, " She did her best." Now, do you think that will interfere with Bell, when it 's only a quotation ? Any way, it 's so appropriate that uncle Doc will never have the heart to strike it out. The trouble is that Geoff thinks all the poetry in the universe is locked up in Bell's head, and if she once allows it to escape, Felicia Hemans and the rest will be too discouraged ever to try again ! (I can't remember whether F. H. is alive or not, and am afraid to ask, but you will know that I don't mean to be disrespectful.) Laura, Anne, and Scott Burton were here 106 RHYME AND REASON. for the play, and Laura is coming down again to spend the week. I can't abide her, and there will probably be trouble in the camp. The flame of my genius blazes high just now, but Geoff has spoken, and it must be snuffed. So good-by ! Sizz-z-z ! I and I 'm out ! POLLIOLIVER. II. FROM PHILIP TO ELSIE. CAMP CHAPARRAL, July 8, 188-. MY DEAR ELSIE, I believe I am to in form you concerning the daily doings of our party, not on any account, however, permitting myself to degenerate into " gossip " or " friv olous amusement." They evidently consider me a quiet, stupid fellow, who will fulfill such a task with no special feeling of repression, and I dare say they are quite right. They call me the " solid man " of the camp, which may not be very high praise, to be sure, as Geoffrey carries his head in the clouds, and Jack is well, Jack is Jack ! So, as the light of a tallow dip is valuable in the absence of sun and moon, I am raised to a fictitious repu tation. We fellows have had very little play so far, RHYME AND REASON. 107 for the furnishing of the camp has proved an immense undertaking, although we have plenty of the right sort of wood and excellent tools. We think the work will pay, however, as Dr. Paul has about decided to stay until Octo ber, or until the first rain. He writes two or three hours a day, and thinks that he gets on with his book better here than at home. As for the rest of us, when we get fairly to rights we shall have regular study hours and lose no time in preparing for the examinations. I suppose you know that you have a full bed-room set in process of construction. I say " suppose you know," because it is a profound secret, and the girls could never have kept it to themselves as long as this. The lounging-chair is my allotted portion, and although it is a complicated bit of work, I accepted it gladly, feeling sure that you would use it oftener than any of the other pieces of furniture. I shall make it so deli- ciously easy that you will make me " Knight of the Chair," and perhaps permit me to play a sort of devoted John Brown to your Victoria. You will need one dull and prosy squire to arrange your pillows, so that you can laugh at Jack's jokes without weariness, and doze quietly while Geoff and uncle Doc are talking med icine. 108 RHYME AND REASON. Of course the most exciting event of the week was the mysterious disappearance and subsequent restoration of the Heir Apparent ; but I feel sure somebody else will describe the event, because it is uppermost in all our minds. Bell, for instance, would dress it up in fine style. She is no historian, but in poetry and fiction none of us can touch her ; though, by the way, Polly's abilities in that direction are a good deal underrated. It 's as good as a play to get her after Jack when he is in one of his teasing moods. They are like flint and steel, and if aunt Truth did n't separate them the sparks would fly. With a girl like Polly, you have either to lie awake nights, thinking how you '11 get the better of her, or else put on a demeanor of gentleness and patience, which serves as a sort of lightning-rod round which the fire of her fun will play all day and never strike. Polly is a good deal of a girl. She seems at first to have a pretty sharp tongue, but I tell you she has a heart in which there is swimming-room for everybody. This may not be " information " to you, whom we look upon as our clairvoyant, but it would be news to most people. Uncle Doc, Bell, Geoff, Polly, Meg, and I started for the top of Pico Negro the other RHYME AND REASON. 109 morning. Bell rode Villikins, and Polly took a mule, because she thought the animal would be especially sure-footed. He was ; in fact, he was so sure-footed that he did n't care to move at all, and we had to take turns in beating him up to the top. We boys walked for exercise, which we got to our heart's content. It is only five or six miles from the old Mountain Mill (a picture of which Jack will send you), and the ascent is pretty stiff climb ing, though nothing terrific. We lost the trail once, and floundered about in the chaparral for half an hour, till Bell began to make a poem on the occasion, when we became desperate, and dashed through a thicket of brush, tearing ourselves to bits, but stumbling on the trail at last. The view from the top is simply superb ! The valleys below are all yellow with grain- fields and green with vineyards, with here and there the roofs of a straggling little settlement. The depression in the side of the mountain (you will observe it in the picture) Polly says has evidently been " bitten out " by a prehistoric animal, and it turns out to be the loveliest little canon imaginable. We have had one novel experience, that of seeing a tarantula-fight; and not between two, but five, tarantulas. We were about 110 RHYME AND REASON. twenty miles from camp, loping along a stretch of hot, dusty road. Jack got off to cinch his saddle, and so we all stopped a moment to let our horses breathe. As I was looking about, at nothing in particular, I noticed a black ball in the deep dust at the side of the road. It suddenly rolled over on itself, and I called to the boys to watch the fun. We got off, hitched our horses, and approached cautiously, for I had seen a battle of the same kind before. There they were, five huge, hairy, dirty, black creatures, as large as the palm of Dicky's hand, all locked in deadly combat. They writhed and struggled and embraced, their long, curling legs fastening on each other with a sound that was actually like the cracking of bones. It takes a little courage to stand and watch such a proceeding, for you feel as if the hideous fellows might turn and jump for you ; but they were doubtless absorbed in their own battle, and we wanted to see the affair to the end, so we took the risk, if there was any. At last they showed signs of weariness, but we prodded them up with our riding-whips, pre ferring that they should kill each other, rather than do the thing ourselves. Finally, four of them lay in the dust, doubled up and harm less, slain, I suppose, by their own poison. One, RHYME AND REASON. Ill the conquering hero, remained, and we dexter ously scooped him into a tomato-can that Jack had tied to his saddle for a drinking-cup, cov ered him up with a handkerchief, and drew lots as to who should carry him home to Dr. Paul. Knowing that the little beasts were grega rious, we hunted about for a nest, which we might send to you after ousting its disagreeable occupant. After much searching, we found a group of them, quite a tarantula village, in fact. Their wonderful little houses are closed on the outside by a circular, many-webbed mesh, two or three inches across, and this web betrays the spider's den to the person who knows the tricks of the trade. Directly underneath it you come upon the tiny circular trap-door, which you will notice in the nest we send with these letters. You will see how wonderfully it is made, with its silken weaving inside, and its bits of bark and leaves outside ; and I know you will admire the hinge, which the tarantula must have invented, and which is as pretty a bit of workmanship as the most accomplished mechanic could turn out. We tore away the web and the door from one of the nests, and then poured water down the hole. The spider was at home, came out as fast as his clumsy legs would carry him, and clutched the end of 112 RHYME AND REASON. the stick Jack held out to him. Then we tumbled him into the tomato-can just as he ap peared to be making for us. The two didn't agree at all. One of them dispatched the other on the way home, the same hero who had killed the otlier four ; but, on hearing his bloody record, aunt Truth refused to have him about the camp ; so we gave him an alcohol bath, and you shall see his lordship when you come. As Dr. Paul says they have been known to clear fourteen feet at a jump, perhaps you will feel happier to know that he is in alcohol, though their bite is not necessarily fatal if it is rightly cared for. The girls have been patronizing the land scape by naming every peak, valley, grove, and stream in the vicinity ; and as there is nobody to object, the names may hold. We carry about with us a collection of strong, flat stakes, which have various names painted on them in neat black letters. Jack likes that kind of work, and spends most of his time at it ; for now that Dr. Paul has bought a hundred acres up here, we are all greatly interested in its improvement. Geoff has named the mountain Pico Negro, as I told you, and the little canon on its side is called The Giant's Yawn. Then we have RHYME AND REASON. 113 Mirror Pool, The Lone Stump, Field of the Cloth-of-Gold, Cosy Nook, The Imp's Wash-Bowl, Dunce-Cap Hill, The Saint's Rest, and II Penseroso Fall (in honor of Dicky, who was nearly drowned there). If anybody fails to call these localities by their proper names he has to pay a fine of five cents, which goes towards beautifying the place. Dr. Paul has had to pay two fines for Bell, three for aunt Truth, and seven for Dicky ; so he considers it an ill-judged ar rangement. Our encampment is supposed to be in the Forest of Arden, and Jack has begun nailing verses of poetry on the trees, like a second Orlando, save that they are not love poems at all, but appropriate quotations from Wordsworth or Bryant. And this brings me to our thrill ing rendition of the play " As You Like It," last evening ; but it is deserving of more than the passing notice which I can give it here. One thing, however, I must tell you, as the girls will not write it of themselves, that, al though Bell carried off first honors and fairly 114 RHYME AND REASON. captivated the actors as well as the audience, all three of them looked bewitching and acted with the greatest spirit, much better than we fellows did. Of course we did n't give the entire play, and we had to "double up" on some of the characters in the most ridiculous fashion ; but the Burtons helped out wonderfully, Scott play ing Oliver, and Laura doing Audrey. They were so delighted with the camp that aunt Truth has invited them to come again on Saturday and stay a week. At the risk of being called conceited I will also state that we boys consider that the stage management was a triumph of inventive art ; we worked like beavers for two days and the results were marvelous, " if I do say so as shouldn't." Just consider : we were " six miles from a lemon," as Sydney Smith would say, and yet we transformed all out of doors, first into an elegant interior, and then into a conventional stage forest. A great deal of work is available for other performances, and so we do not regret it a bit ; we propose doing " As You Like It " again when you are down here, and meanwhile we give diversified entertainments which Jack calls RHYME AND REASON. 115 variety shows, but which in reality are very chaste and elegant occasions. The other night we had a minstrel show, wearing masks of black cambric, with red mouths painted on them ; you should have seen us, all in a dusky semicircle, seated on boards supported by nail-kegs : it was a scene better imagined than described. This is cer tainly the ideal way to live in summer time, and we should be perfectly happy and content if you could only shake off your troublesome cough and come to share our pleasure. We feel in complete without you ; and no matter how large our party may grow as the summer progresses, there will always be a vacant niche that none can fill save the dear little Saint who is always enshrined therein by all her loyal worshipers, and by none more reverently than her friend, PHILIP S. NOBLE. III. THE KNIGHT OF THE SPECTACLES TAKES THE QUILL. This paper is writ unto her most Royal Highness, our beloved Gold Elsie, Queen of our thoughts and Empress of all hearts. You must know, most noble Lady, that one who is your next of kin and high in the royal favor has laid upon us a most difficult and embarrassing task. 116 RHYME AND REASON. In our capacity as Director of the Court Games, we humbly suggested the subjects for the weekly bulletin which your Highness com manded to be written ; but, alas, with indiffer ent success ; for the Courtiers growled and the Ladies-in-waiting howled at the topics given them for consideration. On soliciting our own subjects from the Privy Councilor and Knight of the Brush, Lord John Howard, he revengefully ordered me to " edify " your Majesty with wise utter ances ; as if such poor, rude words as m i ne could please the ear that should only listen to the singing of birds, the babbling of brooks, or the silvery tongue of genius ! When may your devoted subjects hope to see their gracious Sovereign again in their midst? The court is fast drifting into dangerous in formalities of conduct. The Princess Bell-Pep per partakes of the odoriferous onion at each noonday meal, so that a royal salute would be impossible ; the hands of the Countess Paulina look as if you might have chosen one of your attendants from " Afric's sunny fountains, or India's coral strand ; " and as for the Court Chaplain, Rev. Jack-in-the-Pulpit, he has wo- fully forsaken the manners of the " cloth " and RHYME AND REASON. 117 insists upon retaining his ancient title of Knight of the Brush ; the Duchess of Sweet Marjoram alone continues circumspect in walk and mien, for blood will tell, and she is more Noble than the others. In our capacity of Court Physician we have thrice relieved your youthful page, Sir Dicky Winship, of indigestion, caused by too gener ous indulgence in the flowing bowl of milk and cherries; we have also prescribed for his grace the Duke of Noble, whose ducal ear was poisoned by the insidious oak leaf. Your private box awaits you in the Princess' Theatre, and your Majesty's special interpreters of the drama will celebrate your arrival as gor geously as it deserves. The health of our dearly beloved Sovereign engages the constant thought of all her loyal and adoring subjects ; they hope, ere long to cull a wreath of laurel with their own hands and place it on a brow which needs naught but its golden crown of hair to affirm its queenly dignity. And as for crown jewels, has not our Empress of Hearts a full store ? two daz zling sapphires, her eyes; a string of pearls, her teeth ; her lips two rubies ; and when she opens them, diamonds of wisdom issue there from! 118 RHYME AND REASON. Come ! and let the sight of thy royal charms gladden the eyes of thy waiting peo ple ! Issued under the hand of SIR GEOFFREY STRONG, Bart., Court Physician and Knight of the Spectacles. iv. MARGERY'S CONTRIBUTION. COSY NOOK, July 11, 188- MY OWN DEAR ELSIE, Your weekly chron icle is almost ready for Monday's stage, and I am allowed to come in at the close with as many pages of "gossip" as I choose; which means that I may run on to my heart's content and tell you all the little things that hap pen in the chinks between the great ones, for uncle Doc has refused to read this part of the letter. First for some commissions : aunt Truth asks if your mother will kindly select goods and engage Mrs. Perkins to make us each a couple of Scotch gingham dresses. She has our meas ures and we wish them simple, full skirted gowns, like the last ; everybody thinks them so pretty and becoming. Bell's two must be buff and pink, Polly's gray and green, and mine blue and brown. We find that we have n't clothes enough for a three months' stay; and the out-of-door life is so hard upon our " forest RHYME AND REASON. 119 suits " that we have asked Mrs. Perkins to send us new ones as soon as possible. We have had a very busy and exciting week since Polly began this letter, for there have been various interruptions and an unusual number of visitors. First, there was our mountain climb to the top of Pico Negro ; Phil says he has written you about that, but I hardly believe he men tioned that he and the other boys worried us sadly by hanging on to the tails of our horses as they climbed up the steepest places. To be sure they were so awfully tired that I could n't help pitying them ; but uncle Doc had tried to persuade them not to walk, so that it was their own fault after all. You cannot imagine what a dreadful feeling it gives one, to be climbing a slippery rocky path, and know that a great heavy boy is pulling your horse backwards by the tail. Polly insisted that she heard her mule's tail break loose from its moorings, and on measuring it when we got back to camp she found it three inches longer than usual. The mule acted like original sin all day, and Polly was so completely worn out that she went to bed at five o'clock ; Jack was a good deal the worse for wear too, so that they got on beautifully all day. It is queer that they irri- 120 RHYME AND REASON. tate each other so, for I am sure that there is no lack of real friendship between them; but Jack is a confirmed tease and he seems to keep all his mischief bottled up for especial use with Polly. I have tried to keep him out of trou ble, as you asked me ; and although it gives me plenty to do, I am succeeding tolerably well, except in his dealings with Polly. I lecture him continually, but " every time he opens his mouth he put his foot in it." Polly was under a cloud the first of the week. Villikins was sick, and Dr. Winship sent her to aunt Truth for a bottle of sweet oil. Aunt Truth was not in sight, so Polly went to the box of stores and emptied a whole quart bottle of salad oil into a pail, and Villikins had to take it, wheel or whoa (Jack's joke !) Auntie went to make the salad dressing at din ner-time, and discovered her loss and Polly's mistake. It was the last bottle; and as we can't get any more for a week, the situation was serious, and she was very much tried. Poor Polly had a good cry over her carelessness, and came to the dinner-table in a very sensitive frame of mind. Then what should Jack do but tell Dicky to take Villikins a head of let tuce for his supper, and ask Polly why she did n't change his name from Villikins to RHYME AND REASON. 121 Salad-in ! Polly burst into tears, and left the table, while Dr. Paul gave Jack a scolding, which I really think he deserved, though it was a good joke. The next morning, the young gentleman put on a pair of old white cotton gloves and his best hat, gathered her a bouquet of wild flowers, and made her a handsome apol ogy before the whole party; so she forgave him, and they are friends until the next quarrel. On the night before the play, Laura and Scott Burton arrived on horseback, and the next morning the rest of the family appeared on the scene. We had sent over to see if Laura would play Audrey on so short notice, and bring over some odds and ends for cos tumes. We actually had an audience of six teen persons, and we had no idea of playing before anybody but aunt Truth and Dicky. There were three of the Burtons, Pancho, Hop Yet, the people from the dairy farm, and a university professor from Berkeley, with eight students. They were on a walking tour, and were just camping for the night when Scott and Jack met them, and invited them over to the performance. Geoffrey and Phil were ac quainted with three of them, and uncle Paul knew the professor. 122 RHYME AND REASON. Laura, Anne, and Scott went home the next morning, but came back in two days for their week's visit. The boys like Scott very much ; he falls right into the camp ways, and does n't disturb the even current of our life ; and Anne, who is a sweet little girl of twelve, has quite taken Dicky under her wing, much to our relief. With Laura's advent, however, a change came over the spirit of our dreams, and, to tell the truth, we are not over and above pleased with it. By the way, she spent last summer at the hotel, and you must have seen her, did you not? Anyway, Mrs. Burton and aunt Truth were old school friends, and Bell has known Laura for two years, but they will never follow in their mothers' footsteps. Laura is so different from her mother that I should never think they were relations ; and she has managed to change all our arrangements in some mys terious way which we can't understand. I get on very well with her ; she positively showers favors upon me, and I more than half suspect it is because she thinks I don't amount to much. As for the others, she rubs Polly the wrong way, and I believe she is a little bit jealous of Bell. You see, she is several months older than RHYME AND REASON. 123 the rest of us, and has spent two winters in San Francisco, where she went out a great deal to parties and theatres, so that her ideas are en tirely different from ours. She wants every single bit of attention, one boy to help her over the brooks, one to cut walking-sticks for her, another to peel her oranges, and another to read Spanish with her, and so on. Now, you know very well that she will never get all this so long as Bell Winship is in camp, for the boys think that Bell drags up the sun when she 's ready for him in the morning, and pushes him down at night when she happens to feel sleepy. We, who have known Bell always, cannot realize that any one can help loving her, but there is something in Laura which makes it im possible for her to see the right side of people. She told me this morning that she thought Bell had grown so vain and airy and self-conscious that it was painful to see her. I could not help being hurt ; for you know what Bell is, brimful of nonsense and sparkle and bright speeches, but just as open as the day and as warm as the sunshine. If she could have been spoiled, we should have turned her head long ago ; but she has n't a bit of silly vanity, and I never met any one before who did n't see the 124 RHYME AND REASON. pretty charm of her brightness and goodness, did you ? And yet, somehow, Laura sticks needles into her every tune she speaks. She feels them too, but it only makes her quiet, for she is too proud and sensitive to resent it. I can see that she is different in her ways, as if she felt she was being criticised. Polly is quite the reverse. If anybody hurts her feelings she makes creation scream, and I admire her courage. Aunt Truth does n't know anything about all this, for Laura is a different girl when she is with he'r or Dr. Paul ; not that she is deceit ful, but that she is honestly anxious for their good opinion. You remember aunt Truth's hobby that we should never defend ourselves by attacking any one else, and none of us would ever complain, if we were hung, drawn, and quartered. Laura was miffed at having to play Audrey, but we did n't know that she could come until the last moment, and we were going to leave that part out. " I don't believe you appreciate my gener osity in taking this thankless part," she said to Bell, when we were rehearsing. " Nobody would ever catch you playing second fiddle, RHYME AND REASON. 125 my dear. All leading parts reserved for Miss Win ship, by order of the authors, I suppose." " Indeed, Laura/' Bell said, " if we had known you were coming we would have offered you the best part, but I only took Kosalind because I knew the lines, and the girls insisted." " You Ve trained the girls well, has n't she, Geoffrey," asked Laura, with a queer kind of laugh. But I will leave the unpleasant subject. I should not have spoken of it at all except that she has made me so uncomfortable to-day that it is fresh in my mind. Bell and Polly and I have talked the matter all over, and are going to try and make her like us, whether she wants to or not. We have agreed to be just as polite and generous as we possibly can, and see if she won't " come round," for she is perfectly delighted with the camp, and wants to stay a month. Polly says she is going to sing "Home, Sweet Home " to her every night, and drop double doses of the homoeopathic cure for home-sickness into her tea, with a view of creating the disease. Good-by, and a hundred kisses from your loving MARGERY DAW. 126 RHYME AND REASON. V. THE CAMP POETESS ADDS HER STOKE OF MENTAL RICHES TO THE GENERAL FUND. MY DARLING, I have a thousand things to tell you, but I cannot possibly say them in rhyme, merely because the committee insists upon it. I send you herewith all the poetry which has been written in camp since last Monday, and it has been a very prosy week. I have given them to papa, and he says that the best of my own, which are all bad enough, is the following hammock-song. I thought it out while I was swinging Mar gery, and here it is ! To fro, Dreamily, slow, Under the trees ; Swing swing, Drowsily sing The birds and the bees ; Sleep rest, Slumber is best, Wakefulness sad ; Rest sleep, Forget how to weep, Dream and be glad ! Papa says it is all nonsense to say that slum ber is best and wakef ulness sad ; and that it is possible to tell the truth in poetry. Perhaps it is, but why don't they do it oftener, then ? RHYME AND REASON. 127 And how was he to know that Polly and Jack had just gone through a terrible battle of words in which I was peacemaker, and that Dicky had been as naughty as Nero all day ? These two circumstances made me look at the world through blue glasses, and that is always the time one longs to write poetry. I send you also Geoff's verses, written to mamma, and slipped into the box when we were playing Machine Poetry : I know a woman fair and calm, Whose shining tender eyes Make, when I meet their earnest gaze, Sweet thoughts within me rise. And if all silver were her hair, Or faded were her face, She would not look to me less fair, Nor lack a single grace. And if I were a little child, With childhood's timid trust, I think my heart would fly to her, And love because it must ! And if I were an earnest man, With empty heart and life, I think (but I might change my mind) She 'd be my chosen wife ! Is n't that pretty ? Oh, Elsie ! I hope I shall grow old as beautifully as mamma does, so that people can write poetry to me if they 128 RHYME AND REASON. feel like it ! Here is Jack's, for Polly's birth day ; he says he got the idea from a real poem which is just as silly as his : A pollywog from a wayside brook Is a goodly gift for thee ; But a milk-white steed, or a venison sheep, Will do very well for me. For you a quivering asphodel, (Two ducks and a good fat hen,) For me a withering hollyhock (For seven and three are ten !) Rose-red locks and a pug for thee, (The falling dew is chill,) A dove, a rope, and a rose for me, (Oh, passionate, pale-blue pill !) For you a greenery, yallery gown, (Hath one tomb room for four ?) Dig me a narrow gravelet here, (Oh, red is the stain of gore ! !) I told Jack I thought it extremely unhitched, but he says that 's the chief beauty of the imi tation. . I give you also some verses intended for Polly's birthday, which we shall celebrate, when the day arrives, by a grand dinner. You remember how we tease her about her love for tea, which she cannot conceal, but which she is ashamed of all the same. Well ! I have printed the poem on a card, RHYME AND REASON. 129 and on the other side Margery has drawn the picture of a cross old maid, surrounded by seven cats, all trying to get a drink out of her tea-cup. Then Geoff is going to get a live cat from the milk ranch near here and box it up for me to give to her when she receives her presents at the dinner-table. Won't it be fun ? OWED TO POLLY BECAUSE OF HER BIRTHDAY. She camps among the untrodden ways Forninst the " Mountain Mill ; " A maid whom there are few to praise And few to wish her ill. She lives unknown, and few could know What Pauline is to me ; As dear a joy as are to her, Her frequent cups of tea. A birthday this dear creature had, Full many a year ago ; She says she is but just fifteen, Of course she ought to know. But still this gift I bring to her, Appropriate to her age, Regardless of her stifled scorn, Or well conceal-ed rage ! She smiles upon these tender lines, As you all plainly see, But when she meets me all alone, How different it will be ! 130 RHYME AND REASON. Now comes Geoff's, to be given with a pretty little inkstand : There was a young maiden whose thought Was so airy it could n't be caught ; So what do you think ? We gave her some ink, And captured her light- winged thought. Here is Jack's last on Polly : There 's a pert little poppet called Polly, Who frequently falls into folly ! She 's a terrible tongue, For a " creetur " so young, But if she were dumb she 'd be jolly ! I helped Polly with a reply and we delivered it five minutes later : I 'd rather be deaf, Master Jack, For if only one sense I must lack, To be rid of your voice, I should always rejoice, Nor mourn if it never came back ! And now good night and good-by until I am allowed to write you my own particular kind of letter. The girls and boys are singing round the camp fire, and I must go out and join them in one song before we go to bed. Yours with love, now and always, BELL. P. S. Our " Happy Hexagon " has become RHYME AND REASON. 131 a sort of " Obstreperous Octagon." Laura and Scott Burton are staying with us. Scott is a good deal of a bookworm and uses very long words ; his favorite name for me at present is Calliope ; I thought it was a sort of steam whistle, but Margery thinks it was some one who was connected with poetry. We don't dare ask the boys ; will you find out ? VI. CAMP CHAPARRAL, July 13, 188-. STUDIO RAPHAEL. DEAR LITTLE Sis, The inclosed sketches speak for themselves, or at least I hope they do. Keep them in your private portfolio, and when I am famous you can produce them to show the public at what an early age my genius began to sprout. At first I thought I 'd make them real " William Henry " pictures, but concluded to give you a variety. Can't stop to write another line ; and if you missed your regular letter this week you must not growl, for the sketches took an awful lot of time, and I 'm just rushed to death here anyway. Love to mother and father. Your loving brother, JACK. 132 RHYME AND REASON. P. S. Polly says you need not expect to recognize that deer by his portrait, should you ever meet him, as no one could expect to get a striking likeness at a distance of a half mile. But, honestly, we have been closer than that to several deer. CHAPTER V. THE FOREST OF ARDEN. GOOD NEWS. " From the East to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind ; Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Through all the world hears Rosalind ; All the pictures, fairest lined, Are but black to Rosalind ; Let no face be kept in mind, But the fair of Rosalind." THE grand performance of "As You Like It " must have a more extended notice than it has yet received, inasmuch as its double was never seen on any stage. The reason of this somewhat ambitious selec tion lay in the fact that our young people had studied it in Dr. Winship's Shakespeare class the preceding winter, but they were actually 134 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. dumb with astonishment when Bell proposed it for the opening performance in the new theatre. " I tell you/' she argued, " there are not many pieces which would be effective when played out of doors by dim candle-light, but this will be just as romantic and lovely as can be. You see it can be played just 'as you like it.' " Philip and aunt Truth wanted a matinee per formance, but the girls resisted this plan very strongly, feeling that the garish light of day would be bad for the makeshift costumes, and would be likely to rob them of what little courage they possessed. " We give the decoration of the theatre en tirely into your hands, boys," Polly had said, on the day before the performance. " You have some of the hardest work done already, and can just devote yourselves to the orna mental part ; but don't expect any more ideas from us, for you will certainly be disappointed." "I should think not, indeed!" cried Bell, energetically. " Here we have the wall decora tions for the first scene, and all the costumes besides ; and the trouble is, that three or four of them will have to be made to-morrow, after Laura comes with the trappings of war. I THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 135 hope she will get here for dinner to-night ; then we can decide on our finery, and have a rough rehearsal." " Well, girls ! " shouted Jack, from the the atre, " come and have one consultation, and then we '11 let you off. Phil wants to change the location altogether." " Oh, nonsense ! " cried Madge, as the three girls ran towards the scene of action. " It 's the only suitable place within a mile of the camp." " I think it will be simply perfect, when you have done a little more cutting," said Bell. " Just see our advantages : First, we have that rising knoll opposite the stage, which is exactly the thing for audience-seats ; then we have a semicircular background of trees and a flat place for the stage, which is perfectly invalua ble ; last of all, just gaze upon that madrono- tree in the centre, and the oak on the left ; why, they are worth a thousand dollars for scenery." " Especially in the first scene, ducal inte rior, or whatever it is," said Phil, disconsolately. " Jingo ! that is a little embarrassing," groaned Jack. " Not at all," said Polly, briskly. There is plenty of room to set the interior in front of those trees. It can be all fixed beforehand, 136 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. and just whisked away for good at the end of the first act." "That's true," said Geoff, thoughtfully. " But we can't have any Adam's cottage. We talked it over last night, and decided it ' could n't be did.' " " Did you, indeed ! " exclaimed Bell, sarcas tically. " Then allow me to remark that you three boys represent a very obtuse triangle." " Thanks, most acid Rosalind ! " murmured Geoff, meekly. " Could you deign, as spokes man of the very acute triangle, to suggest something ? " " Certainly. There is the rear of the brush kitchen in plain sight, to convey the idea of a rustic hut. To be sure, it 's a good distance to the left, but let the audience screw round in their seats when they hear the voices, and Adam, Oliver, and Orlando can walk out care lessly, and go through their scene right there." " Admirable ! " quoth Geoff. " We bow to your superior judgment." " What an inspiration that was to bring those Chinese lanterns for the Fourth of July ; they have just saved us from utter ruin," said Margery, who was quietly making leaf-trim ming. " Yes, the effect is going to be perfectly THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 137 gorgeous ! " exclaimed Polly, clasping her hands in anticipation. " How many have we ? Ten ? Oh, that 's splendid ! and how many candles ? " " As many as we care to use/' Phil answered, from the top of the ladder where he was at work. " And look at my arrangement for holding them to these trees. Are n't they im mense ? " " By the way/' said Bell, " don't forget the mossy banks under those trees, for stage seats ; and make me some kind of a thing on the left side, to swoon on when I sniff Orlando's gory handkerchief." " A couple of rocks," suggested Jack. " Not exactly," replied the critical Rosalind, with great dignity. " I am black and blue already from practicing my faint, and I expect to shriek with pain when I fall to-morrow night." " St. Jacob's oil relieves stiffened joints, smoothes the wrinkles from the brow of care, soothes lacerated feelings, and 'ushes the 'owl of hinfancy," remarked Geoffrey serenely, as he prepared to build the required mossy banks. " My dear cousin (there are times when I am glad it is only second cousin), have you a secret contract to advertise a vulgar patent medicine ? or why this eloquence ? " laughed Bell. 138 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. "And, Jack/' suggested Polly, "you don't seem to be doing anything ; fix a stump for me to sit on while Orlando and Rosalind are mak ing love." " All right, countess. I 'd like to see you stumped once in my life. Shall we have the canvases brought for stage carpets ? " " We say no/' cried Rosalind, firmly. " We shall be a thousand times more awkward stum bling over stiff billows of carpet. Let 's sweep the ground as clean and smooth as possible, and let it go for all the scenes." " Yes, we shall then be well grounded in our parts," remarked Phil, hiding his head be hind a bunch of candles. " Take care, young man," laughed Polly, " or you may be ' run to earth/ instead." " Or be requested by the audience to get up and dust," cried the irrepressible Jack, whose wit was very apt to be of a slangy character. "Now let us settle the interior, or I shall go mad." " Bell and I have it all settled," said Geoffrey, promptly. " The background is to be made of three sheets hung over a line, and the two sides will be formed of canvas carpets; the walls will have Japanese fans, parasols, and " " Jupiter ! " exclaimed Jack, who, as knight THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 139 of the brush, felt compelled to be artistic. " Imagine a ducal palace, in the year so many hundred and something, decorated with Jap anese bric-a-brac ! I blush for you." " Now, Jack, we might as well drop the Avhole play as begin to think of the ' nakkeron- isms,' or whatever the word is. I have got to wear an old white wrapper to the wrestling- match, but I don't complain," said Polly. Just here Bell ran back from the kitchen, exclaiming, " I have secured Pancho for Charles the wrestler. Oh, he was fearfully obstinate ! but when I told him he would only be on the stage two minutes, and would not have to speak a word, but just let Geoff throw him, he con sented. Isn't that good? Did you decide about the decorations ? " " It will have to be just as we suggested," answered Margery. " Fans, parasols, flowers, and leaves, with the madrono-wood furniture scattered about, sheep-skins, etc." " A few venison rugs, I presume you mean," said Geoffrey, slyly. " Say, Polly, omit the cold cream for once, will you? You don't want to outshine everybody." " Thank you," she replied. " I will en deavor to take care of my own complexion, if 140 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. you will allow me. As for yours, you look more like Othello than Orlando." " Come, come, girls/' said industrious Mar gery, " let us go to the tent and sew. It is nothing but nonsense here, and we are not ac complishing anything." So they wisely left the boys to themselves for the entire day, and transformed their tent into a mammoth dressmaking establishment, with clever aunt Truth as chief designer. The intervening hours had slipped quickly away, and now the fatal moment had arrived, and everything was ready for the play. The would-be actresses were a trifle excited when the Professor and his eight students were brought up and introduced by Jack and Scott Burton ; and, as if that were not enough, who should drive up at the last moment but the family from the neighboring milk ranch, and beg to be allowed the pleasure of witnessing the performance. Mr. Sandford was the gentle man who had sold Dr. Winship his land, and so they were cordially invited to remain. All the cushions and shawls belonging to the camp were arranged carefully on the knoll, for audience seats ; it was a brilliant moonlight night, and the stage 'assumed a very festive THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 141 appearance with its four pounds of candles and twelve Chinese lanterns. Meanwhile the actors were dressing in their respective tents. Bell's first dress was a long pink muslin wrapper of Mrs. Burton's, which had been helted in and artistically pasted over with bouquets from the cretonne trunk covers, in imitation of flowered satin ; under this she wore a short blue lawn skirt of her own, catch ing up the pink muslin on the left side with a bouquet of wild roses, and producing what she called " a positively Neilson effect." Her bright hair was tossed up into a fluffy knot on the top of her head ; and with a flat coronet of wild roses and another great bunch at her belt, one might have gone far and not have found a prettier Rosalind. "I declare, you are just too lovely isn't she Laura ? " asked Margery. " Yes, she looks quite well," answered Laura, abstractedly, being much occupied in making herself absurdly beautiful as Audrey. " Of course the dress fits horridly, but perhaps it won't show in the dim light." " Oh, is it very bad ? " sighed Bell plain tively ; " I can't see it in this glass. Well, the next one fits better, and I have to wear that the longest. Shall I do your hair, Laura ? " 142 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. " No thanks ; Margery has such a capital knack at hair-dressing, and she doesn't come on yet." During this conversation Polly was strug gling with aunt Truth's trained white wrapper. It was rather difficult to make it look like a court dress ; but she looked as fresh and radiant as a rose in it, for the candle-light obliterated every freckle, and one could see nothing but a pair of dancing eyes, the pinkest of cheeks, and a head running over with curls of ruddy gold. " Now, Bell, criticise me ! " she cried, taking a position in the middle of the tent, and turning round like a wax figure. " I have torn out my hair by the roots to give it a ' done up ' look, and have I succeeded? and shall I wear any flowers with this lace surplice ? and what on earth shall I do with my hands ? they 're so black they will cast a gloom over the stage. Perhaps I can wrap my handkerchief carelessly round one, and I '11 keep the other round your waist, considerable, tucked under your Wat- teau pleat. Will I do ? " "Do? I should think so ! " and Bell eyed her with manifest approval. " Your hair is very nice, and your neck looks lovely with that lace handkerchief. As for flowers, why don't THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 143 you wear a great mass of yellow and white daisies ? You '11 be as gorgeous as " " As a sunset by Turner," said Laura with a glance at Polly's auburn locks. " Seems to me this is a mutual admiration society, is n't it ? " and she sank languidly into a chair to have her hair dressed. "Yes, it is," cried Polly, boldly; "and it's going to ' continner.' Meg, you 're a darling in that blue print and pretty hat. I '11 fill my fern-basket with flowers, and you can take it, so as to have something in your hand to play with. You look nicer than any Phoebe I ever saw, that 's a fact. And now, hurrah ! we 're all ready, and there 's the boys' bell, so let us as semble out in the kitchen. Oh dear ! I believe I 'm frightened, in spite of every promise to the contrary." When the young people saw each other for the first time in their stage costumes, there was a good deal of merriment and some honest admi ration. Geoff looked very odd without his eye glasses and with the yellow wig that was the one property belonging to this star dramatic organization. The girls had not succeeded in producing a great effect with the masculine costumes, be cause -of insufficient material. But the boys 144 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. had determined not to wear their ordinary clothes, no matter what happened ; so Jack had donned one of Hop Yet's blue blouses for his Sylvius dress, and had ready a plaid shawl to throw gracefully over one shoulder whenever he changed to the Banished Duke. His Sylvius attire was open to criticism, but no one could fail to admire his appearance as the Duke, on account of a magnificent ducal head-gear, from which soared a bunch of tall peacock feathers. " Oh, Jack, what a head-dress for a Duke ! " laughed Margery; "no wonder they banished you. Did you offend the court hatter ? " Phil said that at all events nobody could mistake him for anything but a fool, in his " Touchstone " costume, and so he was jest-er going to be contented. Scott Burton was arranging Pancho's toilette for the wrestling-match, and meanwhile trying to raise his drooping spirits ; and Eosalind was vainly endeavoring to make Adam's beard of gray moss stay on. While these antics were going on behind the scenes, the audience was seated on the knoll, making merry over the written programmes, which had been a surprise of Geoff's, and read as follows : THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 145 THE PRINCESS' THEATRE. July 10th, 188-. APPEARANCE OF THE GREATEST DRAMATIC COMPANY ON EARTH (FACT). THE COOLEST THEATRE IN THE WORLD. A Royal Galaxy and Boyaxy of Artists in the play of AS YOU LIKE IT, By William Shakespeare, or Lord Bacon. CAST. "Alas ! unmindful of their doom, the little victims play No sense have they of ills to come, or cares beyond to-day" ROSALIND . . . v The Lady Bell-Pepper. (Her greatest creation.) CELIA ... ^ . The Countess Paulina. PHGEBE . . . The Duchess of Sweet Marjoram. AUDREY . . A talented Incognita of the Court. ORLANDO . . Hennery Irving Salvini Strong. (Late from the Blank Theatre, Oil City.) ADAM . . . . '. . Dr. Paul Winship. (By kind permission of his manager, Mrs. T. W.) BANISHED DUKE ) T 7 T , TT n 1 SYLYIUS [ Lord John Howard 1 Lightning Jr c u Q E } Duke f N bie f Change Artists * (N. B. The Duke of Noble has played the " fool " five million times.) OLIVER . ,' . . / . Mr. Scott Burton. (Specially engaged.) CHARLES THE WRESTLER . Pancho Muldoon Sullivan. (His first appearance.) 146 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. The Comb Orchestra will play the Music of the Future. The Usher will pass pop-corn between the Acts. Beds may be ordered at 10.30. The scene between Adam and Orlando went off with good effect ; and when Celia and Rosa lind came through the trees in an affectionate attitude, and Celia' s blithe voice broke the still ness with, " I pray thee Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry," there was a hearty burst of applause which almost frightened them into silence. At the end of the first act everybody was delighted ; the stage-manager, carpenter, scene- shifter, costumer, and all the stars were called successively before the curtain. Hop Yet declared it was " all the same good as China theatre ; " and every one agreed to that criticism without a dissenting voice. To be sure, there was an utter absence of stage-management, and all the " traditions " were remarkable for their absence ; but I fancy that the spirits of Siddons and Kemble, Macready and Garrick, looked down with kind approval upon these earnest young actors as they recited the matchless old words, moving to and fro in the quaint setting of trees and moonlight, with an orchestra of cooing doves and murmuring zephyrs. The forest scenes were intended to be the THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 147 features of the evening, and in these the young people fairly surpassed themselves. Any one who had seen Neilson in her doublet and hose of silver-gray, Modjeska in her shades of blue, and Ada Cavendish in her lovely suit of green, might have thought Bell's patched-up dress a sorry mixture ; yet these three brilliant stars in the theatrical firmament might have envied this little Kosalind the dewy youth and freshness that so triumphed over all deficiencies of cos tume. Margery's camping-dress of gray, shortened to the knee, served for its basis. Round the skirt and belt and sleeves were broad bands of laurel-leaf trimming. She wore a pair of Mar gery's long gray stockings and Laura's dainty bronze Newport ties. A soft gray chudda shawl of aunt Truth's was folded into a mantle to swing from the shoulder, its fringes being caught up out of sight, and a laurel-leaf trim ming added. On her bright wavy hair was perched a cunning flat cap of leaves, and, as she entered with Polly, leaning on her manza- nita staff, and sighing, " Oh Jupiter, how weary are my spirits ! " one could not wish a lovelier stage picture. And so the play went on, with varying for tunes. Margery was frightened to death, and 148 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. persisted in taking Touchstone's speeches right out of his mouth, much to his discomfiture. Adam's beard refused to stay on ; so did the moustache of the Banished Duke, and the clothes of Sylvius. But nothing could dampen the dramatic fire of the players, nor destroy the enthusiasm of the sympathetic audience. Dicky sat in the dress-circle, wrapped in blankets, and laughed himself nearly into con vulsions over Touchstone's jokes, and the stage business of the Banished Duke ; for it is un necessary to state that Jack was not strictly Shakespearean in his treatment of the part. As for Polly, she enjoyed being Celia with all her might, and declared her intention of going immediately on the " regular " stage ; but Jack somewhat destroyed her hopes by affirm ing that her nose and hair would n't be just the thing on the metropolitan boards, although they might pass muster in a backwoods theatre. " Hello ! What 's this ? " exclaimed Philip, one morning. " A visitor ? Yes no ! Why, it 7 s Senor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega coming up the canon ! He 's got a loaded team, too ! I wonder if uncle Doc is expecting anything." THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 149 The swarthy gentleman with the long name emerged from one cloud of dust and disap peared in another, until he neared the gate where Philip and Polly were standing. Philip opened the gate, and received a bow of thanks which would have made Manuel's reputation at a Spanish court. " Going up to camp ? " "Si, senor." "Those things for us?" Si, senor." "What are they?" " Si, senor." " Exactly ! Well, are there any letters ? " " Si, senor." Whereupon he drew one from his gorgeously-decorated leather belt. Philip reached for it, and Polly leaned over his shoulder, devoured with curiosity. " It 's for aunt Truth," she said ; " and yes, I am sure it is Mrs. Howard's writing ; and if it is " Hereupon, as Manuel spoke no English, and neither Philip nor Polly could make in quiries in Spanish, Polly darted to the cart in her usual meteoric style, put one foot on the hub of a wheel and climbed to the top like a squirrel, snatched off a corner of the canvas cover, and cried triumphantly, " I knew it 1 150 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. Elsie is coming ! Here 's a tent, and some mat tresses and pillows. Hurry ! Help me down, quick ! Oh, slow coach ! Keep out of the way and I '11 jump ! Give me the letter. I can run faster than you can." And before the vestige of an idea had penetrated Philip's head, nothing could be seen of Polly but a pair of twinkling heels and the gleam of a curly head that caught every ray of the sun and turned it into ruddier gold. It was a dusty, rocky path, and up-hill at that ; but Polly, who was nothing if not ardent, never slackened her pace, but dashed along until she came in sight of the camp, where she expended her last breath in one shrill shriek for aunt Truth. It was responded to promptly. Indeed, it was the sort of shriek that always commands instantaneous attention ; and aunt Truth came out of her tent prepared to receive tragic news. Bell followed; and the entire family would have done the same, had they been in camp. Polly thrust the letter into Mrs. Winship's hand, and sank down exhausted, exclaiming, breathlessly, " There 's a mattress and a tent coming up the canon. It 's Elsie's, I know. Philip is down at the gate with the cart, but I came ahead. Phew ! but it 's warm ! " THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 151 "What!" cried Bell, joyfully. "Elsie at the gate ! It can't be true ! " And she darted like an arrow through the trees. " Come back ! come back ! " screamed Polly. " Elsie is not at the gate. Don S. D. M. F. H. N. is there with a team loaded down with things. Is n't it from Mrs. Howard, aunt Truth ? " " Yes, it is. Written this morning from Tacitas Kancho. Why, how is this ? Let me see ! " TACITAS RANCHO, Monday Morning. DEAR TRUTH, You will be surprised to receive a letter from me, written from Tacitas. But here we are, Elsie and I ; and, what is bet ter, we are on our way to you. ("I knew it ! " exclaimed the girls.) Elsie has been growing steadily better for three weeks. The fever seems to have disap peared entirely, and the troublesome cough is so much lessened that she sleeps all night with out waking. The doctor says that the camp- life will be the very best thing for her now, and will probably complete her recovery. .(" Oh, joy, joy ! " cried the girls.) I need not say how gladly we followed this special prescription of our kind doctor's, nor add that we started at once 152 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. (" Oh, aunt Truth, there is nobody within a mile of the camp ; can't I, please can't I turn one little hand-spring, just one little ladylike one ? " pleaded Polly, dancing on one foot, and chewing her sun-bonnet string. " No, dear, you can't ! Keep quiet and let me read.") Elsie would not let me tell you our plans any sooner, lest the old story of a sudden ill turn would keep us at home ; and I think very likely that she longed to give the dear boys and girls a surprise. We arrived at the Burtons' yesterday. Elsie bore the journey exceedingly well, but I would not take any risks, and so we shall not drive over until day after to-morrow morning. (" You need n't have hurried quite so fast, Polly dear.") I venture to send the tent and its belongings ahead to-day, so that Jack may get everything to rights before we arrive. The mattress is just the size the girls ordered ; and of course I 've told Elsie nothing about the proposed furnishing of her tent. I am bringing my little China boy with me, for I happen to think that, with the Burtons, we shall be fourteen at table. Gin is not quite a success as a cook, but he can at least wash THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 153 dishes, wait at table, and help Hop Yet in vari ous ways ; while I shall be only too glad to share all your housekeeping cares, if you have not escaped them even in the wilderness. I shall be so glad to see you again ; and oh, Truth, I am so happy, so happy, that, please God, I can keep my child after all ! The weary burden of dread is lifted off my heart, and I feel young again. Just think of it ! My Elsie will be well and strong once more ! It seems too good to be true. Always your attached friend, JANET HOWARD. Mrs. Winship's voice quivered as she read the last few words, and Polly and Bell threw themselves into each other's arms and cried for sheer gladness. " Come, come, dears ! I suppose you will make grand preparations, and there is no time to lose. One of you must find somebody to help Philip unload the team. Papa and the boys have gone fishing, and Laura and Mar gery went with them, I think." And Mrs. Winship bustled about, literally on hospitable thoughts in-tent. PoUy tied on her sun-bonnet with determina tion, turned up her sleeves as if washing were 154 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. the thing to be done, and placed her arms akimbo. "First and foremost/' said she, her eyes sparkling with excitement, " first and foremost, I am going to blow the horn." "Certainly not," said aunt Truth. "Are you crazy, Polly? It is scarcely ten o'clock, and everybody would think it was dinner-time, and come home at once." " No, they 'd think something had happened to Dicky," said Bell, "and that would bring them in still sooner." " Of course ! I forgot. But can't I blow it earlier than usual ? Can't I blow it at half- past eleven instead of twelve ? We can't do a thing without the boys, and they may not come home until midnight unless we do something desperate. Oh, delight ! There 's Don S. D. M. F. H. N., and Phil has found Pancho to help unload." " Is n't it lucky that we decided on the place for Elsie's tent, and saved it in case she should ever come ? " said Bell. " Now Philip and Pan cho can set it up whenever they choose. And is n't it fortunate that we three stayed at home to-day, and refused to fish ? now we can plan everything, and then all work together when they come back." THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 155 Meanwhile, Polly was tugging at an immense bundle, literally tooth and nail, as she alter nated trembling clutches of the fingers with frantic bites at the offending knot. Like many of her performances, the physical strength expended was out of all proportion to the result produced, and one stroke of Philip's knife accomplished more than all her ill-directed effort. At length the bundle of awning cloth stood revealed. " Oh, is n't it beautiful ? " she cried, " it will be the very prettiest tent in camp ; can't I blow the horn ? " " Look, mamma," exclaimed Bell, " it is green and gray, in those pretty broken stripes, and the edge is cut in lovely scollops and bound with green braid. Won't it look pretty among the trees ? " Aunt Truth came out to join the admiring group. " 0-o-o-h ! " screamed Polly. " There comes a piece of the floor. They 've sent it all made, in three pieces. What fun ! We '11 have it all up and ready to sleep in before we blow the horn ! " " And here 's a roll of straw matting," said Phil, depositing a huge bundle on the ground near the girls. " I '11 cut the rope to save your teeth ! " 156 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. " Green and white plaid ! " exclaimed Bell. " Well ! Mrs. Howard did have her wits about her ! " " Oh, do let me blow the horn ! " teased the irrepressible Polly. " Here are a looking-glass and a towel-rack and a Shaker rocking-chair/' called Philip ; " guess they 're going to stay the rest of the summer." " Yes, of course they would n't want a look ing-glass if they were only going to stay a month or two/' laughed Bell. " Dear aunt Truth, if you won't let me turn a single decorous little hand-spring, or blow the horn, or do anything nice, will you let us use all that new white mosquito netting ? Bell says that it has been in the storehouse for two years, and it would be just the thing for deco rating Elsie's tent." "Why, of course you may have it, Polly, and anything else that you can find. There ! I hear Dicky's voice in the distance ; perhaps the girls are coming." Bell and Polly darted through the swarm of tents, and looked up the narrow path that led to the brook. Sure enough, Margery and Laura were strolling towards home with little Anne and THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 157 Dick dangling behind, after the manner of children. Margery carried a small string of trout, and Dick the inevitable tin pail in which he always kept an unfortunate frog or two. The girls had discovered that he was in the habit of crowding the cover tightly over the pail and keeping his victims shut up for twenty- four hours, after which, he said, they were nice and tame, so very tame, as it transpired, that they generally gave up the ghost in a few hours after their release. Margery had with difficulty persuaded him of his cruelty, and the cover had been pierced with a certain number of air-holes. " Guess the loveliest thing that could pos sibly happen ! " called Bell at the top of her voice. "Elsie has come," answered Margery in a second, nobody knew why; "let me hug her this minute ! " " With those fish ? " laughed Polly. No ! you '11 have to wait until day after to-morrow, and then your guess will be right. Is n't it almost too good to be true ? " " And she is almost well," added Bell, joy fully, slipping her arm through Margery's and squeezing it in sheer delight. " Mrs. Howard says she is really and truly better. Oh ; if Elsie 158 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. Howard in bed is the loveliest, dearest thing in the world, what will it be like to have her out of it and with us in all our good times ! " " Has she always been ill since you knew her ? " asked Laura. " Yes ; a terrible cold left her with weak ness of the lungs, and the doctors feared con sumption, but thought that she might possi bly outgrow it entirely if she lived in a milder climate ; so Mrs. Howard left home and every body she cared for, and brought Elsie to Santa Barbara. Papa has taken an interest in her from the first, and as far as we girls are con cerned it was love at first sight. You never knew anybody like Elsie ! " "Is she pretty?" " Pretty ! " cried Polly, " she is like an angel in a picture book ! " "Interesting?" " Interesting ! " said Bell, in a tone that showed the word to be too feeble for the sub ject, " Elsie is more interesting than all the other girls in the world put together ! " "Popular?" 66 Popular ! " exclaimed Margery, taking her turn in the oral examination, " I don't know whether anybody can be popular who is al ways in bed ; but if it 's popular to be adored THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 159 by every man, woman, child, and animal that comes anywhere near her, why then Elsie is popular." " And is she a favorite with boys as well as girls?" " Favorite ! " said Bell. " Why, they think that she is simply perfect ! Of course she has scarcely been able to sit up a week at a time for a year, and naturally she has not seen many people ; but if you want a boy's opinion, just ask Philip or Geoffrey. I assure you, Laura, after you have known Elsie a while and have seen the impression she makes upon every body, you will want to go to bed and see if you can do likewise." " It is n't just the going to bed," remarked Margery, sagely. " And it is n't the prettiness either," added Polly ; " though if you saw Elsie asleep, a flower in one hand, the other under her cheek, her hair straying over the pillow (0 for hair that would stray anywhere !), you would expect every moment to see a halo above her head." "I don't believe it is because she is good that everybody admires her so," said Laura, " I don't think goodness in itself is always so very interesting ; if Elsie had freckles and a snub nose " (" Don't mind me ! " murmured Polly) 160 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. " you would find that people would say less about her wonderful character." " There are things that puzzle me/' said Polly, thoughtfully. " It seems to me that if I could contrive to be ever so good, nobody ever would look for a halo round my head. Now, is it my turned-up nose and red hair that make me what I am, or did what I am make my nose and hair what they are, which ? " " We 11 have to ask aunt Truth," said Mar gery; "that is too difficult a thing for us to answer." " Was n't it nice I catched that big bull-frog, Margie ? " cried Dick, his eyes shining with anticipation. " Now I '11 have as many as seven or 'leven frogs and lots of horned toads when Elsie comes, and she can help me play with 'em.' " When the girls reached the tents again, the last article had been taken from the team and Manuel had driven away. The sound of Phil's hammer could be heard from, the carpenter- shop, and Pancho was already laying the tent floor in a small, open, sunny place, where the low boughs of a single sycamore hung so as to protect one of its corners, leaving the rest to the full warmth of the sunshine that was to make Elsie entirely well again. THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 161 " I am tired to death/' sighed Laura, throw ing herself down in a bamboo lounging-chair. " Such a tramp as we had ! and after all, the boys insisted on going where. Dr. Winship would n't allow us to follow, so that we had to stay behind and fish with the children ; I wish I had stayed at home and read ' The Colonel's Daughter.' " "0 Laura ! " remonstrated Margery, "think of that lovely pool with the forests of maiden hair growing all about it ! " " And poison oak," grumbled Laura. " I know I walked into some of it and shall look like a perfect fright for a week. I shall never make a country girl - it 's no use for me to try." " It 's no use for you to try walking four miles in high-heeled shoes, my dear," said Polly, bluntly. " They are not high," retorted Laura, " and if they are, I don't care to look like a a cow-boy, even in the backwoods." " I 'm an awful example," sighed Polly, seat ing herself on a stump in front of the tent, and elevating a very dusty little common-sense boot. " Sir Walter Raleigh would never have allowed me to walk on his velvet cloak with that boot, would he girls? Oh, wasn't that 162 THE FOREST OF ARDEN. romantic, though ? and don't I wish that I had been Queen Elizabeth ! " " You 've got the hair" said Laura. " Thank you ! I had forgotten Elizabeth's hair was red ; so it was. This is my court train/' snatching a tablecloth that hung on a bush near by, and pinning it to her waist in the twinkling of an eye, " this my farthingale," dangling her sunbonnet from her belt, " this my sceptre," seizing a Japanese umbrella, "this my crown," inverting a bright tin plate upon her curly head. "She is just alighting from her chariot, thus ; the courtiers turn pale thus ; (why don't you do it ?) what shall be done ? The Royal Feet must not be wet. ' Go round the puddle ? Prit, me Lud, Ods body ! For sooth ! Certainly not ! Remove the puddle ! ' she says haughtily to her subjects. They are just about to do so, when out from behind a neighboring chaparral bush stalks a beautiful young prince with coal-black hair and rose-red cheeks. He wears a rich velvet cloak, glitter ing with embroidery. He sees not her crown, her hair outshines it ; he sees not her sceptre, her tiny hand conceals it ; he sees naught save the loathly mud. He strips off his cloak and floats it on the puddle. With a haughty but gracious bend of her head the Queen accepts THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 163 the courtesy; crosses the puddle, thus, waves her sceptre, thus, and saying ' You shall hear from me by return mail, me Lud,' she vanishes within the castle. The next morning she makes Sir Walter British Minister to Florida. He departs at once with a cargo of tobacco, which he exchanges for sweet potatoes, and everybody is happy ever after." The girls were convulsed with mirth at this historical romance, and as Mrs. Winship wiped the tears of merriment from her eyes, Polly seized the golden opportunity and dropped on her knees beside her. " Please, aunt Truth, we can't get the white mosquito-netting because Dr. Winship has the key of the store-house in his pocket, and so may I blow the horn ? " Mrs. Winship gave her consent in despair, and Polly went to the oak-tree where the horn hung and blew all the strength of her lungs into blast after blast for five minutes. " That 's all I needed," she said, on return ing ; " that was an escape - valve, and I shall be lady-like and well behaved the rest of the day." CHAPTER VI. QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. " An hour and friend with friend will meet, Lip cling to lip and hand clasp hand." , Laura/' asked Bell, when quiet was restored, "advise us about Elsie's tent. We want it to be perfectly lovely ; and you have such good taste ! " " Let me think/' said Laura. " Oh, if she were only a brunette instead of a blonde, we could festoon the tent with that yellow tarla tan I brought for the play ! " " What difference does it make whether she is dark or light ? " asked Bell, obtusely. " Why, a room ought to be as becoming as a QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. 165 dress, so Mrs. Pinkerton says. You know I saw a great deal of her at the hotel ; and oh, girls! her bedroom was the most exquisite thing you ever saw ! She had a French toilet- table, covered with pale blue silk and white marquise lace, perfectly lovely, with yards and yards of robin's-egg blue watered ribbon in bows ; and on it she kept all her toilet ar ticles, everything in hammered silver from Tif fany's, with monograms on the back, three or four sizes of brushes, and combs, and mirrors, and a full manicure set. It used to take her two hours to dress ; but it was worth it. Oh, such gorgeous tea-gowns as she had ! One of old rose and lettuce was a perfect dream ! She always had her breakfast in bed, you know. I think it 's delightful to have your breakfast be fore you get up, and dress as slowly as you like. I wish mamma would let me do it." " What does she do after she gets dressed, in her rows of old lettuce I mean her old rows of lettuce ? " asked Polly. "Do? Why really, Polly, you are too stupid. What do you suppose she did ? What everybody else does, of course." " Oh ! " said Polly, apologetically. " How old is Mrs. Pinkerton ? " asked Mar gery. 166 QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. "Between nineteen and twenty. There is not three years' difference in our ages, though she has been married nearly two years. It seems so funny." "Only nineteen!" cried Bell. "Why, I always thought that she was old as the hills, twenty-five or thirty at the very least. She always seemed tired of things." " Well," said Laura, in a whisper intended to be too low to reach Mrs. Winship's tent, " I don't know whether I ought to repeat what was told me in confidence, but the fact is well she does n't like Mr. Pinkerton very well ! " The other girls, who had not enjoyed the advantages of city life and travel, looked as dazed as any scandal-monger could have desired. " Don't like him ! " gasped Polly, nearly fall ing off the stump. " Why, she 's married to him ! " " Where on earth were you brought up ? " snapped Laura. " What difference does that make ? She can't help it if she does n't happen to like her husband, can she ? You can't make yourself like anybody, can you ? " " Well, did she ever like him ? " asked Mar gery ; " for she 's only been married a year or two, and it seems to me it might have lasted that long if there was anything to begin on." QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. 167 " But," whispered Laura, mysteriously, " you see Mr. Pinkerton was very rich and the Den- tons very poor. Mr. Denton had just died, leaving them nothing at all to live on, and poor Jessie would have had to teach school, or some dreadful thing like that. The thought of it almost killed her, she is so sensitive and so re fined. She never told me so in so many words, but I am sure she married Mr. Pinkerton to save her mother from poverty ; and I pity her from the bottom of my heart." "I suppose it was noble," said Bell, in a puzzled tone, "if she couldn't think of any other way, but " " Well, did she try very hard to think of other ways ? " asked Polly. " She never looked especially noble to me. I thought she seemed like a die-away, frizzlygig kind of a girl." " I wish, Miss Oliver, that you would be kind enough to remember that Mrs. Pinkerton is one of my most intimate friends," said Laura, sharply. "And I do wish, also, that you would n't talk loud enough to be heard all through the canon." The color came into Polly's cheeks, but be fore she could answer, Mrs. Winship walked in, stocking-basket in hand, and seated herself in the little wicker rocking-chair. Polly's clarion 168 QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. tones had given her a clue to the subject, and she thought the discussion needed guidance. "You were talking about Mrs. Pinkerton, girls/' she said, serenely. "You say you are fond of her, Laura dear, and it seems very un gracious for me to criticise your friend ; that is a thing which most of us fail to bear patiently. But I cannot let you hold her up as an ideal to be worshiped, or ask the girls to admire as a piece of self-denial what I fear was nothing but indolence and self -gratification. You are too young to talk of these things very much ; but you are not too young to make up your mind that when you agree to live all your life long with a person, you must have some other feel ing than a determination not to teach school. Jessie Denton's mother, my dear Laura, would never have asked the sacrifice of her daughter's whole life ; and Jessie herself would never have made it had she been less vain, proud, and lux urious in her tastes, and a little braver, more self-forgetting and industrious. These are hard words, dear, and I am sorry to use them. She has gained the riches she wanted, the carriages and servants, and tea-gowns, and ham mered silver from Tiffany's, but she looks tired and disappointed, as Bell says ; and I 've no doubt she is, poor girl." QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. 169 "I don't think you do her justice, Mrs. Winship ; I don't, indeed/' said Laura. " If you are really attached to her, Laura, don't make the mistake of admiring her faults of character, but try to find her better qualities, and help her to develop them. It is a fatal thing when girls of your age set up these false standards, and order their lives by them. There are worse things than school-teaching, yes, or even floor-scrubbing or window-washing. Lovely tea-gowns and silver-backed brushes are all very pretty and nice to have, if they are not gained at the sacrifice of something better. I should have said to my daughter, had I been Mrs. Denton, ' We will work for each other, my darling, and try to do whatever God gives us to do ; but, no matter how hard life is, your heart is the most precious thing in the world, and you must never sell that, if we part with everything else.' Oh, my girls, my girls, if I could only make you believe that ' poor and content is rich, and rich enough/ I cannot bear to think of your growing year by year into the conviction that these pretty glittering things of wealth are the true gold of life which everybody seeks. Forgive me, Laura, if I have hurt your feelings." " I know you would never hurt anybody's 170 QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. feelings, if you could help it, Mrs. Winship," Laura answered, with a hint of coldness in her voice, " though I can't help thinking that you are a little hard on poor Jessie ; but, even then, one can surely like a person without wishing to do the very same things she does." "Yes, that is true," said Mrs. Winship, gravely. "But one cannot constantly justify a wrong action in another without having one's own standard unconsciously lowered. What we continually excuse in other people we should be inclined by and by to excuse in our selves. Let us choose our friends as wisely as possible, and love them dearly, helping them to grow worthier of our love at the same time we are trying to grow worthier of theirs ; because 'we live by admiration, hope, and love/ you know, but not by admiring and loving the wrong things. " But there is the horn, and I hear the boys. Let us come to luncheon, and tell our good news of Elsie." With incredible energy. The horn! The horn! The lus - ty, lus - ty horn! 'Tis not a thing to laugh to scorn, A thing to laugh to scorn ! QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. 171 Long before the boys appeared in sight, their voices rang through the canon in a chorus that woke the echoes, and presently they came into view, bearing two quarters and a saddle of freshly killed mutton, hanging from a leafy branch swung between Jack's sturdy shoulder and Geoff's. " A splendid ' still hunt ' this morning, aunt Truth ! " exclaimed Jack. " Game plenty and not too shy, dogs in prime condition, hunters ditto. Behold the result ! " The girls could scarcely tell whether or no Laura was offended at aunt Truth's unexpected little lecture. She did not appear quite as unrestrained as usual, but as everybody was engaged in the preparations for Elsie's wel come there was a general atmosphere of hilar ity and confusion, so that no awkwardness was possible. The tool-shop resounded with blows of ham mer and steel. Dicky was under everybody's feet, and his "seven or ten frogs," together with his unrivaled collection of horned toads, were continually escaping from their tin pails and boxes in the various tents, and everybody was obliged to join in the search to recover and reincarcerate them, in order to keep the peace. 172 QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. Hop Yet was making a gold and silver cake, with " Elsie " in pink letters on chocolate frost ing. Philip had pitched the new tent so that in one corner there was a slender manzanita- tree which had been cropped for some pur pose or other. He had nailed a cross-piece on this, so that it resembled the letter T, and was now laboriously boring holes and fitting in pegs, that Elsie might have a sort of closet behind her bed. As for the rustic furniture, the girls and boys declared it to be too beautiful for words. They stood in circles about it and admired it without reserve, each claiming that his own special piece of work was the gem of the col lection. The sunlight shining through the gray and green tints of the tent was voted perfec tion, Philip's closet a miracle of ingenuity, the green and white straw matting an inspiration. The looking-glass had been mounted on a packing-box, and converted by Laura into a dressing-table that rivaled Mrs. Pinkerton's ; for green tarlatan and white mosquito netting had been so skillfully combined that the tradi tional mermaid might have been glad to make her toilet there " with a comb and a glass in her hand." The rest of the green and white gauzy stuff had been looped from the corners QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. 173 of the tent to the centre of the roof-piece, and delicate tendrils of wild clematis climbed here and there as if it were growing, its roots plunged in cunningly hidden bottles of water. Bell had gone about with pieces of awning cloth and green braid, and stitched an elaborate system of pockets on the inside of the tent wherever they would not be too prominent. There were tiny pockets for needle-work, thim bles, and scissors, medium-sized pockets for soap and combs and brushes, bigger pockets for shoes and slippers and stockings, and mammoth pockets for anything else that Elsie might ordain to put in a pocket. By four o'clock in the afternoon Margery had used her clever fingers to such purpose that a white silesia flag, worked with the camp name, floated from the tip top of the front entrance to the tent. The ceremony of raising the flag was attended with much enthusiasm, and its accomplishment greeted by a deafen ing cheer from the entire party. " Unless one wants Paradise," sighed Mar gery, " who would n't be contented with dear Camp Chaparral?" "Who would live in a house, any way?" ex claimed Philip. " Sniff this air, and look up at that sky ! " 174 QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. " And this is what they call ' roughing it/ in Santa Barbara/' quoth Dr. Winship. " Why, you youngsters have made that tent fit for the occupancy of a society belle." " Now let 's organize for reception ! " cried Geoffrey. " Assemble, good people ! Come over here, aunt Truth ! I will take the chair myself, since I don 't happen to see anybody who would fill it with more dignity." " I am going to mount my broncho and go out on the road to meet my beloved family/' said Jack, sauntering up to the impromptu council chamber. " How can you tell when they will arrive ? " asked Mrs. Winship. " I can make a pretty good guess. They '11 probably start from Tacitas as early as eight or nine o'clock, if Elsie is well. Let 's see : it 's about twenty-five miles, is n't it, uncle Doc ? Say twenty-three to the place where they turn off the main road. Well, I'll take a bit of lunch, ride out ten or twelve miles, hitch my horse in the shade, and wait." "Very well," said Geoffrey. "It is not usual for committees to appoint themselves, but as you are a near relative of our distin guished guests we will grant you special con sideration and order you to the front. Ladies QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. 175 and gentlemen, passing over the slight infor mality of the nomination, all in favor of ap pointing Mr. John Howard Envoy Extraordi nary please manifest it by the usual sign." Six persons yelled " Ay/' four raised the right hand, and one stood up. " There seems to be a slight difference of opinion as to the usual sign. All right. Con trary minded ! " "No!" shouted PoUy, at the top of her lungs. " It is a unanimous vote," said Geoffrey, crushingly, bringing down his fist as an imagi nary gavel with incredible force and dignity. " Dr. and Mrs. Winship, will you oblige the Chair by acting as a special Reception Commit tee?" ' " Certainly," responded the doctor, smilingly. " Will the Chair kindly outline the general pol icy of the committee? " " Hm m m ! Yes, certainly, of course. The Chair suggests that the Reception Com mittee well, that they stay at home and receive the guests, yes, that will do very nicely. All-in-f avor-and - so - forth - it -is-a-vote- and-so-ordered. Secretary will please spread a copy on the minutes." Gavel. " I rise to a point of order," said Jack, sagely. 176 QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. " There is no secretary and there are no min utes." " Mere form/' said the Chair, " sit down ; there will be minutes in a minute, got to do some more things first ; that will do, sit down. Will the Misses Burton and Messrs. Burton and Noble kindly act as Committee on Decora tion?" " Where 's the Committee on Music, and Re freshments, and Olympian Games, and all that sort of thing ? " interrupted Polly, who had not the slightest conception of parliamentary eti quette ; " and why don't you hurry up and put me on something ? " " If Miss Oliver refuses to bridle her tongue, and persists in interrupting the business of the meeting, the Chair will be obliged to remove her," said Geoffrey, with chilling emphasis. Polly rose again, undaunted. " I would re spectfully ask the Chair, who put him in the chair, any way ? " " Question ! " roared Philip. " Second the motion ! " shrieked Bell, that being the only parliamentary expression she knew. " Order ! " cried Geoffrey in stentorian ac cents. " I will adjorirn the meeting and clear the court-room unless there is order." QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. 177 " Do ! " remarked Polly, encouragingly. " I will rise again, like Phoebus, from my ashes, to say that " Here Jack sprang to his feet. " I would suggest to the Chair that the last speaker amend her motion by substituting the word 6 Phoenix ' for < Phoebus/ " " Accept the amendment/' said Polly se renely, amidst the general hilarity. " Question ! " called Bell, with another mighty projection of memory into a missionary meeting that she had once attended. "I am not aware that there is any motion before the house/' said Geoffrey, cuttingly. " Second the motion ! " " Second the amendment ! " shouted the girls. " Ladies, there is no motion. Will you oblige the Chair by remaining quiet until speech is requested ? " " Move that the meeting be adjourned and another one called, with a new Chair ! " re marked Margery, who felt that the honor of her sex was at stake. " Move that this motion be so ordered and spread upon the minutes, and a copy of it be presented to the Chairman/' suggested Philip. " Move that the copy be appropriately bound in calf" said Jack, dodging an imaginary blow. 178 QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT. " Move that the other committees be elected by ballot/' concluded Scott Burton. " This is simply disgraceful ! " exclaimed the Chair. " Order ! order ! I appoint Miss Oliver Committee on Entertainment, with a view of keeping her still." This was received with particular as well as general satisfaction. "Miss Winship, we appoint you Committee on Music." " AU right. Do you wish it to be orig- inal?" " Certainly not ; we wish it to be good." " But we only know one chorus, and that 's