‘I’ve a great mind to wake Laura, just for once,’ said Bell, opening the tent door. ‘There never was such a morning! (I believe I’ve said that regularly every day; but I simply never can get used to it.) There must have been a wonderful sunrise, dears, for the glow hasn’t faded yet. Not a bit of morning fog—that’s good for Elsie. And what a lovely day for a birthday! Did they use to give you anything like this in Vermont, Polly?’ ‘Hardly,’ said Polly, peering over Bell’s shoulder. ‘Let’s see. What did they give us in Vermont this month? Why, I can’t think of anything but dog-days, hot nights, and hay fever; but that sounds ungrateful. Why, Geoff’s up already! There’s Elsie’s bunch of vines, and twigs, and pretty things hanging on her tent-door. He’s been off on horseback. Just my luck to have him get up first. Jack always does, you know; and last night I sewed up the tent-opening with carpet-thread, good and tight, overhand—stitches I wouldn’t be ashamed of at a sewing-school.’ ‘Oh you naughty girl!’ laughed Bell. ‘The boys could rip it open with a knife in half the time it took you to sew it.’ ‘Certainly. I didn’t mean to keep them sewed up all day; but I thought I’d like Jack to remember me the first thing this morning.’ ‘Girls,’ whispered Margery, excitedly, ‘don’t stand there mooning—or sunning—for ever! I thought there was a gopher in this tent last night. I heard something scratching, and I thought it was the dog outside; but just look at these two holes almost under Laura’s pillow!’ ‘Let’s fill them up, cover them over—anything!’ gasped Bell. ‘Laura will never sleep here another night if she sees them.’ ‘Nobody insured Laura against gophers,’ said Polly. ‘She must take the fortunes of war.’ ‘I wouldn’t wake her,’ said Margery. ‘She didn’t sleep well, and her face is flushed. Come, or we shall be late for breakfast.’ When they returned, fresh and rosy, from their bath, there was a stir of life in all the tents. Pancho had come from the stage-station with mail; an odour of breakfast issued from the kitchen, where Hop Yet was humming a fragment of Chinese song, that ran something like this,—not loud, but unearthly enough, as Bell used to say, to spoil almost any cooking:— [Picture: Music score. Words are: ‘Fong fong mongmong tiu he sun yi-u sow chong how ki-u me yun tan-tar che ku choi song!’] Dicky was abroad, radiant in a new suit of clothes, and Elsie pushed her golden head out between the curtains, and proclaimed herself strong enough for a wrestling-match with any boy or man about the camp. But they found Laura sitting on the edge of her straw bed, directly over the concealed gopher-holes, a mirror in her hand and an expression of abject misery on her countenance. ‘What’s the matter?’ cried the girls in one breath. But they needed no answer, as she turned her face towards the light, for it was plainly a case of poison-oak—one eye almost closed, and the cheek scarlet and swollen.