Excerpt
OFF FOR THE MOUNTAINS.
“Sunrise Camp! What next, pray tell me?” sighed Miss Helen Campbell.
“But it doesn’t mean getting up at sunrise, Cousin Helen,” Billie Campbell assured her. “Although Papa says we would like it, once we got started. Campers always do rise with the sun. It’s the proper thing to do.”
“But why do they give it that uncivilized name?” continued Miss Campbell in an injured tone of voice. “Why not Sunset Camp or Meridian Camp or even Moonrise Camp? There is nothing restful to me in the name of ‘Sunrise.’”
“It will be restful, indeed it will, dear cousin, once you are used to the life, and it couldn’t be called any of those other names because they would not be appropriate. You see there is a wonderful view of the sunrise from the camp, and every morning if you wake early enough you see a beautiful pink light all over the sky and you wonder where the sun is; and suddenly he comes shooting up from behind the tallest mountain in the range across the valley, and it’s really quite late by then. He has been up ever so long, but he’s been hiding behind the mountains.”
“And we are to sleep on the ground under those flimsy tents, I suppose?” asked Miss Campbell, who was not taking very kindly to the camping proposition.
“No, no,” protested her young cousin, laughing, “you’re thinking of soldiers, and they do have cots. This camp is a log house, a really beautiful log house. There is one immense room without any ceiling, and you look straight up through the beams into the roof. Papa says it’s splendid.”
Miss Campbell bestowed upon Billie a tolerant, suffering smile.
“And back of that room,” continued Billie, speaking quickly, “is a long sleeping porch that can be partitioned off into bedrooms——”
“No protection from rain and wild animals, I suppose?” put in Miss Campbell sadly.
“Oh, yes. There is a roof overhead and a floor underneath, and it’s all enclosed with wire netting to keep out mosquitoes. It can’t rain in far enough to wet the beds and, of course, nothing else matters——”
“Clothes?” groaned the little lady.
“But khaki skirts, cousin, and rubber-soled shoes and pongee blouses,—water couldn’t injure things like that.”
“I went camping once forty years ago,” went on Miss Campbell, without seeming to notice Billie’s reply. “It was terrible, I assure you, it was quite too dreadful. One night there was a storm, and the tents that were not blown away by the high winds were swamped by rain. Our clothes all mildewed, and the flies! I shall never forget the disgusting flies,—they were everywhere.”
“This camp couldn’t possibly be blown away even by the strongest wind,” broke in Billie, ready to refute every argument, “and the screens make it just as comfortable as your own home would be.”
“How far is it from anywhere?” demanded Miss Campbell suddenly.
Billie hesitated.
“It’s twenty-five miles, but there is a good road from the railroad station and the ‘Comet’ can take us across in no time....