Girl Scouts at Dandelion Camp Part 18

laughed Joan.

"And we can honestly say they are not for pleasure," added Betty.

"They are for gustatory pleasures," teased Mrs. Vernon.

"Girls! Seeing our Captain is so particular, suppose we exempt her from any obligation she fears we might incur by picking berries on Sunday. I say, we will gather the fruit on our own responsibility but she shall not eat of that forbidden fruit, either," declared Julie, but at this point she was interrupted by Mrs. Vernon.

"Oh, no, indeed! As your guardian and Captain, I cannot have you eat berries on Sunday unless I, too, partic.i.p.ate!"

With this form of banter they pa.s.sed the time until the clearing in the woods was found where the berries grew in thick profusion.

"Oh, my! what a lot of them!" exclaimed the girls, as they jumped the deep ditch and fell to picking the luscious fruit.

"U-mm! Verny, you never tasted anything so delicious!" called Julie to the Captain who was seeking a safe spot to cross to the berry-patch.

After a silent time during which every one seemed hard at work, Mrs.

Vernon stood up and called out: "How many quarts have you ready for supper, girls?"

Julie also stood up and laughed: "I am not sure how many quarts I can hold, but there is still room for some more."

"We haven't any other holder to put the fruit in--that's why I am eating mine," said Ruth, in self-defense.

"You'll not be able to say that in another few minutes. Now begin to pick and save the berries until I come again," said the Captain, going over to a clump of white birches.

"I know what: she's going to strip some bark and make cornucopias for us to use," explained Joan, as she saw Mrs. Vernon tear strips from the trees.

And that is just what she did. Each girl was given a deep cornucopia and soon the holders were full of berries. As each one had eaten plentifully of the fruit, as well, they were ready to start up the road again.

"Girls, we can gather berries to eat every day and still have plenty to can," said the Captain, as they neared the camp.

"To can! how could we can any out here in the woods?"

"I'll show you. To-morrow when the man comes from Freedom for our Tuesday order, I will tell him to bring us a box of fruit jars. Then we will experiment on the berries. Wild fruit always is much sweeter than the cultivated kind."

"I've been wondering what we can give our visitors for a dinner, should we try to cook for them without asking for supplies from home?" ventured Betty, who had been rather silent during the walk to camp.

"I believe we can find enough good things right in the woods to give them, without falling back upon any store-food at all," replied Mrs.

Vernon.

The girls looked amazed, and Ruth said laughingly: "Then they'll have to eat gra.s.s!"

"You wait and see! When I explain my menu you will be gratified, I think," said the Captain.

It was found that Eliza had left enough soup in a pan so that, with heating, it was sufficient for supper. That, with the cake and berries, quite satisfied the girls. Then seated about the embers of the night-fire, they planned for work on the morrow.

Monday morning, as soon as the usual work was finished, the campers began to mix the clay cement for the walls. Filling up the crevices kept them busy till noon, and then they were eager to get through with the dinner and start on something new.

"Now that your new abode is finished, I wonder how you would like to fill it with furniture," suggested Mrs. Vernon.

"Furniture! We haven't any here, and I doubt if our folks can spare anything they might have," Joan replied.

"I meant for you to make it," responded the Captain.

"Make it--what of, boxes like those in the magazine?" said Julie, laughingly.

"You _almost_ guessed my plan! If you come with me, girls, I'll show you what I mean."

Amazed but curious, the scouts followed Mrs. Vernon to the place where various boxes and barrels still waited to be used. These were examined and sorted by the Captain, then each girl was given one to carry up to the plateau beside the camp-ground.

"Seems to me I remember reading about that Box Furniture, once," said Joan, dropping her burden upon the ground.

"We'll see if we can remember well enough to apply it now," replied the Captain. "First I'll take this barrel. I'll saw it halfway through the center, like this."

Mrs. Vernon then sawed and sawed until half the staves, where she had carefully drawn a pencil-line about the center of them, fell from one side and left the other halves attached to one head end.

"See it now!" exclaimed she, standing the barrel on end. "That half where the staves are left will be the curved back of my easy-chair."

The barrel-head which she had removed carefully from the end, that now was the top back of the chair, was secured upon the sawed staves to the center of the barrel and fastened to the back to make a seat. Then the remaining hoops were fastened securely to hold the bottom from spreading.

"Now girls, if we had material to cus.h.i.+on it and pad the back, don't you think it would be comfortable?" said Mrs. Vernon.

The girls laughed appreciatively, and declared it was fine! Then Julie had an inspiration.

"Verny, I've got just the upholstery goods for the cus.h.i.+ons!"

The captain smiled for she wondered if this scout had thought of the same material she had planned to use later.

"What is it?" demanded the other girls.

"We'll take the burlap bag that came with Hepsy's oats, die it with some vegetable or wood dye, and stuff it with excelsior that came packed about the pans."

"Oh, Julie! How did you ever think of it?" cried Betty, admiringly.

"Just what I would have said, had you not found it out first!" declared Mrs. Vernon.

"But I don't know where to find any dyes," admitted the scout.

"I'll tell you of some later. Now I wonder if you girls want to use the large barrel and copy my chair. Yours will be larger, however, as my chair was only a half-barrel size, you know."

Being only too anxious to copy Verny's chair, the four girls began work with a will. They took turns in sawing through the staves, even as they had been advised to do in building the hut, and this spared their muscles feeling lame or tired from the movement of the arm while sawing the hard wood.

"I'll leave you now to finish the chair, while I hunt along the mountain trail to find certain dye materials," said the Captain, as the work on the chair progressed finely.

But the barrel-chair was finished before Mrs. Vernon returned. "I couldn't find a thing that would do. I hunted most thoroughly, too. You see, it is too early for walnuts--if they were ripe we could stain the wood and burlaps a fine brown. Then I looked for different wild plants that will dye things, but there were none."

"Verny, Eliza colors our Easter eggs with onion peel. I see you have a lot of onions in the store-room, but I am not sure they will color burlap," said Betty.

"Just the thing, Betty! How wonderful of you to remember it. We will boil the skins until the water is a deep brown-orange and then we will try it on the burlap."