Wyn's Camping Days.

by Amy Bell Marlowe.

CHAPTER I

THE GO-AHEAD CLUB

"Oh, girls! such news!" cried Wynifred Mallory, banging open the door of Canoe Lodge, and bringing into the living room a big breath of the cool May air, which drew out of the open fireplace a sudden balloon of smoke, setting the other members of the Go-Ahead Club there a.s.sembled coughing.

Grace Hedges, who was acting as fireman that week, turned an exasperated face, with a bar of s.m.u.t across it, exclaiming:

"If another soul comes in that door and creates a back-draught until this fire gets to burning properly, I certainly shall have hysterics! I never did see such a mean old thing to burn."

"Never mind, Gracie. We're all here now--all six of us. There are no more Go-Aheads to come," observed Bessie Lavine, yawning over her book in the only sunny corner of the room.

"There! it's burning--finally," exclaimed Grace, with blended disgust and thankfulness. "I never was cut out for a fireman, girls."

"Poor Gracie," purred Wyn, who had approached the blaze that was now beginning to curl through the hickory sticks piled more or less scientifically against the backlog. "Don't you know it needed just that back-draught to break the deadlock in the chimney and start your fire crackling this way?"

"Bah! it was just hateful," grumbled Grace. "I hate fire making. And it does seem as though my week for playing fireman comes around twice as often as it should." Wyn had moved rather too near to the darting flames, and Grace suddenly pulled the captain of the club aside.

"_Don't_ stand so near, Silly!" she cried.

"Fireman! save my che-ild!" wailed "Frank" Cameron, coming forward and winding her long arms around Wynifred. "What's the news, Wyn, dear?

n.o.body had the politeness to ask you. Wherefore all the excitement?"

"There must be a strike at the blacksmith shop," said Percy Havel, a curly-headed blonde girl.

"No!" cried Frank, with a droll twist of her rather homely features.

"I'll wager they've laid off one of the hands of the town clock.

Business is dreadfully dull. I heard my father say so."

She was a tall, lanky girl, was Frances Cameron, with a great ma.s.s of blue-black hair and flashing black eyes. She was thin, strong, and lacking in those soft curves of budding womanhood which girls of her age usually display. "Straight up and down, my dears," she often said.

"Built upon the most approved clothespin plan, with every bone perfectly--not to say generously--developed."

"Well," said Wyn, laughing, "if you girls will give me a chance I will divulge my news."

"Be still!" commanded Frank. "The oracle speaks."

"Oh, hurry up, Wyn!" exclaimed Percy, coming nearer the group before the now roaring fire. "I've been dying to tell them."

"Well, girls," said Wyn, smiling, so that her brown eyes fairly danced.

"Mrs. Havel--Percy's aunt--says she will go."

"Fine!" exclaimed Frankie.

"You don't mean it, Wyn?" gasped Mina Everett. "Then we really _can_ go camping?"

"And to Lake Honotonka?" put in Bessie.

"That's what we aimed to do; wasn't it?" demanded Wyn, laughing. "And when the Go-Ahead Club starts to do a thing, it usually arrives; doesn't it?"

"At least, the captain arrives for them," said Frank, giving Wyn's arm a little squeeze. "We wouldn't get far in our 'go-ahead' plans if it wasn't for you, Wynnie."

"Such flattery!" protested the captain.

"You didn't have an easy time convincing my mother--I know that," said Mina, shaking _her_ head. "You know, she's so afraid of water."

"And my mother is afraid of high winds," confessed Bessie. "Wyn had to coax to bring her around."

"And of course, Gracie's mother is afraid of fire," chuckled Frank; "and there you have the three elements. You can plainly see that Gracie knows very little about fire. She never built one in her life until we formed our camping club."

"Oh, well," observed Grace, trying to rub the s.m.u.t off her face with a handkerchief and the aid of a pocket-mirror, "this is about the end of the fire season, thank goodness! If we go into camp after school closes, on Lake Honotonka, there won't be any fires to build."

"Oh, _won't_ there?" cried Bessie. "You just wait. Instead of taking turns at being fireman for the week, as we do through the winter, we'll draw lots to see who shall build _all_ the fires. And you know very well, Gracie, that you always _are_ unlucky."

"Sure she is," agreed Frank. "She always draws the very b.o.o.biest of all b.o.o.by prizes out of the grab-bag."

"Oh, dear me!" wailed Grace, who was big, and handsome, and not a little lazy, "I do so hate to work, too. If there had been another set of girls I liked at Denton Academy, I'd never have joined the Go-Ahead Club."

"Right. Gracie is better fitted for a Fall-Behind Club," observed Wyn.

"But tell us, Wynnie," begged Mina. "Is it really all arranged? Has everybody agreed that we can go in our canoes to Lake Honotonka?"

"And stay all vacation if we like?" cried Percy.

"That is the understanding," Wyn a.s.sured them. "Percy's aunt is the very kindest lady who ever was----"

"Vote we buy her something nice," interposed Frank.

"That will come in due season," Wyn continued. "But Mrs. Havel went with me to all our people. She knows all about the place, of course----"

"So does my father," interposed Bessie.

"And he wasn't hard to convince," Wyn responded. "Of course, there are wild nooks along Honotonka's sh.o.r.es; but at the upper end is Braisely Park, where all those rich folks live; and there's the village of Meade's Forge at this end of the lake. We can get supplies, or a doctor, or send a telephone message, easily enough. And what more does one want--camping out?"

"We'll have just a lovely time!" sighed Bessie. "I can hardly wait for school to close."

"A month and a half yet," said Frank Cameron. "And every day will seem longer than the one that preceded it. But then! when it does come----"

"Just think of living under canvas--and for weeks and weeks! It almost makes me feel spooky," declared Grace, beginning to grow enthusiastic.

These girls, all attending Denton Academy and living within the limits of that town, being the daughters of fairly well-to-do parents, had been able to enjoy many advantages as well as pleasures that poorer girls could not have; but none of them had chanced to experience the joys of a vacation in the woods.

During the preceding autumn they had become immensely interested in canoeing. Denton was situated upon the beautiful, winding Wintinooski, and the six members of the Go-Ahead Club had taken several Sat.u.r.day cruises on the river. But never had they gone as far up the stream as Lake Honotonka.

That was a wide and beautiful sheet of water, thirty-five miles to the west of the town of Denton. Their boy friends had sometimes been allowed to go camping upon the sh.o.r.es of the lake; and their enthusiastic praise of the fun to be had under canvas had set Wynifred Mallory and her chums "just wild," as Frank Cameron expressed it, to try it too.