CHAPTER XIV.

THE WEEK-ENDERS.

"If the weather only holds!" exclaimed Douglas. "This first week-end is the most important of all. If the boarders have a good time they will want to come back, and then they will give us such a good name that others will want to come, too."

"People who can't rise above mere weather should be taught a lesson,"

declared Helen.

"Nonsense, child!" from Miss Somerville. "Weather is something no one can rise above. A week of rain in these mountains would make all of us ready to kill each other and then commit suicide."

"I hope we won't be put to the test," said Nan.

"I should hope not! 'Continual dripping on a rainy day' is a proverbial evil. I hope some bridge players will be numbered among the guests. I am hungry for a game."

"Why, Cousin Lizzie, you know we don't mind playing a bit," said Helen.

"Why don't you ask us whenever you want to?"

"Don't mind playing? Bless you, child! Who wants to play with people who play because they 'don't mind playing'? I can see that game now! 'What's trumps?' 'Whose play is it?' 'I thought I had played!' 'I must have reniged as I find I have a heart, after all.' No, no! When I play cards, I want the game made up of devotees. How would you like a partner in the dance who danced merely out of good-nature and kept forgetting whether he was dancing the schottische or mazurka?"

As no one had danced either of those obsolete dances for at least thirty years, the girls could not help a few sly smiles.

How rapidly that first week had flown! They had settled now into regular camp life, even Miss Somerville. She had secretly decided that Nature was not half bad and had once found herself admiring a sunset. She had kept her admiration to herself, however, for fear some over-zealous person might make her get up and see a sunrise.

Oscar and Susan, with Gwen doing the head work, had managed the cooking beautifully for the few people they had to serve. It remained to be seen how things would go when the boarders poured in for the week-end.

Pour in they did, six more than the girls had prepared for; but Lewis and Bill with their ready inventions made beds for the boys of spruce boughs, and immediately put in an order for more cots and an extra tent.

There were two careful mammas who had come along to look after their daughters and an old bachelor who had a niece in tow; so Cousin Lizzie made up her table of bridge and every one was happy, especially the daughters of the careful mammas and the niece who was in tow. If one must be chaperoned, it is certainly pleasant to have the chaperone interested in something besides chaperoning.

The Mountain Goat made three round trips to the station to meet pa.s.sengers on the afternoon train on that first Friday, and other enthusiastic campers walked up the mountain. Josephus was very busy with a cart full of bags and bundles. One of the stipulations that the girls had made in their advertis.e.m.e.nts was that every one must bring his or her own blankets. This was at the instigation of Dr. Wright, who said it would be very difficult to furnish blankets enough; and also for sanitary reasons he knew it to be wise. Sheets are easy to have washed, but blankets are not so simple a proposition.

The twenty week-enders were all young with the exception of the two careful mammas, the old bachelor with the niece in tow, and two stiff-backed spinsters who must have had some good reason of their own for coming to camp in the mountains but they did not give it. They looked very grim and uncompromising as they sat on the back seat of the Goat with a plump and pleasing little stenographer, who was to take her much-needed holiday at the camp, wedged in between them.

"They must be geologists," whispered Douglas to Lewis. Douglas and Lucy had gone to the station to meet the newcomers, while Helen and Nan were to receive them at camp. "One of them had a little hammer sticking out of her pocket."

"Well, let's hope they will keep their hammers for rocks and not knock the camp with them."

"Do you know, I did an awfully foolish thing? I put Tillie Wingo on the front seat with Bill and forgot to introduce them. Helen would never have done such a tactless thing."

"Well, a small thing like an introduction here or there won't stop Tillie. I bet she talks poor Bill blue in the face," laughed Lewis.

So she did. Miss Hill, the pleasant stenographer, told Helen that not for one moment did Tillie stop talking on that zig-zag ride up the mountain. She poured forth a stream of delightful high-pitched nothings into Bill's crimson ear. Bill, as was his habit, said nothing, and, like the tar baby, kept on saying nothing. She had his ear; his eye must perforce remain on the perilous road; his tongue was his to hold, and he held it. Once he let forth a great laugh which had the effect of shutting Tillie up for almost thirty seconds; but it was not time to go to sleep yet and Tillie was accustomed to talk until she went to sleep and sometimes even afterwards.

"A week-end camp is a most original idea and every one in Richmond is simply wild about it. You see, the Carters are very popular and if they decide to do something, lots of people will want to be doing it, too.

Helen Carter is considered the best dressed girl in Richmond, not that she dresses more than any of the other girls but she has such good taste. All of us girls are wild about her clothes. I adore camping! I'd join the Camp-Fire but somehow khaki is not becoming to me. Do you know, I do not think that muddy tan is becoming to decided blondes--not that I am such a very decided blonde. I know lots of girls who wear it who are not near so highly colored as I am--but somehow I think tan takes all the life out of a blonde. Of course, one can wear white up close to the face, but even then the tan kind of ruins a blonde complexion. I prefer blue and pink and lavender and green and, of course, yellow, and I think grey is just sweet for a blonde. I am wild for a black dress but my mother is so old-fashioned she thinks no one under thirty should wear black unless, of course, there happens to be a death in the family.

Under those circ.u.mstances, I fancy she would let me wear black. I would not wear heavy mourning but just some diaphanous, gauzy thing with tulle--although I do think that organdy collars and cuffs set one off terrifically well. I think I would make a splendid widow--don't you?"

It was here that Bill gave his great guffaw, but it was also at a particularly ticklish place in the road, so he could not look at his blonde pa.s.senger.

Tillie stopped for the aforesaid thirty seconds and then decided that the dumb young man running the car was a common chauffeur and perhaps she had better change her form of conversation to one not suggesting equality. It never entered her head to stop talking.

"Richmond is just running over with jitneys now. They make such a dust you can't see whether they are coming or going. Did you ever run a jitney? They say there is lots of money in them. I should think you would do better doing that than doing this--of course, though, you know best, and perhaps you get your board thrown in up here. Mamma said she knew that the Carter girls would not know how to feed people because they have always led such soft lives, but I said I was coming, anyhow.

I am dying to fall off. I really should have walked up the mountain instead of riding as that would be a good way to start, but I had on my best shoes and I knew it would ruin them. Douglas Carter wrote me to be sure and bring a blanket, but I simply could not get one in my grip and I said I would sleep cold before I would be seen carrying a great old blanket over my arm like lots of these people. It was horribly hot in Richmond and I did not think it could be cold coming just this little way. I think it is so brave and n.o.ble for the Carter girls to try to help their father this way. They do say he is dippy and was quite wild-eyed. I have a friend who was on the sleeper with Mr. and Mrs.

Carter when they went to New York, and he says they shut themselves up in the drawing room and acted awful queer. He didn't say just how, but it must have been something fierce. What is this funny looking place?

Is this the camp? My, ain't it odd? I am very much obliged to you for bringing me up. Please look after my suitcase for me--it is the large one, really a small trunk, but I had no idea of mashing my new pink into a pulp just for the sake of reducing my luggage. Here, this is for you--and please get my baggage," and Tillie handed the astonished Bill a quarter.

"Didn't know what to say, so I just took it," Bill told Lewis afterward.

"First money I've earned since I was a kid and picked blackberries for Grandmother to jam, at five cents a quart. Dog, if I would not rather pick the berries, briars and all! I felt like hollering to somebody to throw something over the cage, that the canary was making such a fuss I couldn't think."

Josh, too, was the victim of tips but he indignantly returned the money that was proffered him with this remark:

"We uns ain't beholden to n.o.body, but is employed regular by Mr.

Somerville, we uns and Josephus."

That is often the spirit of the mountaineer. He will sell anything but cannot stomach a tip.

Helen and Nan received the guests as they piled out of the Mountain Goat or came up the winding road on foot. It was a very exciting moment for our girls. This was really the beginning of their great adventure. Were they to succeed or not? The week-enders were there, for once at least, but could these girls make it so agreeable that they would want to come back?

"Do look at Tillie Wingo, Nan! Did you ever see such a goose? She has on ten dollar champagne shoes and a blue Georgette crepe that would melt in a mist!"

"Yes, she is some goose, but she will pay us just as sensible board as anybody else, so we must not be too critical," and Nan went forward to meet the pretty blonde Tillie and the stiff-backed spinsters and the pleasant Miss Hill, and Helen smothered her indignation at Tillie's bad taste in being so unsuitably dressed for camping and did her best to make it pleasant for her, Georgette crepe, champagne shoes and all.

There was much enthusiasm from the new arrivals as they inspected the camp. Every one went into ecstasies over the view and the arrangements.

Miss Somerville awaited them in the pavilion, where she stood as at a reception, receiving the guests with great formality.

"These young persons must understand fully that I am the chaperone, and I think a dignified reception of them will be conducive to good behavior on their part," she had said to Helen as she dressed herself in a black silk afternoon gown and arranged her beautiful white hair in its shining puffs.

At Gwen's instigation, afternoon tea was served as soon as the formal reception was over--tea for those so inclined and grape-juice-lemonade for the more frivolous.

A card table was unfolded for Miss Somerville, the two anxious mothers and the old bachelor with a niece in tow.

"Quite like the springs," whispered Cousin Lizzie to Helen, as she got brand new packs of cards for the opening game of the season.

Our girls had thought they would have to be quite busy entertaining the week-enders, but they found to their delight that they could entertain themselves. There were more than enough of the male element to go around and in an incredibly short time they had sorted themselves to their mutual satisfaction and were either dancing to the latest record, which Tillie Wingo had put in her bursting semi-trunk, in lieu of a blanket, or were roaming over the mountain side.

Lil Tate, Lucy's boon companion and school-mate, had come and the two girls had gone off arm in arm, while Frank Maury, a callow youth of fifteen, walked shyly after them, hoping they would take him in their train and fearing every moment that they might. His hopes and fears were both realized and by supper time the three were sworn allies; Frank had determined to come up the next week and bring Skeeter, his chum, and Lil had declared she was going to make her mother let her spend the whole summer with Lucy.

"Mamma's an awful 'fraid cat about me and just would come along. Thank goodness, she and Miss Somerville have got cards to occupy 'em and she has forgotten there isn't but one of me," laughed Lil, who was a sprightly little brunette. "I wisht I had been born triplets and then she wouldn't have to be so particular."

"Gee, I'm glad I ain't a girl--but I like girls a lot--" stammered Frank. "Skeeter and I think they are just great," and so they chattered on.

Bobby was not so happy. His friend Josh was too busy with Josephus and the luggage to have him around, and no boon companion had arrived for him. He had been made to wash and dress, which, he considered, was a great breach of faith on the part of his sisters. He had it firmly placed in his memory that he had been promised by some one that when he got to the mountains he would never have to wash and dress. He sat with a very disconsolate mien in a corner of the pavilion, watching Tillie's pretty little feet in their champagne shoes twirling round and around, every few moments with another pair of masculine shoes accompanying them, as Tillie was never long without a flock of the opposite s.e.x in her wake. She could hardly get around the pavilion before the dance was broken into by some eager swain. She was noted as being able to dance down more partners than any girl in Richmond, and it was slyly hinted that she was so long-winded because of her never ceasing practice in conversation.

Bobby looked gloomily at the twinkling feet. They were too clean for him, those champagne-colored shoes. His own feet were disgustingly clean, too. Maybe he could rectify that with a judicious sprinkling of grape juice and then some clay sifted over them. He would try! Just then the stiff-backed spinsters, who turned out to be educators off on a botanical and geological spree, bore down on him and seating themselves on each side of him began:

"Little boy, are you enjoying your stay in the mountains?"

"Naw!"