After the birds had been duly studied, and the bright colored pictures put up in the club house as each bird was reported, the attention of the girls was turned to the wild flowers, of which there were so many. At first five flowers brought to the nature teacher gave one point. Finally, when the common flowers had all been reported, one of the rarer flowers made a point for its discoverer. Some funny mistakes were made, and no wonder, for why is not “pussy-foot” clover just as good a name as rabbit’s-foot clover, or “scrambled eggs” as good as butter and eggs? And what is the difference between “church steeple” and steeple bush?
It was Cathalina who showed the members of the Greycliff nature club the wintergreen with its waxen berries and the trailing arbutus plants along the lane.
“Are you sure it’s wintergreen?” inquired the cautious Isabel before tasting the young leaves, as Cathalina invited her to do.
“Yes, it tastes just like wintergreen candy, or tooth paste!”
During the season, odd and beautiful bouquets adorned the tables at meals. Indian pipe standing high in a bit of greenery; Canadian lilies, wood lilies, meadow sweet, steeple bush, bunch berries, milk wort, Indian paintbrush, buttercups or daisies, fall dandelions in prickly juniper, wild roses as late as August, or the stately cardinal flower,—all these by turns found their way into the vases and bowls.
CHAPTER VIII
CANOE TESTS AND A CAMP FIRE
Eloise in her red and black bathing suit and scarlet cap was a striking little figure. Lithe and active, she selected her paddle and flew down to the dock to select her canoe, for the canoe tests were in progress. “Wish me good luck, girls,” said she as she pushed out her canoe from the sands and jumped in it.
Out beyond the dock and floats, toward the back water, a blue canoe, bottom up, was being steadily pushed to shore by some swimmer, whose bobbing head showed behind it. One girl had brought in her canoe, pushed its nose into the sand, and while drawing herself into a reclining position upon it declared that she was going to take a nap then and there. Another had gone out where the current was almost too strong for her and was having difficulty to manage a canoe that apparently wanted to go down the Kennebec and out to sea. She was making slight headway, while from the guarding rowboat came an occasional word of encouragement.
“I can’t do it,” she said at last. “I could swim it, but I can’t take the canoe in.” The rowboat approached and a dripping figure climbed over its side. Both girl and canoe were brought to the dock. It was Cathalina, her face solemn with disappointment.
“Better luck next time, Cathalina,” said Betty, who was almost as disappointed as Cathalina, but would not show it.