Ralph Barbour - Four in Camp - A Story of Summer Adventures in the New Hampshire Woods

By that time Tom had come to the rescue with an armful of dry blankets from an unoccupied bunk. The tin lard can was kicked out of the way, the wet mattress turned over, and the new blankets spread. Hethington tossed over the dry pajamas, and Nelson, his teeth chattering, got into them and looked about him. As far as he could see in the dim light white-robed figures were sitting up in their bunks regarding him with grinning faces. There was something expectant in both faces and attitudes, and Nelson realized that they were awaiting an expression of his feelings. With a glance that encompassed the entire assemblage, he remarked earnestly, but more in sorrow than in anger:

“ Well, I hope you choke! ”

A shout of laughter rewarded him, while a voice from the nearer dimness remarked audibly:

“I told you he’d be all right, Dan!”

Nelson examined the bed, but found that it could not be made to stand without the aid of tools. So, thanking Hethington again for his pajamas and eliciting a calm “All right,” and looking about for evidences of further surprises without finding them, he blew out the lantern and descended into his lowly couch. The last thing he saw, as the light went out, was the amused countenance of Mr. Verder across the dormitory.

Ten minutes later he was asleep.

When Nelson awoke the early sunshine was dripping through the tender green branches outside the window, the birds were singing merrily, and Tom Ferris was digging him in the ribs. He blinked, yawned, and turned over again, but Tom was not to be denied.

“Come on, Tilford, and have a douse,” he whispered. “First bugle’s just blown.”

“Wha – ” (a magnificent yawn) – “what time is it?” asked Nelson.

“Five minutes of seven. Come on down.”

“Down? Down where?” inquired Nelson, at last sufficiently awake to hear what Tom was saying.

“Down to the lake for a douse. It’s fine.”

“Huh! It’s pretty fine here. And the lake must be awfully cold, don’t you think, Ferris?”

“It really isn’t, honest to goodness! It’s swell! Come on!”

“Oh – well – ” Nelson looked out the window and shivered; then he heroically rolled out onto the floor, scrambled to his feet and donned his shoes. One or two of the bunks were empty, and a few of the fellows who remained were awake and were conversing in whispers across the dormitory, but for the most part sleep still reigned, and the “No Snoring” order was being plainly violated. Tom and Nelson pattered down the room – the former stopping long enough at one bunk to pull the pillow from under a red-thatched head and place it forcibly on top – and emerged into a world of green and gold. As they raced past the flagstaff the Stars and Stripes was fluttering its way aloft, while from the porch of Birch Hall the reveille sounded and floated echoing over the lake. The air was like tonic, crisp without being chill in the shady stretches of the path, pleasantly warm where the sunlight slanted through, and the two boys hurled themselves down the firm pathway as fast as lurking roots would allow. At the pier a handful of fellows were before them. There was very little breeze, and what there was blew up the lake and so failed to reach the water of the cove. Over on Plum Island the thin streamer of purple smoke betokened breakfast, while up at Bear Island, farther away across the sunlit water, the boys of Camp Wickasaw were moving about the little beach. At the edge of the pier the water was bottle-green, with here and there a fleck of gold where the sunlight found its way through the trees that bordered the lake. It looked cold, but when, having dropped their pajamas, they stood side by side on the edge of the pier and then went splashing down into fifteen feet of it, it proved to be surprisingly warm. A moment or two of energetic thrashing around, and out they came for a brisk rub-down in the dressing-tent and a wild rush up the hill and into the dormitory, where they arrived side by side – for, considering his bulk, Tom had a way of getting over the ground that was truly marvelous – to find the fellows tumbling hurriedly into their clothes.

Nelson had received his camp uniform, a gray worsted jersey, a gray gingham shirt, two pairs of gray flannel trousers reaching to the knees, one gray worsted sweater, two pairs of gray worsted stockings, a gray felt hat, a gray leather belt, and a pair of blue swimming trunks. Jersey and sweater were adorned with the blue C, while on the pocket of the shirt ran the words “Camp Chicora.” Following the example of those about him, Nelson donned merely the jersey and trousers, slipped his feet into his brown canvas shoes or “sneakers,” and, seizing his toilet articles, fled to the wash-house in the train of Hethington and Tom Ferris. By the most desperate hurrying he managed to reach the door of Poplar Hall before the last note of the mess-call had died away. He found himself terrifically hungry, hungrier than he had been within memory, and applied himself diligently to the work in hand. Mr. Verder asked how he had slept, and referred jokingly to the bath.

“Every fellow has to go through with it sooner or later,” he said smilingly. “They don’t even exempt the councilors. I got a beautiful ducking last week.”

“Oh, I didn’t mind it,” laughed Nelson. “But I was awfully surprised. I expected something of the sort, but I hadn’t thought of a wetting. I don’t see how they did it, either.”

“Well, in the first place, they got a wrench and took the legs off your bunk; then they put them on again the wrong way, tied a rope to the bed and trailed it along the wall where you wouldn’t see it. All they had to do then was to pull the rope, and the legs simply doubled up under the bed. As for the water, that was in a pail on the beam overhead; it’s so dark you couldn’t see it unless you looked for it. Of course there was a string tied to that too, and – Who pulled the string last night, fellows?”

“Dan Speede,” two or three replied promptly.

“And Carter pulled the rope,” added another gleefully.

The fellow with the red hair was grinning at Nelson in a rather exasperating way, and he experienced a sudden desire to get even with that brilliant Mr. Speede. But he only smiled and, in response to numerous eager inquiries, tried to describe his sensations when the bed went down. The affair seemed to have had the effect of an initiation ceremony, for this morning every one spoke to him just as though they had known him for months, and by the time breakfast was over he no longer felt like an outsider. Under escort of Tom and Hethington, who appeared to have detailed themselves his mentors for the present, he went to Birch Hall to examine the bulletin and find out his duties for the day.

The recreation hall stood on the edge of a little bluff, and from the big broad porch thrown out at the side a magnificent view of the lake and the farther shore presented itself. Across from the porch was a monstrous fireplace of field stones in which four-foot logs looked scarcely more than kindling-wood. The hall contained a piano, a shovel-board, innumerable chairs, one or two small tables for games, the letter-boxes, and the bulletin-board. Consultation with the latter elicited the fact that Nelson, whose name was the last on the board, was one of the ferry-boys. Tom explained that he would have to go across to Crescent with the mail at nine, two, and six-thirty.

“You can take the motor-dory, if you like. The letters are in that box over there; and the bag hangs over it – see? You take the mail over and bring back whatever there is and distribute it in the letter-boxes yonder. Who’s the other ferry-boy?”

“Speede,” answered Bob Hethington, referring to the bulletin.