There was no objection raised to this plan, and the girls paired off as
they usually did--Wyn and Frank together, Grace and Percy, and Bess and
Mina.
Then they drew straws--really grass blades of three lengths--to see
which couple should do which. It fell to the lot of Bess and Mina to
cook for a week. Grace and Percy Havel were "chambermaids," and Wyn and
Frank Cameron had the good luck to get the shortest blade of grass.
"Of course, _I'd_ have to work hard two weeks before getting a
chance to rest," grumbled Grace. "Probably something will happen after
we're here a fortnight, and we'll all have to go home."
"It would take something _awful_ to send me home from this
beautiful spot in a fortnight," cried Mina.
"Just my luck if you all got smallpox, or something equally contagious,"
growled Grace.
"Then you certainly would be fortunate for once--if you escaped it,"
chuckled Wyn.
"Not a bit of it. They'd quarantine you here, and have nurses, and lots
of nice jellies and ices for you; while poor unlucky me would be packed
back to Denton for the rest of the summer--and after working like a
slave, dishwashing, and sweeping, and making beds, and cooking, and the
like, for two whole weeks."
Despite Grace's complaints, the club as a whole was satisfied with the
arrangements for taking care of the camp. There had been a secondary
consideration in the minds of all their mothers when permission was
obtained for the Go-Aheads to spend the summer under canvas. Mrs. Evelyn
Havel was a wondrously good housekeeper. She had been trained in
domestic science, too. And she had promised to have an oversight of each
girl's work and to teach them, from time to time, many helpful domestic
things.
This phase of the camping-out plan Wyn had "played up" in getting the
consent of all the parents; and for one, Wyn was determined to carry the
scheme through. When they went back to Denton in the fall she proposed
to be a good "plain cook" herself, and she hoped the other girls would
fall in cheerfully with the project also. She knew Mrs. Havel would do
all she could toward teaching them.
The work once apportioned to them, the girls' minds could be given more
particularly to the naming of the camp. But they would not decide upon
it until bedtime. However, all six cudgeled their brains to invent
striking names.
It was decided that only one name could be suggested by each girl, and
this would give them a list of six to choose from. Oddly enough both
Mina and Grace chose the same--Camp Pleasant. It looked as though
_that_ name had a lead at the start.
Frank suggested Birch Tree Camp--for there was an enormous birch on the
knoll at the foot of which Mr. Jarley had set up a bench for them.
"Now you, Bess?" said Wyn, as mistress of ceremonies.
"Camp Pleasant is all right," admitted Miss Lavine; "only it is not very
distinctive. I expect there are thousands of Camp Pleasants--don't you
think so?"
"What's the matter with _my_ name?" demanded Frank Cameron.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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