Wyn's Camping Days Part 15

The three girls walked to the spot where Mr. Jarley was engaged upon his boat. He was not at all the sort of a person whom the girls from town had expected to see. The boatmen and woodsmen who sometimes drifted into Denton were rough characters. This man, after being ten years and more in the woods, savored little of the rough life he had followed.

He was a small man, very neat in his suit of brown overalls, with grizzled hair, a short-cropped gray mustache, and without color in his face save the coat of tan his out-of-door life had given him.

There was a gentle, deprecatory air about him that reminded Wyn strongly of Polly herself. But this manner was almost the only characteristic that father and daughter had in common.

Mr. Jarley was low-spoken, too; he listened quietly and with an air of deference to what Wyn had to propose.

"Surely I will come around and do all I can to aid you, Miss Mallory,"

he said. "You shall pick out the stores you think you will need, and we will take a boat around to your camp. Your stores will be perfectly safe here--if you wish to risk them in my care," he added.

"Of course, sir. And we expect to pay you for keeping them. If we have a long spell of rainy weather the dampness would be bound to spoil things in our tents."

"True. This corrugated iron shack will keep the stores dry, and the door has a good padlock," returned Mr. Jarley. "Now, you young ladies pick out what you wish carried over to the camp and I will soon be at your service."

"Isn't he nice?" whispered Wyn to Frank, when Polly had run into the house for something, and Mr. Jarley himself was out of hearing.

"Why! he is a perfect gentleman!" exclaimed Frank. "How can Bess talk as she does about him? I am surprised at her."

"And these other people about here, too!" declared Wyn, warmly. "What an evil tongue Gossip has! That man--Shelton, is his name?--at the other end of the lake, who has accused Mr. Jarley of stealing his boat and the silver statues, ought to be punished."

"Well--of course--we don't _know_ anything more about the Jarleys than these other people," observed Frank, doubtfully.

"I judge people by their appearance a good deal, I suppose," admitted Wyn. "And mother tells me that is a poor way to judge. Just the same, I _feel_ that the Jarleys are being maligned. And I would love to help them."

"Well! there isn't much chance to do that unless you can prove that he _is_ honest, after all," remarked Frank.

"I know it. Everything is going to tell against him unless the lost boat and the images can be found. I wonder where it was sunk? Do you suppose Polly would tell us just where the accident happened?"

"Ask her."

"I will, if I get a chance," declared Wyn. "And wouldn't it be fine if we girls could find the sunken boat and the box belonging to Dr.

Shelton, and clear up the whole trouble?"

"Even _that_ would not satisfy Bessie Lavine," said Frankie, with a little laugh. "You know--Bess is 'awful sot in her ways.' When she has made up her mind that a thing is so, you can't shake it out of her with a charge of dynamite!"

"You never tried the dynamite; did you, Frank?" queried Wyn, smiling.

"No! But I've wanted to--at times."

"Bessie is like her father--obstinate. It is a family trait Yet, once get her turned around--show her that she has been wrong and unfair to anybody--and she can't do too much for her to prove how sorry she is."

"That's right! look how she talked against the boys--especially against Dave Shepard. And now you can just wager she won't be able to do enough for him to show how grateful she is for being pulled out of the water,"

laughed Frank.

Mr. Jarley was ready to load the boat for them, and Polly came back with the key to the shack. Polly could not go over to the camp, for both she and her father could not leave the landing at once. Some fishermen might come along at any time to hire a boat. The season was opening now, and after the "lean months" that had gone by, the Jarleys had to be on the watch for every dollar that might come their way.

"It seems an awfully hard life for such a man--and for Polly," whispered Wyn to her companion. "I'd just _love_ to have Polly for a member of our club."

"So would I," agreed Frank. "She's just as sweet as she can be. But Bess would go right up in the air!"

"Oh, I know it," sighed Wyn. "Somehow we have got to make Bessie Lavine see the error of her ways. Oh, dear! why can't people be nice to each other all the time?"

"Goodness me, Wyn Mallory!" exclaimed Frank. "What do you expect while there still remains 'original sin' in the world? That seems to have been left out of _your_ const.i.tution; but most of the rest of us have our share."

CHAPTER X

THE "HAPPY DAY"

That day the camp upon the hill overlooking Lake Honotonka was completed. Mr. Jarley was very helpful, for beside laying the floors of the two tents, and setting up the stove, he built for the girls an open-air fireplace of flat rocks, dragged up from the sh.o.r.e; set up their plank dining table, cut and set three posts for their clothes-line (for they were to do their own laundry work), dug shallow ditches all around the tents, with a drain to carry off any water that might collect; built an "overlook-seat" at the foot of a big birch which overhung the water, and did countless other little services which most of the Go-Ahead Club appreciated.

Bessie Lavine did not come back from the berrying expedition until Mr.

Jarley had gone back to the landing; and of course she hadn't much to say about the change in the appearance of things. But the other girls were enthusiastic.

"And now we must have a name for the camp," said Mrs. Havel, as they sat down to the oilcloth-covered table to dinner.

The arrangements for cooking and eating were of the simplest; yet everything was neat. Using oilcloth saved laundry, and using paper napkins was likewise a help. The food was served daintily, if simply, and although all the girls were used to much finer table service at home, the hearty appet.i.tes engendered by the pure air of lake and forest made even coa.r.s.e food taste delicious.

They were all instantly enthusiastic over their chaperone's suggestion.

Half a dozen names were suggested on the spur of the moment; but no particular one met the approval of all the girls, immediately.

"We'll have to draw lots," suggested Mina.

"No! let's each write down the best names we can think of, and then vote on them," said Bess.

"Goody!" cried Frank. "We must have a name that fits, but is pretty and not too 'hifalutin',' as my grandmother would say."

"Naming the camp is all very well, girls," said Wyn, seriously, rapping on the table for order. "But there are more important things to decide.

The work of the camp is to be properly apportioned----"

"Oh, dear me!" groaned Grace. "Have we _got_ to work? After traipsing over four miles of huckleberry pasture all the morning I feel as though I had done my share for to-day."

"And she ate as many as she picked!" cried Bess. "Oh, I'm going to tell on you, Miss! You're not going to crawl out of your fair share."

"I didn't enlist to work," declared Grace, with some sullenness. "What's the fun of camping out if one has to work like a slave all the time?"

"And we haven't even begun!" cried Frank. "For shame, Gracie!"

"Now, none of the members of the Go-Aheads, I feel sure," quoth Wyn, quietly, "will try to escape her just burden. To have the fun of camping out under canvas we must each do our share of the work quickly and cheerfully. We will divide up the tasks, and change them about weekly.

Of course, Mrs. Havel is not supposed to lift her hand. She is our guest."

"Oh, but auntie is going to show us how to make pancakes," cried Percy.

"I'll learn to do _that_," said Grace, brightening up. "For I love 'em."