Then Tubby got his banjo, Dumont his mandolin, Dave his ocarina, and they sang, and played, and told jokes, until a silver crescent moon rising over the lake warned them that the hour was growing late. The feminine visitors then boarded the Happy Day and under the escort of Dave and Ferdinand to work the boat, the girls and their chaperone made the run back to Green Knoll Camp, giving the cove where Polly Jarley had caught the perch a wide berth.
Dave insisted upon going ashore at Green Knoll and searching the camp “for possible burglars,” as he laughingly said.
“Do, do look under my bed, Dave!” squealed Frank, in mock distraction. “I’ve always expected to find a man under my bed.”
“But it was real nice of him, just the same,” admitted Mina Everett, when the Happy Day had chugged away. “I feel a whole lot better now that he has beaten up the camp.”
On the next morning Grace and Percy were not allowed to lag over the breakfast dishes till all hours.
“This shall be no lazy girls’ camp,” declared Mrs. Havel. “The quicker you all get your tasks done, the better. Then you can have games, and go fishing, and otherwise enjoy yourselves.”
The fish-fry they had enjoyed at Cave-in-the-Wood Camp the evening before had given them all an appetite for more, and as Polly Jarley appeared early, according to promise, Wyn began to bustle around and hunt out the fishing tackle.
There probably wasn’t a girl in the crowd who was afraid to put a worm on a hook, save Mina. She owned up to the fact that they made her “squirmy” and she hated to see live bait on a hook.
“But that’s what we have to use for lake fish–or river fish, either,” Wyn told her. “You’re not going to be much good to this fishing party.”
“I know it, Wynnie. And I sha’n’t go,” said the timid one. “Mrs. Havel is not going fishing, and I can stay with her.”