CHAPTER XX
CLEO'S EXPERIMENT
Only a moment or two longer were necessary to acquaint Cleo with the cause of the precipitate retreat not only of her three chums, but Captain Clark as well.
"Go on, Cleo! Turn around and hurry back to camp," directed the
Captain. "We must get the citronella bottle."
"I doubt if that will be of any use," said Margaret, beating herself frantically on the face with her hands. "These are terrible—worse than mosquitoes."
"Oh, it's bugs, is it?" asked Cleo. "Ouch! I should say it was! What are they?" she cried, as she felt stinging pains on her hands and face.
"Not bugs, merely black flies," declared Captain Clark. "I did not know there were any in these woods this year, but this must be a sudden and unexpected visitation of them. My friends said nothing about the pests. We simply can't go on if they are to oppose us."
So back they went to camp, the pesky black flies buzzing all around them, biting whenever they got the chance, and that was frequently enough—too much so the girls voted.
"Dat ar citron stuff ain't gwine goin' do much good, ef dey is de real black flies," asserted Zeb, when he heard the story.
"What is good, then?" asked Margaret. "A smudge," promptly answered Cleo. "Don't you know what it says in our hand book? If citronella won't work, try a smudge, and make it of green cedar branches."
"Good memory in a good cause," said Captain Clark, rubbing her smarting areas. "But any sort of smoke will drive them away. A brisk breeze is the best disperser of flying squadrons, though, whether they be of mosquitoes or black flies. That beats even a smudge, and is much more pleasant."
"Yes, I don't care to look like a ham or a flitch of bacon," murmured
Grace. "Oh, how they sting!"
"Better put some witch hazel on," advised Zeb. "Dat's whut we uses heah in camp fo' all kinds of bites, 'ceptin' bee stings, and den ammonia's de only t'ing."
"Don't tell me there are bees here, too!" gasped Margaret.
"Oh, dey don't bodder you much," chuckled Zeb, as he brought out what
Cleo described, later, as the germs of a drug store.
There were several bottles, one—containing oil of citronella, and another witch hazel. This last was applied to the girls' wounds first, and did relieve, in a measure, the sting of the bites of the black flies. Then a film of citronella was spread over hands and faces, and a bottle of the pungent mixture was carried along as the Girl Scouts took the trail again, since it was voted that a fish of their own taking must be served for supper.
"It would never do to go back from camp and tell the other girls we didn't catch anything," declared Grace, and the others readily agreed.
The black flies had not followed them back to camp, perhaps because the tents were in the open, where the breeze could sweep around them. But, in spite of the citronella, the party was again attacked by the "flying squadron" as they started for the fishing place.
"It's no use! We can't make it. No sense being all bitten up for a few fish!" declared Madaline, as she made use of the bottle of oil Captain Clark handed her. "They seem to like it!"
And, really, the black flies did. Mosquitoes are not quite so fond of this oily extract of an Indian plant, and if the user does not object to the odor, he can keep himself pretty well protected from the mosquitoes by frequent applications of the stuff.
Black flies, however, are not always affected by it, and a smudge is then the only answer to the problem.
"But maybe Zeb can tell us a place to fish where there aren't so many of the pests," said Captain Clark, as they turned back. "It is simply impossible to go on this way."
Zeb and his wife listened to the stories of the Scouts with sympathy, and Zeb declared that while the place he had selected for them was the best fishing spot, another might be tried, which was more in the open, subject to the grateful sweep of breezes, and, in that case, not so likely to be infested with the pests. The clouds of bites they seemed to greet the girls with, had been nothing short of an air raid, or bombardment.
"Well, let's try it," suggested Cleo. "I don't care as long as I catch one fish, and maybe the new place will be fortified."
"I wishes yo' luck!" murmured Zeb.
So they set off this time in another direction, which led them to a clearing, and there, to their delight, they found no black flies. There were a few mosquitoes, but the citronella took care of them, or, rather drove them off, and soon the lines were in the water, with the bobs floating about.
For the True Treds were not yet in the scientific fishing class, and a cork float was voted the best means of telling when one might have a bite. It seemed the girls were scarcely settled when the signal came.
"I've got one!" suddenly cried Cleo, and she did manage to land, flapping on the grass back of her, a good-sized chub.
"Oh, you're perfectly wonderful!" cried Grace. "However did you do it?"
"My hypnotic eye!" laughed Cleo, as she proceeded, not without some difficulty, to unhook her fish, string it through the gills and put it on a string in a quiet pool to keep fresh. "You can all do it, if you just make goo-oy eyes at them," she joked, casting out again.
It would be going too far to say that they all made catches at once, for Madaline and Captain Clark were out of luck, but the others each caught two, and the Captain declared this would suffice for all.
"There is no use catching more of anything than you actually need," she declared, bribing her girls to leave the fascinating sport.
"And may I cook one of my fish just as I please?" asked Cleo, when they were on their homeward way.
"Why, yes, I suppose so, if Alameda does not object," Captain Clark answered. "But what is your way, Cleo, dear? If you intend to fry it in deep olive oil, I'm afraid—"
"Oh, nothing as elaborate as that," was the laughing reply. "It's just an experiment I want to try. And yet it isn't exactly an experiment, either, for I read how to do it in a camping book. It's baked fish in a mud ball."
"A mud ball!" cried Grace. "That doesn't sound very enticing!"
"Well, it isn't exactly mud, but clean clay," Cleo explained. "And before you plaster the clay around the fish, you cover him with green leaves from the sassafras bush, or some spice leaves. It sounds awfully good, and I think it will look quite artistic."
"Much better than it did at first," agreed Margaret, laughing. "Fancy muddy fish!"
And when camp was reached, much to the amusement, and the unspoken indignation of Alameda, Cleo was allowed to try her experiment. Zeb cleaned the fish for her—that was all she asked. Then Cleo dug a hole in the soft earth and built in it a fire.
"What I'm going to do," Cleo explained, "is to put a lump of butter inside the whole, cleaned fish. Then I wrap him in leaves and outside of that I put a ball of wet clay. Then I put the fish, clay and all down in the fire, cover it with embers and let it bake."
"A sort of fish-ball," commented Madaline.
"Well, you'll see," said Cleo.
She completed her arrangements, though it was rather messy work, especially the clay covering, but finally she finished and the lump of "mud," as Alameda called it, was put to bake in the fire hole, hot ashes and embers being piled on top.
"Dat's de craziest notion whut I eber hearn tell on," grumbled Alameda to Zeb. "I'se gwine cook do odder fish in mah own style."
"I guess mebby as how yo' better had," he agreed.
Preparations for the evening meal went on, while Captain Clark and her True Treds tidied themselves after the fishing excursion. Cleo was ready first and took a little run down to where her fire smouldered in the pit.
"How do you tell when it's done?" asked Grace, joining her. "You can't stick a straw in through that clay as you stick a splint in a cake."
"No," admitted Cleo, "but I guess it must be ready now. The book says it doesn't take more than an hour before the fish is baked to a turn, whatever that is."
The four girls stood about the fire hole, wondering how Cleo's experiment would succeed. Captain Clark joined them. She was just going to suggest that perhaps the process was completed, when suddenly there was a loud explosion in the hole.
Up in the air flew blazing and half-burned sticks, ashes and portions of a clay ball, mingled with something white, in flakes.
"Look out!" cried Margaret. But there was no need. All the girls ducked for cover.
"What—what was it?" asked Grace, when the shower of ashes and embers was over, without any casualties.
"I rather think that was the completion of Cleo's experiment," said
Captain Clark. "The clay ball exploded, girls."
There was no question about that. Steam, generated inside the mass of wet mud Cleo had plastered about the fish had caused the ball to burst, and it scattered into a hundred fragments, blowing the fish to flakes that were scattered about the surrounding trees and bushes.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Cleo. "I just remember now, I should have made a little hole to let the steam out. Oh, my lovely fish!"
"Never mind," consoled Captain Clark. "You have learned something."
"Yes," sighed Cleo.
"An' hit's a mighty good t'ing I saved de rest ob de fish t' cook in mah own way," murmured Alameda, as she served supper a little later.
And then, amid laughter at Cleo's experiment, they all sat down in the dining tent, and as they ate, evening settled down over camp.
To say that their stay at Nomoko was a delight to the girls is putting it very faintly indeed. They hiked and fished and finally Cleo succeeded in baking a specimen in a clay ball and it was voted most excellent, and credited to her scout record as "home cooking in the woods."
The weather remained delightful, so that the week-end dashed by almost as a single day, so replete was the time with woodland joys.
Tuesday morning came, all too soon, and it was with genuine regret that they pulled up stakes to the extent of pecking grips for the home trip.
"Seems to me," almost grumbled Madaline, "a few days in the woods just about make me want a whole month. Think of going back to Flosston after just learning how to hunt, fish, chase flies—"
"And blow up dug-outs!" assisted Captain Clark. "Well, we really have learned a lot and had a good time, besides, you have each proved valiant to the extent of not being afraid of anything in the woods by day or by night, and that was well worth the trip."
"Please don't give us a bad mark on the black fly contest," pleaded
Cleo. "Because you know, in the end, we did conquer them."
The Captain nodded a smiling assent.
In a few minutes they were on their way, making speed time back to Flosston, where the jolly week-enders were soon again plunged into home scouting, just about where they had left off.
That they knew nothing of Jacqueline and Margaret's badge did not signify any lull in their interest of the new troop members among the mill girls, and the fact that Tessie, alone and unknown, was struggling with Scout influence for weal, not for woe, did not deter the little girls of True Tred from unconsciously winding their capering steps in her direction. We left Jacqueline rejoicing over her merit badge and Tessie pondering on her increasing perplexities.