The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

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The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas, by Janet

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Title: The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas
Author: Janet Aldridge
Release Date: February 3, 2005 [eBook #14889]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS UNDER CANVAS
Or, Fun and Frolic in the Summer Camp
by
JANET ALDRIDGE
Author of The Meadow-Brook Girls Across Country, The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat, etc.
Illustrated
Philadelphia Henry Altemus Company
1913

[Illustration: "I go, I thtay!" (Frontispiece.)]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
CRAZY JANE'S WILD DRIVE
II. WHAT HAPPENED TO TOMMY
III. THE TRAIL TO CAMP WAU-WAU
IV. IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST
V. THEIR TROUBLES MULTIPLY
VI. TAKING THEIR FIRST DEGREE
VII. TOMMY HAS A NIGHTMARE
VIII. A DAY WITH AN EXCITING FINISH
IX. SOUNDING THE GENERAL ALARM
X. AROUND THE COUNCIL FIRE
XI. TRIED BY THE FLAMES
XII. HARRIET TURNS THE TABLES
XIII. THE CAMP GETS A SURPRISE
XIV. CRAZY JANE IS INTRODUCED
XV. THE GHOST OF WAU-WAU
XVI. THE LAYING OF A SPOOK
XVII. THE SOUP THAT FAILED
XVIII. AN "HONOR" FAIRLY LOST
XIX. WHEN THE STORM BROKE
XX. THE FALL OF A FOREST KING
XXI. A DAY OF EXCITEMENT
XXII. SLUMBERS RUDELY DISTURBED
XXIII. HARRIET'S GRAVE MISTAKE
XXIV. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER I
CRAZY JANE'S WILD DRIVE
"Tommy, what are you doing?" demanded Margery Brown, shaking back a lock of unruly hair from her flushed face.
"Conthulting the Oracle," lisped Grace Thompson, more familiarly known among her friends as Tommy.
"I should think you would prefer to cool off in the shade after that climb up the hill. I'm perishing. If you knew what sight you are you'd come in out of the sun, wouldn't she, Hazel?"
Hazel Holland regarded Margery solemnly.
"You are a sight yourself, Buster. Your face is as red as a beet. I wish you might see yourself in a looking glass."
Buster tossed her head disdainfully. "I'm not a sight," she declared.
"I'll leave it to Tommy if your face isn't positively crimson." But Tommy was too fully absorbed in her present occupation to give heed to the remark. "I'm sorry Harriet isn't here," continued Hazel, seeing that Tommy had not heard her.
"Why isn't she here?" asked Margery.
"Harriet is helping her mother," replied Hazel. "She always has something to do at home. She is a much better girl than either you or I, Buster. Harriet is always thinking of others instead of herself."
"Well, she's older. She is sixteen and I am only fourteen. By the time I'm her age I will settle down, too," declared Margery wisely.
"Wearing spectacles and darning socks," smiled Hazel.
Margery shook her head vehemently.
"Wouldn't it be awful!" she queried.
"Oh, I am not so sure of that," replied Hazel. "I like to keep house. Every girl ought to know all about housekeeping. Do you know how to cook?"
"No. I don't want to know either, not even plain cooking," retorted Margery. "Plain cooking may be all right for plain people, but----"
"Buster!" rebuked Hazel. "I am amazed to hear you talk that way. That is like Crazy Jane. You don't want to be called another 'Crazy Jane,' do you? You will be if you persist in saying such silly things."
"Why don't you lecture Tommy?" demanded Margery, her eyes snapping threateningly. "Tommy doesn't know a biscuit from an apple dumpling until she gets it in her mouth."
"Tommy, please come in out of the heat," begged Hazel. "What are you doing out there?"
"Telling my fortune," answered Tommy without raising her head from her task. Hazel observed that Tommy was pulling a daisy apart. A heap of daisies that she had pulled up by the roots, lay in her lap, regardless of the dirt that was accumulating on her stiffly starched white dress. One by one Tommy pulled the daisy petals from the flower, muttering rhythmically to herself.
"Consulting the Oracle," sniffed Buster. "Did you ever hear of anything so silly?"
"We all do silly things," answered Hazel wisely.
"I go, I thtay; I go, I thtay; I go, I thtay; I go--Oh!" Tommy glanced up with an expression of disgust on her face.
"Didn't it come out to suit you?" smiled Hazel Holland.
"No," pouted Tommy, screwing up her small face. When animated, Grace's was an impish face, made more so by the upward tilt of a much freckled nose.
"Go where?" I questioned Margery, now evincing a mild interest in Tommy's affairs.
"To the thea thhore."
"Oh, the sea shore," nodded Hazel.
"Yeth. The daithy theth tho. I'm going with my father and mother. But I don't want to go. I want to thtay here with the girlth," pouted Tommy.
"I should think you