A Summer in a Canyon | Page 4

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 quarrelling, 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 isn'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.
'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 various 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 express 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 illustrate 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 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 stockin', on
chap- lal; all same clo'se-line velly good. Miss Bell she folic, 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, ungracious
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
mischievous 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 operation.
He was alone, and very, very happy.
And now I must tell you the way in which all this began. You may not
realise it, dear young folks, but this method of telling a story is very

much the fashion with grown-up people, and of course I am not to
blame, since I didn'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
happen 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 doesn'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 certain little California town stood,
and still stands for aught I know, a pretty brown cottage, with its
verandahs covered with passion-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.