The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas | Page 7

splendid," cried Margery. "Won't that be great, girls? But," she added, her face sobering, "I do not think my father and mother would permit me to go."
"I am quite sure that mine would not," agreed Hazel solemnly.
"I gueth Mith Elting hath theen to that," spoke up Tommy, her eyes narrowing.
"You have made a close guess, Grace. They have agreed, all except in your case. Your mother wishes to talk the matter over with you and your father before making a final decision."
"Then it ith all right," nodded Tommy confidently. "I'll make them let me go anyway and--ith Harriet going?"
"Yes. I hope so."
"Doeth thhe know about it!"
"I have not spoken to Harriet about it. I had hoped to do so out here to-day. That is why I proposed just now that we return to the village. We shall have a chance to talk it over on the way back, when I will tell you more about the proposed vacation."
"You thay my folkth know about it, Mith Elting?"
"Yes, dear."
"What did they thay?"
"That they thought you had better go to Narragansett with them, but that if you insisted, they supposed you would have to go to the summer camp with us," admitted the teacher with a tolerant smile.
Tommy twisted her face into a grimace.
"My folkth know what ith good for them," averred the little blonde girl.
"I am afraid, my dear, that you do not fully know what is good for yourself," declared the teacher reprovingly. "You will have to obey the rules when you get to camp, and they are quite strict. There are so many girls there, that rather strict regulations have to be enforced. Every girl is expected to live up to them. Failing to do so she undoubtedly would be sent home."
"If they catch her," answered Tommy wisely. "You thay that Harriet doethn't know about thith?"
"Not yet, Grace."
The girl reflected for a moment. They had started slowly toward the village. All at once Tommy started down the road at top speed.
"Grace, Grace!" called Miss Elting.
"She's gone to tell Harriet what you have said," declared Margery.
A shade of annoyance passed over Miss Elting's face, quickly giving place to an amused smile as she watched the light-footed Tommy speeding down the road. Tommy whisked herself out of their sight in no time.
"Let us hurry on," urged the teacher. "Grace is sure to confuse the story if she tries to tell it. Mrs. Burrell wished me to tell Harriet of the camping trip that is before her."
The girls nodded their approval of the suggestion. Margery held her head a little higher than usual. She wanted to impress upon Miss Elting the fact that she was too dignified to do what Tommy had just done.
In the meantime Grace had continued her wild flight to the door of the Burrell home into which she burst like a miniature cyclone. Her face was flushed and her eyes sparkled. Her white dress was crumpled and stained from sprawling on the hillside and falling out of the road into the wayside ditch.
"Oh, Harriet! Harriet!" she gasped, flinging herself into the room where Harriet Burrell and her mother sat sewing on one of Harriet's dresses which, though the young woman did not know it, was intended for her to wear during the coming vacation in camp.
Harriet sprang up and ran to the excited Tommy, believing that something terrible had occurred.
"Tommy, Tommy! What is it?" she cried.
"The greatetht thing you ever heard. Oh, I won't tell you. It ith too good. Gueth what? Gueth!" chuckled Grace.
"I am afraid I cannot," laughed Harriet, now discovering that nothing was amiss with Grace. "I am not a good guesser, but I do guess that you are very much excited."
"You're going, too," interrupted Grace. "We're all going, and we're all going to live in----"
"Sit down, Tommy and calm yourself. You are so excited that I can't understand anything from your jumble of words," admonished Harriet, laying a firm hand on the arm of her friend and pushing Grace into a chair.
"I don't want to thit down," objected Tommy bobbing up again. "I want to talk, then I want to danthe. Oh, I'm tho happy. But I'm a thight," she added, glancing down at her gown.
"I agree with you," answered Harriet, smilingly. "Do sit down and compose yourself. Where are the girls? Are they as flustrated as you are?"
"Yeth, and they're going, too. They're coming here with Mith Elting. They're coming from over there." Harriet smiled as Grace waved an excited hand toward the west, the direction in which the hill lay.
"Tell me about it. I am growing curious. Where is it we are going?"
Tommy bobbed up from her chair and began dancing about the room.
"Oh, ever and ever tho far."
By this time Mrs. Burrell began to understand. She realized that the cat was about