A Summer in a Canyon: A California StoryWiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
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A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story
Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
California -- Fiction
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 flolic, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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