“However,” continued Patricia, “for another reason I want to put you four Greycliff room-mates together. Helen and Evelyn are to be together in a different klondike. June will have to go to ‘Laugh-a-Lot,’ and I shall be there, for a while at least.”
“O, good!” exclaimed June, who had felt a slight qualm at the idea of being separated from Hilary.
“Here, Frances Anderson,” called Patricia to a tall, fine-looking girl who was passing. “Aren’t you at Squirrels’ Inn? I thought so. Please show these girls where it is—Hilary Lancaster, Cathalina Van Buskirk, Lilian North and Betty Barnes,—” with which brief introduction Miss West was off to see about some affairs of her own, June’s hand tucked under her arm.
“Squirrels’ Inn!” exclaimed Lilian. “Our future residence?”
Frances was friendly and enjoyed initiating the girls into the way of camp. They stood chatting a few minutes, then moved on over the wrinkled gray rocks and grass around the Club House toward Squirrels’ Inn. But a gay voice called them before they had gone far.
“Cathalina Van Buskirk! Hil and Lil! Betty! O, joy!” From the “Wiggly” side of the double cottage called Piggly-Wiggly, who should come running but Isabel! “Have you seen Eloise? She’s down at her klondike getting settled.”
“At Squirrels’ Inn?”
“No; the one down by the pine grove. May I come over with you? I was just over with Eloise and met Helen and Evelyn going to the same cottage. There are a lot of girls down there. We’ve got a house full too. Such doings! I’m crazy about this place already.”
On to Squirrels’ Inn they went and met their young councillor, with two more girls, Marion Thurman and Nora McNeil. A busy time followed. This klondike at first arranged its cots on one side and trunks on the other. Wiggly, where Isabel escorted the girls later, had a cot and its trunk, then another cot with its accompanying trunk, and so on, around the big room. “I like your cottage,” said Isabel, “because it has that back porch hanging over the hillside, so convenient for drying or sunning bathing suits or bathrobes.”
“Trust Isabel for finding all about a place in a few hours,” remarked Cathalina. “It would be a month before half that Isabel sees in two minutes would make any impression on me.”