“Oh, I’ve travelled the world from shore to shore
And sailed on every sea,
But there ain’t no spot in the whole darned lot
Like old Camp Le-na-pe!”
CHAPTER VII
INITIATION
The coming initiation ceremony of the Stuck-Up Society was the chief subject of conversation during Tuesday. Many were the direful hints and bloodthirsty tales that the new campers heard from the lips of seasoned Lenape boys, who, of course, were all members of the society and who were all occupied in getting out their regalia and ceremonial weapons in preparation for the big night.
Immediately after the supper dishes were washed, the lodge was cleared of all except the dozen members of the society who had been chosen to arrange the mess-hall as the Throne Room. Blackie, sitting on the steps in front of his tent, could hear a prodigious thumping and running and hurly-burly inside the lodge, but could see nothing, because blankets had been hung over all the windows and the door was guarded. He was gravely watching Slater, who had been initiated the year before. The red-headed boy was putting the finishing touches on a war-club he had just made, meanwhile whistling the Funeral March in a dolorous key.
“How’s that?” he asked, whirling the formidable club by its thong. “When you’re a member, you can bear one of these at initiations too.”
“Say, how do you make one of those clubs?” asked Blackie.
“First you find a nice little white birch tree. You dig it up and cut it off about two feet above the roots; then you peel it around the base and sharpen the roots. Then you can cut your mark and decorations and designs on the bark, like this. If you soak it in water soon after it’s cut, it gives it this nice, red, bloody color.”