A Summer in a Canyon | Page 3

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This etext was produced from the 1914 Gay and Hancock, Ltd. edition by David Price, email [email protected]

A SUMMER IN A CANYON: A CALIFORNIA STORY
by Kate Douglas Wiggin

SCENE: A Camping Ground in the Canyon 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 Canyon, 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 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 redwood 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 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