"Good! I can't turn an egg without breaking it--never could. Now, girls!

bring your plates. I'll flop a pair of eggs onto each plate. There's crackers in the box. Hand around your bowls. The cornmeal mush is nice, and there is lovely milk and sugar if you want it. For 'them that likes'

there is coffee."

"M-m-m! Doesn't it smell good?" cried Grace, as the party came trooping to the fire with their kits.

"I--I thought I'd miss the sweet b.u.t.ter," said Bess, sitting down cross-legged on the already dry gra.s.s. "But somehow I've got _such_ an appet.i.te."

"I hope the boys are having as good a time," sighed Wyn, sitting back upon her heels and spooning up her mush, flooded with the new milk.

"Isn't this just scrumptious, Mrs. Havel?"

"It is the simple life," replied that lady, smiling. "Plenty of fresh air, no frills, plain food--that ought to do much for you girls this summer. I am sure if you can endure plain food and simple living for these several weeks before us, you will all be improved in both health and mind."

CHAPTER IX

JOHN JARLEY, EXILE

This could be no day of leisure for the Go-Ahead Club. To get settled in camp was the first task--and that no small one.

There was the plank flooring to be laid in the big tent, the cook-tent to be erected, and the floor laid in that. There was a sheet-iron stove to erect, with a smoke pipe to the outside, and an asbestos "blanket" to wrap around the pipe to keep the canvas of the tent-top from scorching.

There were the swinging shelves to put up, fastened to the ridge-pole of the cook-tent, on which certain supplies could be kept out of the reach of the wood mice and other small vermin. Indeed, there were a dozen and one things of moment to see about, beside bringing over to the camp a selection of the stores--and their extra clothes--from John Jarley's shack by the boat landing.

Wyn was a competent girl and knew something about using a hammer and a saw. The flooring planks for both tents had been a.s.sembled at Denton, and were numbered; but after they got the sleepers laid Wyn realized that she and her mates had tackled more of a task than they had expected.

"And the boys will be just as busy as they can be to-day," she said to the other girls. "It's a wonder if everything they owned didn't get soaked last evening.

"Now, we can't depend upon the Busters to give us any a.s.sistance just now. Doubt if we see 'hide nor hair' of them to-day. But we need somebody to make these floors properly. There! Bess has stuck a splinter into her hand already."

"Plague take the old board!" snapped Bess, dropping it and sucking on a ragged little wound in her hand.

"You see," Wyn said, quickly. "I'm going to get some help. Anybody want to walk over to Jarley's with me?"

"Are you going to get that man to come here?" demanded Bess, sharply.

"Don't see what else there is to do--do you, Bessie?"

"Isn't there anybody else to help us around here? There must be other squatters."

"I do not know of any. We chance to know the Jarleys----"

"Not I!" cried Bess, shaking her head. "_I_ don't know them--and I won't know them."

"All right. You and Grace and Percy take the pails and try for some berries in the woods yonder. I saw some ripe ones this morning. Fresh picked berries will add nicely to our bill-of-fare; isn't that so, Mrs.

Havel?"

"Quite so, my dear," replied the widow, and buried herself in her book again, for, as she had told the girls, she had not come here to work; they must treat her as a guest.

"Are you going to stop with Mrs. Havel, Mina?" continued Wyn. "Then come along with me, Frank. We'll go over and see if the Jarleys bite. Bess is afraid they will!"

"She was telling us all about John Jarley," said Wyn's chum, as the two left the camp on the green knoll. "Do you suppose he stole that motor boat and the box of silver statuettes?"

"I don't _know_ anything about it," said Wyn, briskly. "But I know that he and Polly are very poor, and with a motor boat and five thousand dollars' worth of silver, it looks to me as though they would be very foolish to suffer the privations they do. It's nasty gossip, that's all it is."

"Well, Bess says the man stole from her father years ago----"

"I don't know much about _that_, either," interrupted Wynifred.

"But I think Bess is overstepping the line of exact truth when she says John Jarley stole from her father. They were doing business together, and Mr. Lavine accused Jarley of 'selling him out' in a real estate deal.

"I asked my father about it. Father says the whole business was a little misty, at best. If Jarley did all Lavine said, he merely was guilty of being false to his friend and partner. It is doubtful if he made much out of it. But Lavine talked loudly and long; he had lots of friends even then. The talk and all fairly hounded the Jarleys out of town.

"And now," said Wyn, warmly, "the Lavines are rich and the Jarleys have always been poor. Mr. Jarley is an exile from his old home and such friends as he had in Denton. It is really a shame, I think--and you'll say so, too, when you see what a splendid girl Polly is."

The two girls had followed the edge of the lake toward the landing, instead of taking the path through the wood. Suddenly they came in sight of the float and shack, with the several boats in Mr. Jarley's keeping.

Back from the sh.o.r.e was a tiny cottage, painted red, its window sash and door striped with yellow. It was a gay little cot, and everything about it was as neat and as gaily painted as a Dutch picture.

As Wyn and Frank came down the hill they saw Polly Jarley run out of the house and down to the landing. Her father was busy there at an overturned boat--evidently caulking the seams.

The boatman's girl did not see her visitors coming; but Wyn and Frank got a good view of her, and the latter exclaimed to Wyn:

"Why! she's as pretty as a picture! She's handsome! If she only had on nice clothes she would be a perfect beauty."

"Wouldn't she?" returned Wyn, happily. "I think my Polly Jolly is just the _dearest_ looking creature. Isn't she brown? And what pretty feet and hands she has!"

Polly wore a very short skirt, patched and stained. Her blouse was open at the throat, so that the soft roundness of the curve of her shoulder was plainly visible.

Out of the open neck of the blouse her deeply tanned throat rose like a bronze column; the roses in her cheeks and on her lips relieved the sun-darkened skin. Her hair was in two great plaits and it was evident that she seldom troubled about a hat. She was lithe, graceful as she could be, and bubbling over with good health if not good spirits.

And this was a morning--after the rain--to make even a lachrymose person lively. The smell of all growing things was in the nostrils--the warmth of the sun lapped one about like a mantle--it was a beautiful, beautiful day,--one to be remembered.

Wyn shouted and started running down the hill. Polly heard her, turned to see who it might be who called, and recognizing her friend, set out to meet her quite as eagerly.

"Oh, Miss Wynifred!" cried the boatman's daughter.

"Polly Jolly! This is Frank Cameron." She kissed Polly warmly. "How fine you look, Polly! Tell me! will all we girls look as healthy and be as strong as you are, by the autumn? You're a picture!"

"A pretty shabby one, I fear, Miss Wyn," protested Polly, yet smiling.

"I am in the very oldest clothes I have, for there is much dirty work to be done around here. We have hardly got ready for the summer yet. Father has been so lame."

"And you must introduce me to your father, Polly," Wyn said, quickly.

"We have something for him to do--if he will be so kind."

"All you need to do is to say what it is, Wynifred," responded Polly, warmly. "If either of us can do anything for you we will only be too glad."