Aloud she cried: "Get up, girls! Wake up! It is awfully late--the camp is stirring and there is a lot to do. I have found a new boarder! He dropped from the clouds and is starved to death." CHAPTER XII PLEASE REMIT Of course everyone was vastly interested in Mr. Tom Smith and his aeroplane. That young man, however, exhibited a modest demeanor which was very pleasant to members of his sex. He promised to take any and all of the campers flying if his machine was in good order. He thought it needed a little tinkering, however, as he had noticed a little clicking sound above the usual clack and hum of the motor. "How on earth did you happen to land here?" asked someone. "Airman's instinct, I reckon. I was looking for the camp and had heard there was a mountain with a smooth plateau around here somewhere. A place to land is our biggest problem. The time will come when there will be landing stations for flyers just as they have tea houses for automobilists now. There is great danger of becoming entangled in trees and telegraph wires. A place looks pretty good for lighting when you are up in the clouds and then when you get down you find what seemed to be a smooth, grassy plain is perhaps the top of a scrub oak forest." After breakfast the whole camp of week-enders marched to the top of the mountain to view the great bird, but the Carter girls had to stay behind to prepare for the picnic. Many sandwiches must be made and the baskets packed. Nan had her usual bowl of mayonnaise to stir. She looked very demure in her great apron but her eyes were dancing with the remembrance of her morning's escapade. "You look very perky this morning, honey," said Douglas, as she packed a basket of turnovers and cheese cakes with great care not to crush those wonders of culinary art. "You look tolerable perky yourself," retorted her sister. Just as the sophomores and seniors of a college seem to fraternize, so it is often the case with the first and third members of a family. Douglas and Nan hit it off better with one another than they did with either Helen or Lucy. "I feel like flying!" declared Douglas. "I don't mean in an aeroplane but just of my own accord. I am so happy that mother has given up that terrible plan for me, given it up without father's knowing anything about it. I wish I knew who had persuaded her or how it came about. She is rather--well, not exactly cold with me--but not exactly chummy. She has not told me yet, but if you say it is so, I know it is so. I went to her room this morning so she could tell me if she wanted to, but she didn't say a thing about it. She got a lot of letters from New York by the early mail. I am mighty afraid they are bills." "Pretty apt to be," sighed Nan. "I hope she won't give them to father." "Oh, she mustn't do that. I shall have to ask her for them. I hate to do it. She thinks I am so stern." "Let me do it," said Nan magnanimously. "I wonder how much they amount to."