We clean him up, show him how to pack hard substances together, and the advantage of putting frail objects by themselves; also that butter is apt to melt if stored away inside one's blouse. That crowd is started on its way quite happy, although the lazy boy is grumbling at having to carry the coffee-pot and frying-pan, while the little chap is leaving a trail of potatoes behind him.
Then there is the lazy lot who don't care to walk, and don't want to row a boat. What do they want?
They will take their share of grub and go up to the ball field. Mind you, they demand some of everything, particularly the food that is easy of preparation. The one and only idea that seems to percolate through their brains is to get a whole lot of food; to make as little effort as possible; to help themselves; to fuss over everything; to be on the verge of starting a half dozen times, only to come back again with some new demand, just like people who decide to take short trips, they know not where, just to get away.
For the rest of the day you may be sure that whenever you look up towards the baseball field you will see one or another of that special party about to come down to the house for more supplies, or just to see what is going on.
How much happier they would have been, had they gone with the crowd! Nine times out of ten if you let a boy have his way, he is not satisfied in the end, and then is ready to put the blame on the country, the lake, the faculty, the dog, but not himself.
There was another lot of boys who were always under the impression that the stay-at-homes were going to have so much better time, so much better food, something better than the rest of the crowd, the sort of chaps that are a little afraid of missing a trick.
Their special stunt was to ask the doctor to look at their ears or throat, complain of an all-gone feeling in the pit of the stomach, a slightly dizzy feeling, toothache or cramps.
When a boy really makes up his mind to stay home there is no limit to his ingenuity in thinking up some plausible excuse. It would take a Philadelphia lawyer to get the best of him.
The only way to take care of those poor little, sick, helpless chaps is to have the cook prepare the plainest kind of fare for them. Leave them beautifully alone and the day will drag along on leaden wings. Long before the rest of the boys return they will be heartily tired of playing sick, and the next camping trip that is planned will be among the first lot of boys to want to go on a long jaunt.