A Summer in a Canyon Part 1

A Summer in a Canyon.

by Kate Douglas Wiggin.

SCENE: A Camping Ground in the Canyon Las Flores.

PEOPLE IN THE TENTS.

DR. PAUL WINs.h.i.+P Mine Host MRS. TRUTH WINs.h.i.+P The Guardian Angel d.i.c.kY WINs.h.i.+P A Small Scamp of Six Years BELL WINs.h.i.+P The Camp Poetess POLLY OLIVER A Sweet but Saucy La.s.s MARGERY n.o.bLE A Nut-Brown Mayde PHILIP n.o.bLE The Useful Member GEOFFREY STRONG A Harvard Boy JACK HOWARD Prince of Mischief HOP YET A Heathen Chinee.

PANCHO GUTIERREZ A Mexican man-of-all-work.

CHAPTER I: PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE

'One to make ready, and two to prepare.'

It was nine o'clock one sunny California morning, and Geoffrey Strong stood under the live-oak trees in Las Flores Canyon, with a pot of black paint in one hand and a huge brush in the other. He could have handled these implements to better purpose and with better grace had not his arms been firmly held by three laughing girls, who pulled not wisely, but too well. He was further incommoded by the presence of a small urchin who lay on the dusty ground beneath his feet, fastening an upward clutch on the legs of his trousers.

There were three large canvas tents directly in front of them, yet no one of these seemed to be the object of dissension, but rather a redwood board, some three feet in length, which was nailed on a tree near by.

'Camp Frolic! Please let us name it Camp Frolic!' cried Bell Wins.h.i.+p, with a persuasive twitch of her cousin's sleeve.

'No, no; not Camp Frolic,' pleaded Polly Oliver. 'Pray, pray let us have Camp Ha-Ha; my heart is set upon it.'

'As you are Strong, be merciful,' quoted Margery n.o.ble, coaxingly; 'take my advice and call it Harmony Camp.'

At this juncture, a lovely woman, whose sweet face and smile made you love her at once, came up the hill from the brookside. 'What, what!

still quarrelling, children?' she asked, laughingly. 'Let me be peacemaker. I've just asked the Doctor for a name, and he suggests Camp Chaparral. What do you say?'

Bell released one coat-tail. 'That isn't wholly bad,' she said, critically, while the other girls clapped their hands with approval; for anything that Aunt Truth suggested was sure to be quite right.

'Wait a minute, good people,' cried Jack Howard, flinging his fis.h.i.+ng-tackle under a tree and sauntering toward the scene of action. 'Suppose we have a referee, a wise and n.o.ble judge. Call Hop Yet, and let him decide this all-important subject.'

His name being sung and shouted in various keys by the a.s.sembled company, Hop Yet appeared at the door of the brush kitchen, a broad grin on his countenance, a plucked fowl in his hand.

Geoffrey took the floor. 'Now, Hop Yet, you know I got name, you got name, everybody got name. We want name this camp: you sabe? Miss Bell, she say Camp Frolic. Frolic all same heap good time' (here he executed a sort of war-dance which was intended to express wild joy).

'Miss Pauline, she say Camp Ha-Ha, big laugh: sabe? Ha! ha! ha! ha!

ha! ha!' (chorus joined in by all to fully ill.u.s.trate the subject).

'Miss Madge, she say Camp Harmony. Harmony all same heap quiet time, plenty eat, plenty drink, plenty sleep, no fight, no too muchee talk.

Mrs. Wins.h.i.+p, she say Camp Chaparral: you sabe? Chaparral, Hop Yet.

Now what you say?'

Hop Yet seemed to regard the question with mingled embarra.s.sment and amus.e.m.e.nt, but being a sharp and talkative Chinaman gave his answer promptly: 'Me say Camp Chap-lal heap good name; plenty chap-lal all lound; me hang um dish-cloth, tow'l, little boy's stockin', on chap- lal; all same clo'se-line velly good. Miss Bell she folic, Miss Polly she ha! ha! allee same Camp Chap-lal.'

And so Camp Chaparral it was; the redwood board flaunted the a.s.sertion before the eyes of the public (which was a rather limited one, to be sure) in less than half an hour, and the artist, after painting the words in rustic letters a foot long, cut branches of the stiff, ungracious bushes and nailed them to the tree in confirmation and ill.u.s.tration of the fact. He then carefully deposited the paint- pot in a secret place, where it might be out of sight and touch of a certain searching eye and mischievous hand well known and feared of him; but before the setting sun had dropped below the line of purple mountain tops, a small boy, who will be known in these annals as d.i.c.ky Wins.h.i.+p, might have been seen sitting on the empty paint-pot, while from a dingy pool upon the ground he was attempting to paint a copy of the aforesaid inscription upon the side of a too patient goat, who saw no harm in the operation. He was alone, and very, very happy.

And now I must tell you the way in which all this began. You may not realise it, dear young folks, but this method of telling a story is very much the fas.h.i.+on with grown-up people, and of course I am not to blame, since I didn't begin it.

The plan is this: You must first write a chapter showing all your people, men, women, children, dogs, and cats, in a certain place, doing certain things. Then you must go back a year or two and explain how they all happen to be there. Perhaps you may have to drag your readers twenty-five years into the regions of the past, and show them the first tooth of your oldest character; but that doesn't matter a bit,--the further the better. Then, when everybody has forgotten what came to pa.s.s in the first chapter, you are ready to take it up again, as if there had never been any parenthesis.

However, I shall not introduce you to the cradles, cribs, or trundle- beds of my merry young campers, but merely ask you to retrace your steps one week, and look upon them in their homes.

On one of the pleasantest streets of a certain little California town stood, and still stands for aught I know, a pretty brown cottage, with its verandahs covered with pa.s.sion-vine and a brilliant rose- garden in front. It is picturesque enough to attract the attention of any pa.s.ser-by, and if you had chosen to peep through the crevices in the thick vines and look in at the open window, you might have thought it lovelier within than without.

It was a bright day, and the gracious June suns.h.i.+ne flooded the room with yellow light. Three young girls, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, were seated in different parts of the large room, plying industrious crochet needles and tatting shuttles. Three pairs of bright eyes were dancing with fun and gladness; and another pair, the softest and clearest of all, looked out from a broad white bed in the corner,--tired eyes, and oh, so patient, for the health-giving breezes wafted in from the blue ocean and carried over mountain tops and vine-covered slopes had so far failed to bring back Elsie Howard's strength and vigour.

The graceful, brown-haired girl with the bright, laughter-loving face, was Bell Wins.h.i.+p. She of the dancing blue eyes, pink cheeks, and reckless little sun-bonnet was Pauline, otherwise Polly Oliver.

Did you ever know a Polly without some one of these things? Well, my Polly had them all, and, besides, a saucy freckled nose, a crown of fluffy, reddish-yellow hair, and a shower of coaxing little pitfalls called dimples round her pretty mouth. She made you think of a sunbeam, a morning songbird, a dancing b.u.t.terfly, or an impetuous little crocus just out after the first spring shower. Dislike her?

You couldn't. Approve of her? You wouldn't always. Love her? Of course; you couldn't help yourself,--I defy you.

To be sure, if you prefer a quiet life, and do not want to be led into exploits of all kinds, invariably beginning with risk, attended with danger, and culminating in despair, you had better not engage in an intimate friends.h.i.+p with Miss Pauline Oliver, but fix your affections on the quiet, thoughtful, but not less lovable girl who sits by the bedside stroking Elsie Howard's thin white hand.

Nevertheless, I am obliged to state that Margery n.o.ble herself, earnest, demure, and given to reflection, was Polly's willing slave and victim. However, I've forgotten to tell you that Polly was as open and frank as the daylight, at once torrid and constant in her affections, brave, self-forgetting as well as self-willed; and that though she did have a tongue just the least bit saucy, she used it valiantly in the defence of others. 'She'll come out all right,'

said a dear old-fas.h.i.+oned grandfather of hers whom she had left way back in a Vermont farmhouse. 'She's got to be purged o' considerable dross, but she'll come out pure gold, I tell you.'

Pretty, wise, tender Margery n.o.ble, with her sleek brown braids, her innocent, questioning eyes, her soft voice, willing hands, and shy, quiet manners! 'She will either end as the matron of an orphan asylum or as head-nurse in a hospital.' So Bell Wins.h.i.+p often used to say; but then she was chiefly celebrated for talking nonsense, and n.o.body ever paid much attention to her. But if you should crave a breath of fresh air, or want to believe that the spring has come, just call Bell Wins.h.i.+p in, as she walks with her breezy step down the street. Her very hair seems instinct with life, with its flying tendrils of bronze brightness and the riotous little curls on her brow and temples. Then, too, she has a particularly jaunty way of putting on her jacket, or wearing a flower or a ribbon; and as for her ringing peal of laughter, it is like a chime of silver bells.

Elsie Howard, the invalid friend of the girls, was as dear to them as they were to each other. She kept the secrets of the 'firm'; mourned over their griefs and smiled over their joys; was proud of their talents and tenderly blind to their faults. The little wicker rocking-chair by the bedside was often made a sort of confessional, at which she presided, the tenderest and most sympathetic little priestess in the universe; and every afternoon the piazza, with its lattice of green vines, served as a mimic throne-room, where she was wont to hold high court, surrounded by her devoted subjects. Here Geoffrey Strong used often to read to the a.s.sembled company David Copperfield, Alice in Wonderland, or s.n.a.t.c.hes from the magazines, while Jack Howard lazily stretched himself under the orange-trees and braided lariats, a favourite occupation with California boys. About four o'clock Philip n.o.ble would ride up from his father's fruit ranch, some three miles out on the San Marcos road, and, hitching his little sorrel mare Chispa at the gate, stay an hour before going to the post-office.

This particular afternoon, however, was not one of Elsie's bright ones, and there was no sign of court or invalid queen on the piazza.

The voices of the girls floated out from Elsie's bedroom, while the boys, too, seemed to be somewhere in the vicinity, for there was a constant stirring about as of lively preparation, together with noise of hammering and sawing.

'If you were only going, Elsie, our cup of happiness would be full,'

sighed Bell.

'Not only would it be full, Bell, but it would be running over, and we should positively stand in the slop,' said Polly. 'No, you needn't frown at me, miss; that expression is borrowed from no less a person than Sydney Smith.'

'Don't think any more about me,' smiled Elsie. 'Perhaps I can come down in the course of the summer. I know it will be the happiest time in the world, but I don't envy you a bit; in fact, I'm very glad you're going, because you'll have such a lovely budget of adventures to tell me when you come back.'

'When we come back, indeed!' exclaimed Bell. 'Why, we shall write long round-robin letters every few days, and send them by the team.

Papa says Pancho will have to go over to the stage station at least once a week for letters and any provisions we may need.'

'Oh, won't that be delightful,--almost as good as being there myself!

And, Margery dear, you must make them tell me every least little thing that happens. You know they are such fly-aways that they'll only write me when they learn to swim, or shoot a wildcat, or get lost in the woods. I want to know all the stupid bits: what you have for dinner, how and where you sleep, how your camp looks, what you do from morning till night, and how d.i.c.ky behaves.'

'I can tell you that beforehand,' said Bell, dolefully. 'Jack will shoot him by mistake on Thursday; he will be kicked by the horses Friday, and bitten by tarantulas and rattlesnakes Sat.u.r.day; he will eat poison oak on Sunday, get lost in the canyon Monday, be eaten by a bear Tuesday, and drowned in the pool Wednesday. These incidents will complete his first week; and if they produce no effect on his naturally strong const.i.tution, he will treat us to another week, containing just as many mishaps, but no duplicates.'

By the time this dismal prophecy was ended the other girls were in a breathless fit of laughter, though all acknowledged it was likely to be fulfilled.

'I went over the camping-ground last summer,' said Margery. 'You know it is quite near papa's sheep ranch, and it is certainly the most beautiful place in California. The tents will be pitched at the mouth of the canyon, where there is a view of the ocean, and just at the back will be a lovely grove of wild oaks and sycamore-trees.'

'Oh, won't it be delicious!' sighed Elsie. 'I feel as if I could sniff the air this minute. But there! I won't pretend that I'm dying for fresh air, with the breath of the sea coming in at my south window, and a whiff of jasmine and honeysuckle from the piazza. That would be nonsense. Are your trunks packed?'

'Trunks!' exclaimed Polly. 'Would you believe it, our clothes are packed in gunny-sacks! We start in our camping-dresses, with ulsters for the steamer and dusters for the long drive. Then we each have-- let me see what we have: a short, tough riding-skirt with a jersey, a bathing-dress, and some gingham morning-gowns to wear about the camp at breakfast-time.'

'And flannel gowns for the night, and two pairs of boots, and a riding-cap and one hat apiece,' added Margery.

'But oh, Elsie, my dear, you should see d.i.c.ky in his camping-suits,'