“Well,” pursued Laura Belding, “if we are going to spend the first weeks of the summer vacation in camp, we must decide upon the spot at once. Are we all agreed that we shall not go to the salt water?”
“Oh, yes!” cried her particular chum, Jess, or Josephine, Morse.
“None of the troubles of the seaside boarder for ours,” Bobby announced, hurriedly groping amid the rubbish in her skirt pocket and bringing forth a crumpled newspaper clipping. Bobby insisted upon having a pocket in almost every garment she wore (it was whispered that she wore pajamas at night for that reason) and no boy ever carried a more heterogeneous collection in his pockets than she did.
“See here! here’s one seaside visitor’s complaint,” and she intoned in a singsong voice the following doggerel: 4
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“‘Why don’t red-headed girls get tanned? Why does a collar wilt? Why is the sea so near the land? Why were the billows built? Why is the “crawl-stroke” hard to learn? Why is the sea bass shy? Why is the nose the first to burn? Why is the stinging fly? “‘Why do mosquito nettings leak? Why do all fishers lie? Why does the grunter-fish always squeak? Why do they feed us on clam-pie? Why does the boardwalk hurt the feet? Why is the seaweed green? Why can’t a bathing suit look neat? Why won’t straw hats stay clean? “‘Why––’” |
“Stop it!” shrieked Jess, covering her ears. “How dare you read such preposterous stuff?”
“‘Whys to the wise,’ you know,” giggled Bobby.
“I vote we refuse to allow Bobby to go camping with the crowd unless she positively refrains from quoting verse on any and every occasion,” drawled Nellie. 5
“Hardhearted creature!” cried Dora Lockwood. “Poor Bobs couldn’t live without that ’scape-gap.”
“By the way, girls,” Laura Belding asked, briskly, “are we going to let any other girls join this camping party—or is it to be just us six?”