Girl Scouts at Dandelion Camp

“Of course not! I didn’t want to feel all warm and sticky for the rest of the evening. Besides, I manicured my nails so nicely just before dinner.”

“Dear me! I wish your mother would let me do them – for a quarter a night!” sighed Betty, anxiously.

“Even if she did, would you give that money to the Patrol?” wondered Ruth, doubtfully.

“Sure! Aren’t we all earning for the general good?”

“Well, I’ll ask mother if she’ll let you do them,” replied Ruth, magnanimously. She actually felt that she was bestowing a favor on Betty by allowing her to wash her dishes and donate the earnings to the camp-fund.

CHAPTER THREE – THE OLD CAMPSITE

Early Saturday morning the chauffeur brought the car over to the tent, and Mrs. Vernon told the girls to jump in while she sent Jim for the lunch-baskets. She got in the front seat, as she proposed driving the car.

When all was ready, the merry party started off with Mr. Vernon wishing them a good time. They were soon outside of town limits, and skimming over a good hard country road. Then Mrs. Vernon drove slower and spoke of the place they were bound for.

“Of course you know, girls, that it is not necessary for you to select this site if you do not like it. I am merely driving you there because it seems to meet with our present needs for a camp-life. We still have other places we can investigate, as there is a pyramid of catalogues on the table in the tent.”

“But every one of those camping places will cost us so much money to reach, and that won’t leave us anything for board,” said Joan.

“Father told us last night that he always wanted to get a crowd of the boys to go with him to that camp you all made when you were girls. But his chums wanted to go so far away that they never got anywhere to camp in the end,” said Betty.

“Yes, and he said he wished he could have his boyhood over again. Then he’d spend his vacations in camp even if it was near home,” added Julie.

Mrs. Vernon smiled. “I remember how jealous a few of the boys were when they heard us talk of the fun we had in camp. Betty’s mother was so sorry for them that she invited them to visit the camp now and then. Betty takes after her mother for having a great heart.”

“Maybe we can invite our folks to visit us, too,” said Julie, eagerly.

“So we can – if they will come and bring supplies,” said Ruth.

Every one laughed at this suggestion, and Ruth added: “Well, we can’t afford to pay for visitors, can we? I won’t be surprised to find that we shall have to break camp and return home in a month’s time, just for lack of funds to go on with the experiment.”

“We won’t do even that if we have to chop cord wood to pay our way,” laughed Mrs. Vernon.

“Are there big trees on the mountain, Verny?” asked Betty.

“We girls thought it a great forest in those days. To us it seemed as if the trees were giants – but we had not seen the Redwoods of California then,” Mrs. Vernon chuckled as she spoke.

“What do you call it now?” asked Joan.

“This ridge has no individual name that I know of, but the range is an extension of those known by the name of Blue Mountains. The place I have in mind is one of the prettiest spots on this particular spur of hills. You will find forest trees, streams, pools for bathing, softest moss for carpets, flowers for study, wild woodland paths for hikes – in fact everything to rejoice a nature-lover’s heart.”

“Dear me, can’t you speed up a little?” asked Julie.

“No, don’t, Verny – we’ll land in jail if you go faster!” exclaimed Ruth.

“Let’s call this spur ‘Verny’s Mountain,’ shall we, girls?” suggested Betty.

“Yes, let’s!” abetted Joan.

The automobile rolled smoothly and swiftly along, and after the first excitement had abated somewhat, the girls begged their Captain to tell them how she had found the place and what they did at camp when she was a girl.

“I think it was that one summer in camp that made me eager to give every girl an opportunity to enjoy a like experience. But we went there under far different auspices than you girls are now doing. We had to convince our parents that we would not be murdered by tramps, or starved, or made ill by sleeping out-of-doors in the woods.

“Then, too, we had to load our outfit on a farm-wagon and climb in on top of it so that one trip would do all the moving, as horses were scarce for pleasure-trips, but were needed for farm-work in those days.

“I can remember the shock we girls created with the village people, when it was whispered around that we proposed a camp-life that summer, instead of sitting home to do tatting and bleaching the linen. It was all right for boys to have a camp for fun – but for girls, never!

“However we six girls were of the new era for women, and we wanted to do the things our brothers and their schoolmates did. They could go camping and fishing and hiking so why couldn’t we? What difference did skirts and pig-tails make in vacation-time? So we won over our parents’ consent to let us try it for a week.

“But we stayed a month, and then a second month until we made the whole summer of it. And, girls, we brought home more knitted socks and crochet trimming and tatting, with an abundance of good health and experience thrown in, than all the rest of the girls in the village could show together.

“Even the parson, who had visited our mothers to dissuade them from allowing us this unheard-of freedom of camp-life, had to admit that he had been prejudiced by members of his congregation.”

“Just like a story-book, Verny! Do tell us what you did when you first got to camp?” cried Julie.

“Well, it was lucky for us girls that my brother Ted drove the farm-wagon for us. When we reached the steep road that ran up over the mountain, we had to leave the horses and wagon and carry our outfit to the site we had selected.

“Then Ted showed us how to build a fireplace, an oven, and a pot-hanger. He also helped us ditch all about the tent so the rain-water would drain away, and he constructed a latrine for camp.

“He promised to drive up on Sunday to see how we were faring, and bring a few of his chums with him, if they could get off from the farm-work. So we gladly said good-by to him, and felt, at last, much like Susan Anthony must have felt when she realized her first victory in the fight over bondage for women.”

“And didn’t you have any guardian or grown-up to help take care of you?” wondered Ruth.

“The school-teacher planned to stay with us for a month, but she could not come for the first few days; and we feared we might be kept home unless we started before our folks repented, so we went alone on the day agreed upon.

“But, girls, I will confess, every one of us felt frightened that first night; for an owl hooted over our heads, and queer noises echoed all around us, so that we thought of all the dangers the foolish villagers had said would befall us.”

The car now went through a thriving village which Mrs. Vernon said was Freedom, the last settlement they would see this side of the campsite. With the announcement that they were now nearing “Verny’s Mountain,” the four girls were silent; but they watched eagerly for the woodcutters’ road that Mrs. Vernon said would be the place where they would leave the automobile and climb to the plateau.

The further they went, the wilder and more mountainous seemed the country; finally Mrs. Vernon drove the car up a rutty, rocky road until the trail seemed to rise sheer up the rugged side of the mountain.

“Here’s where we have to get out and walk, girls.”

And glad they were, too, to jump out and stretch themselves after the long drive. They stood and gazed rapturously around at the wildness and grandeur of the place, and all four admitted that no one could tell the difference between Verny’s Mountain and the Adirondacks.

“We’ll take turns in carrying the hampers, girls,” said Mrs. Vernon, lifting the well-laden baskets from the automobile.

They began climbing the side of the mountain by following the old woodcutters’ path, until they reached a large, grassy plateau. Back of this flat a ledge rose quite sheer, in great masses of bed-rock. Mosses and lichen clung to the niches of this rocky wall, which was at least forty feet high, making it most picturesque.

“What a wonderful view of the valley we get from this plateau!” exclaimed Joan.

“Is this where you camped, Verny?” eagerly asked Julie.

“No, but this is where we danced and shouted and played like any wild mountain habitants,” laughed Mrs. Vernon, the joys of that girlhood summer lighting her eyes. “And here is where you girls can play scout games and dances, or sit to dream of home and far-away friends.”

“The scout games we’ll enjoy here, but dreams of home – never! We’ll have to go back there soon enough,” declared Joan, causing the others to laugh merrily.

“Well, come on, girls. Our campsite lies just there beyond that cluster of giant pines that rear their heads high above the surrounding forest trees,” said Mrs. Vernon, leading the way across the plateau.