“I BELIEVE this summer at Halcyon’s going to beat the one I spent in France!” Helen Westover made this assertion, as, ringed about a flat rock, the campers were beginning a beach-tea at Fairy Cove, where a bight of silver sand held in its embrace an emerald bay. “Just think of the short time we’ve been here, and all the fun we’ve squeezed into it!” she continued, “boating, and bathing and tramps and picnics, a jolly fishing excursion yesterday, and a beach-tea this evening!”
“Don’t forget the straw-ride by moonlight,” said Marion Gaylord.
“Nor the Glorious Fourth, and the fireworks at Hurricane,” added Carol, who was busy stirring cocoa in the billy.
“I’m so rushed having a good time, I hardly get a chance to look at my letters,” said Nancy, pulling an unopened envelope from her belt. “I’ll read this one after tea,—it isn’t polite to read at table.”
“Here comes the scrambled egg!—Hold out your plates,” said Grace Gardner, advancing, chafing-dish in hand. She and Winifred Russell were the chefs on this occasion.
Tin plates were held up for their doles of scrambled egg, and tin cups to receive the steaming cocoa. Cecily and Betty served the lettuce sandwiches, and Jean and Frances the jumbles; and a delightful supper party went on while the sun sank low.
“Now, Nancy, read your letter,” said Mrs. Brook, when the last jumble had disappeared.
“I’ll dish-wash for both of us, Nan,” said Carol. She gathered up Nancy’s plate, cup and spoon, together with her own, and carried them down to a convenient spot by the water’s edge, where she was joined by the rest of the dish-washing squad.
Nancy opened her letter. “Girls, listen to this,” said she to Helen and Marion, who with Jean were employed near the rock-table, collecting egg-shells and Japanese doilies. “Here’s my deaconess aunt at me again to try to make me good! I know she’s worried about me, because she thinks I’m going to be a giddy butterfly all my life! Now, Motherling,” she added, turning to Mrs. Brook, “you’ll have to tell me how to answer this.” And she read:
My dearest Nancy,
You were a good girl to write to your auntie and send her such a vivid description of the happy life at Halcyon. Of course it set me to thinking how I could make use of my niece. Now, Nan, please look about and see if you cannot find a kind, motherly woman, who would take a little girl of six to board for the summer. She is a little Irish child. Her name is Nanno Donohoe, and I must tell you how she comes to be a protégée of mine.
The first time I saw her she was fighting with a small Italian boy, who had taken away her stick of candy. He was a year or two older than she, but Nanno was having the best of it when I separated them. I calmed the baby fury, and was rewarded by a most cherubic smile; and the next time I came that way Nanno flew to meet me. Poor little mite! She has a wretched home, and a worthless, intemperate father; and her life is spent on the streets, where she roams at her own sweet will. I am most anxious to take the child out of her miserable surroundings for the summer. She needs to be with some kind-hearted woman who could give her a mother’s care; and if such a person is to be found at Halcyon, I will bring Nanno up there myself, for I start next Monday for Lake Placid, where I am to spend part of my vacation. I am hungry to see you again, Nan dear, and I am sure that if you see my little Nanno she will win your heart. I am going to ask you to help me, next winter, by interesting yourself in her.
I must say good-by, now, and go out on my round of visits. But you will let me hear from you early, will you not?
Your loving aunt,
Mary Newcomb.
“No, Auntie, dearest, I will not do charity work next winter! I’ll be entirely too busy coming out!” Nancy protested. “But I’ll try to hunt up a kind, motherly somebody. Do you know of such an article, Mrs. Brook?”
“Poor little Nanno! I wish I did!” said the camp-mother. “But you see there are so few farms around here, and I know there’s no good place for her in the village. Mrs. Penfield is the only person I can think of whom I would trust to take proper care of the child,—and she has her hands full with her own big family and her invalid mother. But we won’t give up hope. I shall make every inquiry.”
“I should hate to tell Auntie I’m no good, as usual,” said Nancy. “Oh, dear, if there ever was a lazy, selfish, good-for-nothing little brute, it’s Nancy Newcomb!”
Jean had stopped clearing the premises to listen to the letter. “Why can’t we have her here with us?” she asked impetuously.
“Oh, Jean, don’t crowd any more of us on poor Mrs. Brook!” said Nancy.
“Jean, dear,” said Mrs. Brook, “if I were alone here with Cecily, I would take the child myself gladly. But, you see, I have twenty daughters to look after. I shouldn’t have a minute left for the care of Nanno!”
“But I could take care of her!” said Jean.
“You, liebchen!” Fräulein exclaimed. “I tink all de care vould come on me. I should haff to keep your baby and you, too, from falling into de lake!” She laughed and patted Jean’s hand.
Jean colored and said no more. Presently she strolled off along the beach, deep in thought. When she returned, the dish-washing was over, and the girls had drawn up in a circle for games and songs.
“Dreamy Queenie, what is it,—a new poem?” asked Carol, as the lone wanderer threw herself down on the sand, with her head in her Big Sister’s lap. But Jean did not care to discuss her thoughts before so large an audience.
A merry hour was passed, while the sun went down and twilight fell; and when the evening star shone forth the boats were launched and the campers glided back in the gloaming.
That night, as they were preparing for bed, Jean opened her heart to her tent-mates about Nanno Donohoe. “Now, girls,” she said, “I have a perfectly fine plan! I’ve been wild to tell you all the evening! Let’s adopt Nanno as the Silver Sword baby, and have her come here, and take care of her all summer! She can sleep right here in our tent,—there’s plenty of room for an extra cot. And we’ll do everything for her ourselves, so your mother won’t have any bother at all, Cece.”
“Let’s do it!” cried Frances. “It’ll be lots of fun!”
“Oh, no! She’d be always tagging,” Betty objected, wrinkling up her nose in distaste. “And we couldn’t possibly make her mind. I tried to manage my little cousin, once, and that was enough, thank you!”
“But all four of us together,” began Jean.
“My, dear, we couldn’t do it!” Betty declared. “What do we know about bringing up children? Why we’re not much more than children ourselves!”
Cecily looked doubtful. “It would be ever so nice if we could do such a thing,” said she. “I love little tots! But I know just how it would end. Mother’d simply take all the care herself. She wouldn’t trust us to manage right, and she’d worry for fear we were losing our vacation, and she’d insist on doing it all, and it would tire her out!”
“But we wouldn’t let her, Cecily,” cried Jean. “We’d insist on doing it all. We wouldn’t let her tire herself one bit!”
“We couldn’t help ourselves,—she’d do it just the same,” said Cecily positively. “You don’t know Mammykins as I do.”
The argument lasted till they were in bed, but neither could sympathy be awakened in Betty, nor could Cecily, already beginning to share her mother’s household cares, be brought around to her queen’s point of view.
“We could do it perfectly well, without your mother having any bother at all, if you and Betty had any gumption!” was Jean’s last remark as, much disappointed, she settled herself to sleep. “I’m going to talk about it to Carol in the morning, anyway,” she thought, refusing to give up all hope of carrying out her cherished project.
But next day, before Jean found a chance to consult her, Carol, with several other girls, drove off to Crystal Lake Junction to get some necessary materials for the forest festival. After the swimming hour, Jean caught Frances making up her favorite “apple-pie beds” for her tent-mates, and chased the Mouse out of doors and into the woods. There the two climbed into a tree where Douglas had set up perches.
“I don’t care!” said Jean, as they rested among the green boughs. “I think it’s too mean of Cece and Betty not to be willing to have that poor little Nanno!”
“I think so too,” agreed Frances, drawing a cookie from the front of her sailor blouse.
“She must be so dear,—just six!” Jean went on. “We could take care of her perfectly well. I could do it all myself,—I know I could. I don’t care what Fräulein says! I’m going to talk it up with Carol. I’ll tell her I’ll take all the care if she’ll help get her up here, and I’m sure she will—she’s so fond of children.”
“You don’t need Carol. I’ll help you,” said Frances.
“Oh, will you, Miss Apple-pie Beds!”
“Why, of course I will. You needn’t think you’re the only one that wants to do good, Giraffe! I belong to the Silver Sword just as much as you do! And I’m going to give up my life to good works. I’ve always done bad works before, but I’m going to change!” said Frances solemnly.
“Oh, yes! Much you’ll change!” laughed Jean. Frances nibbled the edge of her cookie with her front teeth, trimming off the circumference neatly, and her face had a new expression—one of serious intent. Suddenly her black eyes danced.
“Oh, Jean!” she cried. “I have a dandy idea! Let’s club together, just you and me, and write to Nancy’s aunt to send Nanno up! We’ll pay for it all, and adopt her between us.”
Jean was suspicious as to the extent of her maid-of-honor’s earnestness, but she needed a helper; and to persuade Frances to do any Silver Sword work at all would be in itself an achievement.
“Frisk, we can! Let’s do it!” she said. “I know you just want to for a lark, but I’m in dead earnest!”
“So am I,” said the Mouse gravely.
“Well, if you’ll club together with me, we can do it as easy as anything,” said Jean. “We can manage her perfectly, if you’ll behave yourself.”
“Look here,” said Frances. “We must keep it a dead secret till we have her here, and then we’ll spring her on the crowd!”
“We mustn’t do anything of the kind. We’d get ourselves into an awful scrape! We’ll have to ask permission, of course. I’m going to speak to Mrs. Brook about it as soon as she gets back from the Hamiltons’. Now let’s count up and see if we have money enough. I have four dollars, and I get five more the first of August.”
“I’ve spent all my allowance,” said Frances. “But I have the money for my fare home again. I’ll use that. They’ll have to send me some more then,—they can’t leave me up here all winter!”
“Then I’ll have another five in September,” said Jean. “Why, Frisk, we’ll have a bouncing fund! Now let’s get the letter written. I’ll get some paper and a pen, and we can do it all up right here!” Jean lowered herself to the ground, and when she re-climbed the tree Carol’s fountain pen was in her hair, and a pad of note-paper between her teeth.
“I don’t believe she’ll mind pad paper, do you?” said she. “It was all I could find. I’m sure deaconesses don’t care about silly little things like that.”
“No, she’d rather have it plain,” said Frances. “You’ll have to write it,—you’re an author!”
“Oh, dear! How do I begin?” sighed Jean. “I don’t know whether you ought to say, ‘Dear Deaconess,’ or ‘Dear Miss Newcomb,’ or ‘Dear Sister Mary.’ Aren’t deaconesses Sisters?”
“You ought to say, ‘Right Reverend,’” said Frances.
“You say ‘Right Reverend’ to bishops, goose!” laughed Jean.
“I never spoke to a bishop,” said the Mouse.
“Well, I’ll say, ‘Dear Deaconess.’ Here goes!” and Jean wrote it down. “Um-m! What now? We ought to tell her who we are, oughtn’t we?”
“Say ‘We are a Mouse and a Giraffe,’” said Frances. Jean shrieked, then groaned. “Oh, pshaw! The old pen’s leaked all over my fingers! Now, Frisk, behave yourself! This is serious. If we don’t express it right, she’ll think we’re babies, and she won’t trust us.”
Jean frowned over her page, but was soon ready with—
My dear Deaconess,
We are two of the girls of Mrs. Brook’s camp. We are very sorry for poor little Nanno Donohoe. We wish to have her come here, and we will keep her all summer. We will take all the care of her and pay her expenses, and I, Jean, will be responsible for her.
“Say, ‘And I, Frances, will make her my heir,’” said the Mouse.
“I won’t!”
“I’ll put it in myself, then!”
“You sha’n’t! Let go of the pen! Oh, now, look! You made me blot it. Now don’t cut up, but think! Let me see,—‘We send ten dollars for her fare up.’”
“No, child! That isn’t business-y a bit! Say, ‘Enclosed please find.’”
“That isn’t bad,” Jean assented, and she wrote:
Enclosed please find ten dollars for her fare up. Please be sure to let her come, for we promise to do our very best to take good care of her.
“How shall I finish it up? ‘Yours sincerely?’ That doesn’t sound right to a deaconess. I’ll say, ‘Respectfully yours.’”
“No, say, ‘Your obedient servants,’” Frances advised.
“No, ma’am! Stop making fun of everything, will you! There! Sign your name, and don’t write ‘Frisky Mouse.’”
“I will.” But instead, the Mouse discreetly added, ‘Frances E. Browne’ to the ‘Jean Lennox.’
“Now for the address,” said Jean. “I saw the letter from the deaconess on Nan’s bed when I went for the pen, and the address was stamped on it.” They went down together to examine the envelope, and Jean directed her own, refusing to put ‘Rev.’ before ‘Deaconess Newcomb,’ as Frances insisted was correct. They set aside the ten dollars for Nanno’s travelling expenses; then, leaving the letter on Jean’s pincushion, they strolled out, talking over their plan.
“There’s Motherling now, and Rose Hamilton. I wonder what Rose has got in that big basket,” said Jean.
“Here’s my contribution to the festival,” called Rose. Jean ran to meet her, and together they went into the bungalow to unpack the basket. Frances, meanwhile, returned to her tent. Half an hour later Jean came out and found Frances swinging in the hammock.
“Frisk,” she said, “Let’s ask Motherling right away.”
“No use speaking now, because I’ve sent it!” replied Frances.
“Sent the letter! Frances Browne! What do you mean?”
“Yes’m, I’ve sent it,” said the Mouse. “The grocer’s boy was here just now, so I put in the ten dollars and gave it to him to mail. We can’t get it back now—he was going right down to the village.”
“Frisky,—you sinner!”
“We’d have been stopped off if I’d waited for you to tell,” said Frances calmly. “I corrected the address—I put in the ‘Rev.’”
“Oh, Frances! You’ve spoiled it all! She’ll think we’re idiots!”
For a moment Jean stared in dismay at her colleague in good works; then she dropped down on the grass in a spasm of hysterical laughter. “I don’t care! I’m glad it’s gone!” she declared. “They can’t have the heart to stop her, now she’s invited!” Suddenly she grew serious. “We’ll have a nice time, now, owning up, Miss Mouse!”
“If we have any sense we won’t own up till she gets here,” the diplomatic Mouse responded.
“If we have any sense we’ll own up right straight off!” said Jean. “We must tell.”
“Oh, priggy! you make me sick and tired!” said Frances. “We’re in the scrape, and for pity’s sake let’s get a little fun out of it! I’m not going to tell, anyway; and if you go and say I mailed the letter, you’ll be mean!”
“I won’t say you mailed it. I’ll leave you to speak for yourself, if you’re not too much of a ’fraid-cat! I’ll say the letter got mailed, and I’ll refuse to tell how.”
“Well, don’t you suppose, if you go and say that, they’ll guess who mailed it? They’ll know a goody-goody like you wouldn’t do it.”
“This isn’t goody-goody, child,—it’s common sense!” said Jean.
“Well, Nanno won’t get here, then—that’s all there is about it!” declared Frances, anxious to delay the hour of retribution. “Wait till she gets here, and then here she is, and they can’t pack her off home again!”
“They’ll pack us off, then!” said Jean. “I can’t help it if they do stop her from coming,—it would be downright sneaky not to tell.”
“Oh, priggetty-prig!” grumbled Frances, but her sovereign was armed with the golden shield of Veritas, and there was no altering the royal decree.
As Jean was turning away toward the bungalow the carriage drove up, bringing home the party of shoppers. Carol alighted, to find Jean with a knitted brow.
“What’s happened to you, Queenie?” she asked. “You look as if the cares of state were too much for you!”
“Carolie, I’m in an awful scrape,” whispered Jean. She drew Carol to a safe nook under the trees, and her confession, ending with “and the letter got mailed,” sent her friend off into a peal of laughter.
“Go ahead, Queen of the Silver Sword!” cried Carol. “You’re doing nobly! There won’t be a corner of the world left to better, pretty soon, if you keep on at this glorious rate! Bring on your orphan asylum, and put me in as assistant matron! There’s the person that mailed the letter!” she added, pointing to Frances, who was peeping around a tree.
“I couldn’t think of anything but saving that poor neglected child!” said Frances solemnly.
“You couldn’t think of anything but scala-waggery!” Carol retorted. “Well, you’re in a pretty pickle, you two, but I’ll do my best to help you out of it. Come along and throw yourselves on the Motherling’s mercy!” She escorted the culprits up to the bungalow veranda, where their summer sisters and the camp-mother were awaiting the call to dinner.
“Motherling, we have a confession to make,” said Carol.
“The Queen of the Silver Sword wrote a letter,
All on a summer’s day.
The knave of the Silver Sword stole that letter,
And sent it far away!
“Out with it, your majesty!”
Then Jean and Frances made a joint confession.
“Oh, you monkeys!” exclaimed Nancy, laughing till the tears rolled down her cheeks. But Mrs. Brook looked grave. “My dear children,” she said, “didn’t you know you should have spoken to me before you even wrote the letter? Frances, it was a great breach of good manners to send off an invitation, asking a guest to my house, without my permission!”
Jean turned scarlet, and Frances gazed meekly at her shoes.
“Well, what’s to be done about it?” asked Carol.
“It would be too bad to disappoint Miss Newcomb now,” said Mrs. Brook. “But if Nanno comes, Jean and Frances must take care of her as they promised.”
“Of course! That’s what I meant to do,” said Jean gratefully. “You won’t have one bit of trouble.”
“Oh, my reverend aunt, won’t she be ecstatic!” cried Nancy. “She’ll dance a horn-pipe and say ‘that sweet Frances and Jean are cut out for deaconesses!’”
The camp-mother looked at the group of laughing girls. “All the rest of my daughters will be ready to welcome the little one, will they not?” she asked.
“We’d be a pack of selfish old maids if we weren’t!” said Carol. “It’ll be jolly to have a little tottie like that to cuddle! Let’s have her for our mascot! And let’s organize ourselves into a regiment of nursery maids and help along. I trust Francie-Prancie not to wear herself out over her maternal cares, but I’m afraid Queenie’ll work off the one pound she’s gained. Come now,—all in favor of the Camp Baby—!” Before she could finish the formula seventeen merry voices came out with a unanimous “Ay!”