The voices rang out lustily as the campers strolled away to their various tents. And the last word Anne heard before she swiftly dropped off to sleep in her snug cot was “America!” coming clearly and softly from the tent where the young ex-soldiers lay.
CHAPTER IV
DICK’S CLAMBAKE
Anne was awakened at what seemed an unearthly hour by the sound of a bugle. “I can’t get ’em up! I can’t get ’em up in the morning!” Several merry voices seemed to be singing the words which Anne had never heard before.
At first she did not know where she was. For in spite of the hard little narrow bed she had slept like a top. The brown tent over her head, the spicy air coming in at the open door, the song of birds close by, and their flying silhouettes on the canvas made the queerest ending to her dream of home. But presently she heard a groan from the cot opposite hers, and remembered that she had a tent-mate.
“Time to get up!” Norma’s warning voice sounded musically outside, as she passed on her way to the kitchen.
“It’s disgusting to be wakened so early!” moaned Beverly, rubbing her eyes. “I wonder if I shall ever get used to it.”
Anne looked at her wrist-watch. “Seven! At home I never get up till eight,” she complained.
“Neither do I,” Beverly yawned. “But here some of us have to help get breakfast, you know. And it’s all cleared away by nine! You and I are on the dish-washing squad this week, I reckon. So we have a few minutes’ grace.”
“I never washed a dish in my life,” said Anne peevishly. She was now wide awake.