CHAPTER XI

THE FOOD SHOWER

As someone had said events were crowding at camp, and it now seemed difficult to keep schedule and not break the "rest rule." This last obligated the director to see that the girls rested for a time after the noon-day meal. As the Bobbies were such active little animals, and so eager to crowd each moment with an event--big enough to occupy an hour--Mackey had to be very decided in this order for an hour's rest every afternoon.

It was that particular period that the unwelcome callers had so completely dissipated the day before, so to-day Mackey decided to stay at camp and write up her notes, rather than scour woods for new material. Thus she could keep tabs on that relaxation period.

"We're so glad to have you, but hope we are not spoiling all your real vacation," said Louise considerately, when the patrol finished dinner, had cleaned up things and were now out under the trees resting. "Honestly, Mackey, tell us! Didn't you plan to come and be our guardian angel, or did you just happen along that day?"

The director laughed merrily. It seemed to her girls that she could laugh more heartily than any sort of teacher they had ever come in contact with. Her big brown eyes would roll so comically, and she had a way of tossing her head up in such a frank fit of mirth, that her manner was really an inspiration to those about her.

"Don't guardies always come that way?" she replied to Louise's question. "And do you want to 'sack' me for someone else? I'm sure anyone at Camp Norm would be glad to try for the place."

Conservative Louise could not stand that, and she almost upset Mackey and her camp stool in objecting.

"Did the mothers have anything to do with it?" pressed Grace.

"Or headquarters?" went on Julia.

"Well," evaded Mackey. "I came, I saw and I conquered. So why worry?" and the Bobbies were obliged to be satisfied with that reply.

"Has anyone seen Peg, lately?" was the next question. It came from Cleo.

"'Has anybody here seen Kelly,'" chirped Grace, falling into the funny old tune. "'Kelly with the gre--heen necktie!'" she persisted, in spite of a shower of leaves and twigs that struck at her defiant head.

"We can't call this rest," remonstrated Mackey. "Julia, I wouldn't pull up those little roots, you will have mud puddles there if it should rain to-night."

"Oh, that's so!" exclaimed Julia. "How will we arrange when the rain comes? What about my fire?"

"We will have to use up some of the dry boxes," suggested Madaline.

"Or get an oil stove," proposed Margaret.

"Or we could make a shack--build one over our camp kettle," added Cleo.

Mackey waited to try out their resources before interfering. Then she said:

"It's lots of fun to build fires in the rain; that is if you don't have to dry out too quickly after a long hike. We can always find dry wood inside of the old logs, and by scooping out some shavings we can easily start some of your nice, little cord pieces, that you have stocked under the tent. No, you can't use artificial wood, boxes nor oil stoves. All that is against the camp system."

"Then I think," said Julia, the good housekeeper, "we had better add to our woodpile. We have had such splendid weather, rain must be about due."

"We can go out wood hunting when the sun goes down, or cools off, late this afternoon," agreed Mackey. "I think Corene had such a plan already fixed."

"Indeed I did," spoke up Corene. "I know what a time we had once at the big camp when the wood pile went low and the storm ran high. Unkink your muscles, girls; there's a heap of chopping ahead."

"And do you remember last year at the beach? We were donning our dimities about this time daily," recalled Louise, with a well meaning sigh.

"I'm gaining pounds," announced the willowy Julia. "I was weighed this morning."

"Have I grown any?" joked Louise, giving one of her inimitable stretches.

"You do all seem to be taking to camp life like squirrels to nuts," interrupted the director. "I shall have quite a record to my credit if you keep it up."

Time passed so quickly that the call for their class in basketry seemed almost to overlap the rest hour.

"To make souvenirs!" This was the attraction that roused the Bobbies even from their own joys in camp routine, for now that they were "away from home," each girl longed to bring back a token to mother, father, sister or brother; and with more than one of them the entire family was promptly put down on the list to receive a handmade souvenir from Camp Comalong.

"Undertake simple things so you will be sure to finish them," warned Mackey, for girl-like they planned the most attractive articles held out in the display catalogues.

Bags, baskets and little matted trays were finally decided upon, and Miss Freeland, the manual training teacher who stopped at Norm, found an enthusiastic class ready for her dictation.

They sat squat on the ground like Indians when the lesson started, but before its finish the squatters had squirmed and crawled from one position to another, fitting each new attempt with a new move, until at the end there seemed to be a heap of girls all piled around the amiable Miss Freeland.

"Don't forget we are to receive callers to-day," warned Mackey. "I think the home folks have been very considerate to leave us alone so long."

Reluctantly the new task was laid aside, for, as usual, being new, it was also attractive, and at the thought of company everyone stirred around to make things look pretty.

Fresh flowers, straightening the burlap curtains on Louise's sideboard, arranging the tent with an eye to absolute order--all this was attended to with skill acquired in the short practice, and Miss Mackin had little to fear from the critical eye of any possible visitor.

Honking of auto horns soon warned the Bobbies that their company was coming, and when the honking swelled into a concert, and the concert swelled into a volley, the campers realized they were due to enjoy a surprise.

No less than eight cars were finally driven up, and each carried a capacity load of passengers--the whole company representing a surprise party on the Bobolinks.

"Surprise! Surprise!" called out the visiting girls, quite like the old time gayety, when country folks came to a party and brought the refreshments with them.

So many friends entirely unexpected!

It seemed the home folks had sent out the invitations and managed to corral friends for every single Bobbie, not forgetting Mackey, who was so glad to welcome Molly Burbank, a friend of her high school days.

And the boxes and the bundles!

"A regular picnic!" sang out Louise. "Let's put everything on the big table."

"And Helen!" chuckled Cleo. "I am so glad to see you! When did you come back to the lake?"

"Isabel, dear, ducky Izzy!" chirped Grace. "We have been talking about you a lot. Can you stay?"

Then there was Mary, Carol, Annette, and so many other school and home-town friends that for a little time the mothers seemed neglected, but presently Louise was "hanging on her folks" with such enthusiasm she threatened to do damage to something, while Cleo hugged her mother and her big coz Alem, and Grace almost strangled her mother, so that it all looked like a new version of Mother's Day.

The inspection was punctuated with constant exclamations of wonder and applause, and that the Bobbies would find themselves expected to shoulder added responsibilities when they should return home was very evident.

"If they can do so well in camp we may hope for great things at home," remarked more than one delighted visitor, but the Scouts shook their heads and refused to promise.

Miss Mackin was arranging "the treat." She and her friends had taken over all the tasks so that the younger girls might more fully enjoy the company. The long table, with its dainty paper table cover, was arranged with paper plates (for company only), and the bunches of rarest wild flowers Miss Mackin had gathered the day before gave a real festive look to "the board."

"I know I'm going to have my favorite cake," crowed Cleo. "Did you ever see such a perfectly scrumbunctious food shower?"

"Never," agreed Grace, "and I do hope there's something to keep in my box, for we can't be sure of our own cooking all the time, you know."

"Don't you like it?" defied Corene. She was not willing to have the commissary department thus suspected.

"Oh, yes, Corey, and your codfish made with condensed milk is so--new, and sweetish----"

Corene threw a paper box cover at the head of her tormentor but Miss Mackin did not see the deprecation.

Then the spread was ready, and the company sat down to a camp table laden with home made goodies.

"This is one real joy of the small camp," Miss Mackin explained. "In the larger camps they do not generally permit the importing of food; but for Comalong it's a real blessing. You see, we have just been experimenting with our little furnace, and there's the camp kettle," she pointed out the inclined pole with its kettle on end, that hung over one of Julia's furnaces. "And we haven't tried baking cakes since we came," she admitted with an explanatory laugh.

"But the pan cakes? Aren't they all right, Mackey?" asked Cleo. She had "tried" pan cakes once or twice.

"Yes, indeed, Cleo. You did very well with those," praised the director, "but for real chocolate cake----"

"And fudge cake!" exclaimed Louise.

"And angel cake!" added Grace.

So it went along the table, each Scout acknowledging her particular gift with a special exclamation.

There was so much to talk about. And what a buzz and hum of voices surprised the little wood creatures! Not even the pet bunny ventured out from his hollow stump while all that party talked and talked.

"If only we could have company?" proposed Julia. "I mean overnight company."

"Perhaps we can," whispered Cleo.

"Where would they sleep?" Grace queried.

"We have hammocks, and maybe we could make room between the cots, by pushing them up together."

"Oh, Cleo," Grace broke out. "How could we make room between the cots unless you mean to put someone on the floor?" and she howled at the idea.

"Of course, I don't mean that," protested Cleo, between her cake bites. "I mean to tie two cots together and put blankets between the edges, I mean over the edges. There would be room for Helen in that space."

"But fancy Izzy sleeping on the rail!" Grace was bound to ridicule the idea.

"At any rate I'm going to ask Mackey!" declared Cleo. "Helen would love to stay, and we would love to have her. We could put hammocks up if it didn't rain."

At this juncture Grace was asked to refill the water pail, so she and Madaline raced off to the spring. Both cast furtive glances over the hill to Peg's cottage, but not even Shag was in sight to indicate life around the log cabin.

"Queer where she keeps herself," remarked Grace, "but I'm going to fetch her some cake, anyhow."

"I would too," agreed Madaline. "She doesn't seem like a girl who could bake a good cake."

"No," added Grace, "but she surely can ride horseback. I just wonder where she goes every day."

"The girls are going riding to-morrow. Perhaps they'll find out."

"Maybe. But aren't we having a lovely picnic?"

"Wonderful. We'll have enough cake for all week."

"I never thought sandwiches could taste so good. I suppose it's because we haven't had any homemade bread since we came."

"And Cleo's mother brought jam; Cleo hid it in her box back of the cupboard," said Madaline.

"Hurry, they may want the water; at any rate we can treat them to that," declared Grace, and the water bearers made all possible haste over the trail back to camp, spilling just enough of the fresh fluid to tickle the spangle-weed along the way.

"They're going to stay! They're going to stay!" Cleo ran to meet Grace with the good news, for lovely as camp had seemed with the patrol as its sole occupants, the prospects of company "to stay," and that the guests should be "Dare-to-do-Izzy" as Isabel was popularly called, and jolly little Helen would could "see a joke half a mile off"; no wonder there was new joy apparent in camp.

"Everyone is going," chirped Julia, "and I hope they all saw how much we have improved."

"Your pounds, do you mean, Jule? Maybe they couldn't see them. You should have pointed them out," teased Louise.

"Now, Weasy, maybe you think they all saw your inches," returned Julia. "There's mother's handkerchief, I know she didn't intend to leave that to me," and she hurried to the big gray car, with the dainty speck of lace and linen.

"Give them a cheer," prompted Miss Mackin.

"Hurrah for the home folks," led Corene.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" boomed the lusty cheer, until the hills echoed and the lake repeated the hail.

Then the picnic and shower were over, and the Bobbies were so excited they hardly knew whether to show Izzy the spring or Helen the woodpile.

The colors were lowered by Louise and Julia, and then clouds gathering beyond the rim of trees glowered ominously, and that reminded them that they must hurry to gather more wood before the rain would come.