"Betsy can write pomes like that any time," explained Marie, and the audience giggled. "But I always tell Betsy," Marie went on, "that walkin' cross-lots ain't any place to compose poetry to Muses. Well, she was walkin' 'cross-lots in a brown study an' a red-striped morey waist, speakin' this out loud as she went. An' she got to gesturin' before she thought. An' Farmer Peed.i.c.k, him that married Jane Ann Allen, had jest let his best bull out in the field. An' whether it was the red morey waist or the pome Betsy never did know, but she thinks it was the pome.

She says she thinks the bull, not bein' used to fust-cla.s.s poetry, was excited. So he just up an' ran after her. Well, she stopped recitin', an' ran, too. She jest got over the barb-wire fence in time. But I tell you, Betsy Bobbet is a wonderful woman! When she was safe she fixed that bull with her eye (it was a poet's eye, she says to me), an' recited the remainder of that ode to him. An', ladies an' gentlemen, you mayn't believe it, but that bull was cowed! Yes, sir. He looked at her, Betsy says to me, as if he was sayin' 'I can't stand that!' an' he ran. Yes, sir, he just ran!"

She pulled aside the frame, and there smirked Betsy, very stiff and proper, with her bonnet and veil still a wreck and her red morey waist very much askew, and with a jagged rent down the front of her skirt. But her corkscrew curls twisted gracefully down either side of her face, her eyes were rolled up, and her mitted hand clutched a roll of paper. The audience howled.

Marie closed the cover, bowed, and went on to the end of the pictures.

The dances-the Indian dance, the minuet and the Russian dance-were beautiful and everyone applauded them, though they liked the Indian dance best. When they had finished some of the guests, to Louise's great delight, demanded Camp Fire work, and bought it, too. After that the girls distributed coffee and sandwiches free, and then the Scouts took the audience, in relays, up the river to Wampoag.

Before they went somebody said to Marie:

"My dear, you were splendid. I'm going to give that entertainment for our church this winter, and write to you for help. But the most convincing and amusing picture of the lot was 'Betsy Bobbet.' Do tell me how you ever managed to make the thing so life-like?"

But Marie merely looked modest.

"We did the best we could," she said. "It was quite simple, after all."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The next time Billy and Tom and Winona and Louise went off in Billy's canoe for the day, they did not take Sandy. She happened to be making one of her brief visits home. They took, instead, a shot-gun apiece (that is, the boys did), a book apiece (that was for the girls), a bagful of socks from the Scouts' mending-basket, and the usual amount of lunch.

"We look like an Italian moving," Tom observed critically, looking over their joint baggage. "Three fishing-rods, two baskets, two paddles, two guns, two sunbonnets. Whew! Louise, I'll trade with you."

"It isn't much at all," said Louise indignantly. "I could carry my share, and yours, too, if I had to."

"You may," he returned promptly. "Here's my rifle. It won't go off unless you hit the trigger by accident."

"Heap big chief!" said she, not offering to take it. "If I'd remembered how you hated carrying innocent little things like this around with you"-she pointed to the imposing pile of baskets, books and work in the bottom of the canoe-"I'd have telephoned for an expressman."

"Have you a telephone?" asked Tom. "When did you put it in, and what did you tie it to?"

"No," said Louise, "but we could have borrowed yours."

The Scouts had just finished installing a telephone from Wampoag to their headquarters. They had done nearly everything themselves in the way of connecting and so forth. They were very proud of it, and the Camp Fire girls were wildly envious, for all _they_ had was a system of baking-powder-box-and-wire telephone, worked out from the American Girl's Handy Book by two young geniuses. It was all right as far as it went, but naturally it wouldn't connect them with the telephones at home, or at Wampoag.

"Why, of course you could," consented Tom. "In fact, you can. Shall I paddle you that way?"

"You needn't mind," she smiled. "Do look at Winona!"

Winona had one of Marie's books, and she was sitting on the bottom reading it, forgetful of the world.

"What does this mean, Billy?" as she looked up suddenly. "Marie has a note here in pencil 'But Raleigh was not exclusively Elizabethan!' and two exclamation points after it."

"I don't know," Billy answered frankly. "I don't see why Marie wants to worry about it."

"Raleigh was Gothic with Queen Anne chimneys," interrupted Tom. "If you want information just come to me, little one. Here, Winnie, put down that book. It looks too full of useful information for a nice day like this. Remember, this is a pleasure exertion."

"All right," and Winona laid down the book. "Only I do wish I knew as much as Marie does."

"And yet she never seems to study hard," remarked Louise, to whom lessons were a painful grind. "I believe she's like Billy Wiggs of the Cabbage-Patch-she 'inherited her education from her paw!'"

"She could!" put in Tom mournfully. "Professor Hunter has enough and too much. Just wait till you get under him, Louise!"

"Oh, I can wait. I'm in no hurry at all. He's awfully nice out of school hours, but--"

"But why talk about school in vacation?" broke in Billy impatiently.

"Isn't it a lovely day?"

The girls were curled on the bottom of the canoe, in the middle, and the boys were paddling at the ends. The morning breeze, cool and fresh, struck their faces, whipping Louise's red hair about her face in little curls, and blowing Winona's blue tie straight back over her shoulder in the sunshine.

"This is something like living!" Tom declared, spatting the water with his paddle because he was so happy. "Pa.s.s me about three bananas, will you, whoever's nearest the lunch? I feel hungry."

"You aren't," said Louise swiftly. "You just want those bananas because you know they're there. Have some poetry instead. I brought a bookful."

"Poetry!" snorted Tom, as she hoped he would.

"Caesar! There's a snipe!" cried Billy, dropping his paddle, reaching for a rifle, and taking hasty aim.

"Never touched it," mocked Tom as the report died, and the snipe appeared not to have done so at all.

"How do you come to be carrying all these shooting-irons around?" asked Louise suspiciously. "I thought Mr. Gedney was pretty strict about it."

"Special permission," explained Tom. "We've both always known how to shoot, and old Billy here is supposed to be the most careful thing that ever was."

"That wasn't a snipe," said Billy disgustedly. "That was a mosquito, a nice tame old Jersey mosquito. I always heard they grew to that size, but I never believed it before."

"Don't cast any asparagus," said Louise. "The advertis.e.m.e.nts say there are no mosquitoes here."

Billy eyed the now almost gone snipe.

"Well, he may have been a plain fly," he conceded.... "Let's go on hunting. Perhaps we'll find a real snipe next time."

They paddled along lazily for the next three-quarters of an hour, talking a little now and then. For the most part, though, they went on in silence, except when Louise giggled over "Fables in Slang," which she had pulled out of her blouse-pocket, or when someone saw what might be game, or especially good scenery. They went, presently, down an arm of the river that was scarcely more than a creek, and stopped there till afternoon for rest and refreshment. It seemed a charming spot, and almost deserted. Only in the distance one red-roofed farmhouse could be seen, adding to the picturesqueness of the landscape.

There were three small sandwiches left, and the girls, with the aid of paper and pencil, had just worked it out that each person present was ent.i.tled to three-quarters of a sandwich. They were trying to decide who should get the three quarters that were cut out of the three sandwiches-it was more a point of honor than necessity, for n.o.body much wanted any of them-when there was a subdued howl from Tom, who had been lying on his back in the canoe, gazing up at the sky.

Six stately geese were flying in an arrow-shape across the creek, above the canoe. Both boys fired.

"Oh, what a shame to kill them!" mourned Winona; but Tom said hurriedly again that they had special permission from Mr. Gedney, and sat up to see if he had done anything.

"We each got one!" said Billy in a tense whisper. "They've dropped on the farther sh.o.r.e-there by the farmhouse!"

The boys pushed the canoe up close and sprang out. They were dashing excitedly across country after their prey. Suddenly the waiting girls heard wild howls, and the tall, angry form of a wild-eyed man in overalls suddenly appeared from nowhere with a pitchfork.

"Oh, he's chasing the boys!" exclaimed Winona.