The Girls of Central High in Camp: or, the Old Professor's Secret

Lizzie Bean turned to see who was approaching. Her face was as thin as the rest of her figure. Prominent cheek bones, a sharp, long nose, and a pointed chin do not make a beautiful countenance, to say the least.

Besides, the expression of her face was lachrymose in the extreme. It did seem, as Jess afterward said, that Lizzie must have lost all her relatives and friends very recently, and was mourning for them all!

“Goodness me!” she whispered to Laura. “No wonder they call her ‘Lonesome Liz.’ She’s so sad looking she’s positively funny.”

CHAPTER V

THE START

“What do you girls want?” drawled the lean girl, resting her red elbows on the well-shelf and looking down at Laura and Jess Morse.

She did not speak unpleasantly; but she was very abrupt. Laura saw that Lizzie Bean’s flat, shallow appearing eyes were of a greenish gray color – eyes in which a twinkle could not possibly lurk.

“We understand that you are not going to help Alice much longer,” Laura said, pleasantly. “So we have come to see if you would like another position for a few weeks?”

“What d’ye mean – a job?” proposed Liz-Bean, bluntly.

“Ye-yes,” said Laura, rather taken aback.

“What doin’?”

“Why, we girls are going camping. There are seven of us – and Mrs. Morse. Mrs. Morse is the mother of my friend, here, Josephine Morse–”

“Please ter meet yer,” interposed Liz, bobbing a little courtesy at the much amused Jess.

Laura went on steadily, and without smiling too broadly at Liz:

“There are seven of us girls and Mrs. Morse. We shall live very simply – in tents and in a cabin, on Acorn Island.”

“Eight in fam’bly, eh?” put in the thin girl. “Eight is a bigger contract than I got here.”

“Oh! in camping out we don’t expect anything fancy,” Laura hastened to say. “We want somebody to make beds, and wash dishes, and clean up generally. Of course, the cooking will not all fall on your shoulders–”

“I sh’d hope not,” said Liz, briskly. “Not if it was as solid as some folkses’ biscuits. One woman I worked for once made her soda-riz biscuits so solid that if a panful had fell on yer shoulders ’twould ha’ broke yer back.”

Jess had to explode at that, but the odd girl did not even smile. She only stared at the giggling Jess and asked:

“Ain’t ye well?”

“Oh, yes!” gasped Jess.

“Well, I didn’t know,” drawled Liz. “My a’nt what brought me up useter keep a bottle of giggle medicine for us gals. An’ it was nasty tastin’ stuff, too. She made us take a gre’t spoonful if we laffed at table, or after we gotter bed nights. There was jala inter it, I b’lieve. I guess I could make ye some.”

Jess stopped laughing in a hurry. Laura tried to ignore her chum’s indignant look; but it was quite plain that Lizzie Bean “had all her wits about her,” as the saying is.

“Then you can cook?” Laura observed.

“Well, I can boil water without burnin’ it,” declared the odd girl. “But I ain’t no Woodruff-Wisteria chef.” Afterward the chums figured it out that Liz meant “Waldorf-Astoria.”

“Do you think you would like to go with us?” Laura asked.

“I dunno yet. Where is it?”

Laura explained more fully about the camping site, how they were to get there, and other particulars of the project.

“It listens good,” Liz said, reflectively. “Though I ain’t never cooked nothin’ but soft-soap over a campfire.”

“Oh! there will be a portable stove,” Laura said.

“When ye goin’?” asked the girl.

“Day after to-morrow.”

“What’ll ye pay?” was the next bluntly put question.

Laura told her the weekly wage Mrs. Pendleton had guaranteed. Although Lizzie Bean’s face was well nigh expressionless at all times, the girls saw at once that something was wrong.

“I dunno,” said Liz, slowly. “I have worked mighty cheap in my life – and I ain’t got no job when I leave here – an’ I gotter eat. But that does seem a naw-ful little wages.”

“Why! I think that is real liberal,” declared Jess, with some warmth.

Liz eyed her again coldly. “You must ha’ worked awful cheap in your life,” she said.

“I know,” Laura explained, quietly, laying an admonitory hand upon her chum’s arm, “You know, that is what you will receive each week.”

“What’s that?” demanded Liz, with a jump, “Say that again, will ye?”

“We will pay you that sum weekly,” repeated Laura.

“Say – say it by the month!” gasped the lean girl, her eyes showing more surprise than Laura had thought them capable of betraying.

Laura did as she was requested. A slow, faint grin dawned on Liz Bean’s narrow countenance.

“I been useter gittin’ paid by the month – and sometimes not then. Some ladies has paid me so little for helpin’ them that I wisht they’d paid me only every three months, so’s ’twould sound bigger!

“I gotter take ye up before somebody pinches me.”

“Pinches you? What do you mean?” asked Jess, doubtfully.

“I don’t want to wake up,” declared Liz. “I never got so much money since I was turned adrift when my a’nt died. Don’t you wake up, neither, and forgit to pay me!”

“I promise not to do that,” laughed Laura. “Then you’ll come with us?”

“If I don’t break an arm,” declared Lizzie Bean, with emphasis.

They told her how to meet them at the dock, and the hour they expected to start. “And bring your oldest clothes,” warned Jess.

“What’s that?” demanded Liz.