The Meadow Brook Girls Under Canvas by Janet Aldridge

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THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS UNDER CANVAS

Or, Fun and Frolic in the Summer Camp

by

JANET ALDRIDGE

Author of _The Meadow-Brook Girls Across Country_, _The Meadow-Brook
Girls Afloat_, etc.

Illustrated

Philadelphia
Henry Altemus Company

1913

[Illustration: "I go, I thtay!" (Frontispiece.)]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. CRAZY JANE'S WILD DRIVE

II. WHAT HAPPENED TO TOMMY

III. THE TRAIL TO CAMP WAU-WAU

IV. IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST

V. THEIR TROUBLES MULTIPLY

VI. TAKING THEIR FIRST DEGREE

VII. TOMMY HAS A NIGHTMARE

VIII. A DAY WITH AN EXCITING FINISH

IX. SOUNDING THE GENERAL ALARM

X. AROUND THE COUNCIL FIRE

XI. TRIED BY THE FLAMES

XII. HARRIET TURNS THE TABLES

XIII. THE CAMP GETS A SURPRISE

XIV. CRAZY JANE IS INTRODUCED

XV. THE GHOST OF WAU-WAU

XVI. THE LAYING OF A SPOOK

XVII. THE SOUP THAT FAILED

XVIII. AN "HONOR" FAIRLY LOST

XIX. WHEN THE STORM BROKE

XX. THE FALL OF A FOREST KING

XXI. A DAY OF EXCITEMENT

XXII. SLUMBERS RUDELY DISTURBED

XXIII. HARRIET'S GRAVE MISTAKE

XXIV. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER I

CRAZY JANE'S WILD DRIVE

"Tommy, what are you doing?" demanded Margery Brown, shaking back a lock
of unruly hair from her flushed face.

"Conthulting the Oracle," lisped Grace Thompson, more familiarly known
among her friends as Tommy.

"I should think you would prefer to cool off in the shade after that climb
up the hill. I'm perishing. If you knew what sight you are you'd come in
out of the sun, wouldn't she, Hazel?"

Hazel Holland regarded Margery solemnly.

"You are a sight yourself, Buster. Your face is as red as a beet. I wish
you might see yourself in a looking glass."

Buster tossed her head disdainfully. "I'm not a sight," she declared.

"I'll leave it to Tommy if your face isn't positively crimson." But Tommy
was too fully absorbed in her present occupation to give heed to the
remark. "I'm sorry Harriet isn't here," continued Hazel, seeing that Tommy
had not heard her.

"Why isn't she here?" asked Margery.

"Harriet is helping her mother," replied Hazel. "She always has something
to do at home. She is a much better girl than either you or I, Buster.
Harriet is always thinking of others instead of herself."

"Well, she's older. She is sixteen and I am only fourteen. By the time I'm
her age I will settle down, too," declared Margery wisely.

"Wearing spectacles and darning socks," smiled Hazel.

Margery shook her head vehemently.

"Wouldn't it be awful!" she queried.

"Oh, I am not so sure of that," replied Hazel. "I like to keep house.
Every girl ought to know all about housekeeping. Do you know how to cook?"

"No. I don't want to know either, not even plain cooking," retorted
Margery. "Plain cooking may be all right for plain people, but----"

"Buster!" rebuked Hazel. "I am amazed to hear you talk that way. That is
like Crazy Jane. You don't want to be called another 'Crazy Jane,' do
you? You will be if you persist in saying such silly things."

"Why don't you lecture Tommy?" demanded Margery, her eyes snapping
threateningly. "Tommy doesn't know a biscuit from an apple dumpling until
she gets it in her mouth."

"Tommy, please come in out of the heat," begged Hazel. "What are you doing
out there?"

"Telling my fortune," answered Tommy without raising her head from her
task. Hazel observed that Tommy was pulling a daisy apart. A heap of
daisies that she had pulled up by the roots, lay in her lap, regardless of
the dirt that was accumulating on her stiffly starched white dress. One by
one Tommy pulled the daisy petals from the flower, muttering rhythmically
to herself.

"Consulting the Oracle," sniffed Buster. "Did you ever hear of anything so
silly?"

"We all do silly things," answered Hazel wisely.

"I go, I thtay; I go, I thtay; I go, I thtay; I go--Oh!" Tommy glanced up
with an expression of disgust on her face.

"Didn't it come out to suit you?" smiled Hazel Holland.

"No," pouted Tommy, screwing up her small face. When animated, Grace's was
an impish face, made more so by the upward tilt of a much freckled nose.

"Go where?" I questioned Margery, now evincing a mild interest in Tommy's
affairs.

"To the thea thhore."

"Oh, the sea shore," nodded Hazel.

"Yeth. The daithy theth tho. I'm going with my father and mother. But I
don't want to go. I want to thtay here with the girlth," pouted Tommy.

"I should think you would be happy to think you are going to the sea
shore. Most girls would be," reminded Hazel.

"It must cost a lot of money to go to the sea shore," remarked Margery
Brown.

Tommy bobbed her head vigorously.

"Yeth. My father hath lotth of money, I thuppothe. But I don't care. I
don't want to go."

"When do you go?"

"I don't know, Hathel. The Oracle thayth I'm going."

The Oracle having settled the question, no further doubts remained in the
mind of little Grace Thompson.

Grace's father was a lawyer. Both he and the girl's mother had inherited
fortunes, and Grace being an only child had much, finer clothes than any
of her companions in the little New Hampshire town of Meadow-Brook.

Hazel Holland and Margery Brown were the daughters of village merchants,
the former's father being a druggist, while the father of the latter owned
a fairly prosperous grocery business.

The fourth member of this little quartette, Harriet Burrell, was not so
fortunately situated as were her three friends. Harriet's father was a
bookkeeper in the local bank, and on his moderate salary was doing his
best to give his daughter and younger son an education. His salary was
barely sufficient to do this and at the same time support his family,
small as it was.

It was Harriet's ambition to go to college. She was now sixteen years old.
In two more years she would finish her course at the high school. From
that point on, the way did not look particularly bright, so far as
continuing her education was concerned.

In the meantime Harriet Burrell was living the wholesome life that her
environment made possible. She was a strong, healthy, buoyant girl, full
of life and spirits, popular with everyone who knew her, and a superior
being in the estimation of the three girls who were her close friends,
even though she was unable to dress as well as they or to do other things
that were easily within the means of the parents of Grace, Hazel and
Margery.

The four girls were together much of the time, quarreling and making up
almost in the same breath, even stubborn little Tommy giving way to the
kinder and more mature disposition of Harriet Burrell. As Hazel had
already said, Harriet at that moment was at home helping her mother, even
though the fields, the trees and the nodding daisies were calling loudly
to her.

"Must you go if you do not wish to!" Margery was asking.

"I gueth not; not if I don't want to, and I don't," declared Grace with
emphasis.

"She thinks she can have more fun with us four girls this summer. Still,
she should go if her folks wish her to do so," nodded Hazel thoughtfully.
"Don't you say so, Buster?"

"No, I don't," declared Margery with some warmth. "In her place I should
do just what I liked best. Then again, it wouldn't be fair for Tommy to go
away like that and leave us all alone here to mope through the summer.
That's right, Tommy. Tell them you won't go unless--unless you can take us
along too."

"Margery!" rebuked Hazel severely. "That wasn't a nice thing to say. That
shows a selfish spirit. If Harriet were here I know she would tell you the
same thing. I am sure you didn't mean it that way."

"Harriet wouldn't," protested Buster. "She doesn't put on a solemn face
and read people lectures. No, Hazel Holland, she doesn't do anything of
the sort. There's some one coming," exclaimed the girl, suddenly changing
the subject.

"I see her. It is Miss Elting," answered Hazel, her eyes growing bright.
"She is coming up to see us, I do believe."

"Yeth, it'th Mith Elting," decided Grace, screwing up her little face and
looking inquiringly at the newcomer who was leisurely making her way along
the road in their direction. 441 wonder what she wantth."

"Miss Elting is coming up to join us, of course," replied Hazel. "And you
see if she doesn't have something fine to suggest. Harriet is going to
miss something, I know."

Miss Elting was one of the younger teachers in the Meadow-Brook High
School, a leader in the girls' sports and very popular with them. But of
all the pupils in the school her favorites were perhaps the four girls to
three of whom the reader already has been introduced. Miss Elting called
them "The Little Big Four." The young teacher exerted a great influence
over the four Meadow-Brook Girls; she had been especially helpful to
Harriet and a closer relation than that of teacher and pupil existed
between the two. Both were passionately fond of Nature. They loved the
fields, the woods and the waters and many a care-free happy hour they had
spent together in the open. Hazel, Margery and Grace frequently
accompanied them, though in such instances Harriet and Miss Elting usually
found it necessary to cut short their outing because Margery "got all
flustered up" from the heat and Tommy's feet usually hurt her.

They had recognized Miss Elting approaching some distance down the road
that lay at the foot of the hill upon which the three girls had gone to
spend a few leisure hours.

"Hoo-oo!" called Hazel, springing up and waving her handkerchief to
attract Miss Elting's attention. The teacher saw them they thought; she
appeared to be waving her hand at them, though the distance was so great
that they could not be certain of this.

"I'm going to meet her," exclaimed Tommy, springing to her feet. "You
thtay here." Tommy started off, scattering a lapful of daisies about her
as she ran, then fled down the hill in a series of leaps, her white shoe
ties brushing the tops of the daisies and sending the latter into a
nodding sea of protest.

"Grace! Grace, come back!" cried Hazel.

"Isn't she a tomboy!" scoffed Margery. "Her nickname suits her."

Tommy was moving too rapidly at that moment to turn back, even though she
had wished to do so. So fast was her gait that she appeared to have lost
control of herself. Her little white-shod feet were working like parts of
a machine driven at high speed. Her voice floated up to them in a shrill
wail.

"Thave me! I'm going to fall," she cried. Then she disappeared from view
as she sprawled face downward with arms thrust forward among the daisies
and tall grass.

"Oh! She is hurt," cried Hazel in alarm.

"No, she isn't. Don't get excited," answered Margery calmly. "You don't
know Tommy if you think a little tumble like that could harm her. See,
there she goes."

Sure enough, Grace was on her feet again racing down the hill at the same
reckless pace as before. She reached the foot of the hill without further
mishap, hesitated a second or so at the fence, and then vaulted over it.
For a moment, she was out of sight in the ditch beside the road, then she
was seen clambering into the dusty highway.

Hazel was laughing.

"You couldn't do that, Buster, I'll warrant."

"I am sure I don't want to," answered Margery stretching out comfortably
with her hands supporting her head. "I'm no circus performer."

Hazel uttered a little exclamation.

"Look Margery! Look!" she cried.

"Well, what is it? I don't see anything," replied Margery petulantly,
raising herself on one elbow, gazing listlessly down into the valley where
the village lay baking under the hot June sun.

"It's a special," cried Hazel. "See, the cars are orange colored. Aren't
they pretty? I never saw anything more attractive."

Margery turned up her nose disdainfully.

"I don't see anything about a railroad train to get excited over," she
answered, lying back in the shade of the maple tree, beneath which the
girls had been resting for the past hour or so.

That the special train rushing down the valley, would make no stop at
Meadow-Brook, Hazel could plainly see. Trains that were to stop there
always slowed down before reaching the second crossing west of the
village. This one had not done so. No sooner had Hazel observed this than
she caught sight of something else, something that set her nerves all a
tingle. A huge cloud of dust was rolling down the highway near the
railroad tracks. That this cloud was not caused by the train was plain to
the watching girl. Soon she was able to make out the outlines of an
automobile in the cloud of dust. The train was but a short distance away.
Each was making for the crossing, where the highway and railroad tracks
met. Hazel did not believe the driver of the motor car was aware that the
train was so close, even if the driver knew of its presence at all, for no
train was due to pass through Meadow-Brook at that hour.

The color suddenly left Hazel Holland's face.

"Quick! Quick! Look!" she gasped.

"It's too hot to keep bobbing up and down," returned Margery
indifferently.

"But look! Look!"

"Tell me about it, Hazel, dear. You do not have to get up to see. I do."

"Oh? Buster, there's going to be a collision."

"Eh? What?" Buster was on her feet instantly.

"The train is going to hit the automobile!"

Margery's face paled. Her breath came more quickly. Her eyes grew large
and wondering. The power of speech seemed suddenly to have left her. They
had forgotten all about Grace Thompson in the greater interest of the
moment. Margery shivered with apprehension while beads of perspiration
stood out on her forehead. She was staring in terror at the onrushing car.

"Oh!" she shuddered. "There'll surely be a collision."

"Look! The chauffeur doesn't see the train on account of the dust. Don't
you see the dust rising in the road ahead of the automobile? The wind is
blowing it up ahead and the machine is kicking it up behind. Hoo-oo!
Hoo-oo!" cried the girl, frantically waving her handkerchief to attract
the attention of the driver of the car, at the same time pointing to the
rapidly approaching train.

Instead of slackening speed, the driver of the motor car appeared to be
putting on more. The car was rapidly nearing the railroad crossing. So was
the train.

"Oh, I can't look at it," cried Margery, throwing herself on the ground
and burying her face in her arms.

Hazel stood perfectly rigid. She scarcely breathed. Her eyes were wide and
staring.

"Ha--as it hap-p-pened?" faltered Margery.

"No-o-o. Oh! The driver is going to be killed! Oh, oh!"

For one awful second the motor car and engine of the special were
swallowed up in a cloud of dust, then out of the cloud darted the
locomotive on one side. On the other dashed the automobile, still on four
wheels, continuing at the same reckless speed along the highway.

Hazel uttered a little scream.

"He's made it. Oh!" She sank to the ground pale and trembling. Margery
raised a very red, very scared face.

"Wa--as he killed?"

"No."

"Oh, fudge! Why didn't you scare me to death while you were----"

"Look Oh, look!"

"I won't," declared Margery firmly. "Go crazy if you wish. I won't."

"It's Tommy!"

Buster bobbed up in a fresh panic.

The "man" in the motor car was gazing up at the girls waving one hand to
them, steering the car with the other hand.

"It's a woman!" gasped Hazel.

"It's Crazy Jane," cried Margery. "No wonder she nearly ran down a train
of cars."

"Tommy! Oh, Tom-my!" screamed Hazel Holland, hopping about frantically,
waving both arms above her head, seeking to attract the attention of the
woman driver as well as that of Tommy.

The little white figure had climbed the bank into the highway and was now
fleeing down the road to meet her friend Miss Elting. Tommy did not see
the automobile approaching from the rear. A knoll and a bend in the road
hid the driver of the car and the little white figure from each other. The
noise of the train either drowned that of the automobile, or else, Grace
thought the rumble made by the car to be that made by the train that had
just passed down the valley.

The motor car roared around the bend. Miss Elting screamed as she saw it.
Grace heard the scream, but failing to understand the meaning of it,
decided it to be some sort of greeting. The little girl waved her arms in
reply. Miss Elting was gesticulating and pointing frantically. The two
girls on the hillside were for the moment paralyzed with fright.

All at once, Grace appeared to perceive her danger. She turned sharply.
There she stood, her frightened face turned toward the oncoming car that
was rapidly approaching her enveloped in a blinding cloud of dust. The
driver and Tommy discovered each other at about the same instant. There
was no time to stop the car.

Suddenly, car and Tommy were swallowed up in the dust cloud.

"Grace is killed!" screamed Margery.

"Yes, oh yes!" wailed Hazel, wringing her hands. "What shall we do?"

Out of the dust cloud hurtled the little white figure. She appeared to
have been doubled up into a large white ball by the car when it struck
her.

The ball rolled from the road, disappearing into the roadside ditch. The
motor car lurched around the curve in the road, zig-zagged past Miss
Elting, then became a rolling cloud of dust again.

CHAPTER II

WHAT HAPPENED TO TOMMY

"Oh-h-h!" moaned Margery. "Poor Tommy has been killed."

In that terrible moment Hazel Holland came nearer to fainting than ever
before in her life. She pulled herself sharply together. Margery was by
this time sobbing hysterically.

"Don't do that," commanded Hazel sharply, "We must do something. Come
quickly!"

Hazel started down the hillside in the trail followed by Tommy during her
break-neck sprint to meet Miss Elting. The latter was already running
toward the scene of the accident. Hazel recalled afterwards having
wondered at the time that a woman could run so fast. Miss Elting's feet
seemed barely to touch the ground. Margery, mustering her courage,
staggered to her feet and followed Hazel at a slower pace, though she,
too, was running.

Hazel was the first to reach the place where Grace had been hurled from
the highway by the car.

"Grace!" she screamed, clambering awkwardly over the fence, dropping down
on the road side. "Oh, Grace, are you killed?"

A pale-faced girl was sitting at the bottom of the dry ditch with both
feet tucked under her. There was a bewildered look on her small face. She
was blinking dazedly.

"Oh, dearie, are you injured?" cried Miss Elting, slipping and sliding
down into the ditch beside the pale-faced Tommy.

"Yeth."

"Tell me where, what?"

"My feelingth are hurt."

"She's alive! She's alive," cried Hazel, throwing impulsive arms about the
neck of her little friend.

"Your feelings are hurt? Well, dear, if that is all, you are a lucky
girl," smiled Miss Elting. "Did the automobile hit you?"

"Yeth."

At this juncture, Margery made her appearance in a wholly unexpected
manner. Margery in climbing the fence had caught her skirt on a nail. She
plunged headlong down the bank into the ditch, almost falling on Grace.

"Oh, oh!" groaned Margery.

Hazel, laughing almost hysterically in her joy at finding Grace alive,
quickly assisted Margery to her feet, wiping the dirt from Buster's
flushed face.

"She isn't hurt at all," laughed Margery, fixing a glance of inquiry on
Tommy's face.

"Tommy says her feelings are hurt," Miss Elting informed Buster.

"Then I am worse off than she. Because I tore my skirt and hurt my arm,
too. Catch me running on another wild goose chase like this one. I don't
believe the car hit you at all, Tommy Thompson."

"Yeth it did," protested Tommy. "Of courthe it did. I gueth I know. I felt
it."

"Stand up," commanded Miss Elting, placing both hands under the arms of
the girl and assisting her to her feet. "There! Now see if you can walk.
Of course you can," comforted the teacher. "The car never touched you. You
must have leaped out of the way just in time. Come, I will help you into
the road, then we will take you home. But where is Harriett? I heard she
was out here with you girls."

"I should not be here had not Tommy and Hazel dragged me out," declared
Margery. "Violent exercise is not good for one during the hot weather."

"It'th very good for you, Buthter," remarked Tommy wisely. "It ithn't good
for a growing girl to be thtout, tho I've heard."

"Don't worry. You will never suffer from being too stout," retorted
Margery. "You can't keep still long enough."

"Mith Elting, I've been thitting here in the ditch for ever and ever tho
long and not thaying a word, and Buthter thayth I can't keep thtill."

"Why don't you girls stop squabbling and answer Miss Elting's question?"
demanded Hazel. "Harriet is at home, Miss Elting."

"Yeth, Harriet ith wathing ditheth for her mother," said Tommy. "I'd like
to thee anybody make me wath ditheth if I didn't want to."

"That isn't a nice thing to say, Grace," rebuked the teacher. "Of course
Harriet is a great help to her mother, as every girl should be. Suppose,
Grace, that your mother could not afford to hire a servant to do these
things for her? In that case I am positive you would do whatever you could
to assist your mother. I believe you would make a fine little
housekeeper."

Grace shook her head with emphasis.

"No? Then what would you do if your mother insisted upon your washing
dishes?"

"I'd drop the ditheth. Maybe they wouldn't want me to wath any more
ditheth after that," replied Tommy, screwing up her face so impishly that
Miss Elting laughed aloud.

"Is it any wonder that Grace and myself quarrel awfully at times, Miss
Elting?" asked Margery.

"They don't mean anything by it," apologized Hazel.

"Thay, what did you come up here for, Mith Elting?" questioned Tommy,
directing a glance of suspicious inquiry at the teacher. "Do you want uth
to go for another nithe little walk? No, thank you. I've walked with you
before. Thank you very kindly. My feet are too thore and Buthter ith too
tired. Harriet'th brother thayth that Buthter wath born with that tired
feeling. I geth he'th right. Don't you think tho, Miss Elting? Thit down
and retht, and I'll tell your fortune with a daithy."

"If you are rested sufficiently I think we had better move on. Don't
worry, Grace. I am not going to drag you away on one of those long walks.
But I have something to tell you."

"I knew it," piped Tommy. "Look out! There cometh another automobile."
Tommy shied from her position in the road like a skittish horse.

Just then the car that had caused all the trouble came honking toward them
and slowed down with a series of explosions that sounded like the
discharges of a Gatling gun. The young woman who was driving the car,
brought it to a stop, leaped out and running to Grace threw her arms about
the slender girl in white.

"Oh, my darlin', my darlin'. My blessed little Tommy. Did I kill you
altogether? And I wasn't going a little bit, was I? But didn't I come near
to ripping the cowcatcher from that engine? Wasn't it just glorious the
way I dodged the old thing? I knew all the time it was going to be a close
shave, but I made up my mind I'd beat 'em out even if I took off the hind
wheels of my car. Get in, you dears. I'll drive you home."

"What! Ride with you?" questioned Margery. "Not for a million dollars.
It's a shame. They ought to arrest you."

"Yes, Jane," rebuked Miss Elting. "You shouldn't go racing about the way
you do. Your car nearly ran over Grace."

"Dad says I drive too fast. He says he doesn't blame folks for calling me
'Crazy Jane.' He says I'll meet with an accident one of these days. But
Dad has old-fashioned ideas."

Jane paused long enough to brush back two stray locks from her flushed
face. Her hair was all awry and her attire showed carelessness and haste
in dressing.

"Well, darlin's, if you won't go with me I think I'll go and get Harriet.
She isn't afraid to ride with me."

"Please don't do that," replied Miss Elting. "We are on our way to see
Harriet on important business."

"So long, then. I'm off, girls."

Jane sprang into her car and drove away with a sputter and a roar,
disappearing in a cloud of pungent blue smoke.

"Isn't she a crazy creature?" demanded Margery disdainfully.

"She means well," soothed Hazel.

"Yeth. Thhe meanth to kill thomebody well," corrected Tommy.

Jane McCarthy had acquired the name of "Crazy Jane" because of her
reckless driving, her harum-scarum ways and her complete ignoring of
public opinion. Not a few of the residents of the little New Hampshire
village feared that Jane might be brought home after one of her wild
drives, with broken bones, if not worse.

In spite of her reckless manner Jane was well liked. She was good hearted
and very charitable, though her charity was not always bestowed with
judgment Being motherless she had practically done as she pleased ever
since she began to walk, and her father, a wealthy contractor, had
indulged her every whim, believing that Jane could do no wrong. Jane was
prompt to take advantage of this paternal leniency, though her worst
offense was that of continuously terrorizing the neighborhood in which she
lived and the whole countryside as well, by her reckless driving with both
car and horse.

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