The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas; Or, Fun and Frolic in the Summer Camp

"Tommy, what are you doing?" demanded Margery Brown, shaking back a lock of unruly hair from her flushed face.

"Conthulting the Oracle," lisped Grace Thompson, more familiarly known among her friends as Tommy.

"I should think you would prefer to cool off in the shade after that climb up the hill. I'm perishing. If you knew what sight you are you'd come in out of the sun, wouldn't she, Hazel?"

Hazel Holland regarded Margery solemnly.

"You are a sight yourself, Buster. Your face is as red as a beet. I wish you might see yourself in a looking glass."

Buster tossed her head disdainfully. "I'm not a sight," she declared.

"I'll leave it to Tommy if your face isn't positively crimson." But Tommy was too fully absorbed in her present occupation to give heed to the remark. "I'm sorry Harriet isn't here," continued Hazel, seeing that Tommy had not heard her.

"Why isn't she here?" asked Margery.

"Harriet is helping her mother," replied Hazel. "She always has something to do at home. She is a much better girl than either you or I, Buster. Harriet is always thinking of others instead of herself."

"Well, she's older. She is sixteen and I am only fourteen. By the time I'm her age I will settle down, too," declared Margery wisely.

"Wearing spectacles and darning socks," smiled Hazel.

Margery shook her head vehemently.

"Wouldn't it be awful!" she queried.

"Oh, I am not so sure of that," replied Hazel. "I like to keep house. Every girl ought to know all about housekeeping. Do you know how to cook?"

"No. I don't want to know either, not even plain cooking," retorted Margery. "Plain cooking may be all right for plain people, but--"

"Buster!" rebuked Hazel. "I am amazed to hear you talk that way. That is like Crazy Jane. You don't want to be called another 'Crazy Jane,' do you? You will be if you persist in saying such silly things."

"Why don't you lecture Tommy?" demanded Margery, her eyes snapping threateningly. "Tommy doesn't know a biscuit from an apple dumpling until she gets it in her mouth."

"Tommy, please come in out of the heat," begged Hazel. "What are you doing out there?"

"Telling my fortune," answered Tommy without raising her head from her task. Hazel observed that Tommy was pulling a daisy apart. A heap of daisies that she had pulled up by the roots, lay in her lap, regardless of the dirt that was accumulating on her stiffly starched white dress. One by one Tommy pulled the daisy petals from the flower, muttering rhythmically to herself.

"Consulting the Oracle," sniffed Buster. "Did you ever hear of anything so silly?"

"We all do silly things," answered Hazel wisely.

"I go, I thtay; I go, I thtay; I go, I thtay; I go-Oh!" Tommy glanced up with an expression of disgust on her face.

"Didn't it come out to suit you?" smiled Hazel Holland.

"No," pouted Tommy, screwing up her small face. When animated, Grace's was an impish face, made more so by the upward tilt of a much freckled nose.

"Go where?" I questioned Margery, now evincing a mild interest in Tommy's affairs.

"To the thea thhore."

"Oh, the sea shore," nodded Hazel.

"Yeth. The daithy theth tho. I'm going with my father and mother. But I don't want to go. I want to thtay here with the girlth," pouted Tommy.

"I should think you would be happy to think you are going to the sea shore. Most girls would be," reminded Hazel.

"It must cost a lot of money to go to the sea shore," remarked Margery Brown.

Tommy bobbed her head vigorously.

"Yeth. My father hath lotth of money, I thuppothe. But I don't care. I don't want to go."

"When do you go?"

"I don't know, Hathel. The Oracle thayth I'm going."

The Oracle having settled the question, no further doubts remained in the mind of little Grace Thompson.

Grace's father was a lawyer. Both he and the girl's mother had inherited fortunes, and Grace being an only child had much, finer clothes than any of her companions in the little New Hampshire town of Meadow-Brook.

Hazel Holland and Margery Brown were the daughters of village merchants, the former's father being a druggist, while the father of the latter owned a fairly prosperous grocery business.

The fourth member of this little quartette, Harriet Burrell, was not so fortunately situated as were her three friends. Harriet's father was a bookkeeper in the local bank, and on his moderate salary was doing his best to give his daughter and younger son an education. His salary was barely sufficient to do this and at the same time support his family, small as it was.

It was Harriet's ambition to go to college. She was now sixteen years old. In two more years she would finish her course at the high school. From that point on, the way did not look particularly bright, so far as continuing her education was concerned.

In the meantime Harriet Burrell was living the wholesome life that her environment made possible. She was a strong, healthy, buoyant girl, full of life and spirits, popular with everyone who knew her, and a superior being in the estimation of the three girls who were her close friends, even though she was unable to dress as well as they or to do other things that were easily within the means of the parents of Grace, Hazel and Margery.

The four girls were together much of the time, quarreling and making up almost in the same breath, even stubborn little Tommy giving way to the kinder and more mature disposition of Harriet Burrell. As Hazel had already said, Harriet at that moment was at home helping her mother, even though the fields, the trees and the nodding daisies were calling loudly to her.

"Must you go if you do not wish to!" Margery was asking.

"I gueth not; not if I don't want to, and I don't," declared Grace with emphasis.

"She thinks she can have more fun with us four girls this summer. Still, she should go if her folks wish her to do so," nodded Hazel thoughtfully. "Don't you say so, Buster?"

"No, I don't," declared Margery with some warmth. "In her place I should do just what I liked best. Then again, it wouldn't be fair for Tommy to go away like that and leave us all alone here to mope through the summer. That's right, Tommy. Tell them you won't go unless-unless you can take us along too."

"Margery!" rebuked Hazel severely. "That wasn't a nice thing to say. That shows a selfish spirit. If Harriet were here I know she would tell you the same thing. I am sure you didn't mean it that way."

"Harriet wouldn't," protested Buster. "She doesn't put on a solemn face and read people lectures. No, Hazel Holland, she doesn't do anything of the sort. There's some one coming," exclaimed the girl, suddenly changing the subject.

"I see her. It is Miss Elting," answered Hazel, her eyes growing bright. "She is coming up to see us, I do believe."

"Yeth, it'th Mith Elting," decided Grace, screwing up her little face and looking inquiringly at the newcomer who was leisurely making her way along the road in their direction. 441 wonder what she wantth."

"Miss Elting is coming up to join us, of course," replied Hazel. "And you see if she doesn't have something fine to suggest. Harriet is going to miss something, I know."

Miss Elting was one of the younger teachers in the Meadow-Brook High School, a leader in the girls' sports and very popular with them. But of all the pupils in the school her favorites were perhaps the four girls to three of whom the reader already has been introduced. Miss Elting called them "The Little Big Four." The young teacher exerted a great influence over the four Meadow-Brook Girls; she had been especially helpful to Harriet and a closer relation than that of teacher and pupil existed between the two. Both were passionately fond of Nature. They loved the fields, the woods and the waters and many a care-free happy hour they had spent together in the open. Hazel, Margery and Grace frequently accompanied them, though in such instances Harriet and Miss Elting usually found it necessary to cut short their outing because Margery "got all flustered up" from the heat and Tommy's feet usually hurt her.

They had recognized Miss Elting approaching some distance down the road that lay at the foot of the hill upon which the three girls had gone to spend a few leisure hours.

"Hoo-oo!" called Hazel, springing up and waving her handkerchief to attract Miss Elting's attention. The teacher saw them they thought; she appeared to be waving her hand at them, though the distance was so great that they could not be certain of this.

"I'm going to meet her," exclaimed Tommy, springing to her feet. "You thtay here." Tommy started off, scattering a lapful of daisies about her as she ran, then fled down the hill in a series of leaps, her white shoe ties brushing the tops of the daisies and sending the latter into a nodding sea of protest.

"Grace! Grace, come back!" cried Hazel.

"Isn't she a tomboy!" scoffed Margery. "Her nickname suits her."

Tommy was moving too rapidly at that moment to turn back, even though she had wished to do so. So fast was her gait that she appeared to have lost control of herself. Her little white-shod feet were working like parts of a machine driven at high speed. Her voice floated up to them in a shrill wail.

"Thave me! I'm going to fall," she cried. Then she disappeared from view as she sprawled face downward with arms thrust forward among the daisies and tall grass.

"Oh! She is hurt," cried Hazel in alarm.

"No, she isn't. Don't get excited," answered Margery calmly. "You don't know Tommy if you think a little tumble like that could harm her. See, there she goes."

Sure enough, Grace was on her feet again racing down the hill at the same reckless pace as before. She reached the foot of the hill without further mishap, hesitated a second or so at the fence, and then vaulted over it. For a moment, she was out of sight in the ditch beside the road, then she was seen clambering into the dusty highway.

Hazel was laughing.

"You couldn't do that, Buster, I'll warrant."

"I am sure I don't want to," answered Margery stretching out comfortably with her hands supporting her head. "I'm no circus performer."

Hazel uttered a little exclamation.

"Look Margery! Look!" she cried.

"Well, what is it? I don't see anything," replied Margery petulantly, raising herself on one elbow, gazing listlessly down into the valley where the village lay baking under the hot June sun.

"It's a special," cried Hazel. "See, the cars are orange colored. Aren't they pretty? I never saw anything more attractive."

Margery turned up her nose disdainfully.

"I don't see anything about a railroad train to get excited over," she answered, lying back in the shade of the maple tree, beneath which the girls had been resting for the past hour or so.

That the special train rushing down the valley, would make no stop at Meadow-Brook, Hazel could plainly see. Trains that were to stop there always slowed down before reaching the second crossing west of the village. This one had not done so. No sooner had Hazel observed this than she caught sight of something else, something that set her nerves all a tingle. A huge cloud of dust was rolling down the highway near the railroad tracks. That this cloud was not caused by the train was plain to the watching girl. Soon she was able to make out the outlines of an automobile in the cloud of dust. The train was but a short distance away. Each was making for the crossing, where the highway and railroad tracks met. Hazel did not believe the driver of the motor car was aware that the train was so close, even if the driver knew of its presence at all, for no train was due to pass through Meadow-Brook at that hour.

The color suddenly left Hazel Holland's face.

"Quick! Quick! Look!" she gasped.

"It's too hot to keep bobbing up and down," returned Margery indifferently.

"But look! Look!"

"Tell me about it, Hazel, dear. You do not have to get up to see. I do."

"Oh? Buster, there's going to be a collision."

"Eh? What?" Buster was on her feet instantly.

"The train is going to hit the automobile!"

Margery's face paled. Her breath came more quickly. Her eyes grew large and wondering. The power of speech seemed suddenly to have left her. They had forgotten all about Grace Thompson in the greater interest of the moment. Margery shivered with apprehension while beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead. She was staring in terror at the onrushing car.

"Oh!" she shuddered. "There'll surely be a collision."

"Look! The chauffeur doesn't see the train on account of the dust. Don't you see the dust rising in the road ahead of the automobile? The wind is blowing it up ahead and the machine is kicking it up behind. Hoo-oo! Hoo-oo!" cried the girl, frantically waving her handkerchief to attract the attention of the driver of the car, at the same time pointing to the rapidly approaching train.

Instead of slackening speed, the driver of the motor car appeared to be putting on more. The car was rapidly nearing the railroad crossing. So was the train.

"Oh, I can't look at it," cried Margery, throwing herself on the ground and burying her face in her arms.

Hazel stood perfectly rigid. She scarcely breathed. Her eyes were wide and staring.

"Ha-as it hap-p-pened?" faltered Margery.

"No-o-o. Oh! The driver is going to be killed! Oh, oh!"

For one awful second the motor car and engine of the special were swallowed up in a cloud of dust, then out of the cloud darted the locomotive on one side. On the other dashed the automobile, still on four wheels, continuing at the same reckless speed along the highway.

Hazel uttered a little scream.

"He's made it. Oh!" She sank to the ground pale and trembling. Margery raised a very red, very scared face.

"Wa-as he killed?"

"No."

"Oh, fudge! Why didn't you scare me to death while you were--"

"Look Oh, look!"

"I won't," declared Margery firmly. "Go crazy if you wish. I won't."

"It's Tommy!"

Buster bobbed up in a fresh panic.

The "man" in the motor car was gazing up at the girls waving one hand to them, steering the car with the other hand.

"It's a woman!" gasped Hazel.

"It's Crazy Jane," cried Margery. "No wonder she nearly ran down a train of cars."

"Tommy! Oh, Tom-my!" screamed Hazel Holland, hopping about frantically, waving both arms above her head, seeking to attract the attention of the woman driver as well as that of Tommy.

The little white figure had climbed the bank into the highway and was now fleeing down the road to meet her friend Miss Elting. Tommy did not see the automobile approaching from the rear. A knoll and a bend in the road hid the driver of the car and the little white figure from each other. The noise of the train either drowned that of the automobile, or else, Grace thought the rumble made by the car to be that made by the train that had just passed down the valley.

The motor car roared around the bend. Miss Elting screamed as she saw it. Grace heard the scream, but failing to understand the meaning of it, decided it to be some sort of greeting. The little girl waved her arms in reply. Miss Elting was gesticulating and pointing frantically. The two girls on the hillside were for the moment paralyzed with fright.

All at once, Grace appeared to perceive her danger. She turned sharply. There she stood, her frightened face turned toward the oncoming car that was rapidly approaching her enveloped in a blinding cloud of dust. The driver and Tommy discovered each other at about the same instant. There was no time to stop the car.

Suddenly, car and Tommy were swallowed up in the dust cloud.

"Grace is killed!" screamed Margery.

"Yes, oh yes!" wailed Hazel, wringing her hands. "What shall we do?"

Out of the dust cloud hurtled the little white figure. She appeared to have been doubled up into a large white ball by the car when it struck her.

The ball rolled from the road, disappearing into the roadside ditch. The motor car lurched around the curve in the road, zig-zagged past Miss Elting, then became a rolling cloud of dust again.

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